Monday, February 16, 2015

Bolt Action game 2: Quar vs. Band of Brothers

o/

For our 2nd outing of Bolt Action, Bob opted for his American Paratroopers vs. a slightly different set-up to my Dad's army-Quar. 500 Points, Demolition scenario which is very similar to 40k's Auto-Tie mission (I forget what it is actually called), 1/2 our forces started the game set up on the board, with the rest coming in via reserve.

The Quar deployed on the field of battle. The two Quonset Huts that are not on the hill are the objectives (which must be destroyed by remaining in direct contact for a whole turn with no interference from the defending forces). Note the over-sized Churchill making it's battlefield debut as terrain.
My sniper team, which like their 40k counterparts would often (but unlike 40k, not always) prove to be useless...
Turn 1 starts off with the regular infantry advancing at a run.
Meanwhile the wily stand-in for Major Winters ponders his next move.
Keenly aware of his Germans' lack of AT weaponry, Bob's paratroops brought along a bazooka team. Thus began a long and pathetic dual between the Quar tank and said bazooka team...
The Quar militia (Homeguard) units arrive to defend their objective.
Turn 3 saw the Commandos outflank as per the last game, however with their targets also being veterans, they failed to wound anyone, instead inflicting a mere pin marker on the unit.
As the leading infantry squad rounds the hill the front ranks are cut down by the paratroops. Murica!
A penetrating hit resulting in...crew stunned. lol, to which Bob asked: Where have I heard that before?
A second squad of Militia arrive from reserve (finally). In hopes of creating a crossfire, they arrived on my far left.
LOOK OUT! THEY HAVE TRACERS!!!
Taking the hill!

Up to this point, my sniper team was rolling straight 1s to hit. However, you see that gap between those two guys by the back of the Quonset hut? Yeah, that was the paratroopers' C.O.. There's no 'look out sirs' in this game!
The Quar onslaught rolls forward...aside from the out-flanking Commandos who were locked in a firefight which was producing little damage on either side.
The bazooka loader is down, however nothing else of note has happened in several turns of this so-called duel.
Meanwhile at another table, boredom (a.k.a.: Federation Commander) kicks into high gear...
Tired of watching the tank fail to take out the bazooka team, the Militia add to the weight of fire, with little effect.
Keep firing lads!
A rather nice shot...er, um, photo I mean. As for the tank and bazooka gunner, nothing of note happened here, again, as usual.
As the Quar continue the inexorable advance, note the Quartillery officer (primed black). His arty strike having largely failed, he advances, gun blazing hoping to make up for the artillery strike's failure. Meanwhile the Infantry squad continues to die horribly.
GAAH! WHY WON'T THEY JUST DIE ALREADY?!?!!
The Quartillery officer runs for the objective but comes up short of the objective (no doubt due to that heavy radio). Unfortunately, the game ended at the bottom of Turn 6, and with both objective Quonsets still standing, its yet another draw.

Yup, another tie. I'm starting to think that a decisive victory in this game will be rather elusive. In prior posts, I've railed (as usual) about the all-veteran army, however their numbers are so few that if anything, it seems to work against them. I mean, these aren't space marines, just regular guys. True, vets are only killed on a 5+, but they're still easily pinned, and with the sheer number of my units (approx 2:1) meant that the pin markers stacked up on Bob quickly. So whilst the all veteran army is a quick way to build up an army, I'm not sure how threatening it is.

I suppose I'll get to see next week when I square ff vs. Kushial's British paratroops.

Edit: Most names and terminology of the Quar are based on the Welsh language. As such, my 'Dad's Army' Quar have just been named by Wolfy as: The Welsh Division. Ooh, I rather I like that!

2 comments:

HappySpawn said...

So, I think I figured out why your Churchill is oversized: its 1/32 scale (or something close). Were it 1/48 (and thus closer to Bolt Action scale), it would be approximately 15.5 cm long, 6.77 cm, and 5.19 cm wide.

Da Masta Cheef said...

Yeah, I'm thinking its 1/32 as well. Oh well, it works for terrain.