Midnight at the Oasis - Bolt Action AAR

Well it wasn’t midnight but there was an oasis! As agreed Phil turned up at the club with his 8th Army to pit against my Motorised Afrika Korps, the board being very sparse in terms of terrain (apart from my nice retasked toy palm trees!).

We decided on the envelopment scenario to represent a DAK raiding force trying to return to there own lines through the British defence. Primarily to test out how effective troops mounted in soft skins can be, the scenario plays to the strengths of mounted troops with the attacker (me) winning 1 VP for each enemy unit destroyed, 2 VP for each of my units in the defenders deployment zone at the end of the game, and finally 3 VP for every unit I get off the board. The defender however gains 2 VP fro every unit destroyed.

The scenario required Phil to deploy half his force with the remainder in reserve. I then nominate at least half my force as the first wave (advance on in turn 1). Being the non-tricky devil I am I chose to bring my entire force on in the first wave (I could have placed some of it in reserve and tried to outflank!).

Phil - 8th Army

2nd Lieutenant and Adjutant

Forward Artillery spotter

Medic

4 x Rifle Sections

MMG

Light Mortar

AT rifle

6 Pounder

Bren Carrier with AT rifle

Matilda 2

Me - Motorised DAK

Leutnant with Unteroffizer - (Kubelwagen with MMG)

Air Observer and Radio Op  - (Kubelwagen with MMG)

2 x 9 man Rifle sections (Trucked)

1 x 10 man Veteran Rifle section (Trucked)

AT rifle

Light Mortar

Pak 36 AT gun

SdKfz 222

With Phil deploying a squad on my far right, 6 pounder a little further in, MMG team in the oasis in the centre of his deployment, AT rifle to their left, 2” mortar to their left and finally a squad on my left flank he had most of the board covered. However he still had two squads, bren carrier, HQ and a Matilda 2 in reserve so he would be able to respond quite well to any focussed attacks.

I picked the left flank as it had a few more areas of broken line of sight to give me a chance to break through, with less opportunity for Phil to maximise his rather considerable firepower.

Preparatory bombardment. As attacker I got to roll on the table and cause pins on nearly everything, also managing to kill the AT rifle loader (it was now at -1 to shoot).

Ok so Turn 1 I advanced pretty much everything towards my left flank, my AT gun in the center with lines of fire to both the right and left flank depending on where Phil brought his tank and Bren Carrier on. My SdKfz 222 I placed on my far right, reasoning that with its Recce ability it could play cat and mouse with Phils AT gun and hide behind the only hill on that side of the board (and tie up the rifle section over there!)

My shooting was pretty good whittling down a rifle section on the left flank however Phil destroyed one of my advancing trucks, pinning the passengers in the process. Phil also redeployed his MMG through the swamp…..err I mean lovely oasis to next turn get line of sight on my other trucks. I chucked some smoke to try and screen my advancing troops which hopefully wouldn’t drift in subsequent turns!

Turn 2 saw me assaulting and destroying the rifle section on the left flank, the AT guns exchanging fire with each other, Phil brought on his Matilda and Bren Carrier which decided to make my life miserable by  destroying my Veterans truck pinning the passengers (including my AT rifle). Oh and then Phil brought on his last rifle section in front of my pinned Veterans.

Turn 3 was not pretty. My Veterans assaulted the AT rifle, destroyed it and were promptly destroyed in turn, My HQ was assaulted and destroyed by another rifle section and then Phils tank assaulted my last rifle section. Luckily they withstood the armoured behemoth and survived the assault. We had agreed to call the game at three turns and therefore I rushed my SdKfz 222 up the right flank past the AT gun and section that was opposing it. Phil made the mistake of assaulting it, I chose to recce and as it was so close to the board edge we agreed that it departed (3 VP to me!!!).

However it was a clear win to Phil as he had destroyed 3 trucks, 1 Kubelwagen and both my HQ and Veterans.

So what would I have done differently? Probably taken the risk and rushed all my transports 24” in the first turn and chanced the damage. I didn’t make use of my units movement nor did I mass my assault very well. Soft skins in Bolt Action are really vulnerable as they are damaged by small arms fire on a 6 and if damaged they’re automatically destroyed. This coupled with their large size (allowing pretty good line of sight and very little cover) and the amount of small arms means that they die quite quickly.

I still maintain that my force works within the confines of the rules and will persevere to adapt my play style to suit the force. I’ll only change rule system if to make it work I have to play counter to the history books!