Batrep - Bolt Action - Hold Until Relieved

Another exploration of Bolt Action for Ashley, this time he was matched up against me and we increased the forces available to include a tank to give him an idea of how they work in the game.

I decided not to even bother with point’s values as I quite enjoy the challenge of uneven forces trying to achieve objectives. At some point I’ll have to dream up a few scenarios that have different objectives for both attacker and defender but that’s a challenge for another day.

We actually played Hold Until Relieved as it’s a nice scenario that makes both players think differently about how they use their forces. The defender (in this case Ashley) deploys two units in the centre of the board to defend an objective. The attacker then deploys at least half of their forces 18” away from the objective with the intent to capture said objective by turn 6. Both players have the option of placing forces in reserve (I plugged for getting everything on the board immediately) however the defender must assign half of their remaining force as a first wave, these guys coming on in the first turn.

The forces involved:

Ashley – Germans

1x Leutnant and NCO
3x 8 man squads with LMG and SMG
Medium Mortar with spotter
MMG team
Stug G

Me – British

1x 1^st Lieutenant
1x Forward Observer (Air)
3x 10 man rifle sections – LMG and 2x SMG
Medium Mortar
MMG team

As you can see from the lists I didn’t have any armour support however I had more firepower and some air support to attempt to take out Ash’s armour. So on to the action.

Deployment
Ash placed a rifle section and MMG on the objective in the centre of the table. As I was slightly understrength I opted to deploy my entire force and try and overwhelm Ash, capture the objective and then hold out till the end. With this in mind I placed my forces on opposites sides of the defending germans with a view to pincer/flank/squash them as quickly as possible.

Turn 1
Ashleys rifle section and MMG on the objective and went on to Ambush whilst  I moved my MMG up through the wheat field on Ash’s board edge and pushed forward with the rifle section supporting them round the church. Meanwhile my other two sections on my board edge advanced in a pincer whilemy mortar lobbed smoke(which missed).

Ash had placed his  Stug and mortar in his first wave and duly brought them on, rushing the Stug up the road tyo occupy the intersection and giving immediate support to his beleaguered units protecting the objective (my CO’s sandwiches!).
Darn, Ash had seen through my clever pincer move !

Turn 2
We traded fire and caused a few pins, the Stug turning out to be a bit of a pain. I tried to move a section within range to assault with some tank grenades but I couldn’t make it past the large walled enclosure!
Then Ash fluffed his orders test for the section guarding the objective, quite dramatically as he Fubar’d the roll and they subsequently ran away from the Sandwiches and straight towards my waiting rifle section. Woohoo!

Then disaster struck, as in the confusion of battle the orders from my CO of  “shoot the blasted Hun” were interpreted by George the slightly myopic and deaf NCO as “quick,you’d better run” and they promptly failed their orders test in the same way and ran screaming from the panicked Jerry squad. Hmm poetic justice me thinks for my gloating at Ash’s failed roll.
Turn 3
Ashley quickly pushed his Stug forwards down the road towards my observer and mortar, blocking all lines of sight and pummelling them both with HE and machine gun fire. I tried to bring up my units from Ash’s board edge to threaten the objective (my MMG and a rifle section) however this was scuppered when Ash brought his reserves on directly behind them and opened fire pretty much obliterating them in the process. The only highlight for me was that the germans trying to defend the objective failed their orders test and continued to hide!
Turn 4
Argh no air support his turn, this meaning that the damn Stug continued to block the road, I moved a rifle section round it and tried to assault but as it had moved it was tricky to cause any damage. I lobbed some more smoke, Ash moved a section onto the objective, pummelled my troops some more and I shuffled around trying to come up with a new plan.

Turn 5
Well Ash is firmly sat on the objective, I’ve lost a rifle section and the rest of my squads look a little worse for wear and there’s very little I can do to win so we call it there.

Summary
Good game by Ashley, my weaker force was really up against it however I think with better deployment and a few more lucky rolls I could have won the game. I would definitely be whittled down to the bare minimum however the aim was to hold the objective not kill all units, so long as I had an active unit claiming the objective at the end I would have won. As it was I didn’t cause enough damage to Ashley’s force to make it viable.

Oh and sorry about the photo’s below, I really need to figure out a better way to take in game pictures!

"C'mon chaps, Jerry can't see us through these high walls"

Rumble, rumble - the Stug arrives on the scene

"See,I told you fella's, that silly tank can't see nuthin!"

"I say old chap, do you mind awfully getting out of the way, I'm trying to call in an air strike don't you know"

"Where the bloody hell are you going? Jerry is that way!"

  

"What did I tell you fella's, Jerry can't see a thing, we've even got a smoke barrage!"

"Err Sarge, can this tank see us through the smoke?"
"Boll*@ks"