The Re-match

Well... it had to happen at some point.

One day I would roll terribly and Rob would roll hardly anything but 6's. He's been long overdue for it.

And that kinda gives you an idea of how today went....

After last week, Rob was keen for a re-match, so I got my German's out again to face his Japanese.

My force was exactly the same, but Rob had adjusted his list to fit in a medium tank (proxied by the T-34/85) and a tankette (proxied by the Staghound). I think a number of Japanese/Russian tanks are being bought by someone tomorrow.... :)

Having looked through some Bolt Actions sites... we had found a couple of different missions, so decided to try one of those. Frontal Assault was the mission chosen and I would be the attacker.

As per last week, Mark set-up a table for us:

Paul also joined us today to have a look at Bolt Action, so I quickly roped him into playing on the German side to let him try out the game.... but I had an ulterior motive :)

I deployed where I felt I could best use cover to move up and grab the objectives as the Japanese medium tank had the main road pretty well covered. One German infantry unit was able to deploy within striking distance of an objective.

So then the game commenced.... things looked ominous from the start as Japanese order die after order die were pulled out of the container giving them the initiative. This meant Rob was able to get his forces up ready to blunt my assault.

Then the Jap tank drove across the road as it was trying to hunt down my mortar team.... and in doing so exposed its side armour to my Puma!

A great place for Paul to roll some dice I thought. I hand a die over to him. Give it a go I say.... and he misses! :)

Rob then passes order test after order test to bring on his reserves, but brings them onto the flank opposite to where all the objectives are....!?

I get Paul to try and bring on some of our reserves.... he rolls an 11, we try for another unit... he rolls an 11. I take the dice of him and roll for a third unit.... I roll an 11! Things are not going well....

The Jap medium tank starts chasing the Puma until Rob remembers the recce rule, so goes for the StuH42 instead and gets a pin. The Puma misses again.... Paul and I finally pass a reserve roll and on comes the German infantry gun.

We discuss a great location on where to bring it on and deploy it in perfect position to cover two of the objectives. Alas.... both of us completely forgot about a Japanese sniper hidden nearby... 

The gun team just finish setting themselves up when one of the crew catch a flash out of the corner of their eye, but before they can yell "sniper".... the teams loader is dead. The rest of the team leg it! (In Bolt Action, if the team loader/firer is killed then the whole team is considered destroyed. Snipers pick who dies....)

And things continue to get worse...

Guess who gets the first order die.... the Japanese do. Luckily recce units can disengage from assaults as well as shooting :)

We're still in this game though. My Veteran's had performed an outflanking move again. So they come on and enter the Chateau where the Jap sniper is hiding. Next turn.... we think. Next turn.

But Rob just counters our move with this....

The flamethrower. I forgot the flamethrower was still in reserve. One German gets toasted. The rest run (and who can blame them!).

It's all pretty much downhill from here.... the Japanese advance. We try and push forward with one infantry squad, but they just get pinned on the road. At least our sniper arrives and deals to the Japanese sniper. The German commander finally arrives and he kills one of the Japanese suicide bombers. Rob then pulls out 6 after 6 to kill both the German commander and assistant.

The Japanese continue to advance... the first assault goes in... and we lose another unit.

The Japanese tank advances past the pinned down German infantry determined to deal to the German armoured units...

...as the second Japanese unit makes it into assault...

... destroying another German unit.

Finally, as we start the final turn (before we concede)..... the German order die is the first to be pulled out of the bag! First time all game I think... And there's only one thing to do.

The Puma shoots and scores! The Japanese tank is in flames.

The game ends here. A pretty convincing win for the Japanese. Rob's dice rolling was faultless!

Leutnant Paul finds himself summoned back to HQ. After a defeat like this, someone must be accountable and before he knows it, its off to the Eastern front!! :)

The mission set-up was a bit different with the diagonal deployment zones, but I think I just needed to be more aggressive. With the short number of turns, I think you just need to go for it in this game. I also think my deployment was probably poor. I suspect I would have been better off deploying both infantry units into a position where they could support each other (and get support from the StuH... which missed all game). 

We still had a bit of time left, so in between some general gaming chit-chat, Rob and I tried out a small game of Chain of Command to see what the rules were like.

All I can say is.... they are very different to Bolt Action (which we already knew). It's only a first run through, but the rules do look more complex and a lot more unit management will be required with the game breaking units down from squads into teams. Much more focused on the force leaders (which I think is a good thing). It'll be interesting to try out a full game. A lot more reading is required first though.... :)

Maybe next week. It's now beer o'clock. And soon.... very soon... I'll be watching this:

I didn't get a chance to see the worldwide release at the movies last weekend, so will be watching it on TV tonight. Have avoided spoilers all week and I'm looking forward to it!!