Operation Wolf was run last weekend at Good
Games Melbourne, TO’d by Old Man Morin from the Cast Dice Podcast. There were
24 players on the day, making it the biggest Bolt Action event ever run in
Victoria. It was three games at 900 points each.
My Army
Australian Jungle Division: 1943-1945
Order Dice- 11
2nd Lt, Regular, extra man- 60
Regular Jungle Division, 8 men, 4 SMG- 92
Regular Jungle Division, 8 men, 4 SMG- 92
Regular Jungle Division, 7 men, 3 SMG, LMG, - 99
Regular Papuan Section, 7 Men, SMG- 87
Veteran Commando Section, 8 men, 4 SMGs- 120
Regular Sniper- 50
Regular Light Howitzer, ‘Short’- 45
Regular Medium Mortar- 50
Regular Medium Machine Gun- 50
Regular Matilda II, Frog- 155
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| Armies on Parade! |
You can see my pre-event write up here.
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Game 1 vs Poland
My first game was against Muddy with his
beautiful Polish army. We were paired up on Tristan’s new jungle table, which I
was thankful about because it was the perfect visual setting for my Aussies!
(maybe not so much for the Poles…)
Poland- 12 Dice
Inexperienced 2nd Lt, extra man- 42
10 Regular infantry, BAR- 105
10 Regular infantry, BAR- 105
10 Regular infantry, BAR- 105
7 Veteran Cavalry, Polish Lances- 112
7 Veteran Cavalry, Polish Lances- 112
Regular MMG team- 50
Inexperienced Light Mortar Team- 24
Regular lone sniper- 40
Regular Anti Tank Rifle- 30
Regular medium howitzer, spotter- 85
TKS Tankette- 90
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| Tristan's jungle table is on point! |
Muddy’s army was pretty interesting: it has
some regular infantry, a sniper, a medium howitzer and a tankette. Then you get
to the two units of seven Polish lancers, all of whom are veteran, have recce,
and have two attacks WITH tough fighter. Basically, those units will delete
anything they touch, which is a problem when my army wants to get up close with
the SMGs. Alas, I choose table sides to give my mortar and howitzer a good
position, and then we’re off.
The mission is to seize the five objectives, one in the middle and four in each quarter. The deployment was different to most Bolt Action missions, with a diagonal zone 9” from the centre where we needed to deploy half of our army (no first wave). This means the action will kick off pretty early as we can potentially deploy only 18” away from each other!
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| Getting into a good position early |
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| Patrolling the jungle |
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| It's so cute! |
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| They thought they were in a good spot... |
Turn 2 was much less interesting as we traded some fire and moved our troops through the jungle to contest the middle objective in later turns. The tankette struggled to hit anything, while my MMG was ranged in on by the light mortar but took no casualties.
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| The Poles feel a little out of place. |
Turn 3 is where the fun begins as our outflanking forces can now join the fight. After some dice are pulled, I bring my Commandos on the right flank and get in a good position to threaten Muddy’s howitzer and advancing infantry next turn. He counters the Commandos by bringing on a unit of Lancers right next to the Commandos, getting ready for a devastating charge in the following turn. Luckily, I can counter this with my Frog, which drives on the board in between the two units and torches the Lancers, killing five! Sadly, I ran out of fuel, and the two remaining models did not route, and instead took many pins. But my Commandos were safe, for now.
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| Lancers weren't impressed when a Frog came out of nowhere. |
We continued to trade shots in the centre of the board, however we couldn’t kill any each others units outright. I had to redirect a unit of Jungle Division and my LT when the second unit of Lancers came onto the board, threatening my entire left flank if unchecked. I was able to put some pins on them with SMG fire, but the veterans were able to mostly shrug off the small arms fire.
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| Commandos just want to say hi... |
I had a good swing my way when my Commandos
charged out from behind cover into a unit of rifles, taking a couple casualties
but decisively winning the fight. The Commandos consolidated onto Muddy’s
corner objective next to the howitzer which they wanted to assault in the next
turn, but Muddy was savvy enough to put multiple pins on the Commandos to make
sure they weren’t doing anything but standing on the objective. He could now
safely walk up his ATR onto the objective and contest it.
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| Polish light mortar and officer hugging terrain. |
The fifth and final turn, we basically both
went to contest each of the objectives to seal a draw. It was very close, I
think my Papuans were inch inch away from contesting an objective after an
advance through rough ground, while I was lucky to get two surviving Jungle
Division soldiers on to contest the centre objective.
Final result: Draw.
I was happy with this result as I was down
early and managed to bring it back to a draw. It was also my second game with
the army, so I was still learning the ropes of the Aussies. Thanks for the game
Muddy!
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Game 2 vs British in Burma
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Game 2 vs British in Burma
Next my Aussies were off to rural Europe to
fight against Rob’s Chindits. If only this game was on the jungle table!
British in Burma- 10 dice
Inexperienced 2nd Lt with extra
man- 42
9 Veteran Chindits- 135
9 Veteran Chindits- 135
9 Veteran Chindits- 135
9 Veteran Chindits- 135
Forward artillery observer- 0
Boys anti tank rifle- 30
40mm Bofors Gun- 60
M3 Lee- 220
Mule Team- 6
The main brunt of Rob’s army was four units
of 9 veterans with rapid fire and American style move & fire. Ouch! These
guys were always going to be tough to kill. The list was supported by an M3 Lee
and a boffors gun (heavy autocannon).
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| The Chindits are coming! |
Our mission was to score more VPs than the
opponent, and you gained them in two ways: killing order dice, and getting
units into the enemy’s 6” deployment zone. This is a difficult mission because
if you try to go for the deployment zone VPs, you are likely to lose more dice
than you get in return, so you need to be careful and make sure your losses
don’t outweigh your gains.
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| Jungle Division moving through cover. |
There was no outflanking or forward
deployment, so I opted to deploy my MMG, howitzer and mortar. I deployed them
in an overlapping fire arc so there were not many spots Rob’s forces could
hide, so I was happy about this. Rob deployed the boffors gun in a corner so it
had plenty of options later in the game.
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| Controlling this cross section was crucial. |
There was a road cross section in the
middle of the board, with a few buildings and lots of walls to give cover. The
road would be very useful to get my slow Frog up the board a bit quicker. After
running on some units who took cover behind walls, I drove the frog as far as I
could up a road in such a way that a house was guarding it’s flank from the
boffors gun. I could now threaten Rob’s advance as none of his units wanted to
eat a flamethrower shot. Rob responded by bringing his Lee onto the board
opposite the Frog, but was unable to even hit it. The ATR hit the Frog though
and placed a pin on it. In the following turn, the Frog activated and gunned
down the ATR team at long range.
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| We have armour 9, we'll be fine. |
I pushed most of my units up the centre,
but aimed to sneak two Jungle Division units up the far right flank so I could
get to the deployment zone and kill the artillery. This made Rob send some
Chindits after them but he was unable to get any good shots, effectively
splitting his forces. This is the only time I used the Australian ‘Jungle
Warfare Masters’ special rule, which means my units can go down if they trigger
an enemy ambush. This certainly saved multiple models from death as Rob’s
rifles are very powerful.
I thought I was in a good position as Rob’s
forces were unable to move up because of the threat of the Frog, and my
howitzer/ mortar began ranging in on the infantry, forcing them to go down to
minimize casualties. However, the turning point was turn 4 when Rob’s artillery
strike came down and forced me to split my forces. I made a mistake of rushing
forwards instead of retreating backwards, and put both my Papuans and Frog in a
bad spot. The Frog got a shot in on some Chindits, but missed, and was
subsequently pinned out for at least a turn by the strike.
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| The Lee waits for its moment to strike. |
Rob’s time had come, and he was able to
push his Chindits up to kill my Papuans and really threaten the Frog with the
Lee. On the left flank, he pulled a unit out of a building and began running
towards my deployment zone. On my right flank, a Jungle Division squad was
assaulted and killed by Chindits before I could get into the boffers gun. I got
desperate and assaulted them back with my second unit, hoping my SMGs would get
the job done despite being regular. Luckily, I got up and gave me some
breathing room on the right flank.
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| You don't want a Lee behind you... |
I felt this game was very even until the
final turn. My mortar ranged in on the Lee, failing to do damage but putting
three pins on it. However, the pins weren’t enough to stop it from activating,
driving behind my Frog, finally hitting after many turns of missing, and turning
it into a smoking wreck.
The Commandos had come to join my Jungle
Division on the right flank, and were in a position to win me the game. The
Commandos were in assault range of the boffors (not to mention the deployment
zone!), but had two pins and failed to activate. The Jungle Division then found themselves out
in the open, copping a boffers round at close round, taking them off and
denying them getting to the objective. On the other side of the board, my third
Jungle Division went to assault a pinned out unit of Chindits who were in the
open, but sadly failed to overcome the veteran’s defenses.
Final result: Loss
I really enjoyed this game because it was
very tactical, but I was certainly disappointed after my army collapsed on the
final turn. Rob is a talented player though, so I was glad I had the pleasure
of playing him!
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Game 3 vs American GIs
For the final game, I was placed on my
nemesis table, Stalingrad, against Nathan’s American list. I’ve played Nathan
in the last three events now, so he must get sick of playing me! At least I was
using a different army this time so it was a bit more interesting.
Americans- 10 Dice
Regular 2nd Lt, extra man- 60
8 Regular infantry, SMG + 2xBAR- 93
8 Regular infantry, SMG + 2xBAR- 93
6 Regular Infantry, SMG- 63
6 Regular Infantry, SMG- 63
6 Regular Infantry, SMG- 63
Veteran Sniper Team, pistol- 67
Regular Bazooka Team- 60
M8 Greyhound- 135
M4 Sherman- 200
For those outside the Victorian events
meta, the Stalingrad table looks amazing, but it is a real pain to play on. The
terrain is modular and there are crates literally all over the board, making
for any fight to be painfully slow as you can’t make run moves through most of
the board. Alas, it was time to throw down!
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| Stalingrad is a magnificent board, but a pain to play on! |
Nathan’s list wasn’t exactly optimized,
with a bunch of small regular infantry squads supported by an M8 Greyhound and
an M4 Sherman. The tanks were kind of scary, but I didn’t have much of a
problem against the rest of Nathan’s infantry. I would try to focus on the
infantry and leave the armour to do their thing.
The final mission was Heartbreak Ridge,
which saw three objectives, one in the centre and two in opposite table
quarters. I once again decided to outflank with the Commandos and Frog, which
should allow me to try to contest Nathan’s home objective.
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| Nice view of the map. |
My table side had a nice ruined building
which I could deploy my sniper, MMG and howitzer in to give them all a good
overview of the battlefield. Nathan deployed his sniper first, so I made sure
my sniper had a shot on his. This worked well because unfortunately for Nathan,
the first dice of the game saw his sniper shot through the eyes!
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| Nathan's sniper was marked for an early death. |
I also forward deployed my Papuans in a
position that they could be in hard cover while being semi threatening if they
were left unchecked. However, I made the mistake again of not starting the game
in ambush and hidden, so they were forced to go down to avoid casualties when
they started taking fire. This was at least better than their situation in the
first game where they were much more exposed and in a worse position to contest
an objective later in the game.
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| Papuans forward deploy to get a good position early. |
I decided to push two units of Jungle
Division up the centre of the table to reinforce the Papuans, however this left
them exposed when the Sherman came on and began gunning them down with machine
gun fire. These two units were decimated over a few turns, but would end the
game with a couple of models left. Luckily my mortar kept pressuring the
Sherman to move, making it take shooting penalties for movement, down and
range.
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| The Sherman joins the battle, with infantry close behind. |
My ranged elements continued to punish the
footslogging Americans as they crossed the board. The sniper put a few pins on
some units, while my MMG and Jungle Division on the right hand side where
pinning down one of Nathan’s units.
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| Jungle Divisons march out into no-man's land. |
The Commandos rushed on by turn three,
putting themselves in a good position for an assault the following turn. The
Frog decided not to show up until the turn later, which left the Commandos out
in the cold a little bit. However, I got the first dice of turn 4 and assaulted
a unit of Americans, easily taking them off the board, and consolidating into
cover from the Greyhound. The Frog bumbled on close behind, getting ready to
start torching units off the objective in the next turn.
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| The Frog and Commandos get the job done. |
The last two turns weren’t good for Nathan,
as my ranged firepower prevented him from really moving up the board far enough
to pressure the objectives. I was able to claim the centre objective, and the
outflankers cleared Nathan’s home objective, meaning I had all three objectives
to gain a major victory.
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| The Papuans come to the party a bit late. |
Result: Victory
Nathan is always fun to play against, so
thanks to him! He’s currently working on a new Soviet army so hopefully he will
have them at the next event.
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Thanks for reading!
We'll aim to do some more battle reports and hobby updates in the coming weeks.
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Thanks, I've not played BA, but this made me interested in it! Appreciate you posting.
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