Some time ago, I attempted something new, namely breathing life into an old project. My first ever army was the 101st airborne. I chose this force without knowing anything about Bolt Action.
Over the course of many Baconburger podcasts, Garratt and Rob would take great delight in teasing me about my love of Band of Brothers and Medal of Honour. In all fairness I've been having a low key love affair with this force since before I could remember. When Garratt first asked me what army I'd like to play, I naively asked if the American airborne was a force I could collect. To my delight Garratt said there was and we sat down to see what I needed. Two boxes of metal airborne and some assorted support options later and I was on my way to building my first army.
Repainting a first army
Now, I'll preface this next paragraph by saying my one and only stab at painting minis previously was when a high school friend and I decided to paint some Hero Quest figures when we were in our mid teens. They didn't turn out so good. My metal airborne didn't fare much better. I had no idea on what paints to use, colours to buy or brushes to use but I muddled through and turned out what I believed to be a good looking army.
Thank god I was so naive.
As you can see from the pictures they were awful. But that was ok because they got me excited to learn more about painting and improve and develop my techniques.
And you better believe I learned, practised, developed, experimented, researched and listened. As such my painting has come a long way. Recently having finished the bulk of my Finns, I found myself working on a commission army and about half way through I burned out. I hit a wall and stopped dead, bereft of inspiration and motivation. Sitting back in my hobby room chair I looked about my hobby cave searching for a decent distraction.
Finally my eyes fell on my original airborne force. Disused and neglected they looked sad, dreary and ultimately embarrassing. Brad had once told me that he had been embarrassed by an army he owned (that I thought at the time looked stunning) and now I had arrived at the same destination that "Old Sage Morin" had come to. My old airborne was kind of hideous.
I looked over them with the boring paint job and a little voice in the back of my head said "get ready". I popped them all into a plastic container and headed for my laundry "stand up". I pulled out the strongest paint stripper I owned "hook up". I then proceeded to (without gloves, major mistake there kids!) use an old toothbrush and scrub the offending paint off all of my minis "equipment check". In the process I learned a great deal, like paint stripper will flat out melt a plastic base into a gooey lump of slag in no time. Once I had removed the minis from this plastic ball of mayhem, I then washed them off and popped them back into the container "sound off for equipment check". Once back in my hobby cave I looked over the not so small mountain of lead that I had just thrust upon myself. I laid them out into squad formations and began gluing them to MDF bases "go go go".
Airdropping onto the table
My airborne troops had their first outing a low-key Melbourne event run by a great friend Rob Lambert. They snuck out a best painted but considering it was a smaller event I decided to try and hang with the big boys and test my mettle. I went to MOAB 2017 and despite my best efforts I fell by the wayside (coming 4th overall respectively out of some 30+ players, an achievement I was very proud of) loosing out to my mentor Patch.
I had such a great time running my airborne around the table that I then decided to run them at Operation Wolf, a local event TO'd by Old Man Morin. Again the painting gods were displeased with me and I lost to local painting boss (and all round lovely chap) Muddy Funster and his fabulous Poles. I decided to have one last stab at the crown and the perfect event popped up. Lachie was running Operation Greif in conjunction with the League of Ancients. The event instead garnered some 26 players and despite a very close finish I took first place in a painting comp despite some of the toughest competition out there.
Having found glory, the airborne are now on a long sabbatical, resting comfortably in my display case. I still play them from time to time but it’s more there to remind me where I started and more importantly where you can end up if your dedicated to your goals!
Listing for US Airborne in Bolt Action
I guess the key to playing an airborne force is to fully accept that you can indeed run tanks with airborne troops. Some players will have you believe that airborne forces should be devoid of any such luxuries and aside from jeeps should be bereft of vehicles entirely. This isn't exactly true though. Remember that after any of the airborne drops during WW2 the paratroopers weren't then whisked off the battlefield and shipped back to Aldbourne. They remained on the front lines as assault troops, patrols, reconnaissance elements and support troops. After all, what General wouldn't want a few companies of highly trained and battle tested troops at their disposal?
Also not every paratrooper was a veteran. To the best of my knowledge (take that with a grain of salt) even the illustrious Easy Company only had one man who had seen combat before jumping into France (and to be fair the trooper in question was shot in his C47 before he got out of the door). Sure they were well trained and elite troops but most had never fired a shot in anger. So taking a regular paratrooper force is extremely feasible and indeed plausible.
My 2017 Moab list was as follows.
Regular 2nd Lt
2x8 man veteran squads with 5 SMGs and 3 rifles.
2x8 man regular squads, NCO with SMG, 1 BAR and the rest with rifles.
1x9 man veteran squad with 5 SMGs and 4 rifles.
Regular MMG
Regular light howitzer
Regular medium mortar with spotter
Regular sniper (spotter with an SMG)
Regular bazooka
Regular greyhound
Regular hellcat
Regular truck with MMG
As you can see, the list covers it's bases but isn't nasty or extreme. The list served me well on the day at MOAB. I garnered 2nd place overall, missing out on first place by a single point. After speaking with all my opponents, I found that everyone was of a similar opinion that my list was fun to play against and most of all to not be an embarrassment on the table top.
Here's hoping it's fun to play against cause I've got the other two covered...
Until next time roll your 6's and have fun
Tristan
No comments:
Post a Comment