Great War Bolt Action, Envelopement

This time I took the first scenario out of the Bolt Action rulebook, I altered it slightly in that for the attacker to gain the two victory points for getting a unit into the defenders deployment zone, the attacker would only get this if the defender did not have a unit in close assault range.

The attacking German force consisted of two storm troop sections supported by a mortar, grenade launcher and a captured MkIV Male tank, these would attack in the first wave. In reserve were four infantry sections and the force commander.

The defending British force, commanded by Dave had an 18pdr field gun, a rifle grenadier section, a Lewis gun section, a rifle section, bomber section, a Vickers MMG, a sniper and a force commander. Three of these could start the game hidden on the table.The British line would be subjected to a preparatory bombardment.

The first turn started with the Germans advancing the storm troop sections toward the cover of the wood, while the supporting mortar and grenade launcher set up in the cover of shell holes, meanwhile the MkIV advanced to lay down fire on the British trenches. Dave decided to forgo the hidden status and get some early fire in on the tank and mortar. The effect of the preparatory bombardment would not be decided until a unit wanted to act, it turned out to be quite ineffective, however the single pin did cause the 18pdr to fail its order test to fire.  

The second turn saw most of both sides reserves enter the table and the game began to develop nicely.

First blood to the Germans who knocked out the Vickers, this would greatly aid the advance of the storm sections. The British replied by knocking out the grenade launcher, two, one to the British.

What,s that at the window? Crack! The British sniper takes down the storm troops LMG team, this however was to be his only success in the game except for the odd pin marker.

  Turn five, with the right flank in deadlock, the MkIV could not hit anything, the 18pdr crew just did not want to play and the opposing infantry just trading shots, the preparatory bombardment had failed to break any wire sections so the German infantry sections hunkered down in no- man's land. It was down to the storm troops to even the score, this they did by assaulting the lewis section, whose gun had been destroyed by the mortar.

Turn six, both sides needed to destroy an opposing unit to win the game, this turn saw atrocious shooting by both sides, no decisive result, we diced for the extra turn, yes! 

 Dave had a couple of potential targets to destroy, my hope rested with destroying the 18pdr team, I completely forgot that I could have destroyed the rifle grenade section this would have left my storm troop section in the British zone with no enemy within close assault range, a tall order but not impossible, doh!

Neither side was able to inflict the decisive final blow, a draw, but a moral victory for the British.   

In reply to my last post, Matt Crump asked to see a whole stretch of my Ironclad Miniatures trenches, here you go Matt, I do have more but as you can see I need to get those other T sections done to join them up :-)

 Over to GHQ next week for a bash in the Sudan using Black Powder rules.

TTFN