Finnish Sturmi

I actually finished this back in the spring, but only got around to using it in a game recently. But of course freshly painted models always suffer a humiliating death, and the Sturmi was no exception. It became a casualty of frostbite, without even deploying!

The kit is the excellent Rubicon StuG III, and the decals are from Warlord. I did not intend to recreate it as one specific Sturmi, but it is basically a mix-mash of Ps.531-8 "Alli" and Ps. 531-19 "Marjatta."

 

Assault on the Mannerheim Line

CJ and I got a chance to replay our Mannerheim Line scenario on Black Friday. I was not expecting a repeat of our first game, but I was not expecting the results either.

Without further ado, I present the table. A similar set-up, but this time I had 3 more units of infantry and did not have the Sturmi (because I forgot it). CJ's army moved on the first turn and that is when the destruction began.

First Line - Speed Bump

Second Line - Main Force

Third Line - Reserves

I set up the third line with mostly infantry squads, hoping to have enough turns to bring them up to the second line before CJ got there.

The Valiant Flamethrower deployed front and center again, hoping to torch more Soviets.

My freshly painted Ski Finns were in position to fill any gaps.

After another pretty useless preparatory bombardment, the Russians began pouring onto the table. A T-34 started pounding my Finns. Mosin- Nagant and PPSh fire raked the trenches. I had 3 FUBAR rolls on the first turn! Two of which ended up rolling 1's, so my units fired at each other.

Cold steel and hand grenades took out the first unit of Finns.

My MG-34 was over run, making my medic flee in terror.

At the end of the first turn my entire first line had crumbled. The Ski troops moved into a copse of trees and became pinned down. My third line all failed their Morale tests to activate (so I guess the bombardment wasn;t totally useless after all) and the second line prepared to defend themselves.

The Russians were so excited to be in doors they were literally standing on their heads. CJ's army launched assault after assault, all of which he won. My dice had abandoned me. Squad by squad the Germans and Finns fell silent in their positions.

With my army on the brink, CJ assaulted the last occupied building on my second line. Molotov's burned the MG nest out and the Soviets had taken the line.

You can't win them all, and you can't win ever when you blunder that much and don't hit anything. But c'est la vie. Maybe I will fair better next time.

My minis are a mix of Brigade Games, Warlord and Old Glory. Terrain mat is from Cigar Box.

A Battle in Normandy

Jim and I recently played a game of Bolt Action. His WIP FJR 6 versus my 101st Airborne. We never play any specific battle, like Bloody Gulch, Dead Man's Corner or Carentan, but maybe in the future we will. We played a generic scenario- Half of each army had to stay in reserve and could come in on turn 1 with no penalty. I was also tasked with getting as many units off the table as possible.

 

Jim's table, from my left

 

From my right

A few years back, I found this picture of a P-47, which had a hard belly landing on one of the Normandy beaches. Around the same time, I read Ian Gardner's and Roger Day's excellent book, Tonight We Die as Men, which tells the story of the somewhat overlooked Third Battalion, 506 PIR. I was inspired by these recollections as well:

 

Seconds later a P-47 Thunderbolt, with its throttle wide open, crashed near us and made a terrific noise as its bomb load exploded. The Germans paid little attention and seemed more focus on processing us! (p172)

 

Second LT Pete Madden was looking at the men around him when suddenly a damaged P-47 came screeching overhead and crashed in flames 1 1/4 miles due north at Les Rats Farms. (p188)

 

A patrol was sent out to Les Rats where the P-47 had crashed. "I was sent along with a few others to try and recover the machine guns from the plane" recalls Pvt Miles Allen (G Co.). "Unfortunately the weapons were twisted and bent beyond use" (p199)

 

At around this time, a damaged and burning P-47 aircraft came in from the south, passed low overhead, and crashed about 1 1/4 miles from the bridge... a small patrol [was sent] to the crash site to see if anything could be done for the pilot. The men returned with the dead airman's dog tags. (p204)



My attempt to emulate this photo uses a 1:48 model kit I picked up for $9 at Michaels using a 50% coupon.

 Our village had an untouched factory, that had miraculously escaped any explosives, while the rest o the villages were blown to smithereens.

 The Allied preparatory bombardment had knocked out a few German vehicles and local heifers

 An American Cavalry scout rolls down the road toward the suspected German positions

 FJs move toward the unpainted destroyed citadel

 A squad and a 60mm mortar moved on the right flank

M5 Stuart with air recognition panel

 

American command and M-10 move into the center. One of my gripes with Bolt Action is that it seems every mission has the opposing armies move on 6-18 inches then form a battle line. I wonder how games like Chain of Command end up. 

 

Jim's Pak40 ambushed my M-10. That caused my momentum to stop completely.



Pathfinders signal a DZ

A few of my favorite miniatures.

After my M-10 blew up, all of momentum stalled, and we ended up in a stalemate. I tried to get the Suart and a squad off the table, but all that ended up happening was both units died because they were out of cover.

 

I want to like Bolt Action, have played close to 100 games, but as I said above I feel like it ends up the same way most times. Unless one player has terrible dice, there really isn't a lot of ebb and flow.