Battle of the Bulge – Bolt Action Campaign by Andre77 and Bothi

I wanted to put this BatRep into one post, but you can only put 12 layout pieces into a single post. This makes it really difficult to integrate text and pics. Maybe BoW/OTT changes this in the future. Or maybe I just didn’t found the right tools and someone can explain to me how to create larger posts.

So the BatRep continues in this post. Read the post below for the beginning.

End of turn 4

Despite the booby trap and a lot of resistance fighters blocking the way the Germans mounted up and made good ground on their left flank during the third turn. Nearly all of the resistance fighters were gone and the free French in the field were completely annihilated.

Meanwhile the lone Puma on the right flank was advancing downfield and taking out one of the SAS MMGs. It’s not looking good for the Partisans.

Then finally a ray of hope for the Partisans in form of a well placed SAS bazooka shot at the beginning of turn 4 that took out one of the SdKfz. With only small arms otherwise these things are tough to kill.

Having identified the left flank as the main German advance the squad of SAS and Frech intelligence move onto the road to intercept the Germans.

But the Germans still have all chances of winning. We calculated that if they got the Opel Blitz with the stolen art and only a single SdKfz (plus carried troops) off the table it would most definately be a German victory.

End of turn 5

This is were it all went wrong for the Germans. Realising that they had to put the pedal to the metal to make it to the end of the board until turn 6 they had to issue run orders to all of their vehicles. Meaning they just didn’t had the firepower to deal with the veterans of the SAS and the French intelligence.

This resulted in one SdKfz being overrun which was a huge victory for the Partisans as the SdKfz turned out to be the absolute nemesis to them. Now only one of them remained. And the Opel Blitz. Still enough to pull out a win for the Germans…

… but unfortunately the remaining SAS MMG not being able to do anything against the SdKfzs has been lying in ambush for two turns now. Waiting for the truck carrying the stolen arts. And despite all mathematical propability it managed to disable it leaving the stolen goods intakt.

Turn 6

Seeing the Opel Blitz carrying art of incredible worth disabled the Germans packed their bags and left the field. Only the Puma and a single SdKfz carrying the Oberleutnant managed to escape. With also a few free French on the other flank escaping this meatgrinder it was a clear victory for the Partisans. In victory points 9 : 4.

The French SAS and Intelligence inspected the stolen art and put it on a truck heading back to Paris and probably the Luvre or something.

We played the second mission directly after this one, but it will take a few days for me to get the pictures. So stay tuned for Mission 2 of the Battle of the Bulge Bolt Action Campaign.

The Scenario

The first day of gaming was nearing and our goal was to get everything built. Although we would not use nearly all of the minis this was achieved by everybody attending. Unfortunately Jan couldn’t make it so we were only 4 players. Onto the BatRep.

In this scenario playing in the Fall of ’44 the Germans are tasked to break out of the Mons Pocket and escort a truck full of stolen art and other important things to safety. Unfortunately a band of Belgian Resistance has other plans and want to get some payback for all the things that has been done to their country.

The German list was 1000 pts, was played by Andre and Christian and contained a lot of infantry, a bunch of SdKfz transports, a Puma and the Opel Blitz transporting the stolen arts.

The Partisans also had 1000 pts and where played by Sven and Bothi. It contained about 20 French Intelligence and SAS Veterans and about 50 inexperienced Belgian rifleman. The French were quite well equipped with MGs, SMGs, a Bazooka and anti tank grenades and we imagined that these are the guys working behind enemy lines and training the Belgian Resistance. Unfortunately nobody had any French or Belgian models so we decided to proxy these with Americans.

Table and Setup

As you can see the table was set up with the Germans starting on the western edge and a Y-shaped road running across the table. The partisans had a huge deployment area between the roads.

The partisans deployed with a lot of riflemen  to the front and the flanks to soak up the brunt of the German attack and the veterans to middle and back to act as a counter force.

The Germans decided to to have a few troops here and there and a huge strongpoint on their left flank with all the armoured transport. This is where the break through should happen.

End of Turn 2

The Germans decided to start the game dismounted to deal with the upfront resistance fighters. During the first two turn they started advancing slowly an putting a lot of fire into the two upfront resistance squads. Those two squads took heavy casualties (over 20 dead) and only managed to get some pot shots in killing 2 Germans.

But the Partisans managed to quickly advance a Free French squad through the far field creating a choke point to delay the Germans even further.

But also the Germans triggered the booby traps set by the resistence. The lighter one was in the German deployment zone and managed to kill a single MMG gunner. This did less damage but was sure to go off.

The other two would only go of on a 6. The Puma trigged the right on which naturally turned out to be a dud. But Sven managed to roll a six for the one on the left side nearly wiping out a German grenadier unit and giving a bloody nose to the main German advance.

As mentioned in the project description we are 5 guys (Sven, Jan, Christian, Andre and Bothi) and are playing through the Battle of the Bulge Campaign for the Bolt Action system. We do this obviously to get gaming and have fun, but also to motivate ourselves to finish our armies, which is overdue for years now. So here is a small summary of what armies who has and what the status is:

• Andre – 2000 pts of Germans: 90 % built, 0% painted (but primed 😀 )
• Sven – 1500 pts of Winter-Germans: 100% built, 50% painted
• Jan – 2500 pts of GIs and Marines: ??% built,  60% painted
• Christian – ?? pts of GIs: >80% built, 80% painted
• Christian – 1000 pts of Germans: ??% built, 0% painted
• Bothi – 2000 pts of US Airborne: 70% built, 10% painted
• Bothi – 1500 pts of Panzerbrigade 150: 0% built, 0% painted

As you can see we have a lot of work ahead of us. Our first goal was to get everything built for the first weekend of gaming.