Ze germans are coming!! The battle of the Coalville Bulge

Whilst I was on my way to the mantic open day, My vertical challanged friend Kris banged on his keyboard with his stumps and managed to come up with this lovely battle report.. 

Battle of the Coalville bulge

We had talked a lot about doing a massive game of bolt action for a while. So when Julian (one of the coalville hooligans) suggested a large scale game back in April, I jumped at the chance.
The day started early (0930ish) with the normal Tea, cake and pre-battle chat. Then it was time to sort what we would use.
 

The original plan was to use 19k in 3 waves, hoping for total carnage…ahem.
So the forces; classic German vs Russians in an armour heavy scrap.

We split into our separate command teams, 3 players aside. Julian Muller, James Chance and Paul Thompson as the Germans.

 
Myself, Ian Hill and Col MacHopper as the Russians.

Oddly, both sides ultimately came up with the same plan, using the denied flank tactic. Unfortunately, we had both pick our respective left flanks…kinda got messy…

 

So after sorting out 10k as an initial force, we set up, using a hidden set up that we in the Coalville Hooligans use a lot. Then the Germans set up while we went and made a brew.

After we had set up we counted up all the forces and we had over 120 order dice between us!!

TURN 1
We opted to try using metric rather then imperial for measurements, so the first turn was pretty much slow movement, calling in artillery/airstrike and snipers that were in range.
The Russian right flank was heavy with t34s facing the German cats, but most wasn’t in range to do anything at the moment.
The other side of the table was heavy with Russian arty, facing a lot of panzer 3s and 4s, and infantry. The Russians dropped a lot of smoke at first, mainly as range markers (sneaky…I know…).
The centre was a mix of mortars and heavy tanks facing German AT guns. Nothing was in range..

TURN 2
The second turn started off with the airstrikes and arty coming in..all apart from 1 German airstrike.
The left flank was starting to heat up as the T34s started to lock horns with the German cats, who were manoeuvring aggressively through the woods.
The right flank continued to be a Russian steel rain fest, Mr Hill being in his element, James adding pins like he was enjoying it.
The centre, again, was pretty much a movement thing with both sides trying to get in range!

TURN 3
The Germans this turn had started to pick off the Russian sniper and forward obs teams quite nicely by now, the right flank feeling the might of the cats. The Russians were feeling the pinch with several T34s now toasty.
The Russian arty still kept pounding away and by now had pretty much had most German forces on that flank pinned or hiding.
The centre sat and waved at each other…

TURN 4
The right flank was pretty much controlled by the Germans now, with the Russians that still survived being pinned nicely. The Germans on the left flank were now recovering and starting to dish out pins of their own, though not able to kill much.
The centre got a fatality, finally, in the form of the 88 killing a JS1…just in range.

Turn 5 was pretty much more of the same.

The game ended with a conclusive German victory, having caused almost 3 times as many casualties.


LESSONS LEARNED

NEVER, EVER, EVER use metric over imperial with expecting to be playing for a week. ^cm movement for infantry was so painful it was embarrassing. Imperial measurements would have made for a faster game, a more realistic game.. Also, we didn’t get to use our reinforcements as there wasn’t room on the table for everything. 

Another idea we used was that every order dice pulled, we rolled 2d6 and drew that many extra dice out. A nice idea, just needs a tweak or 2.

Classic moment of the game was when James rolled snake eyes for his leadership test, which was what everyone else was pretty much rolling to hit!! He was chuffed at that…Ian wasn’t….but James was!!!

Overall a good time was had by all, no arguments as such and all agreed we will have to give it another go.

So there you have it a whopping game of bolt action, looks like it was great fun!