Bolt Action Canadian Nationals tournament
by Dennis ‘Matt Varnish’ Campbell
We had a 2-day Bolt Action tournament recently (May 24-25, 2025) as part of the Canadian Tabletop
Championship (CTC) here in Ottawa ON. We had enough players for Warlord Games to let us declare
it Canadian Nationals. 1250 points, 18 Order Dice (OD) cap, no more than two of any unit bar regular
Rifles, HQ , Transports and Tows.
Since my last event in April <link to article> I’ve tinkered with some
lists, settling on the following (regulars unless noted):
Rifle Pltn HQ, Rifle
Heer x5 with 1 LMG
Spahtruppen Veteran x4 with 1 SMG, FSJ Stubborn
Light Mortar Inex
Anti Tank Rifle
Coy Commander w Rifle, in Hanomag
Rifle Pltn HQ, Reg, SMG
Heer Regular x5 with 1 LMG
Spahtruppen Veteran x4 with 1 SMG, FSJ Stubborn
Anti Tank Rifle, Regular
Armoured Pltn
Pzr III G Med. AT gun, Command vehicle upgrade
PZR IV G
Czech38t
2x Pzr II
As you can see by the tables, they are fairly terrain-dense, and while my normal gunline style won’t do
well, the heavy terrain might hamper me if I get them.
Round 1: Demolition vs Sylvain Tardiff’s Canadians with two Forward Artillery Officers. My plan was to press
most of my tanks and Coy Commander up the right flank while also pressuring the left flank with the Pzr
III and Pzr IV. The middle was an alley with 25pdr and heavy Autocannons guarding the narrow lane.
In hindsight I should have gone up the middle because my right hand tanks ate all four of the
bombardments turns 2 and 3, while the Pzr IV suffered an early Immobilize that kept it in a bad spot,
unable to react.
He rushed his infantry down the center buildings, killing my small teams and my tanks
had aa hard time reacting, in the end, on the last dice activation, he was able to get a platoon
commander onto my base and rolled the 4+ to blow it up as time expired. Of note, my 38t ate two direct
bombardment hits on the top armour and survived (he rolled 1 for damage both times)
All these pins are just from the first two Bombardments…
Round 2: Seize Ground vs Artim Arioksiev’s soviets w/ KV2, Dog mines and Katyusha and Medium Mortar.
Artim claimed home field advantage as his winter-themed soviets were playing on a winter table, with 3
VPs going to units in your enemies’ table quarter and 1 each for the neutral quarters plus kills. Early on I
snap-to’ed all my tanks forward to minimize the KV2’s impact through cover, he reacted by letting looseboth Dog Mines, both failing to connect.
My Pzr IIs and FSJ scouts pushed up my left flank while my right flank faltered as Green swarms of infantry took out my Veteran FSJ scouts and my small teams.
Honestly, they should go to Regulars from killing stuff too! His KV2 drives up to the forest hiding my 38t
and he shoots, hits, rolls a 1 for damage. My 38t shoots and pins the Katyusha, his next turn the KV2
advances next to my 38t, hits and once again rolls a 1 for damage, see pic.
My pzr III, sensing an easy kill, shoots machine gun shots and kills 2 of 3 mortar crew, who pass their test. Artim wants some payback so the lone mortarmen, passes his order test with the pin, Ranges-in on my Pzr III with a 6, rolls
a 6 to damage my top armour and then rolls a 6 to destroy it! I then spent way too many shots trying to
finish him off, he kept neo-dodging my bullets or the forest he was in would absorb the shots.
It took two turns but finally my officer w/ rifle decides that if you want a job done, you have to do it yourself, and kills
off Oleg the Mortarman, hero of the Soviet Union. We decided that’s what the propaganda would have you believe, that he was dead, but he instead snuck off into the forest to live another day.
In the end he had units in my quarter but my tanks after killing the Katyusha were firmly in his, and thus it was a hard fought draw. it sure was a lot of laughs trying to kill off Oleg. I made a propaganda poster for Artim to print off and use on his soviet terrain based on this:
Round 3: Marc “DeweyCat” Laplante, like a true gentleman, had bowed out of the tournament since we had 25
players, and helped Paul Saunders TO the event instead. My knee was acting up (old skiing injury + concrete floors) so I asked if he wanted to play Fog of War in my stead with his Italians. This was his chance to play a game, as I was in no danger of being in the top tables with my 0-1-1 record!
Marc would end up winning vs this beautifully painted Svoiet army and the TO
decided to put the win in my column. 
Round 4: I played George H’s Japanese infantry force with two2 Chi-Ha’s, VP kills Table Quarters mission with outflank in a very dense board. George put most of his good stuff into outflank. I chose from previous experience of stuff never coming on the board to be deployed from the get go.
I took out his Anti Tank mine guys early on with my infantry while my FSJ scouts harassed his artillery observers early on. I mistook a set of high walls for low walls and thus positioned my five tanks badly. I owned the sector they were in but he was able to use all those ruins to walk out of line of sight.
When his out-flankers came on, there were so many good ruins for him to be in I had a hard time
killing them all. It was neck and neck on VP’s but I was in the lead, until the last turn where two timely
dice pulls in a row meant he got 6-VPs with two Chi-Ha shots (platoon commanders worth 3 each) meaning
he clutched out a draw from a sure victory as time expired.
Round 5: I played Ryan Dychawicz’s German gunline list with two Stummels and a Puma
Fog of War again, with Timely Objectives down the center. You get points at end of each turn for
objectives.
Finally a table with reasonable terrain. For once, everything clicked into place, my two units of
FSJ scouts took two of the three objectives right off the gun. I was then able to keep him off the center one
for most of the game.
I put ALL my tanks behind him so his Puma and Stummels couldn’t follow on behind me (PG180 Fog of War, not PG 170 Fog of War) so while he was able to start picking off my small teams, I killed his Howling Cow, and two Autocannons as my vehicles came on the board.
As his infantry in the stummels made a break for the objectives from my board edge, my tanks Run forward to contest
my sticky objectives, so even when my FSJ scouts finally dies, he couldn’t take them back. His Puma cam on the side, killed a Pzr II, but my 38t killed the Puma, allowing my other tanks to surge forth and contest my other objective. We stopped the game after turn 3 since mathematically he couldn’t catch up I had built up a 7 to 2 lead and had just captured the third objective with my company commander on foot.
Lessons Learned
In the end, my army ‘worked’ when it was on an average terrain density table. I should have heeded
Andrew Buchan’s advice from playtesting and list-comparing when he said “you don’t have enough
scoring units” I had enough they were just all small and EASILY killed. In the end I wound up two wins, one
loss, and two draws, so good enough for 10th out of 25.
Not that bad. All my games were super fun games and my list performed decently, I made too many easy mistakes to capitalize on any momentum I had in some games, but I am glad we did all the playtest missions with Scott Roach Andrew B and Wade, helped me win that last one for sure.
