Brawl in the Hall, Bolt Action Recce Event, 800pts Kingston ON
by Dennis “Matt Varnish” Campbell
In my last article, I went over a take all comers list, and my plans for the year to attend a few Bolt Action events rather than watch from the sidelines and not partake lest I get destroyed for lack of practice.
Well a few events have surfaced, and one that has sidetracked my plan: Brawl in the Hall, in Kingston (not Jamaica, sadly, Ontario) is a one day event was held at the Canadian Army Navy club on April 6th.
PACK
What makes it interesting is its a Recce event. Its 800points, no Order Dice cap, and you may not take any Rifle platoons, but must take 1+ Recce platoon. (which is what unlocks the other platoon types rather than Rifle platoon)
Additionally, no Forward Observers of any kind, and all units must have transports or tows. No vehicles with a DV of 8+ are allowed, so only soft-skins and 7+ armoured carriers.
Any snipers or spotters you do take (need spots on a transport) and can use the infiltrator rule but not deploy with it. Every mission is First Wave, and there are three pre-set missions.
This poses a few problems for me, in that I didn’t play any competitive Bolt Action in v2 and thus was not a part of the Truck-Meta, leaving me just a few Hanomags for my glorious Germans. Luckily I noticed that Stummels, while in the Armoured platoon, does have a transport capactiy of 8.
I could therefore take 1 halftrack for my Recce platoon, and go with a pair of Stummels to carry my heavy weapons platoon I was planning on taking. I just finished 2x MG34 MMG teams and with enemy softskins galore, why not try them out for this event?
I finished painting my Kradschutzen to round out the second paltoon in my Recce. Below is my force:
MY LIST
Recce List – Brawl in the Hall: Parentheses denotes which transport I plan on putting them in, all ‘Regular’ unless stated otherwise:
Recce platoon HQ w SMG
Adj (Regular) with SMG (Both in Hanomag)
Panzer Grenadier Platoon x8
1x MG34 LMG team (In Hanomag)
Anti Tank Rifle team (Also in Hanomag)
Kradshutzen x6
1x MG34 LMG team (on motorcycles)
Armoured platoon
Stummel with Command Vehicle
Stummel
Motorcycle with MMG sidecar
Motorcycle with MMG sidecar
Heavy Weapons Platoon HQ with Pistol (Inexperienced) (Stummel 2)
MG34 MMG team (Stummel 2)
MG34 MMG team (Stummel 1)
Anti Tank Rifle team (Stummel 2)
Anti Tank Rifle team (Stummel 1)
800pts
GAME 1 vs Guillaume and his SAS, playing Smash and Grab on the Stalingrad table.
We rolled 6 objectives, and in this Pack, all objectives can be claimed / contested by TOUCHING the objective and vehicles or mounted troops could not claim / contest. (Foreshadowing)
He had veterans in trucks and SAS jeeps armed to the teeth with machine guns. The first few turns we jockeyed for position, each claiming 2 of the 6 objectives. The train objective I claimed with my Kradschutzen since they are technically infantry while on bikes, and I claimed a further objective in the factory area.
The center town square objective was going to be tough to capture, but I wa able to kill a Chevy and the surviving veteran SAS guys, since they had to go Down anyways, moved up to the steps of the square. I took way too many shots to try and kill them off, and ultimately was unable.
His jeep was able to kill my Kradschutzen before Falling Back off the table in a subsequent turn, and I thought I was going to be clever and deny his Anti Tank Rifle team the train objective by moving my motorcycle sidecar to touch the locomotive. Only to learn for this pack I can’t contest…
Hilariously a jeep immobilised my Stummel on the far right flank, and all I could do was set him in Ambush and await anyone crossing. Anthony Hopkins model from Bridge Too Far decided to run across the gap, and of course I missed with the Howitzer, allowing the other unit to safely cross now that my ambush had been triggered.
I was finally able to dispatch the otehr veterans in the ruins and claim the ruin rowhouse objective but by then Guillaume had captured 3, I had 2 with the town square unclaimed. Victory for the SAS, though between the two of us we had 5 units Fall Back off the baord, no Fubars, just Recce falling back.
below are a selection of GAME 1 Pics:
GAME 2 vs Chris (Ringer) and his Russian tank-riding army. We played Supply Drop in the jungles of Siam
He had truck mounted regulars and 3 T-60s with 3 units of 5 Veteran Tank Riders.
Astute readers will immediately note that not only is this not a Recce platoon, that T-60s are Front Armour 8.
Chris kindly accepted at 11:30pm the night before to be the ringer since we had one player had to drop out the night before.. so we played the T-60s were front armour 7
This mission has the objective drop in on turn 3 by parachute, it can be in the middle, or 24 inches left, or 24 inches right (on a d6) and then another d6 in a random direction.
What I should have done is put everything in reserve and wait and see where it fell, instead of spreading myself way thin.
I lucked out in that the bulk of his troops were on my right flank, and the objective wound up on my left where I had the Inex platoon commander, AT Rifle and MMG team.
All he had to cover it was one T-60, however my other infantry were battered from the T-60 autocannon fire. I was able to kill off a Veteran unit and pin out a second.
I strategically placed a motorcycle sidecar to block LOS to the objective througha gap in the jungle trees.. so the T-60 could no longer shoot my objective claiming MMG team.
The AT Rifle kept pinning the T-60, while the Stummels and Hanomag and 2nd MMG slowly whittled down his infantry trying to cross the board to contest.. Game ends win for me.
GAME 2 Pics Below:
GAME 3 vs Cameron and his Germans. We played Foggy Dew in a european village.
Foggy Dew has variable fog limitting LOS and the goal is to get units off the enemy board edge.
Turn 1 vission is 12 inches then at the start of every turn you roll a d6 1-2 = 12 inches 3-4 = 24 inches 5-6 = 36 inch range.
Each unit off the enemy board edge is 3VP, kill points grant 1. Village had lots of roads but strategically placed barricades made it a bit dicier.
He had an engineer platoon, 2 small units plus platoon commander in a a Hanomag, Recce platoon into Opel Blitzes with Anti Tank Rifle and MMG, and a captured Renault FT-17, with superior german engineering (not ‘Slow’, thanks Warlord)
My thought process in this one was to set up an MMG and ATR halfway up the best lane of advance to stymy his vehicles, and I quikly learned that a hanomag with 2 flame thrower units inside and a platoon commander hurts quite a lot if he pulls 2 dice in a row and can double time on the roads!
I lost the Anti Tank rifle right away, and then the platoon command and the infantry each took 4 pins, but only 1 hit each. He advanced all his transports up and dismounted, and I tried to return the favour by moving a Stummel into point Blank range, and of course here is what I rolled to hit 🙂
(pic of stummel)
My other anti tank rifle was able to Turret jam the scout sdkfz250/? which allowed my other stummel with two units inside to escape.
I lost the other Stummel to hand to hand.. I forgot open Topped vehicles just DIE if they get hit in combat, which cost me a valuable Stummel that might have been able to keep his engineers out of my board edge.
My Kradschutzen also escaped, while on the other flank I tried delaying the flame thrower teams as much as possible, only letting one get through.
While I got 6 units off to his 5 he had a LOT more of my units killed, and won due to the number of units killed.
Game 3 Pics:
It was a great event, worth driving the 2 hrs 15 minute (this is eons for the Euros!) early in the morning and back again. Whilst I did not win any awards with my 1-2 record, Wade ‘Artygun’ and Andrew B ‘Twinlinked’ got top 2, and thus Ottawa was represented at the top, just not by me! Many thanks to Marc Laplante and Paul Saunders et al for putting this event on!
.. and while the IJA bicycle Meta that was strong in game petered out, the SAS and their Stubborn Vets were well represented. Boy my Germans sure wish they could take HMG vehicles like the US and Brits!
BICYCLES!