Battle Report/AAR

By Kreighton Long

I recently had the pleasure of attending a 1000 point Bolt Action tournament at Your Hobby Place in Fredericksburg, VA.  The tournament was hosted by Josiah Nehrke and we began the day with six players.  The participants played through three rounds: Key Positions, Seek and Destroy, and Breakthrough. The lower than expected turnout was likely due to the tournament falling on Mothers Day weekend and that the previous weekend was another local tournament at the Richmond Open.  The event progressed smoothly with all parties respecting the prescribed schedule and the whole event had a friendly atmosphere with players joking and helping each other with rules throughout the day.

Josiah’s highlight of the tournament was the high standard for how the players’ armies were painted.  He considers it rare to have such effort and care put into every players’ armies at events and the paint jobs, paired with the tables, made the event a special one.  Special shout out to Wayne W. for his excellent terrain.  Wayne provided nearly 100% of everything on the tables and multiple players took the time to praise the tables we had the opportunity to play on.

After finishing the day with two wins and a loss, I took home first place.  My Italians pleasantly surprised me with how well they played following a disappointing few months before replacing three L6/40s with two M15/41s.  The M15/41s worked well as they put out up to four pins per turn, if they divided their fire and had targets to engage, and even succeeded in knocking out three vehicles during the day.  Fingers crossed that I can replicate this success at my next tournament at the end of May.  The highlight of the tournament for me was having the opportunity to see so many well-painted armies on great looking tables.  I’m a sucker for the aesthetics of this hobby and when players put effort and pride into armies that go on tables similarly decorated, I can’t help but have a great day. 

The second place finisher was Tom Slook, who also finished with two wins and a loss.  Tom’s highlight from the tournament was his Hellcat advancing out of cover, hitting and knocking out his opponents Centaur with the first order die of the first turn of the first game.  That gave Tom a notable morale boost early which carried him through the remainder of the tournament.  His most valuable unit was the M5 Stuart with hedgerow cutters.  The 5+ upgrade allowed the Stuart to open holes in the bocage in his second game which gave him a distinct advantage over his opponent.  Tom also took home the award for Best Sportsman.  Congrats Tom!

Joe Dent took home third place with a record of 1-1-1.  Joe’s highlights from the tournament featured the paint jobs of the armies present.  The tables themselves were also a treat for the players.  The tables were well designed and decorated and each presented a unique challenge for players.  Joe remarked how when seeing the tables he didn’t think, “oh god I hope I’m not on that one.”  Joe’s most valuable units were his Regular German Grenadiers and his Veteran Panzer IV G with Panzer Ace.  Joe brought five identical Grenadier squads and used the one LMG per squad to reach out and put pins on units to force his opponents to take Order Checks.  Working together, the squads stacked pins on units even pinning out an enemy squad in the third round.   Joe’s Panzer Ace Panzer IV was a real menace.  As a Veteran tank, it ignored pins that could not penetrate it’s armor which kept it active throughout the game and it’s murderous Pen 6+1+D6 make quick work of any target it landed it hit on.  It knocked out enemy armor in and survived all three rounds. After eliminating the enemy’s armor, the Panzer IV became a mobile machine gun bunker reliably putting pins on two enemy units per round of firing.  Congrats Joe!

The Best Painted Army award went to my North African Italians.  Josiah emphasized how the judge had to make several laps around the armies during the lunch break due to the caliber of submissions.  This was my first foray into desert themed armies and I ended up enjoying the change of color schemes.  The tan and ochre colors help my units stand out compared to the more common European themed armies which I believe will help them stand out during future painting competitions.

Your Hobby Place, Fredericksburg, is planning on hosting another tournament in July.  Keep an eye out for advertising for that tournament.  Josiah is taking a break and will not run that tournament but plans on being back in his TO chair in November.

Thank you to the sponsors — Warlord Games and Your Hobby Place.  Warlord Games provided a prize support package and Your Hobby Place the entry costs into store credit for the first and second place finishers.

See you next time!

By Kreighton Long

Last weekend six players assembled to compete in a Bolt Action tournament run by Jacob Kovel at the Williamsburg Muster convention in Williamsburg, VA.  Jacob, a veteran event organizer, kept the tournament running smoothly keeping all players on the proposed timeline.

Throughout the day there were a few instances of rules confusion among the players, of which I was guilty of, largely due to the recent transition from Second Edition to Third Edition.  When a rules confusion occurred, Jacob was quick to swoop in and clarify the correct interpretation, which were well received by the various players.

Jacob’s quick and precise clarifications is a testament to his veteran status as this was his third Third Edition tournament that he has run since the new release.  Competitors brought 1000 point lists and competed in three scenarios throughout the day.  The first scenario was Seek and Destroy, the second was Key Positions, and the third was Hold Until Relieved.

By Dennis ‘Matt Varnish’ Campbell

Now that Bolt Action is upon us, and more pertinent to me, the new Armies of Germany book, lets see how to update my old v2 army to the new hotness.    When I was collecting for v2, I had one or two of different units, knowing I couldn’t really use more under the Reinforced platoon structure.   While a Rifle Platoon stays pretty much the same with a few added support weapons, you get other vehicles and support weapons and guns in separate platoons now, which means I need more stuff!

by Dennis ‘Matt Varnish’ Campbell, pics by Scott Roach     

Header picture: From the Sharpe’s Rifle series, Sharpe retires with his french wife to a farmstead in France.. we decided this was that farmstead, and as such I put an objective in it

Warlord Games graciously allowed us a preview copy of Armies of Germany, and since I play a Blitzkrieg-themed German Heer army, I felt I should take out some of the new units and rules for a spin and see what’s new.

“Free” weapons on the HQ units are gone, now every member of the Officer team gets a Rifle, and pays for Assault Rifle or SMG, or gets a discount if armed with just their Luger.    Officer units can now take 4 other men, but only 1 can have an Assault Rifle, but everyone else can take SMGs or pistols.  FSJ you can add a 6th man, Waffen SS can take a 2nd Assault Rifle.

By Tom Gall

A number of weeks back I received my copy of Battlegroup Bagration, the latest source book written by Warwick Kinrade and published by the Plastic Soldier Company.

Battlegroup is a set of WWII rules, written back in 2012. It was made for 15/20mm and as a result for a gamer like myself, present the opportunity for me to utilize my Battlefront lead for more than one game system.

As Battlegroup has been around a while, the system has a long list of source books available which each focus on various time periods of the war.

Bagration, as you’ll recall, occurred on the eastern front during the summer of 1944, where German Army Group Center effectively disintegrated.

By Kreighton Long

On Saturday, 12 October 2024, Kalissa Skibicki organized a Bolt Action tournament at the Call to Arms convention in Williamsburg, Virginia.  Sixteen players brought their armies and positive attitudes for one last Bolt Action Second Edition tournament. Due to the travel involved for me to get down to Williamsburg, this tournament feels like a Bolt Action geek reunion where I have the pleasure of catching up with like minded people on an annual basis. I caught up with familiar faces and made some new friends throughout the weekend. Overall, the tournament appeared to have been a success with plenty of laughs and jokes to compliment the friendly competition of the day.

Kalissa’s highlight from the tournament was the influx of new players.  She commented that around six of the sixteen players had recently started playing Bolt Action and that this was their first tournament.  Moving forward, Kalissa, as well as her players, will need to become familiar with the revised rules of Third Edition which will require a not-too-small investment in revamping the tournament packs for Kalissa’s future tournaments.

After three rounds of games including Double Envelopment, Demolition, and No Man’s Land, the players gathered around Kalissa to hear the final results of their efforts.  Due to all sixteen players tying in the second round, the final push to secure a place on the podium came down to secondary points.  In this tournament, the secondary points resulted from order dice claimed minus order dice lost. After all the scores were tabulated, the winners were announced with one order dice separating first place from second.

By Kreighton Long

On 21 September, twenty-six players gathered at Titan Games and Hobbies in Timonium, Maryland for another Bolt Action tournament (2nd Edition) organized by Michael Kehs.  Mike was pleased to see his tournament crowd grow since the last tournament back in April to include recurring players from as far away as Ohio and a new player who ventured down from Connecticut.  Mike credits a level of his growing popularity to his success in reaching out to vendors for prize support.  In addition to healthy rewards for the top finishers, Best Painted Army, and FUBAR, players also can look forward to raffle drawings between rounds.  Well-earned credit needs to go to the Assistant TOs, Rob and Chris, for providing invaluable support with setup, break-down, raffles, and pictures.

The three scenarios chosen for this tournament were Meeting Engagement, Key Positions, and Sectors.  This tournament included a new gimmick from the previous one.  While last time players could find their turn ending prematurely if two odd colored Order Dice were pulled from the bag, this time players needed to keep an eye on Secret Objectives distributed prior to each game.  The Secret Objectives forced players to adjust strategies and to think more tactically to score up to an extra ten points, five per objective, each round.  From what I was able to overhear, the feedback from the Secret Objectives was mostly positive, and Mike confirmed that he will look into incorporating them at future events.  One improvement he plans on making is to specifically assign certain objectives to pair with certain scenarios and to balance them with each player receiving one hard and one easy objective.  In my three games, the Secret Objectives did present opportunities for me to play the game differently than I normally would, and added an extra level of intrigue to the game.  For example, in my final game, I had an opportunity to finish off one of my opponents units but instead moved my unit into my opponents half of the table to accomplish my Secret Objective of finishing the game with all my surviving units on my opponents half of the table.  While that choice had no true impact on the outcome of the game, the choice I faced did make it a little more interesting for me and bagged me an additional five points to my overall score.

by Matt Varnish 

A new edition of Bolt Action by Warlord Games is upon us, we were blessed with an advanced copy, and rather than spill the beans for all the competitive players like everyone else, we figured why not actually play a regular old fun game with fellow No Dice No Glory alum, Scott Roach.   We decided upon a desert game, so that he could dust off his Aussies and his Afrika Korps.   We tried to incorporate as many new things from the new edition, and as luck would have it we came across a fair amount of questions and sneaky changes.

First big change, the way army lists are built is different.   No longer can you take a lone ’88 or Pzr III, now these support units need to be in their own platoons.  My own Blitzkrieg army only has 1 HQ painted up so I’ll need to paint up more, since a Heavy Weapons platoon and Artillery platoon need their own Lieutenant or Hauptmann.  Speaking of lists, here is what we ran:

By Paolo Paglianti

It’s the most anticipated Flames of War tournament of the year: the top 120 players from around the world (not just the Old World, but also New Zealand and the USA) competing in a weekend of FOW matches, but more importantly, many friends reuniting under one roof for the same passion for wargaming.

I was fortunate enough to participate in my first ETC (European Team Challenge) in 2022 when my friend Søren Petersen invited me as a ‘mercenary’ for the Iceland team. I had a great time and it went very well! The following year, we returned as Team Italy led by the new Captain Livio Tonazzo, and things went very well indeed again. This year, the same team—consisting of Livio Tonazzo, Flaviano Maggioni, Giacomo Velini, Antonio Soncini, and Tiberio Vinante—is heading to Kraków, Poland. This time, the tournament is in the Late War format.

By Paolo Paglianti

Based in Lancaster, near Philadelphia, Historicon is one of the most important events for enthusiasts of modeling, painting, wargaming, miniatures, and, as the show’s name suggests, military history. It might be a bit smaller than Adepticon, since it involves visitors, players, and professionals focused on historical games rather than fantasy or sci-fi, but it is a concentration of everything our hobby represents.

At Historicon, you can try dozens of games, from chariot racing scenarios to a 10-meter table recreating the D-Day landings in 28mm, or simply participate in one of the demos – this year we tried the excellent “Achtung Panzer” by Warlords presented in person by the author Roger Gerrish, but there was also “Wings of Glory,” demos of “Triumph” (Ancient in 15mm a-la DBA), and a splendid scenario of a clash in Indochina between French colonial and Chinese troops recreated with FOW V3.

I also managed to spend some time with my friend Mitch Reed, for the second time in 2024 and in a true American Sport Bar with baseball games on TV and huge hamburgers!