Blood and Plunder, a very well liked game here in these parts of Minnesota, hasn’t been seeing a lot off time on the game table. Frankly as a community up here in Minnesota things have been more than a bit dormant and while a game or two would pop up now and again, we just haven’t been good advocates for it until there was that fateful Facebook posting, you know the one, does anyone play Blood and Plunder near by …. you fill in the blank.
I’m sure you’ve seen those kinds of posts from time to time for games you care about, and the question to take to heart is what do you do about it? At a minimum responding and saying “I play and I’m located (your location here).” definitely helps and if luck is with you, maybe you’ll meet a new friend and get to play some games.
With my first Bolt Action Third Edition specific army mapped out it was time to get out the sprue cutters, glue, and paints. My first target was to test out how I wanted to build and paint my Bersaglieri infantry.
I prefer the look of the helmets rather than the XXX for the Bersaglieri, so I started with one sprue’s worth of infantry with helmets. After considering available options I decided that my infantry would start with an NCO with a rifle, and LMG team, and additional riflemen.
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.
We here at No Dice No Glory snagged ourselves a preview copy of the first “Armies of…” book to follow the release of Bolt Action Third Edition — Armies of Germany.
In an effort to do my part for the war effort I focused my reconnaissance on the units and selectors that caught my eye.
With roughly 180 units to consider adding to your list there is no shortage of options for German players. Veteran German players will be able to find a unit option for nearly all, if not all, of the fun toys in their collections.
The first weak streaks of sunlight were beginning to filter through as Milwer Nylber glanced down at his watch.
He muttered under his breath as he lifted his eyes back up and across no-quar’s land. His relief wouldn’t be here for another hour and with the death of Yawdryl Chythl a few days ago, Nylber was left in charge of the squad’s four other remaining rhyflers. Each of these young quar looked up to him and it was his job to keep them alive.
As his eyes swept the barren land scape in front of him, they stopped briefly on the pair of destroyed Crusader Tractor’s that had led the last assault on their lines. The two metal monsters were stopped mere meters from the trench and had threatened to overwhelm the entire line before being stopped by a field howitzer that had been rushed forward.
As they went up in flames, Chythl had screamed: “Follow me boys, we have them now!”
Charging out of the trench, Chythl’s doru sub-machine gun had barked like a mad dog as he encouraged his squad forward in a furious counterattack. Nylber had climbed out of the trench just in time to watch as Yawdryl Chythl was struck down by the first burst of fire from the Crusader trenches. Nine rhyflers had followed Chythl over the top that day. Only the five of them crawled back to friendly lines that evening.
This war wasn’t anything like the minor conflicts he had grown up fighting. Those were small wars of daring and élan, of quars fighting with honour. But those were stories of wars past, and this new age of industrialization had changed this Long War of 700 years into something new and terrifying.
I was at Fall-In 2021 (which was also Historicon) where I met a lot of great guys, including Mitch Reed who recruited me to write. It was a great time and unlike everyone else, I kind of liked the casino. Back in 2019 I won a couple hundred dollars betting on the Browns, one of the few times the Browns have ever won anything for me so I have fond memories there.
Rambling aside, I saw there was a Harpoon game scheduled and it was run by the creator, Larry Bond. What joy! I’ve been wanting to try Harpoon for awhile since I’ve wanted a good set of rules for modern naval combat. Naval wargames may be my favorite type of historical wargame and I wanted something when I could launch missiles at Soviet ships. This was perfect.
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.
Bolt Action Third Edition. Photo from Warlord Games.
With the recent release of Bolt Action Third Edition and the last round of Second Edition tournaments I set my sights on the future. Warlord’s timing of their Third Edition release complimented by natural project schedule perfectly. Over the last several years I’ve fallen into a routine build around Kalissa Skibicki’s Bolt Action tournament at the October Call to Arms convention in Williamsburg, VA. Once that tournament concludes I begin planning, building, painting, and training with a new army with the goal of being battle ready in time for the next Call to Arms tournament. In this manner I’ve built, competed with, and placed using Romanians, Italians, and Soviets in my last three appearances. With the release of Third Edition I have the added challenge of adapting the new force structure and implementing the new ruleset.
Warlord has truly done a phenomenal job of tempting me with their recently released kits. I snagged a box of Winter Americans with the Third Edition rulebook and was hard pressed to not do the same with their Winter Fallschirmjager. My bank account was disappointed when they also released their German Veterans kit and I couldn’t help but snag the army box with my pre-order of the Armies of Germany Third Edition book. Despite these temptations, I’m going to take my first dedicated Third Edition army in a different direction — somewhere notably warmer.
Italian tankers rest alongside their M13/40 tank. Photo from Wiki Commons.
In 2023 I captured first at Kalissa’s Call to Arms tournament and as I won it with my Italians I decided to claim a box of Bersaglieri for my prize. It seemed appropriate enough as I was riding a high after surprising wins with a force I did not anticipate to be as competitive as it ended up being. That kit sat in my box of shame for the last year and once Third Edition was announced my mind kept wandering to that simple box of plastic. For my first dedicated Third Edition army I am going to create an Africa Campaign themed Italian army using the Bersaglieri as the core of infantry.
With this project I have three goals in mind. The first is that I want to challenge myself to leave my comfort zone by painting and basing an army outside of my typical temperate Europe theme. By painting my army for the North African theater I will accomplish that. The second goal is to make it thematic. I will accomplish this by ensuring that whatever I put in this army makes sense within the scope of the Italian contribution to the North African campaign. Considering that this is the theater that the Italians featured heavily I imagine this one will be fairly simple to pull off. The third goal is to balance it between competitive and fun. This is the area I am the most nervous about pulling off. I want to avoid any units that break the game (looking at you Second Edition Dakka Stuarts/Panzers) while simultaneously keeping my list interesting and fun for me to take to games. As I do like to win I hope that I can temper my competitive edge to keep my list enjoyable for me to play, and more importantly here, fun for my opponent to play against.
After committing to building my first Bolt Action Third Edition army around the Italian army in North Africa I started to map out how the company would be structured. Some quick poking around online revealed that six Bersaglieri regiments served in North Africa so I can rest easy that we’re checking the box for historical accuracy (National Army Museum, New Zealand). Since I already had a box of Bersaglieri in my box of shame the infantry component was decided. Light Machine Guns will feature heavily in my squads due to the decreased point cost and that the Bersaglieri will play as Veterans which will give them more survivability to keep that LMG firing. So that’s the infantry platoon worked out.
Photo from Warlord Games.
For the second platoon I envisioned some tankettes or light tanks to support my infantry. Daydreaming in the twilight of Second Edition I wanted a platoon of tankettes to harass my opponents with. The L3/33s looked like fun little mobile, armored, MMG teams that were cost effective and could be a real pain for my opponent to deal with if I used them correctly. With the Third Edition change to vehicle mounted machine guns halving their rate of fire I was reluctantly turned away from the idea of a tankette swarm. Instead I began looking at other light tanks of the Italian army — and in drove the L6/40. In Third Edition, I can field a number of Regular L6/40s with a turret light auto-cannon in an 8+ hull with two negative rules (Vulnerable and One-Man Turret) offset by one positive (Recce). For 100 points, that doesn’t sound like a terrible deal and the fact that this light tank will find itself outgunned and outmaneuvered by most other tanks fits my idea of the Italian armored forces frequently finding itself behind the curve in North Africa.
The L6/40s first arrived in North Africa in December, 1941 for testing and soon after began arriving for combat duty. The 133rd Armored Division featured three squadrons of the light tank and served in the successful Axis siege of Tobruk in 1942 and continued to serve through the Third Battle of El Alamein (Tank Encyclopedia). This one example of L6/40s in North Africa, alongside the presence of Bersaglieri, checks the second historical accuracy box in my planned list. Considering the affordable cost of this cute little guy I will start with three in the tank platoon and will likely alternate between two and three in my company depending on the point maximum of the game.
Photo from Warlord Games.
With LMGs and autocannons in my arsenal I decided my third platoon would need some heavy hitting power. To accomplish this I turned to the Armored Platoon. Fielding a number of artillery pieces will give my army some penetrating power to stall enemy armor and to knock out infantry squads. Medium howitzers in Third Edition hit with a 3″ template and +3 penetration. This level of howitzer can make quick work of Veteran infantry and can even destroy buildings with a lucky shot and the +3 penetration allows you to threaten medium armored vehicles and their 9+ armor. Against the front armor of a medium tank (9+ armor), the +3 penetration is a poor substitute for a dedicated anti-tank gun requiring a roll of 6 to penetrate. However, it is enough to force pins on Veteran 9+ vehicles and Inexperienced and Regular armored vehicles regardless of armor value. And in my experience, pouring pins onto an armored vehicle with howitzers, while not likely to destroy it, can force it to take increasingly difficult order tests and possibly invest a turn rallying. The indirect fire option is always a handy option when conducting counter-battery operations or trying to force dug in enemy units to displace. At 90 points apiece for a medium howitzer with a gun shield I plan on picking up three for a healthy battery presence and again will likely fluctuate between two and three depending on point maximums.
I dug around online and struggled to find organic Bersaglieri artillery batteries. Instead, I often found references to Bersaglieri working alongside divisional artillery assets in the form of the 100/17 Modello 14s which are treated as Medium Howitzers in Bolt Action (Comando Supremo Italy in WWII). At the time of writing this I have not stumbled onto evidence of Bersaglieri manning 100/17 Modello 14s as these guns were typically Divisional assets manned by regular Army gunners. Therefore, in keeping with my goal of making my list as historically accurate as I can I decided to purchase Warlord Games Italian Army 100/17 Modello 14 medium artillery kits rather than the Bersaglieri variants. If anyone can find a source verifying that Beraglieri troops served as gunners of these medium howitzers I would love to be proven wrong before adding these guns to my holiday wish-list.
For a first draft I feel confident that my Bersaglieri Company, made up of an infantry, armored, and artillery platoon, will be able to respond to most threats. The combination of mobility and firepower this list provides will hopefully end up being as fun to play in reality as it is in my head. Keeping my list realistic to what was available to Italian forces in North Africa will hopefully create a thematic and cohesive looking army that will look good on the table and be grounded enough to be fun for my opponent to play against. The next step is to start picking up the kits I need to make this happen and to add them to my painting queue. More to follow.
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.
