Kreighton “Finishes” a Bolt Action Third Edition Army

By Kreighton Long

Last autumn I wrapped up my capstone Bolt Action tournament of the year and began dreaming of my next army project.  This transition coincided with the release of Bolt Action Third Edition, and I drafted my new army knowing that my experiences with the new edition would likely evolve how I built and played my list.  You can find the first two articles in this series where I share my original ideas and how I painted my work.

A few games early on quickly turned me against the medium howitzers that I had lovingly painted.  I painted a battery of three guns with the intention of adding some sorely needed firepower to my list.  After a few games, initially with my Romanians and then my Italians as my howitzers became table-ready, I quickly came to see the howitzer as a risky investment.

The 90 point cost for a medium howitzer with a gun shield soon began to feel overpriced for what it did.  The 3″ template is still an excellent way to clear out infantry and the fact that you can fire it directly or indirectly gives it great flexibility.  The single order die it provides paired with it’s one shot capability and lack of mobility gave the negative attributes more weight than the positive attributes.

Assuming the gun began on the table and fired directly every turn, at best, you send six shots downrange in six turns and if you have no pins and do not need to pivot then you are hitting on 4+s so you can reasonably expect to hit three times per game.

I was struck with how quickly I lost favor with the medium howitzer after it being a staple of almost every list I put together in Second Edition.  The cost of a regular medium howitzer in Second Edition was 75 points with a gun shield so the extra 15 point cost makes me sad.

In addition, I am finding that the single shot from the medium howitzer in Third Edition is less reliable than the single shot in Second Edition.  The base accuracy in Second Edition was 3+ and with the long range penalty my medium howitzers were hitting on a roll of 4+.

But if the target was within short range, in the case of a medium howitzer that was 30″, then I’m hitting on a 3+.  This is all ignoring the addition of cover saves to the hit rolls in Second Edition but I typically ignored firing directly at targets in cover instead prioritizing buildings, vehicles, and infantry in the open.

If I did target units in cover I would typically fire indirectly.  These changes truly soured medium howitzers for me and I’m sorry to say that I will largely be ignoring medium howitzers in future lists.  Light howitzers are a different story however.

I feel that those 90 points per gun could be put to more versatile and pin and casualty producing options.  I quickly dumped the artillery battery in favor of a heavy weapons platoon with MMGs to produce pins, light mortars to keep the enemy moving, and anti-tank rifles to pin tanks and maybe knock out some more lightly armored enemy vehicles.

 With the extra order die the heavy weapons platoon provided I found myself benefiting from more tactical flexibility as my order die were pulled more often when I needed them to be. Fare thee well medium howitzers.  You look gorgeous and I hope to use you at friendly events, but I fear your presence at competitive events is no longer required.

In February I played a practice game in preparation for a three-game tournament later that month with a modified version of my Bersaglieri list — modified due to not having all the infantry finished.  Those four games were a beneficial trial run and I learned what worked and what didn’t work with my list.

The first key take-away was that upgrading one of my L6/40s with a flamethrower sure was fun but the 33% chance of running out of fuel each time it fired as well as the +1 on the damage roll when hit, combined with the Vulnerable special rule, made it an exceptionally brittle glass cannon.

I came to feel that my list was sturdier without it as well as benefiting from getting 20 points back to invest elsewhere.  The second take-away was that I started to suspect that the L6/40s were not worth the points they cost.

A light tank for 100 points is not a terrible start.  But then seeing how the L6/40s can either fire it’s autocannon or coax MMG limited it’s destructive power.  Add to this light armament the two negative rules of Vulnerable and One-Man Turret for all three of my L6/40s as well as the Open-Topped rule for the command tank, and I started to see how the negatives outweighed the positives of the Recce rule.

The final nail in my L6/40 coffin came during a practice game in April.  My frustration with the capabilities of the L6/40s, and admittedly my fair share of user error, catalyzed in the decision to look elsewhere for a more competitive armor option.

After some reading into the Italian armored options I decided to try out a pair of medium tanks. Hull MMGs will allow me to double the pin output of the tanks and better armor will keep them in the game longer. I shed the Vulnerable rule by upgrading the medium tanks to M15/42s and look forward to seeing how well 12 MMG shots or 1 light anti-tank gun and 6 MMG shots work each round of firing.

The 310 points for two regular medium tanks replaced the 300 points for three regular light tanks which feels like a good deal.  I ordered a platoon of M14/41s from Warlord Games and painted them up just in time for a tournament in May.

At the 10 May tournament at Your Hobby Place in Fredericksburg, VA, my revamped army scored some morale raising victories.  I finished the tournament 2-1-0, squeezed out a 1st place finish, and earned the Best Painted Army award.  My two M15/42s were a notable improvement over the three L6/40s in pin production, kills, and survivability.

The fact that my two medium tanks can theoretically put pins on four separate units versus at most three with the three light tanks gives them an advantage in the pin game.  My M15s scored three vehicle kills throughout the day, two of which were armored vehicles.  My L6/40s were hard pressed to do the same.  Throughout the three games I only lost one M15 — shedding the Vulnerable rule helped in at least two instances that I can recall. The end results spoke for themselves, so the M15s were allowed to stick around for the second tournament in May.

My second May tournament was Operation Spring. I took the same list that served me well at the previous tournament and feel it played better than my 1-2 record shows.

My first game was a hard loss where I was tabled. I started off well eliminating two enemy units in the first two turns of the game.  Unfortunately, my game took a hard turn for the worse when my opponent’s first artillery strike rolled a 1 and redirected into a better position for my opponent costing me two units including one of my tanks.

The following turn, the second artillery strike (curse you British special rules!) eliminated another three of my units and I honestly don’t know what I could have done differently to recover from those blows.

The second game I scored a redemption win by defeating a Japanese list. While my tanks were ineffective due to my bad rolls, my light mortars picked up the slack destroying both of my enemy’s tanks with indirect fire.

The third game of the tournament was a close affair that was a draw until we rolled to extend the game into a seventh turn where my opponent squeezed out a narrow win.  My list did what it needed to do and I played the scenario well, but my opponent was a worthy foe and he won this round.  Even in these two defeats, I was pleased with how my army played.

Through a few rounds of trial by fire I honed in on what works for me with my North African Italians.

The medium howitzers were a bust at 1000 points and the L6/40s were underwhelming.  Adding the support teams and M15/42s made notable progress in the satisfaction of my play.

While winning is fun and preferred, I can tolerate a loss if the list plays well. I did not have that sense of satisfaction losing with the earlier renditions of my list but the Operation Spring losses confirmed that I can have fun losing with the list I took.

At present my company is made up of three platoons: rifle, heavy weapons, and armor.

• The rifle platoon has three Bersaglieri squads led by an officer – two seven man squads with a single LMG and one nine man with double LMGs.
• The heavy weapons platoon has doubles of MMGs, anti-tank rifles, and light mortars plus another officer.
• The armor platoon is a duo of M15/41s.

A total of thirteen order die at 1000 points gives me an average number of OD at that point level and the Veteran status of all except the two tanks, two light mortars, an one of the officers gives them staying power.

I certainly feel more confident with this list and more importantly, I’ve played more enjoyable games since restructuring.  I have plenty of spares now to adjust this list to compete in 1250 point events but I’m confident in saying that the list shown below is my new standard for 1000 point events and will be the foundation of 1250 point lists.

With this list finished (for now), I’m going to take a break from WWII and knock out some of the sci-fi in my queue.  I already have a sense of where my next Bolt Action project will take me.  Somewhere colder.  Somewhere in the east.  Somewhere on a river — a river named Volga.

Happy gaming!