Motor City Mayhem: Bolt Action and More!

May 30, 2023 | Troy Hill | Gaming

By Troy Hill

This weekend (May 27-28, 2023) saw chaos and pandemonium descend on the Detroit suburb of Novi, Michigan as the Death or Glory group of GW gamers hosted Motor City Mayhbem, a Grand Tournament style of game convention at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi.

In addition to all of the Games Workshop madness at a GT, Warlord Games Raider Jeff Wiertalla organized two Bolt Action events, which I assisted by playing as the Gumby/Ringer in both.

Other games like Kings of War, Conquest, and Star Wars Legion also had events. Below is my own recap of my action in the Bolt Action tourneys, and a photo-dump of what I saw in the non-GW space.

Friday’s event was a 450 pt force for a combat patrol set of games played on a 4×4. Overall, I loved this approach. The games went faster, and I didn’t have tourney fatigue at the end of the evening. Each round lasted 90 minutes.

Being a Gumby/Ringer in a Bolt Action tourney usually means bringing a force of both Axis and Allied. On Friday, the Axis were overloading the ranks, so I brought out my rarely-used generic Americans. Excellent. I could begin the weekend, as the Juggernauts and SNAFU guys say, “On Easy Mode”

Historical games aren’t usually one for variants on painting beyond Which shade/tone of “German Grey” are their uniforms? One player, however, seems to have found an interesting theme. When I asked about the approach, his reply went something like well, if I’m going to paint the Nazi’s forces, I’m going to make them represent the clowns they were… (apologies for not remembering the correct wording.) Each of his units had a different clown theme, from the yellow-clad hamburger chain clown to Bozo, and these fellows. The vehicles gave me flashbacks to the Batman movies of the Jack Nicholson/Michael Keaton era.

Note the medic standing ready with his stretcher behind my GIs. Would his points pan out… or was opting for the extra and “cheap” order die worth it? More on that later.

 

Another game of Bolt Action on a city table

 

Prize pack for the event, courtesy of Warlord Games, DoG, and Mr. Wiertalla.

 

For the second game, I ended up fighting the Germans on the city table. My HMG squad got into a duel with a German sniper, who was hiding in one of the buildings. First round, he missed. Second round, I scored a hit, and he lost the spotter. Between that penalty and the constant barrage of pins I inflicted, my opponent couldn’t do much with the sniper. We took the pesky Kraut out on turn four, but my opponent pulled out the win.

In the third game of the evening, I faced off against Nick’s IJN force. Where the extra firepower of a +1 Pen on the HMG came in handy against the sniper in the rubble, I needed the increased number of shots from an MMG. Even that wouldn’t have done much to dent the waves of Japanese troops that swarmed my small force.

This scenario was night fighting with a flare mechanism in action. An odd-colored order die was added to the pool. When that die was drawn, visibility increased to normal daytime ranges. Until then, 12-inches was the max any unit could see… that meant my shooting was hampered, as most rounds the flare came out near the end of the pool.

 

Did I mention the WAVES of Japanese troops Nick had in his force?

 

Enough said? That scout car with it’s broken gun barrel didn’t last long either.

 

I am glad that after the absolute thrashing, I took from Nick’s IJN force, that he soared to victory in the event. That, and he had the snazziest shorts of all the players.

Results from Bolt Action Day 1

  • 1st Nick Copeland – Japanese
  • 2nd Joe Valice – Germans
  • 3rd Andrew Verticchio – German
  • Best Sportsman James Cook – Germans
  • Best Theme Jeff Myrom – US Army
  • Best Painted Bob Beason – US Army
  • Wooden Spoon Spencer McGrath – Italians

Day 2: Again we ended up with an odd amount of players, so I was drafted for the Allied forces again.

But, here are some of the other games played:

Kings of War!

DWARVES! And cool multi-basing!

Who doesn’t love a good regiment of zombies?

Back to Bolt Action and my first game of Saturday’s main event. Forces at 1000 pts. Game 1, I got to play Spencer and his fresh-off-the-primer-table Italians.

This turned out to not be the tourney where an AT gun with only one shot was useful for me. Preparatory bombardment knocked out the Italian tank. the AT gun did a bit of area denial, but never got a kill in any game.

Game two, and I met up with my old nemesis, Nick, and his IJN. Fortunately, my force commander had heard about yesterday’s loss, and was more cautious. Unfortunately, Nick got great placement with his sniper.  The scenario was basically kill-points, needing to win by two order dice more than your opponent destroyed.

But, again, the HMGs of the US were too powerful, and not enough suppression to stop the waves of IJN troopers. I did, however, manage to take out the spotter for his sniper. I used the mortar, the Sherman, and the scout car to take him out, trying to get an early order die in my column.

My scout car lines up a shot on the sniper… Finally got an order die in my column.

Like my game against Nick on Friday, this was a right bloody mess. And we ended up very close to a draw. We went into the final tourn with Nick at 5 dice captured, me at 4 dice captured.

But, all good things must end. After my Sherman rained MG fire against his lone sneaky suicide tank hunter on the turn before, the bamboo spearmen made their tank terror check and captured the Sherman.

Oh, and remember the medic? After forgetting to use him most of Friday, Nick kept reminding me. If only the fellow had brought morphine and band-aids with him. He got more ones and twos on his rolls than I’ve seen. At this event, his points would have been better spent adding two guys to the squads.

For the final game, I faced off against Bob’s German force on the crowded Ruined Winter table. We both agreed to ignore any winter rules and treat it as normal terrain.

My force was holding its own until he used a reserve end run to get a flamethrower team in via truck, unload, and wipe out my right flank.

Overall, the event was great. Good tourneys, great players with excellent sportsmanship. Jeff does an excellent job creating tables for players, each with a theme. He encouraged others to set up a table, and made a special award on Saturday, based on player votes for which of the three player-provided tables was the best.

Results from Bolt Action Day 2

  • 1st Andrew Verticchio – German
  • 2nd Spencer McGrath – Italians
  • 3rd Bob Beason – German
  • Best Sportsman Nick Copeland – Japanese
  • Best Painted Jeff Myrom – US Army
  • Best Table Andrew Verticchio
  • Wooden SpoonAlex Copeland – Germans

But wait, there’s more!

November, Fort Wayne IN, the weekend of November 10-12, the Death or Glory group is hosting Rumble on the River in my hometown of Fort Wayne.

This time, I’ll be running the Bolt Action events. Tentative plans are for a Blood Red Skies tourney on Friday evening and a three-round Bolt Tourney.

Pete, with DoG said he’ll update the main website once he recovers from running Motor City Mayhem. Watch our FB for more details once the DoG site is updated.