566 - Bolt Action Game: 11AD & Paras Vs Germans, 2000pts

Hullo, All.

Well, here is a brief overview of the 2000pt game we had at the club last Friday: this time I allied with Alex and his Paras once again against the Germans. A new scenario and a new opponent, too: our very sporting foe was a chap called Adam, and with the gorgeous table that Alex'd set up, he suggested we play one of the missions from the 'Battleground Europe' expansion: the Allies had to seize a bridge from the Germans before they could blow it. Both sides had good, fluffy lists, and with one normal and one tank platoon, Adam's force was appropriately tank-heavy.

Fog of war. Alex's Paras run toward the bridge,
whilst my 1 Section (on the right) gives covering fire.

Too much fog of war? - the utterly reckless driver of 2 Section's
lorry starts gunning his engine. Foolhardy.

Long story short: the plucky Brits absolutely triumphed. When 'time' was called (at the end of turn 4, I think), Adam was down to two heavily-pinned tanks, his officer, a spent air observer and half a grenadier squad.

For our part, I had lost one lorry and three riflemen, and Alex had lost three Paras.

The bridge was ours.

In retrospect, Adam was up against it, as we were using a scenario aimed at the Germans defending a wide, heavy duty bridge with better field of fire...but even so, the dice gods really were NOT on his side.

My two 75mm guns open up on his tanks.
And yes there was a 1" firing corridor!

For instance, when Alex's artillery observer called down his fire, it was a.m.a.z.i.n.g: it killed outright his MG42 unit and his medium mortar before also destroying his Puma(!) AND heavily pining two of his remaining tanks. 

The arty was centred on the roof, bottom-right.
Prior to its arrival, there were two German squads there too!

Ouch.

When mine came in the following turn, it dropped short (I rolled a '1'!) and pinned pretty much every unit in our force which hadn't already been pinned by Adam's annoying airstrike.

The dice were on our side. 

Memorable moments (in addition to Alex's artillery): 

• Two first-round shots with my faithful medium mortar destroyed a (different) MG42 team followed by the remains of one of the two German squads guarding the far bank of the bridge in a building. 
• Alex's jeep-borne flamethrower finally getting into action and torching the guard unit in the nearside building, Toasty.
• My 2 Section in their lorry suddenly flies across the bridge and right over the other side, before being machine-gunned down by an MG42 that I myself had just advised Adam to put on 'Ambush'. D'oh! Oh well, the troops within lost only a couple of their number and whist they provided a distracting target for the Germans for the next turn until they could occupy the far-bank building, their truck proved something of an embuggerment to the enemy - lying aflame, as it did, right on their crossroads. Oddly, despite us telling Adam that his large, tracked tanks could safely roll over it or shunt it away, he instead used it for cover, creating for himself a situation of significant gridlock. Cue well-timed artillery.

2 Section's lorry creates a chokepoint, whilst its
erstwhile passengers de-bus and hop over the wall.

And that's about it!

Endgame. My firing line moves up to the river bank.
Alex brought along an Archer too: a novelty to me.

Endgame. The Paras and 2 Section invest the far-bank house...
The lone figure on the right is the doomed German HQ. 

It's now the following Saturday, and since this game I've finished two more units (yay!) and played another game of Bolt Action...so I've got some catching up to do.

Cheers,

- D.