The OCTOBER WARGAMES ASSOCIATION (OWA) meets every Tuesday at its new location the Mosely All Services Club. This year I have been participating in its Bolt Action escalation league, the basic concept of this is that we each choose a platoon and equipment which is valued between 1939-1943 (just to enable the US to be included), then play 3 games with a 500 pts list, 3 games with a 750 pts list and 3 games with a 1000 pts list.
It will not surprise readers of this Blog that I have chosen to go with a 1940’s Battle of France re enforced platoon.
So what did my original list contain? This PDF is produced from easy armys Bolt action list creator.
So thats a 2nd Lieutenant, 2 Regular Section, 1 Tirailleurs Section, a MMG and a Medium Mortar.
In round one for my first game I played Ash and his British Reinforced Platoon (mainly Paras) in a meeting engagement. After 5 turns we had each destroyed 5 enemy units and it was declared a draw.
My Second game of round 1 was against Mike and his Afrika Korps in a game of Demolition – the French did well at keeping the Afrika Korps at bay until the final two rounds where there was a total collapse and a resounding win to the Africa Korps. The French only managed to take out 2 units of the Afrika Korps but had loss most forces by then.
My third game and the last at 500 pts was against Rob’s Germans: 1942 Operation Blue and was a game of Demolition again – this time neither side managed to break through and at end of turn 6 the game was declared a well fought draw, with each side inflicting 4 casualties.
So during the first round – the VB launchers really only came into effect in game 3 where they successfully pinned a unit and then kept it there. This of course also meant the unit with the VB launcher could not move but as I was using it in a defensive role this wasnt hardship. However at 20 pts each I believe they are potentially not worth having in every infantry section, so I will review this.
At the end of these 3 games I was sitting in 8th place, having drawn 2 and lost 1.
So onto the next round – and my 750 pts list – which added 3 motorcycles and side cars 2 with LMGS and 1 with A/T rifle, a FT17 light tank with MMG, 1 medium A/T gun, 1 Medium Howitzer, a Laffty s20 tow with 2 MMG and a Laffty heavy tow, I dropped the VB Launchers and replace the Tirailleurs with basic regular troops.
The fourth game and 1st at 750 pts I was up against Ian and his Soviet: Trans-Bakal Military District, this time it was a surrounded game, and Ian kindly let me defend. Alas for the Soviets nearly 1/2 their forces didn’t arrive on table until turn 5 which enabled the French to take out 9 soviet units whilst only losing 3 of their own. This was my first win of the competition, and had a couple of classic moments such as the 1 man operated medium howitzer taking out an entire Soviet infantry unit with direct fire, the French A/T gun spending majority of the game pinned and eventually getting off 1 shot which took out a Soviet Armoured car. The Soviet T24 driving into the middle of the village and being assault for 3 successive turns by French infantry who had no A/t weapons but eventually managed to immobilise it and jam its turrets.
The fifth game I faced James and his Hungarians in a game of No Mans Land. To be fair the presence of my FT17 carried the day – even though the Hungarians did manage to take it out at the end, this was my Second win of the competition, the Hungarians took out 3 of the French units but lost 5 of their own.
For the final game of the 750 pts round my French faced Simon and his 1942 DAK light Africa Division in a meeting engagement.
So at the end of this round I had managed to have 2 wins, 2 draws and 2 loses.
For the last round at a 1000 pts, I upgraded the FT17 to a Somua S35, gave my lieutenant a promotion to 1st Lieutenant and gave him a friend, provided extra men to my 3 units bringing them up to full strength, added a veteran infantry unit with tank killer capabilities and a VB launcher, Dropped the medium howitzer, added a boys A/t rifle, bought an inexperienced mortar team in, dropped one of the Motorcycles with LMG and added one VB launcher to one of the infantry sections.
At the time of writing this I have not seen the draw for round 3 nor the results from round 2.
I happy with my progress so far and very proud of my forces performance. I am looking forward to the next round and will try to better share battle reports and images.
So far I believe that my Impactfulness calculator has helped with my list writing and I will look to continue its development, especially to included the benefit of Full Strength which provides a second moral roll whilst at full strength so enables units to enter the table.
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