Blood Bowl

[Patrick Thistle]

Is that your retro packaging sw2borshch ?

[sw2borshch]

It's not, I just stumbled across it on the Web, but I certainly have owned innumerable similar pieces of packaging.

I also came across this, which I don't think I ever realised was a triptych.

[sw2borshch]

I used to play various GW and similar stuff in my younger days, have enjoyed reading bits and bobs about the Oldbeardhammer movement in recent years and picked up a copy of the core Bolt Action first edition rules second hand a couple of years ago, but have never played.

[Patrick Thistle]

Is that an elf firing a pistol on the middle one of the triptych?

Oldbeardhammer is amusing. I guess I'm an oldbeard bowler.

[sw2borshch]

Nah, it's an Amazon. They were one of the civilisations in Lustria, along with the Slann (plus Pygmy slaves, but best not dwelt on) and colonists from Norsca, and had limited access to Old Slann weaponry. See the Temple of Rigg scenario in the Second Citadel Compendium. The Amazon shown is zapping a Slann.

I had a lucky escape earlier. I went in a gaming shop in the town and fingered a Bolt Action Soviet starter set but got away with only buying the Call of Cthulhu starter set.

[Patrick Thistle]

The siren lure of the gaming shop shelves is hard to resist. Stay strong!

[sw2borshch]

http://realmofzhu.blogspot.com/2019/...dical.html?m=1

Some great stuff here about Oldbeardhammer, Amazons, Pygmies and leftiness.

[sw2borshch]

[sw2borshch]

[Eggchaser]

Weird how they chose the Bright Crusaders as the picture for the pack, when it was clear that the Reikland Reavers were the darlings of the game lore.

The Blood Bowl novels are hilarious.

[Tratorello]

Off to play my 5th game of Bolt Action this evening, starting to feel like I've got a handle on most of the rules so, hopefully, I can start to concentrate on being a bit more tactical.

[Patrick Thistle]

Decided to use the new werewolf player as my avatar. I thought it was in blue and amber stripes but it could also work for Hull City I guess.

[Patrick Thistle]

I succumbed and bought the Necromantic Horror team, mainly because the models are hilarious. As a bonus you get alternate heads for all.the figures so you can make 14 slightly different models out of the kit.

[Levin]

Bright Crusaders would be a nightmare to paint.

[Tratorello]

Played my 7th game of Bolt Action on Tuesday night, narrowly lost in a tight game where the scenario involved capturing and holding three objectives. It was my US airborne against Soviets (a counterfactual early Cold War goes Hot, I guess).

The most amazing thing was the Soviet sniper killing 6 times in a row, each kill required a roll, on a D6, of 3+ to hit and then 4+ to kill (basically a 1 in 3 chance each time).

If I've calculated it correctly the chance of doing that 6 times in a row is 1 in 729!

[Patrick Thistle]

Sometimes you get that streak. Might be advised to check the dice though.

[Tratorello]

Playing my 9th game of Bolt Action tonight, starting to get a little bored of my US Airborne so I might have to mix it up soon and play some Soviets or, possibly, Germans.

My 8th game, last week, was the first I've felt annoyed with my own poor play.

Effectively I lost the game in the deployment phase as I hampered my armour, a Sherman, by putting it in cover with no effective lines of sight, whilst simultaneously exposing it to long range pot shots from my opponents Marder tank destroyer (which did exactly what it said on the tin) and my medium mortar team by sticking the spotter in an equally stupid position where he could only direct fire onto a couple of squads rather than the relatively immobile artillery units (indirect fire effectively ranges in, making it easier to hit each turn providing the target unit doesn't move).

Despite these naive mistakes I did, at least, make a fight of it and it was a draw on objectives taken, but I lost on units destroyed as once my Sherman and bazooka teams were done for his Marder and Panther were free to do whatever they wanted as I had no other antitank capability.

My officer and a squad tried a heroic charge to clear some Germans off an objective hidden in some woods, which would have won me the game, but unfortunately they got caught out in the open and pinned out of the game.

Oh well, I learnt a lot, especially about being very careful not to box my armour in, as it's biggest advantage is it's mobility.

[Patrick Thistle]

I've only ever played Warhammer once but my opponent did the same thing with his Dwarf Thunderers by putting other units in front of them to protect them. Unfortunately my goblin archers could shoot over the dwarfs and decimate the Thunderers.

[Tratorello]

I've only ever played Warhammer once but my opponent did the same thing with his Dwarf Thunderers by putting other units in front of them to protect them. Unfortunately my goblin archers could shoot over the dwarfs and decimate the Thunderers.

Yep, this is pretty much what I did.

I put a medium machine gun team in front of my Sherman whose job was to protect an objective in my deployment zone, unfortunately this meant I could neither fire the guns on my Sherman OR move it without exposing the weaker side armour.

It sat there for two turns taking long range shots from the Marder, fortunately not taking damage, but then when I tried to move it the Marder put a 76mm shell straight through the side of it.

I suppose I could have moved the MMG team but that would have meant taking them out of the game for at least one turn as well.

All in all I made a right mess of setting up my troops as I was a bit obsessed with making sure everything was in cover and was then playing catch up for the rest of the game.

[Tratorello]

Well tonight's game was a lot of fun.

It was my 101st US Airborne plus Sherman armoured support against a mixed, ragtag force of inexperienced, regular and veteran Germans along with a Panzer 3 and a PAK-36 antitank gun.

We played a basic "kill points" game with the objective to kill as many enemy units as possible.

It was all very much ebb and flow in the first four turns, both of us had lost a couple of units outright and several others had lost a few men here and there until in the fifth turn (of six) one of his units catastrophically failed a morale check (a double six aka a FUBAR), panicked and fired at one of his own units almost entirely wiping it out. I think two men survived out of eight. It was by far and away the most effective shooting of any unit during the entire game and very much swung it in the American's favour having been severely outgunned on that flank for the previous few turns.

All in all another entertaining game and I feel like I played this one pretty well. I was able to dominate one side of the table by moving up a couple of squads supported by my Sherman's covering fire (I didn't pen it in this time!) and was then able to swing around from the side in a classic pincer movement. On the other side of the table my stubborn paratroopers were able to sustain a lot of fire but were certainly helped by the unfortunate "friendly fire" incident.

On the negative side my sniper was rubbish, barely hitting anything and certainly not doing any useful damage and my mortar team had trouble landing their shots in the correct postcode let alone on the units they were aiming for.

[Levin]

These paper models are delightful

[tracteurgarcon]

These paper models are delightful

They are fantastic.

[Tratorello]

Gearing up for my 10th game of Bolt Action tomorrow as I prepare to play in my first ever tournament at the end of the month. Have tweaked my army list to include some transport for some of my troops at the expense of my tank support.

On the plus side it gives me much more mobility but on the negative I lose my main anti-tank weapon.

My reasoning though is that by having an all infantry army I pretty much make any enemy anti-tank weapons redundant and I've got a couple of bazooka teams who can, at least, harass any armoured vehicles and keep them away from my veteran squads.

It's a risk as I've not played this list yet and the final lists had to be in today, so if it turns out to be a disaster there's no going back.

[Levin]

Is the game big enough that there is a meta and net lists? A tournament sounds cool

[Tratorello]

Is the game big enough that there is a meta and net lists? A tournament sounds cool

Yeah, I listen to a few podcasts and they're always going on about "the meta" and lists that are "cheesy". I'm not so sure there's net lists, as such, but there's definitely people who look at tournament winning lists and then copy them.

The good thing, though, is that Bolt Action seems pretty well balanced compared to some other games, so there's generally a way to counter most things, meaning that it's more about tactics and strategy than list building.

I'm looking forward to dipping my toe into the tournament scene as its at the local club where I play and I already know quite a few of the other players.