AAR 1- British Paras vs Heer

After Action Report 1

Here are just a few pics from a Bolt Action game from this weekend. I had a bit of time spare & was looking forward to putting a few new pieces out on the table. As a result, I didn't take many pics during the game, but snapped a few when I remembered...

Since completing most of my British paras during Lockdown, I've had little chance to field them, so this was a treat. I also got to use my watertower, high walls, train tracks & a new terraced house row for the first time (blog entries for those soon...)

The British were attempting to push into the outskirts of town, but the Germans held good positions in the hotel and its surrounds. The paras had to resort to a dash up the left flank along the railway tracks. Here, some engineers in their Universal Carrier get the jump on a grenadier squad holding the junction.

Viewed from the British table edge, some of the paras support units go about their work. The 3" mortar was quite ineffective for the most part, but dropped a perfect smoke round right in front of the hotel on turn 3. It managed to stay for the remainder of the game & screened the advance on, & eventual storming, of the ground floor by a para section.

The sniper on the top of the watertower was more deadly, taking out a couple of squad leaders and an LMG team, earning his keep sufficiently.

In the background you can see my Tetrarch tank burning. I forgot that panzerfaust troops can split their fire from the rest of their unit, so got one right in the face whilst the engineers were facing off against the rest of squad. Damn...

Here we have an Aufklarungs/ Recon team debussing from their halftrack to deal with a para officer. Fire from several directions kept the pins high on this team, but they killed the officer's radio operator, only for the plucky first Lieutenant to fend them off from inside the orchard with some inspired shooting from his Sten gun.

(Apologies for the ad hoc smoke in the background. Never had one land before & had no templates to represent them when it did! Raided the bathroom cabinet & the misses' cotton wool products so warfare could continue...)

A shot here of the back of the terraces & the allotment behind. The chickens seem unconcerned by the sounds of battle over the way. Shows the reverse of the houses & my experimentation with brick paper quite nicely though.