Dice of Legends: 750 Bolt Action Tournament at the Battlezone!

My friend Chris and I loaded up and took a road trip down to Avon Park to the Battlezone to play in their 750pt tournament. Chris brought the British Desert Rats and I pulled together my German Heer army to lend a hand to the axis side. After a 2 hour drive we arrived at the Battlezone! Not your typical gaming club location! Ed the owner is a great guy and John the local SARGE for Warlord ran a fantastic tournament!

My list was:

2^nd Lt with 1 extra man with Assault Rifles

1 Pioneer Squad of 5 men with a flamethrower

2 Squads of Veteran Grenadiers with 4 Assualt rifles and a rifle in the squad. One squad had a Panzerfaust.

1 251/16 Flamethrower Halftrack

1 Puma

1 Veteran Sniper Team

1 Regular Truck

The store had amazing scenery offering a variety of tables including several city/town based ones! Check them out!

Game 1: Top Secret- Josh (British)

Josh had:

Lt with 2 extra men with rifles

2 full sized Veteran squads with LMGs and rifles

Cromwell Tank

Greyhound

Artillery Observer

Meet Josh!

I lost the dice off for sides, not which was a huge factor in this game as both table edges was filled with rough terrain and buildings. My opponent picked his side of the table and I setup my sniper after he picked a spot for his Artillery Spotter.

The first two turns was mostly us moving our units onto the table with my Puma taking a shot at his Greyhound and missing. He did not recce with his, his tank tried to nail the Puma but it fell back into the ruins and popped out again on turn 2 to fire and miss yet again! Josh dropped his Artillery strike on the first turn placing it in the most direct route to the objective. He had deployed his two squads and officer close to one another ready to move over the bridge and grab the objective. Most of my other squads closed into the ruins except the truck that had the Pioneers and one of the Grenadier squads, in retrospect I should have had the officer in there as well, but it didn’t make a huge impact. The truck after making it out of rough terrain first turn was able to roll up behind a pile of rubble to avoid being shot by most things, and then I waited.

Turn 3-4 is when the poo hit the fat for my opponent. My sniper took out his forward observer. My 251/16 showed on turn 3 and fired a flame shot at both the Greyhound and tank on my right side. Both took a pin marker but both also passed their tests to avoid panic. The 251/16 had the luck of the angels as both the Greyhound and tank missed it, at this point I doused both shots on the tank as the Puma took out the Greyhound. The tank held firm. At the end of turn 3, I slid the truck over the bridge, had the Grenadier squad grab the objective (The German Secret Agent Helga with important war plans of the British) and the Pioneer squad jumped out and hosed one of the Veteran squads with a flamethrower and rifle shots point blank. They failed their test and fled the table. The top of 4 was critical to if the pioneers would die or not. The first dice pulled was mine! Yes! I hit the other squad; again my opponent lost another squad as the pin markers was a decent roll 3 or 4. Poof! Another squad dead leaving the officer and his two men and a tank with a few pin markers on it. My truck was already racing back to my table edge at this point and Josh conceded victory to me, I still wanted to see if I could move the truck off the table legally to see if it was a win or tie for us and the truck just made it to the edge at the end.

Game table for Game 1

Sniper takes up a good spot.

Lt and his adjunt advance!

The British prowl the field.

Attack of the 251/16!

Pioneers take the bridge! BURN!

Grenadiers grab Helga and make a break for the truck!

Random cool shot of one of the other players planes!

Game 2: Point Defense- Joseph (Japanese)

2 Lt’s 2^nd (one man with rifle) Regular

2 Squads of 12 Japanese Grenadiers with rifles (Vet)

2 smaller 5 man squads of Grenadiers with Rifles (vet)

2 Medics (single man) (vet)

6 Suicide bombers (Inexp)

Joseph the Japanese!

We rolled for Attacker/Defender, I won and went Defender. I figured the Japanese as the Attacker would be tougher for him than for me. We setup our snipers and he placed his suicide bombers out, wow….this was going to be an ugly game.

We made a few mistakes as he placed some units out that should have started off the table and we missed preparatory bombardment as well. He slid his units back a run move so that was fine and I let him resolve the bombardment since we has just only pulled about 1/3 of the dice when we caught the issue.

This was a game of cat and mouse for most of the early turns. The 251/16 drove out from behind a building and fired on two squads. Alas, I rolled only 1d6 instead of 2d6 as I was thinking infantry instead of vehicle! It has been a few months since I have had an active game and really had a chance to use the 251/16. To me, this would have wiped the squads out faster and perhaps swung the game in my favor from a draw to a win.

His sniper kept missing and the only claim to fame for my sniper was killing an officer towards the end of the game. One of his smaller squads was down to 2 men ran into the church and was promptly ambushed by the Grenadiers in the building killing one. The lone Japanese trooper ran into the building and we went into a second round of hand to hand rolls before the sniper team killed the Japanese soldier and continued their sniper love.

I was able to shoot 5 out of 6 of the suicide bombs, setting Ambush works wonders to protect your vehicle from these instances. The disappointment was classic when I would down one, two and well the third finally made it around the corner and caught the 251/16 in the end and blew it to hell. Still it drew a great deal of attention and fear. One of the other classic moments was the suicide bomber charged out of a building at the Puma, which promptly backed up and around the corner. I had to show the player the rules that this is legal and to his shock failed to make contact! Next turn he tried to charge it again (cue up the Benny Hill music) and the Puma backed up again and shot him with the machine gun!

When the Japanese could assault it was ugly, very ugly. A heavy terrain board and a good player could really hand someone their ass in a game from my after game analysis.

The game ended on turn 6 with a squad that had gone down and had a bunch of pin markers on it, a medic and officer (I think) holding the one objective on my right. The middle one was contested by my officer with a truck parked near to prevent an easy charge on my officer. I had the Puma sitting on the other objective but sadly vehicles do not contest. I should look up if I could have tank shocked as it is a “light tank” classed scout car.

Japanese Snipers in the clock tower!

251/16 races forward to drive off the Japanese.

Germans and Japanese rumblein the streets.

Puma tries to drive off the Japanese from the objective!

Game 3: Hold Until Relieved- Angel (Germans SS)

His list:

Lt (Vet) 2^nd with 1 man with Assault Rifles

2 units of 6 man SS Waffen Squad 2 ARs, 2 Panzerfausts, 4 Rifles (Vet)

1 Fallschirmager Squad of 5 men with 2 Panzerfausts, 5 rifles (Vet)

Heavy Mortar Team with Spotter (Vet)

Med. Machine Gun Team (Vet)

Panzerschreck Team (Vet)

Sniper Team (Vet)

Angel

He won the roll and opted to defend the church that was in the center of the board. He placed his sniper out, his observe and I had my sniper out (as per the rules for advance placement of these units). His two unit choices were a squad and a medium machine gun.

I setup my infantry, my vehicles in reserve; the truck was loaded with the pioneer squad, officer and a Grenadier squad.

This was a slap down and back and forth game. I quickly pushed to the church; the flamethrower fear from the Pioneer squad made his MMG team leave the church and was promptly shot apart between the Grenadiers on that side and the sniper team to finish off the last man. The other squad skirted around and found the truck racing to them dumping out everyone and plastering the squad to a single man.

Slowly his other units arrived and it was hit and misses at this point. I was holding the church but just barely and he had units advancing on it. My 251/16 was in flames due to his Panzerschreck team! Oh if the dice had been mine that team would have been toast as well as the squad near the church in the graveyard.

In retrospect, I should have pulled the truck out in front of the 251/16 keeping my vehicle closer to avoid it being destroyed and let it act as mobile cover for the half track. Lesson learned. Still it was classic to set the bell tower on fire and burn his sniper to nothing.

The game ended with a flat draw, he could have pushed those last 3 Pioneers out of the building he would have won but there was not enough time. Turn 6 and the game did not continue!

2 Draws and 1 Win. Not bad, still I feel if I had done the flamethrower rules right in the first game that it would have been a game changer. I think I made all fuel check rolls but I could not recall, I figure a marker may be in order to be a good reminder for an army of this theme. The last game could have been a winner for me if I had just done the truck gag and defended the 251/16 just in case I didn’t get the first die.

Still, it was a good time visiting the Battlezone, it was great to meet Ed and see John again as well as meeting new players and was very refreshing from player the old 40k burnout games with players obsessed with power gaming.

I look forward to September and heading back down for the 1k event!