Journey To The Lead Belt

Warlord Games Bolt Action D Day Event 2019

     The weekend of 8th/9th of June saw my erstwhile gaming buddies, Danny, Richie and myself driving down to that beating heart of wargaming, Nottingham, for the first time in, ohh, must be six years (last time in Nottingham was to play out a WH40K mini campaign we had organised amongst ourselves and some other chums at Warhammer World over a weekend...and jolly good fun it was too...but I digress, back to the blog post) to take part in above mentioned Warlord Games Bolt Action D Day Event 2019!! A one day, three game D Day themed event (not tournament ) that they run both annually and once a year...probably both; and if they don't then they should.

     The weekend of gaming and juvenile banter started early for Danny and me as I stayed over at his Friday evening and we managed a couple of games of What A Tanker and our first game of Dungeon Saga; both of which we enjoyed but with the clock fast approaching 01.30 hours when we finished playing Dungeon Saga, we knocked our gaming fun on the head as Richie was picking us up at 06.30 and being an ex-guardsman he was going to be sure and have us on the road at 06.31 come what may. Sure as chips is chips, 06.31 Saturday morning saw us en-route to Nottingham; Danny still in his dressing gown and Rupert the Bear jim-jams clutching Wombat the Teddy (his childhood chum and second only in his affections to his wife; Danny's wife not Wombat the Teddy's) and a piece of toast with marmalade in his hand and me in my striped night shirt, matching night cap and Persian slippers, puffing away on my favourite Meerschaum pipe (sticking out of the car window so as not to fumigate the charabanc) whilst Richie looked every inch the dapper ex-Scots Guardsman land owner (he's got a front and back garden) in his Harris Tweed jacket, waist coat and cap, plus fours, sturdy brown brogues (with highly bulled toes caps that you could admire your reflection in, so polished are they) and Scots Guards tie; I tell you we looked like a right bunch of...well, that doesn't matter now, we were off!!    

  

    We arrived at Warlord Games later than planned after spending three hours more on the M6 than we expected due to the M6 southbound being closed due to an RTA (we missed our turn off for the A66 due to being deeply engrossed in a discussion about the merits of the RSO PAK40....bugger!!) so, with all plans of fitting in a cheeky, quick game of BA at Warlord Games HQ, we had a wee mooch around instead; coo-ing and aah-ing at lots of nicely painted stuff in the display cabinets, pawing box sets and kits that are "on the list" etc etc before going up to have a look at the event tables.

     The tables represented three distinct terrain parts of D Day; the beaches then the area just beyond the beaches divided into mostly rural and mostly urban tables and were, I think, a mix of terrain from a local wargames club (hopefully someone will put me right here) and a couple of bespoke terrain tables and also included Warlord Games Pegasus Bridge table (this was located in their shop on the ground floor along with a space for another table set up as one of the players at the event was wheel chair bound which was very accommodating of Warlord Games. I can only assume there's no lift in the building or wheel chair access to the upper floors). See the photos below for a better idea of the tables and their set up.

The event hall

One of the bespoke tables; well flipping tasty

Beach tables. Those black marks are actually beach obstacles
that have been primed for painting.

Beach tables with entrenchments...nice :D

Shell cratered beaches

Choo choo! I liked these trains..especially the carriages. The rest
of the table was a bit bare though

I do like what they have done with these toy trains. The
purchase of a couple of these has been added to the Want list

But as you can see, such a lot of open, bare areas

A nice resin model of a chateau

....but again, a lot of very open areas

One of the urban tables. A few trees would've made a difference

The second of the bespoke tables; really nicely laid out

      Now I am going to be critical here but not for the sake of being critical or to put down Warlord's or anyone else's efforts but because I believe Warlord could've made more of an effort. I can easily imagine a lot of work has gone into planning and preparing this event and there has been plenty of online build up to this and other Warlord D Day campaigns but I feel that Warlord let themselves down a bit with their tables.

     This was a themed event, and not just any themed event; it was D Day; practically 75 years to the day of the momentous occasion their latest campaign book is based on. This was a chance to show case their book and the scenarios, new units and theatre selectors contained within the book. and therefore the tables, in my opinion, should have been more up to the mark. Where were the hedge rows, walled gardens, wrecked vehicles, smashed buildings, telegraph poles, fallen trees, bomb craters etc? Where was the battlefield debris, especially on the beaches? Crop fields are so easily represented either by rush mats or teddy bear fur patches but they were noticeable by their absence. There were also, in my opinion, far too many open spaces, granted you are going to get that on the beaches, but inland, away from the beaches there should have been more hedges, walls, fences etc etc. 

     However, no doubt there are probably compelling reasons for the lack of all the aforementioned terrain and spotty table layout and, as this is the only time I have attended an event run by Warlord Games, if this event's terrain layout was the exception not the rule, then someone please put me right.  Okay critique over, back to the actual gaming. 

  The Games and My Experiences

     Pretty much the first thing we acquired when we reached Warlord Games Super Store, were our very own, pristine copies of Campaign D -Day: Overlord which came with the complimentary and rather nice Captain Colin Maud figure

My copy of  Campaign D-Day: Overlord. Already
showing signs of dog-earedness. Probably the only
wargaming book you will ever see with a condom
being used on the front page....

      We mulled over these whilst enjoying a beer or three later in the evening. Our initial impression was (and still is) very favourable. Personally I went straight to the New Units part of the book where I was equally mortified and glad to find that my Panzer 35Rs were less, lets say, efficient than I had thought they were. What I didn't know last week when I was dishing out the hurt to Richie's brave, square jawed US 82nd Airborne (see my last batrep in the post before this one) was that they, the Panzer 35Rs, have the following rules; Slow (6" Advance, 12" Run), One Man Turret (leadership test to Advance), Low Velocity Light Anti Tank Gun (+3 penetration rather than the +4 penetration that real light anti tank guns glory in) which meant my win wasn't a win and now I have to do it all over again; a mortifying discovery. Nonetheless I was glad to know that now I couldn't be labelled as "that guy"; the one with "the" list that is written purely for the win, which, given my generally appalling dice rolling is never going to be the case anyway.
      So with a weight lifted from my mind and a re-written list (that, in the end, nobody seemed to care about reading; all written with my new Crayola chunky crayons) I entered the fray along with my allies and foes...

     My List

Kampfgruppe Hurthe. Ready to throw the Allies back into
the sea!!

      My list was as follows; all my units were Regulars.
A tank platoon consisting of 3 Panzer R35s (low velocity light anti tank gun and coaxial mounted MMG) under the command of Leutnant Gunther Schute
A Panzer Grenadier platoon containing the following:
2nd Lt Gunther Hurthe plus runner. Armed with assault rifles
1 squad of 9 men (NCO plus 8) NCO armed with assault rifle, one LMG in the squad, remainder with rifles
2 identical squads of 8 men (NCO plus 7) NCOs armed with assault rifles
Medium mortar with spotter
Medium Machine Gun
Kubelwagen with MMG
2 Opel Blitz trucks with an MMG in each

The Games

      We played three scenarios; usual event and tournament stuff which I won't go on about in too much detail...BUT!! we all three enjoyed our games thoroughly, even though in second game Danny and I were faced off against each other. Our opponents were as nice a bunch of wargamers as you could hope to meet, and Warlord Games staff are cut from the  same cloth; they couldn't be nicer or more helpful.

  

     The games then;  Game 1 was Point Defence in which I, as the defender, received a sound cuffing. My opponent's list (British) included two FOOs (I can't really fault that as the British were inclined to rely upon the artillery to prepare the way for them so it was very thematic for D Day)  and he also, as the attacker, received a Preliminary Barrage!! Or rather I received it and it was quite brutal, brewing up one of my trucks and removing not a few casualties. His FOOs barrages, both arriving in turn 2, were also pretty effective, costing me my medium mortar and dishing out yet more pins.

If it's new, it's gonna brew! My truck full of Jerries takes a rather
nasty hit, killing four of the squad on board

An almost permanent attachment to my units; pin markers!

Oops A victim of NMS (New Model Syndrome) 

My MMG; not long for this game

  

Nice looking terrain pieces and a clever piece of marketing
by Warlord Games. My order for a Wurframen 40 (that
little dinky thing behind the truck) goes in this week :D

British Commandos advance

My Kubelwagen looking neglected as it has no pin marker.
An omission that was soon changed by Barry, my opponent,
and his Commandos

    

       As I said, I was the runner up in this game. Despite the result a lot of casualties I very much enjoyed the game. It made for an enjoyable experience trying to salvage something from the game, even if it was just for the sake of my bruised pride. 

       The chap I was playing against, Barry his name was (and doubtless still is), was a really nice bloke, and he played a really good game and was a deserved winner. 

     Next up I was paired with Danny (crikey, missus!!) and we played the Hold Until Relieved scenario with Danny needing relief...well at least his men were. He had brought a Royal Marine Commando list which included a Close Support Centaur, medium anti tank gun, sniper and medium mortar with a spotter.

My medium mortar in action. Not as effective as Danny's 

Commandos! And they're surrounded!!  And straining their
ears to catch the skirl of Piper Chillin (he's red hot on those
pipes...yes, he's a red hot Chillin piper....groan) 

Panzer Grenadiers. They don't like zer shkirl of the dudelsack!

A mighty Panzer R35 on the prowl....sort of

the ruin where the secondary objective was located along with
one of my squads which was getting mortared to bits

     Game 3 had me fighting another Hold Till Relieved mission against Martin who fielded a mixed bag of Allies; there were Commandos in Universal carriers, British Regular Infantry and a group of Free French Partisans backed up with a Sherman. there ensued a fierce battle to dominate the centre of the battlefield with Martin snatching defeat at the end; a worthy winner.

Behold the might of the Panzer Waffe!!

Heer firing line

Hanging on for dear life; 2nd squad cling to the secondary
objective

How not to put the frighteners on a Sherman

Obergefrieghter Klutz's squad; not the most willing participants
in this battle

Nearing the end of the battle, the men from Panzer Abteilung
100 push to capture both objectives but were foiled by the
arrival of the Sherman which blocked access to the primary
objective. Good game though and Martin was a very generous
opponent

      So that was my experience of my first trip to an event held at Warlord Games HQ; over all it was a very positive experience too and one I am very likely to repeat.

Ah, that's the mess bar opening, time for a quick pre-dinner snifter,

Pip pip for now,

The General