[Gordon L. Allen]

Hello,

I can identify with your struggles against Japanese opponents. I have had a similar situation with frustration; only I was playing U.S. Infantry forces at the time.

In terms of my opponent in question, he liked to play Chaos Space Marines when playing Warhammer 40K, and therefore chose (you guessed it) Japanese when selecting an army for Bolt Action. His whole strategy is to have fast-moving infantry squads (along with cavalry and bicycle squads) that can get up on you and close in hand-to-hand combat before you have a chance to do anything about it. It’s predictable. Also using units like snipers against you to mitigate special weapons teams, etc. is also very standard tactics. I haven’t played one-on-one with him in a while, but one of the last times I did in our local gaming store, when deciding which table we were going to play on – he scanned them all and made a bee-line for the table that had (you guessed it) roads on it… Was kind of irritating when I realized that he was trying to stack everything in his favor in advance.

Now – moving on from there…

The thing is with Japanese Army force players – They have brutal hand-to-hand units that you’re just not going to win against if you get in h-t-h with them… ESPECIALLY if the attacking unit is full strength. They are, however, susceptible to small-arms fire, just like any other infantry unit. It’s not enough to just give them multiple pins, because don’t they have a rule that allows them to ignore pins when trying to execute a charge order? So, that’s out… What you need to do is nail them with multiple units to whittle them way down before they ever get to you. The best way to do that is to just make sure you keep moving your infantry units back out of his charge range (make sure you know exactly what that is on the given board at the time… or things will not go well for you) and fire at him, and move back away from him, etc.

Just think through the math of this with me – if he has a full 12-man infantry squad that is rapidly advancing on you to close in h-t-h and you shoot at him with ONE of your squads, he’ll suffer casualties… but it won’t be enough to keep him from just massacring you when he gets there. If you shoot at that same unit with TWO of your infantry squads… he’s going to be whittled down pretty well… you may even win the hand-to-hand when he gets there, but your targeted squad (if it even survives) will be decimated. Now… if you shoot at him THREE times, he probably has very little left in the way of men from that squad; and that’s when you go in to action and polish him off… Try to bait him and keep moving; shoot with the squad and then move back (so what if you have a -1 to hit for movement… you have to accept that). Then the other partner squad of yours is standing there shooting at the approaching enemy as well…

I’m going to help clarify this a bit more by relating an orally told battle report that someone else played versus this same opponent, that was played right after that last time I played him one-on-one:

My other friend had put together a U.S. Marines force. When I had related my frustrations to him, he said “Yeah, that’s what a Japanese force is good at, and the U.S. Marines and Japanese armies are basically both geared to fight each other effectively…” So, he said “I knew exactly what he was going to do… I knew he was going to run his bicycle squad over, and then also run everything he could down roads so he could quickly get in charge range. So, I used the board in such a way as to bait him and I just kept moving away from him and I slaughtered him… Then he said ‘I really don’t like this game and don’t want to play anymore…'”…

All armies are good armies, and there is certainly nothing wrong with the Bolt Action Russian army. You need to have a good idea of your army’s strengths. It is also appropriate\not wrong to want to change up your army composition to see what works better in a given situation. One of the good things about the Russian army is that you can get lots and lots of cheap Infantry squads. Isn’t one of your national characteristics that you get to bring a FREE inexperienced\green squad? Additionally (and this is a big one) isn’t there a rule (can’t remember the name of the rule) that lets you bring inexperienced (can’t remember if it’s inexperienced or something else) squads for a cheaper points value, and then the first time they take fire you role a dice to see what kind of squad it turns out to be – inexperienced, regular, veteran, etc.? This is huge, and a strength that is perfectly suited for playing an opponent like the Japanese. If your squads that are like that wind up being green or inexperienced, you don’t care… they are for dying… just keep an officer and commissar nearby to help with orders\morale tests. They are for SHOOTING the opponent…

Look at it like this – if HE’S going to bring a hand-to-hand army that will munch yours in hand-to-hand and go “Ha! Ha! I won the game…” then YOU bring an army that spams Infantry squads that are way more than he can deal with, and you have way more order dice than he can deal with… and shoot the crap out of his and then you go “Ha! Ha! I won the game…”

Good Luck and hang in there!

Gordon

 

[Gordon L. Allen]

Hello,

The main force I play with is a 1000 U.S. Infantry early\mid-war force (it is themed for Operation Torch\North Africa).

While there may be little variations, I usually take the following:

Command – 1st Lieutenant armed with sub-machine gun plus additional solder armed with sub-machinegun. Command rating is Regular.

3 8-man infantry squads, which include a BAR. I have one squad with the NCO armed with an SMG. The other 2 NCOs are armed with rifles. The squad with the NCO armed with a sub-machine gun is given “Tank Hunter” and all are given hand grenades. All are Regular.

1 Light Mortar Team – Regular

1 Bazooka Team – Regular

1 Medium Howitzer + Spotter and Gun Shield  – Regular

1 M3 HalfTrack with pintle-mounted HMG – Regular (This is for the Infantry squad with Tank Hunter to ride in.)

1 Jeep – Regular (This is for either the Lieutenant team or the Bazooka Team to ride in.

1 M4 Sherman – Veteran (If I’m really wanting to be as authentic as possible, I’ll take an M3 Lee instead.)

 

[Gordon L. Allen]

Yes, interesting question.

Considering that shooting range berms\backstops are made of earth and do a great job of dissipating the energy of a fired bullet, I always treat something like a railroad berm as heavy cover.

Bearing that in mind, I would think that if your troops are hunkered down in a ravine or crater to where more than half of the models are obscured from the shooter’s point of view, I would consider it to be heavy cover.

This of course is determined as a prior agreement with your opponent.

Just my two cents – hope this helps.

[Gordon L. Allen]

Ok, I stand corrected on the Spotter thing, and that’s very good to know.

Thanks, everyone!

[Gordon L. Allen]

I agree with “Master Chief” on his answers with the following caveat, and bearing in mind I don’t have my rulebook in front of me –

As a US player, I can cite an example of this – if I take a Jeep and arm it with either a .30 cal or .50 cal machine gun, then it looses its transport capability and becomes an armored car.

However, in the case of a Truck or a Halftrack, one is able to add either HMGs or MMGs as appropriate, and the transport still retains the ability to transport troops. I just don’t remember where this is in the rules at the moment.

Regarding Forward Observers riding in transports – “Master Chief” is absolutely correct. In order to call in a strike, the observer must be given a “Fire” order. In order to do that, you have to dismount from the vehicle. However, I want to point out that you MAY have a SPOTTER riding in a vehicle that can still spot while remaining in the transport.

Hope this helps,

Gordon Allen

[Gordon L. Allen]

Ok,

I don’t have the rulebook or Army book(s) in front of me right now,so I’m not positive on the verbiage on this. I’m pretty sure of the following, however:

You army must contain an officer (first Lt., 2nd Lt., or higher, etc.).

There are additional, optional command units you can include, but are not mandatory, such as Medical officer, Forward Observation Officer, etc.

The commanding officer is mandatory.

Hope this helps.

[Gordon L. Allen]

Great job on these!

[Gordon L. Allen]

Nice! I’ve not used one in a game; I’d be curious as to how they do.

[Gordon L. Allen]

Hello,

What Stuart Harrison said – The main rule books are basic guidelines per nation, but when you have the nation’s supplement, it takes precedence.

Touching on item #4 on your list – regarding gyro stabilizers – if I’m not mistaken, that’s only offered on certain tanks, and if you want it, the tank has to be a Veteran. I don’t have the rulebook or supplements in front of me, but the basic idea is – if it is listed as an option with the tank, then you get it if you make it Veteran.

The rationale being that crews had to be trained to use the gyro stabilizers because they were tricky to use. Inexperienced crews often just didn’t use them because they were complicated and well… tricky… But, once you learned to use them, they were quite effective. Making your tank a Veteran grants it the same ability as U.S. Infantry – it can move and shoot without penalty.

Hope this helps, and enjoy!

[Gordon L. Allen]

Your US stuff looks really nice! Keep it up!

[Gordon L. Allen]

Hello,

This is an interesting topic and question. I would tend to agree with your opponent, for the following reasons:

Your AFV (tank, etc.) wouldn’t know if there were a clear line of site until he got to the destination position. So, if you’re down the road a bit, maybe around a turn or side of a building, and you need to MOVE to get to the place where you’re going to fire – then I don’t think it would be fair, sporting or realistic to take a laser line and pre-sight it first.

Having said that, I DO think it’s acceptable to pre-sight with a laser if you’re already in position and you think you have a shot. The idea is that your tank crew look over in the direction of the target (the commander looks over with binoculars and then the gunner looks through his scope and says “I ain’t got a shot…”, so they choose another target.

The only real way your scenario may be acceptable is to do something very wasteful in terms of your orders – If your crew actually dismounted and advanced up to the location in question, THEN you could pre-sight it. THEN, they’d have to wait until next turn, advance BACK to the vehicle and mount up. THEN, 3 turns later, you could move to the location in question and fire! Not a good use of your AFV! 😉

Cheers,

Gordon

[Gordon L. Allen]

Not seeing any images?

[Gordon L. Allen]

I love it! The M3 Stuart is one of my favorite tanks! You’ve done a great job here!

I developed a love for it when I was a kid, reading the “G.I. Combat” comic book! (For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, the comic featured “The Haunted Tank”, which was an M3 Stuart commanded by a descendant of General Jeb Stuart from the American Civil War…

Cheers,

Gordon

[Gordon L. Allen]

Jamie, these are fantastic!

[Gordon L. Allen]

Thanks very much!

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