Month 2 Redux

A second round of games was played month 2. Eurgh no comment from the 3rd.

	US Airborne	184th Italian	H.G. Division	Gebirgsjager	US 3rd Infantry
Win	3	3	2	1	0
Loss	0	1	2	3	3
Draw	0	0	0	0	0
Played	3	4	4	4	3
Points	9	9	6	3	0

Campaign

The HG Score a win over the 3rd Infantry to move up to 3rd place and the Italians defeat the Gebirgsjager.

Axis 3

Allies 5

Month 2: Blue on Blue

So the clanking of treads and rattle of machine guns have gone quiet and the dust has settled on month two of the Bolt Action escalation league.

Scores on the wars are..

	US Airborne	184th Italian	Gebirgsjager	H.G. Division	US 3rd Infantry
Win	3	2	1	1	0
Loss	0	1	2	2	2
Draw	0	0	0	0	0
Played	3	3	3	3	2
Points	9	6	3	3	0

3pts for a win 1pt for a draw

This month saw the jeepborne airborne and the Italians go head to head for top dog. The HG Division even managed to snag a win dragging the Gebirgsjager down to their level.

Campaign

This puts the Allies further ahead. As the second game was blue on blue only the US/Italian game counted.

Axis 2 

Allies 4

Hobby

Everyone completed their allotted painting tasks, although for some it was touch and go (thankfully for me the check in was delayed a week). The US 3rd did not see the field due to a bout of illness striking their HQ.

Player	1000 Pts Painted	Games Played	Blog Post
Jon	2	2	2
David	2	2	2
Ed	Bye	2	2
Tom	2	2	2
Darren	2	1	2

Month 3

So final month is upon us already and we all have our final 500 points to add,  remember:

• You can field a single platoon for every 1000 points so you can field a second platoon now.
• Each platoon must include a platoon HQ and 2 Rifle Squads.
• If you include more than one platoon then you must include a company HQ.
• Lists are chosen from the basic BA selector with FOW lists for Italy used to dictate equipment and general organization.
• Units can be chosen from the above based on a time frame of Sep 43 (mid war) to Jun 44 (late war)
• You must keep the original list fielded last month.
• No vehicle over DEF 8, Forward Air Observers or Forward Artillery Observers in the first 500 points.

5th Gebirgsjäger - Month 2

The first month of this campaign was one of mixed fortunes for me with one win and one loss.  The first game was fairly successful (possibly in part due to a slight misreading of the sniper rules in my favour) but my troops were quite static.  In the second game, against Tom's yanks, the all infantry list seriously suffered for it's lack of mobility. I had barely made it half way to the objective before the american CO had bravely sprinted off the board with the intelligence!

To help deal with this, the first on the list for month two was a truck to carry my smg armed assault squad up field quickly.  With a transport capacity of twelve I can also fit in a weapon team and/or the CO if needed.

The rest of my choices are there to let me try out some new things: an HMG team can lay covering fire more efficiently than my expensive infantry squads, a 105mm LG40 recoilless rifle gives me some artillery support, and a panzerfaust team should be able to deal with any armour that pops up,

I also added some armoured support of my own.  A little research revealed that the 5th were equipped with a batallion of captured Italain Semovente's.  One of these (the 75/18 variant) quickly made it into my list.  It mounts a medium howitzer, so combined with the LG 40 I should have a good amount of artillery and light anti armour capability as required.

The few points left over were used to top up the smallest infantry squad with a couple of extra men.

But the stars of the show have to be... the pack mules!  These are not in my list at the moment, but I couldn't resist making up a couple for decoration (I can't really see the point of them in game to be honest!). They are Peter pig horses with green stuff baggage.

Reinforcements!

TV-Show: Cosmic Patrol - Pilot Episode - Season 1

Ep. #	Title	Directed By	Starring	Date Aired
Pilot	Comet of Mystery	Darren Hardy Jon C Tom Clover	Jon – Captain Cody Carragher Tom  - William “Bat-Ears”  Bradley Darren – Audrey Orion Michael – M34 - Bel Ed – Professor Yawitz	12-Nov-1965
The Crew of the Atomic Annie are on a desperate mission to intercept a mysterious comet but before they can get there they have to deal with a rogue kill bot bought on board by their own intelligence agent Audrey Orion. Bumbling Venusian Professor Yawitz suffers a transporter tube accident and can’t tell left from right. Audrey and Bat- Ears mange to switch the kill bot from kill to dance setting and Yawitz shoots the ships cat by accident. Captain Carragher “heroically” auto pilots the ship past some comet debris but once they reach the comet they find it crawling with Space Pirates! The crew dispatch special envoy M34-Bel in the hope he can talk the pirates into surrender (or the pirates will get rid of M34-Bel for them) while they develop a sun cream strong enough to block out the intense solar radiation coming from the comet. M34-Bel discovers the Space Pirates are equally blessed with their own alien envoy and finds a kindred spirit, but when contact is lost with the ship Captain Carragher decides to storm the comet…. As the comet disintegrates under the Atomic Annie’s Hyper-Drill, the Captain manages to convince the pirates to surrender and the crew escape using Audrey’s Phasic Reality Distorter. Guest Stars: Peter Lore as the Alien Envoy and Slim Pickens as Pirate Captain Grimtitz

buy the series on video here

“Tanks, But No Tanks” - The Airborne Opt For Friendly Fire

You can probably tell by that moaning sound emanating from the other posts that I had a fairly decent first round of games. Bringing jeeps in my first 500 points seems to have been fortunate, since they arguably won me both games.

In the first, just driving units quickly off the opponent’s table edge was enough to win the game – which seemed all a bit too easy. I imagine that the smaller scale against the table size and low points all played in my favour here, as I was able to exploit the space and hide my jeeps for a 1940s version of the Cannonball Run.

“It was really that easy”

The second game saw me have to grab an objective from the middle of the table, and a bit of fortune on drawing table edges meant I had a road running right where I needed it while David’s forces had to hike through some fields. Burt Reynolds time again for my jeep, which drove up and dropped off my bazooka team and officer. A quick passing of the objective between them and my officer was able to, ahem, ‘valiantly’ make off to safety like Usain Bolt (a white Usain Bolt, that is, since we don’t allow racial mixing in the U.S. army, no sir!).

“Job done, troops”

So, two victories based on speed and manoeuvrability (almost sounds like I planned it?) – but where next?

I knew that there was likely to be plenty of armour hitting the table in the next 500 points – especially with Jon’s broken Italians, who already had a flame-thrower tank thing before month two.  

It seemed that for me it was a case of having to join in with a Sherman – except this would wipe out most of my next 500 points… unless…

Like a driving range for Bazookas?

Rather than taking a tank, why not take some cheaper anti-tank options? All I need is a couple of decent shots, right?

I added an extra bazooka team to my list to go with the existing one and the Howitzer – and at 78 points, it gave me plenty to play with.

 Since mobility worked so well last time, I wanted to add the two trucks I was forced to leave out in the first 500 points into my list. Ideally I would have added a machine gun to each of them, but I needed the points elsewhere. But at least, with a carrying capacity of 18 men per truck, I would be able to get my troops where I needed them. I also added an extra unit to my list – keeping it simple and copying the existing two (SMGs / Rifles, and NCO). With the extra troops I also added another MMG-sporting jeep to help harry the enemy.

With plenty of points saved on the price of a tank I added a sniper team too - they are a good way of annoying enemy units as well as taking down other snipers – and cheap at 67 points (veteran).

However, something was still missing from the list. Sure, there was mobility, troops, and some decent firepower, but I needed a game-changer. Something broken. Something that could potentially back-fire and completely destroy my own units…

I needed a Forward Air Observer – with the pre-requisite two shots per game (‘cause it’s the Americans, b*tches!).  

“That was close”

Here’s the list in full:

2nd Lt (Veteran) – 65pts

Bazooka (Veteran) – 78pts

Bazooka (Veteran) – 78pts

Jeep (Veteran) – 25pts

Jeep (Veteran) with MMG – 40pts

Jeep (Veteran) with MMG – 40pts

2.5 Ton Truck (Regular) – 51pts

2.5 Ton Truck (Regular) – 51pts

M2A1 Medium Howitzer (Veteran) – 84pts

Unit 1 – NCO with SMG plus 4 Rifles & 2 SMG – 100pts

Unit 2 – NCO with SMG plus 4 Rifles & 2 SMG  - 100pts

Unit 3 - NCO with SMG plus 4 Rifles & 2 SMG  - 100pts

Sniper Team (Veteran) – 67pts

Forward Air Observer (Veteran) – 115pts

Total – 994

“Next month’s reinforcements on order?”

I have no idea how this list will work and if it will really be able to deal with the tank-meta, but hey, it’s only month two, and reinforcements will be on the way for month three (I have a tank on stand-by).

Besides, there is the chance that the air observer will wipe out either me or the enemy in the first turn – no point in planning anything much tactically, then!

“No plans!”