Bolt Action Battle Report: Winter War Meeting Engagement

I finally had my first game of Bolt Action recently, after years of wanting to give it a try. My friend Seamus agreed to show me the ropes using the Winter War forces I have painted. It worked out to about 630 points on each side, made up entirely of infantry. I fielded the Finns and Seamus commanded the inexperienced Soviet horde. We played the fairly straightforward Meeting Engagement scenario out of the rulebook. In this scenario, any forces not held in reserve would move onto the table in the first turn, and one victory point would be scored for each enemy unit destroyed. It turned out to be a pretty exciting and dramatic battle. Have a look below to see how it went.

Warlord Games plastic Soviet Infantry painted for Winter War

Back when I pre-ordered my copy of the 2nd edition Bolt Action rule book, Warlord Games were giving away a free box of infantry with pre-orders. Unfortunately the Winter Soviet Infantry weren't an option, so I went with the regular Soviet Infantry box. I figured, given the supply difficulties the Soviets had at the start of the Winter War, it would be fine to have a couple units in the army without greatcoats. A lot of the options in the box aren't useful for a Winter War force, but I tried to get the most I could out of it, mixing in some extra heads I had from the Baker Company Winter War Kickstarter.

What I ended up with is three units. I made one unit of 12 in padded jackets and helmets, including a light machine gun. I made one unit of twelve in caps, a few with molotov cocktails. This will act as the "free" unit of green infantry with anti-tank grenades allowed in the Soviet army list. I also made one unit of NKVD border guard with three sub-machine guns. Have a look at the results below and let me know what you think.

Baker Company Winter War Soviets First Wave

My first batch of Baker Company Winter War Soviets (from their long-ago Kickstarter campaign) are finally finished. Below you can see pictures of the finished first wave (consisting of 6 squads of 10 infantry each and an officer with three infantrymen accompanying) plus two commissars and a standard bearer from the second wave of stretch goal extras. If you're interested in how I painted them, you can find all the details in my previous post: Painting Winter War Soviets. I came up with a pretty quick method that allowed me to paint this many infantry relatively (for me) quickly. Since what is pictured only amounts to about 600 some odd points for Bolt Action, I still have quite a lot more painting to do, including all the other Kickstarter extras. Let me know what you think so far.

Painting Winter War Soviets

I have finalized my process for painting my Winter War Soviet infantry. There are a lot of steps, but most of them go very quickly and don't require careful painting or much skill, so I was able to get my infantry painted relatively quickly using this process. The paints I used are mostly out of print Citadel paint colors, but hopefully by looking at the pictures below for each stage you can figure out an equivalent color to use, if you want to follow a similar process.

Here is the full list of steps. Further down I have close up pictures showing the results of applying each step. The order can be changed around on some of the steps, and they are actually in a slightly different order in the pictures. I primed some of the models white and some grey, and it didn't seem to make much difference, so either is fine.

1. Codex Grey - basecoat greatcoats, equipment, M27 caps, bases
2. Adeptus Battlegrey - basecoat black boots and rifle metal
3. Fortress Grey - wet brush greatcoats, M27 caps, and equipment
4. Fortress Grey - highlight boots, rifle metal
5. Skull White - dry brush greatcoats, M27 caps
6. Mechrite Red - paint collar diamond patches and cap patches
7. Nuln Oil - wash coat, cap, rifle metal, black boots, and bases
8. Calthan Brown - basecoat belt, ammo pouches, rifle wood, blanket roll, gloves, entrenching tool handle, brown ankle boots, khaki pants/puttees/helmets, and NCO fleece cap (this is the hardest step, and I actually broke it up into multiple steps when painting up 30 of these guys at a time)
9. Desert Yellow - edge highlight rifle wood, wet brush gloves, blanket roll, brown ankle boots, khaki
10. Bleached Bone - paint rifle straps, dry brush khaki and cap fur
11. Devlan Mud - wash blanket roll, gloves, rifle wood, belts, ammo pouches, and brown ankle boots
12. Sea green (don't know the actual name of this paint) - wet brush backpack, gas mask case and straps, bottle cover, and entrenching tool cover (don't forget the straps around the blanket roll)
13. Athonian Camoshade - wash backpack, gas mask case and straps, bottle cover, entrenching tool cover, and khaki
14. Tallarn Flesh - basecoat faces
15. Elf Flesh - wet brush faces
16. Dwarf Flesh - paint lower lips
17. Chainmail - paint cup, rifle bolts, and belt buckles
18. White - paint eyes
19. Black - dot eyes

Baker Company Winter War Finns First Wave

My first batch of Baker Company Winter War Finns (from their long-ago Kickstarter campaign) are finished. The sculpts aren't great, and I think some of the casting on these was rushed and they suffered some issues as a result. However, I did get a lot of Finns and Soviets for my money. Below you can see pictures of my first batch of Finns, consisting mostly of the basic infantry squads with a few extra things thrown in. There's still much more to do. I came up with a painting method that was pretty fast so I could batch paint these to a decent enough standard fairly quickly. If you're interested, you can see all the details of my paint scheme in a previous blog post: Painting Winter War Finns.

Unfortunately, the pictures didn't turn out great. I don't know if it has to do with the lighting, or how much white is on the miniatures, or more likely the glare from the transparent bases. Many of the pictures came out dark and a bit blue-ish. I'm not sure how to fix that, but hopefully these give a decent impression of the results I got with my batch painting method.

Painting Winter War Finns

I have finalized my process for painting my Winter War Finnish infantry. There are a lot of steps, but most of them go very quickly and don't require careful painting or much skill, so I was able to get my infantry painted relatively quickly using this process. There are also some steps (like numbers 14 and 20-24) that could be left out without making too much difference from a distance, but I thought they added enough to the overall look to be worth the little time they took. The paints I used are mostly out of print Citadel paint colors, but hopefully by looking at the pictures below for each stage you can figure out an equivalent color to use, if you want to follow a similar process.

Here is the full list of steps. Further down I have close up pictures showing the results of applying each step.

1. Chaos Black - undercoat/basecoat everywhere
2. Adeptus BattleGrey - paint winter camouflage coat/pants and helmets, hats, gloves, black boots, bases, and NCO pants, leaving black in recesses
3. Fortress Grey - wet brush winter camouflage coat/pants, leaving some Astronomicon Grey at edges (AVOID boots, bases, gloves, hats, and NCO pants)
4. Fortress Grey - edge highlight black boots
5.  Codex Grey - dry brush NCO pants, black gloves, and cloth hats
6. Codex Grey - edge highlight cloth hats
7. Skull White - lightly wet brush winter camouflage coat/pants, leaving some grey at edges
8. Catachan Green - basecoat bread bags and straps
9. Salamander Green - paint helmets, paint wide stripe on NCO pants
10. Tallarn Flesh - basecoat faces
11. Gretchin Green - wet brush bread bags and their straps
12. Badab Black - wash black boots, bases, black gloves, helmets
13. Elf Flesh - highlight/wet brush faces
14. Dwarf Flesh - paint lower lips
15. Calthan Brown - basecoat rifle wood, brown leather boots, belts, mittens, and rifle straps
16. Calthan Brown - wet brush ammo pouches, beards, hair, and cap fur
17. Desert Yellow - wet brush/highlight rifle wood, brown leather boots, leather pouches, mittens
18. Bleached Bone - highlight/dry brush mittens, wet brush rifle straps, beards, and cap fur
19. Ogryn Flesh - wash rifle wood, brown leather boots, ammo pouches
20. Adeptus BattleGrey - highlight gun metal and bayonets, paint helmet straps
21. Chainmail - paint cap buttons, edges of bayonets, rifle bolts
22. Skull White - paint cap badges and eyes
23. Sky Blue - dot center of cap badges
24. Chaos Black - dot eyeballs

First Winter War Finns

I started painting my first batch of Winter War Finns. These are the Baker Company models from their Winter War Kickstarter. I'm still working out a paint scheme for them. I have a lot of them to paint, so I'm trying to come up with something quick that still gives decent results with plausible colors for the uniforms and equipment. Have a look below for some pictures of my initial attempt.

4Ground pre-painted MDF Russian Rural Cottage

I saw this pre-painted MDF building kit from 4Ground on sale, and decided to take the opportunity to give MDF terrain a try. This was my first MDF terrain kit, and I was interested to see how easy it would be to assemble, and what level of detail was possible. Read on for more pictures, assembly tips, and my review of the kit.

Horse and Musket Bolt Action - with Cavalry Rules

I've taken a first pass at writing some cavalry rules for a Horse and Musket era version of Bolt Action. I have also cleaned up some of the other rules to make them more clear, and included it all below so everything is in one place.

Cavalry

Cavalry models act the same as Infantry except as noted below.
Cavalry can mount or dismount using 6" of movement. While mounted, the following rules apply:

• Orders: They cannot go Down voluntarily. They can perform an escape move when assaulted by infantry, like a recce vehicle.
• Movement: They can Advance 12" and Run 24". They cannot enter buildings. They ignore obstacles, unless deemed impassible to Cavalry.
• Shooting: Shooting attacks against them receive a +1 to hit modifier. They suffer a -1 penalty to hit rolls when shooting while mounted. When firing on the move (with an Advance order), the only weapons they can fire are those that have the Cavalry type. The only weapons they can reload while mounted are those with the Cavalry type.
• Assault: Assault damage rolls against them receive a -1 penalty. They cannot benefit from using two assault weapons together.

Horse and Musket version of Bolt Action

I was thinking lately that I don't want to have to learn a lot of different sets of rules for playing different historical periods at the same scale/level of game. That will only discourage me from getting miniatures in new periods that I don't have rules for. So I'm thinking about adapting the Warlord Games "Bolt Action" World War 2 rules to earlier periods, such as the "Horse and Musket" era, approximately 1700-1900 AD. Before getting into my specific modifications, here are some things in Bolt Action that I think need to be addressed.

1. The long reload time of muzzle loading weapons needs to be represented.
2. Rifled weapons should be more accurate than smoothbore.
3. In Bolt Action, the roll to cause damage is based on the training level of the target, which I don't think makes sense for Horse and Musket periods. Aside from being behind cover, which is already represented by cover modifiers, I don't think soldiers were trained to avoid being shot.
4. I want to be able to represent some troop types being slightly better or worse at shooting, or slightly better or worse in assault. In Bolt Action, most individuals are pretty much equal in offensive ability, but I want Grenadiers to be better in an assault than Militia, for example.
5. Assaults should probably be less instantly decisive. With the need to reload most weapons after one shot, there wouldn't be as much shooting at point blank range to end things quickly. Having to beat each other with rifle butts might cause an assault to drag on longer.
6. There needs to be some detailed rules for cavalry. I don't think cavalry is addressed in the Bolt Action rules, though there may be rules for it in one of the army book supplements. Even if there are some cavalry rules, they probably aren't to the level of detail that would be desired in a game where cavalry would be more important and prevalent.

If you can think of other areas where the Bolt Action rules might need to be altered or amended, let me know. I think those six points cover most of what needs to change, at a minimum. With the exception of cavalry rules, which I'm not sure about yet, I think all of those points can be covered with a few simple rules change, a few modifiers, and some new weapon and unit stats. My proposed changes are listed below.