Playtest: Bolt Action, 41 Russians v Germans

Eric and I play tested a couple of games of Bolt Action over the holiday break. This is the AAR of the first of those games. We played the first two scenarios from the Skirmish Campaign book Russia ’41 – Into the Ukraine which features a series of early Barbarossa actions. I can’t recommend the Skirmish Campaign books enough. They are well researched and easily lend themselves to a large list of skirmish rules, including Bolt Action.

This one “Opening Volley” is from June 23rd a historical action located just west of Radekhov in the Ukraine where elements of the German 11th Panzer Division were tangling with the Russian 10th Tank Division.

I took on the role of the Russians with 3 T-34s, a T-28, a Political Section and 2 Motorized Rifled Squads. All but the Political Section was Inexperienced in Bolt Action and the Commissar was the lone leader to have a leadership bonus. For my variable attachment I rolled up 3 BT-7s that would enter on Turn 2.

Eric had 2 Pz IIc, 2 Pz IVe, 4 Pz IIIg and a Mechanized Inf Squad in a SdKfz 251/1. For his variable attachment he rolled up a Sniper Team.

For the setup I know I needed to prevent German AFVs exiting off the road as well and avoid losing 2 of my AFVs. I took a “none-shall-pass” approach and put the T28 on the road and the 3 T34s off to the left flank with the first infantry squad in the woods and the second in the wooden house.

Eric entered on table on turn 1 on the road and was just able to barely crest the hill. With Bolt Action it’s a what you see is what you get for sighting so his PzIIIg tanks were hull down if he wanted to open up at range.

Eric pressed ahead with his two Panzer IVe tanks and in my case I opened up on them with my T34s and was able to brew one up. Eric was able to score a hit (and thus the pin marker) on my T34 but his penetration roll was too low and thus a shell bounced off. Eric swung his two Pz IIs over to my right flank and his lone infantry squad in it’s 251/1 as well as his Sniper team who road in on the Pz IIs. My 3 BT-7s entered and rolled up but not much for them to do.

Eric rolled his lone Pz IVe into the woods, and unloaded his infantry from his half track. The halftrack and the PzIIs moved forward and proceeded to very effectively spray my infantry with 20mm and machine gun rounds.

Kind of a bummer but Bolt Action is silent on primary and secondary gun rates of fire when it comes to AFVs. It could be argued that on vehicles like the Pz IIc just one gun should have the full rate of fire.

Alas my T34s failed their order check roll and worse I achieved a fubar and caused them to fall back. Two pin markers with an 8 morale is pretty tough.

Next turn Eric moves up his Pz IIIg tanks and brews up one of my BT-7s. His infantry supported by the impressive fire of his MG34s covering melt away my infantry both in the house as well as in the woods. One of his PzIIc tanks makes it across the gully, the other gets stuck.

The two gaz trucks I start to retreat as the political sections, gloriously leading from the rear give much encouragement to the very last Russian rifleman alone in the house who amazingly didn’t fail his morale roll.

I moved up the T28, with the two machine gun turrets to fire away at the Germans crossing the gully. Between the BT7 and T28 shells are bouncing off the halftrack and PzIV to no avail. I did manage to take out a single German but it was looking increasingly obvious the T34s weren’t going to come back and with no infantry my defense was getting increasingly desperate.

Next turn Eric brews up my T28 and another BT7. The lone Russian rifleman flees, failing his morale and the Commissar looking at his two helpers was having to face reality, as again my roll to try and rally the T34s failed.

Last picture of the game as we called it at that point. I have a separate review of Bolt Action in another blog post. Least for this play test the results I think equal a historical result.

Russian armor and infantry were very brittle and ready to flee after taking a shot or two. Infantry even in sort of reasonable cover seemed really really extra brittle tho. (More about that in the analysis of the rules.)

I’m sure we missed a few things as it was the very first time we’d played with Bolt Action. I’m sure we got a few things wrong but overall a good way to spend the afternoon but a few “huh” type situations.