Combined arms - Battle over the Crimea Campaign Turn 1

  Operation Barbarossa was the largest land invasion in history, the Crimea was the penultimate objective of army group south on their way to secure the Oilfields and cut the Volga. 

  In this campaign we'll be resolving battles using Blood red skies, Boltaction 2nd edition and Cruel seas.

First turn of the campaign saw the Soviets push forward and secure the Fortifications whilst the Reich countered with their own infantry assault. 

 

Stukas Dove in amongst the flak and crippled the soviet armoured column moving up the road to the right. The Assault on the Fortifications in the middle began in ernest.

Mission was 'No mans Land' so 1 VP for each destroyed unit, the Soviets preliminary bombardment failed to materialise whilst the German one successfully pinned most of the Inexperienced soviets and killed the Medic - A Bad start for the Soviets!

The soviets also lost an AT Rifle team - 2 lost units by close of turn 1!

'There's no Land beyond this point, If I don't get you the Sea will!'

Realising the Soviets needed to get some kills to succeed they began pushing but came under intense artillery fire on the left flank whilst small arms peppered the conscripts on the right. The soviet artillery strike rolled a 1 and scattered away from the juicy targets of the mortar and Sdkfz222.

'Forward for the Motherland!' The Commissar leads the charge after shooting 3 men for cowardice.

The infantry assaults on the Left and right Flank collapsed under wither German fire, despite the heroism of the Soviet conscripts, I called the game turn five 4-0 in Germany's favour.

Unfortunately the soviet infantry had no land hex to retreat thus was destroyed and the Germans secured the fortifications.

Things are looking shakey for the USSR! 

The Shadow of the Axis - Combined arms - 1944 Battle for Europe - Campaign Turn 1

1944 - June

The US assembles a massive fleet on the western coast in late 1944, Hundreds of thousands of Men and Millions of tonnes of supplies begin slowly moving across the Atlantic. The US looks at the Atlantic wall, the Reich stands to resist the invaders, the US determined to take Europe. Using exotic Rift tech the US army rapidly landed a force near Cherbourg whilst the USN secured forward positions in southern England to use as supply dumps for the larger landings along the Normandy coast.

 In this Campaign we'll be using combined arms board with the Normandy map board, we'll be incorporating rules and models from K47 in our games as well as the Theoretical Blood red skies cards from Lead Pursuit podcast.

The US drew the Forward positions Opening Gambit card allowing each player to place a unit forward and capture an objective whilst the Axis drew the Infiltration card giving the player who moves one of their units into the opposing deployment zone first an additional victory point.

The axis chose Inspired General for their national characteristic allowing them to draw an initiative card when escalating, whilst the US chose Great navy allowing them to move 5 spaces per ship move rather than 4.

Axis: Yellow US: Green

Turn 1 saw the USAF hitting the Axis Panzers trying to secure the airfield along the coast whilst the Axis launched an assault against the US bridgehead to dislodge them from the Factory.

Assault towards St.Lô

The US Army setup a series of trip lines outside the factory towards St.Lô, the US HQ was located at the crux of the trip lines and a spearhead of the advanced and horrifying rift tech monsters struck to cut the head off of the snake. This game we rolled for was: Demolition at 1250pts. 

Turn 1 the Nebelwerfer fires and Misses every target! 

The US Army pushes up the table on the German Left flank.

German sniper takes out the Flamethrower team.

Skipping to the end of Turn 2 the Wirbelwind moved up and tried to pour shots into the US heavy infantry squad but missed, the M3 halftrack and its accompanying infantry squad tried to rush the Wirbelwind.

The M4 Tesla Sherman destroyed the Nebelwerfer before the German Infantry rushed up the flank using the Bocage as cover.

Start of Turn 3 the Germans with Panzerfausts attack the Tesla Sherman destroying it.

Followed by the Wirbelwind making Swiss cheese of the M3 halftrack, killing 5 occupants

The US walker jumped in and charged the sniper team before consolidating towards the Objective, the German infantry fail their order test and go down end of turn 3, turn 4 they pop up and destroy the Walker!

End of turn 3 the Nachtjäger come in and wipe out the US infantry squad.

Board end of turn 3

Turn 4 the Wirbelwind pours shots into the heavy infantry before the Nachtjäger fly up and over the church landing on the other side.

US infantry squad moves to counter wiping out the Horrors!

Turn 5 the Wirbelwind moves forward and shreds the US infantry squad that killed the Nachtjäger.

The US infantry charge the LT and his assistant

... and miss every hit, losing 2 to the LT and getting wiped out!

The Wirbelwind charged up to the objective winning the game.

The Shadow of the Axis - Alternative WW2 campaign - Combined arms Boltaction - The war in Tunisia - Campaign Turn 5 - Urban assault of Tunis

Tunis is a busy port city, the French invested heavily into their colonial possession with the city centre not unlike a European city. Having swept the French from their positions outside the city, the Battered Italians turned on the Jewel of Tunisia.

Faá di Bruno

Despite the stormy weather, the Regia Marina towed their only Navy Monitor into place to provide fire support to ground forces attacking the city, Ongoing Patrols of MTB's and Corvettes protected the vulnerable ship and took opportune shots at the defenders.

Both sides were largely unsuited to Urban warfare, a lack of SMG's on both sides and the weak armour of Italian tanks meant it was going to be a gruelling fight, Italy's advantage lay in its access to tank Flamethrowers which I was eager to exploit.

Street fighting in pest (Tunis)

 In this battle we chose the scenario Street fighting in Pest from the Budapest campaign book, the game was fought on a 4x4 map divided into quarters, the two quarters on the French side were worth 4 VP each and the 2 on the Italian side are worth 2VP each. To control a zone and score the VP at least one of your units must be fully in the quarter whilst none of your opponents units occupy that same quarter. Half the French army starts deployed whilst the other half stays in reserve.

Urban warfare

 Players can use the Urban warfare assets  if a battle takes place at or adjacent to a Cultural or Commercial centre or factory. The attacker and defender can use 1 asset for every 500 points (rounding up) of their force, assets can only be chosen once unless specified. Italy's assets are in Yellow, France's assets are in Green

Attackers assets	Neutral assets	Defenders assets
Preliminary bombardment: see page 131 Boltaction Rulebook.	Sewer infiltration: 2 units can be set to outflank, instead of coming on from table edges they can advance from any point on the battlefield so long as it’s more than 6 inches from an enemy.	Fortified building: Pick a ruin or building, units that occupy said asset get +1 to wound ie veteran is wounded on a 6+
Smoke screen: Call in a smoke screen, see page 84 roll of a 1 counts as a 2.	Snipers: Get a free regular sniper team.	Street barricades: D3 Linear obstacles counts as hard cover, impassable to vehicles can be destroyed on a HE roll of 10+
Big Push: Free infantry squad identical to the cheapest in your force.	Molotov cocktails: One unit gets anti tank grenades for free, this asset can be chosen more than once.	Minefield: deploy d3 Tank traps
Night infiltration: 2 Units can deploy as Snipers and spotters.	Ammo dump: Select one ruin or building, units that occupy that structure reroll 1’s to miss in Shooting and assault.	Barbed wire: Get d3+1 8inch Wire obstacles to place anywh ere in your table half before battle.
Prisoner interrogation: Reveal 3 enemy units before battle.	Frontline aid post: Select one ruin or building, that structure gives the same benefit as a medic within 6’’ of itself.	Ambush: D3 units can start in ambush.

Turn 1

The Italians forward deployed their 2 Sniper teams on their left flank, behind them the Forward air observer and the Free forward artillery observer I got for having a Naval unit adjacent to the battlefield.

Turn 1 saw the French go on ambush whilst the entire Italian army ran onto the board, the Italian snipers killed an AT Gunner and wiped out the AT Rifle team.

French MMG using its ambush fired onto the advancing Italian infantry on the right, killing a man and giving them a Pin.

Turn 2 saw more pushing with the Italian's whilst the French brought on most of their reserves to counter them, the Italians called in their Air and Arty support.

The street fighting intensified as the Char b tank fired its Light howtizer killing 4 members of the Italian infantry squad pushing up on the french in the ruins, whilst it's light AT continued to miss against the L3 tankette.

Turn 3 the Aircraft came in and the arty was delayed, the medium bomb landed on the French regulars that came out of reserve last turn and killed 4 members after they went down. The Colonials charged in and engaged the French regulars defending the barricade, the combat was tense as both sides killed 6 men each in the first round of close combat, round 2 the Italians killed 5 whilst the French killed 4, leaving only the Italian NCO to sneak back towards his own lines. Italian snipers picked off the French LT whilst the Italian Mortar zeroed in on the French MMG.

The rest of turn 3 was inconclusive with another missed Char b shot and Italian infantry taking a sprinkling of casualties from small arms.

Turn 4 the Italian LT snapped to action ordering the colonials to charge the AT Gun, the AT gun missed it's shot and was wiped out by the charging Libyans.

The L3 tankette moved up and Machinegunned the Regulars moving up in the ruin at the top of the above photo, whilst the Flamethrower L3 burnt the French infantry out of their ruins in the middle.

The final act of the game was an attempted advance order by the Veteran Char b, the French rolling a Fubar and the tank reserved off of the board ending the game with a lone French infantry squad going down after trying to charge the L3 tankette and engaging with their AT Grenades.

This secured the last objective on the campaign map for Italy, the 5 Victory cards were now drawn and 5 VP awarded to Italy ending the campaign.

Avanti Savoia!

The Shadow of the Axis - Alternative WW2 campaign - Combined arms Boltaction - The war in Tunisia - Campaign Turn 5 - fighting on the outskirts of Tunis

Stalemate has settled on the front, French armoured assaults failed to penetrate the Sfax defense lines whilst the Marine Nationale were routed outside Tunis. The delay in receiving supplies stopped Italian armoured assaults into the Neighborhoods of Tunis as the French marched reinforcements to support the defence of the city. Sands storms from the deep desert made visibility bad and sea conditions worse as the winds turn the water into a choppy mess, a small mercy for the ship crews was the only action they'd see was fire missions in support of the assault on Tunis.

The first battle of the Turn was adjacent to the Fortifications, drawing in French armour and infantry the two Italian tank units freshly supplied from the rescued Merchant ship Delphino, assault into the desert to move French forces away from the city in preparation for the assault on Tunis.

This games scenario is Sectors, as well as the special rules of Dawn assault to represent the Storm card drawn. The French play the card final stand which makes their infantry fanatics but also means they cannot retreat if they lose, in addition to this their national characteristic card they chose at the start of the campaign was warrior spirit which allows infantry to roll to destroy campaign map pieces if they can't retreat.

The Preliminary bombardment put down a lot of pins, so many that we ran out of pin markers and have to only allocate one and put a green dice to indicate how many pins.

Turn 1 Saw the Italians Rally to the colours, the only one failing their rally roll being the 1st LT who presumably was so busy rousing the men he forgot to stop hiding... or something like that.

The Italian artillery barrage called in turn 1 scatters in their direction and put 2 pins on this inexp. rifle squad.

The Italian reserves start to come on from their board edge, the M40 with its Light AT and L3 with its flamethrower shoot the Char1bis, but he stays strong.

French Dragoons charge the Forward observers, the observers kill 4 French before they themselves were captured.

The French AT Rifle having antagonised my M40 was treated to a point blank machine gunning by the CV33 

The End of turn 3, French reinforcements began pouring in and Italian armour starting to push forward. Turn 4 the dawn came and night fighting ended, timed perfectly for the Italian tanks and guns.

The L6/40 fired its flamethrower again and put the Char1Bis out of action

The CV33 moved up the centre by the Lagoon and began machine gunning the French infantry only for the Char tank on the road to turn it's turret and fire into its side arc, hitting by not penetrating.

Start of Turn 5 the Heavy AT AA Gun fires and knocks out the Char tank handily.

Inexp. Italian infantry charge the Inexp. French infantry holding the house, wiping them out to a man and occupying the home.

End of Turn 5 Saw a massive swing in the favour of the Italians.

Final act turn 6 Saw the Italians swarm across the French quarter ending with 27 victory points to 9 in favour of the Italians.

The French were automatically destroyed because of the card they played this turn, however they could still roll to destroy me as per their national characteristic. 

They ended up rolling a 1 and a 3 to destroy, needing a 4+ to destroy an armoured unit, the French having reinforced this turn forgoe attacking and the stage is set for the final battle of the campaign, the Urban assault of Tunis!