Bolt Action Battle Report - France 1940

Last weekend, I headed to the local game store intending to try out What a Cowboy, the recently released Old West shootout ruleset written by John Savage and published through Too Fat Lardies, makers of Chain of Command and Sharp Practice.

There will be more on that front soon, but that plan fell through. Fortunately, an old wargaming friend of mine, Curtis, was in town. He's a pretty avid Bolt Action player but isn't as big on Chain of Command, while I feel pretty much the opposite way. We decided to roll off, and Bolt Action won.

I haven't played Bolt Action since at least 2020, but we each threw together 750-point lists for the Battle of France in 1940, with Curtis taking the French and I the Germans. This won't be a full in-depth battle report like I usually do, but it's a little more than scattered photos without context.

I don't have all the details, but his list was largely inexperienced troops and artillery backed up by Senegalese regulars, a Panhard armored car and a Renault R39 tank. The core of my list was three squads of infantry, one of them made up of pioneers, reinforced by an early Panzer IV and a motorcycle with a sidecar-mounted MG-34.

Right away, Curtis did me a favor. I unintentionally left my 20mm flak gun model at home and had to use this infantry gun as a proxy. He very kindly killed all the crew and removed it from the table with his first activation. I admire his unwavering commitment to WYSIWYG.

I deployed on a fairly wide front, trying to threaten what I thought were key pieces of terrain. I thought the buildings might make formidable fighting positions. My pioneer team, kitted out with some extra MP-40s and a flamethrower, were headed for the dense terrain of the orchard.

My first round was fairly dismal, with the flak gun destroyed and most of my shooting either out of range or ineffectual.

One squad moved up to get into a gunfight with the Senegalese before they could get into charging range. They almost immediately came under indirect fire from the French trying to root them out of the hedgerow.

My motorcycle rushed forward bravely (foolishly?) to hose down the inexperienced French troops, but the results were fairly dismal. My light mortar team spent most of the game hucking bombs at another squad, inflicting casualties and valuable pins.

The Panzer IV initially took cover behind the cafe and duelled ineffectually with the Renault and an anti-tank rifle team.

The Senegalese quickly advanced on the Germans, but were taking losses from accurate machine gun and rifle fire.

The French were pushing the flanks but not the center, and using the cover of the ruined building, my squad near the center of the board rushed up to help out their comrades. I began to weight my right flank very heavily, essentially leaving my motorcycle to die.

That squad made it to the hedgerow right as their comrades were wiped out, and they opened up on the remaining Senegalese.

The motorcyclists were taking fire from a medium howitzer, an autocannon on the Panhard, and scattered rifle fire from French infantry, but managed to survive somehow.

My pioneers made their way through the orchard and lit up the French. The flamethrower torched the inexperienced troops while the submachine guns cut down any survivors. The artillery forward observer hunkered down behind the wall survived, somehow.

In a follow-up turn, the flamethrower also took care of the Renault, rolling lucky for penetration results. The other pioneers gunned down the remaining Senegalese, killing the only regular French troops. The inexperienced French infantry were struggling some to pass their order tests, limiting their effectiveness.

The Panzer IV advanced after the enemy tank met its end, using its howitzer and machine gun to support the infantry. Its performance was somewhat lacking in this game, but it managed to wipe out the crew of the French artillery piece near the barn.

The German lieutenant and his aide hopped the wall and killed the forward observer in close combat.

Then they and the pioneers rolled up the French flank. At the end of Turn 6, the French had lost more order dice than the Germans, meaning the invaders won the day.

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As the guys in my gaming group know, I'm usually a bit of a poor sport about Bolt Action. I owe the ruleset for getting me into wargaming, but I'm not that thrilled to play it these days. I find some of the rules a little absurd and the attention to historical details lacking.

Compared to the Warhammer 40K I've been playing lately, I can say that Bolt Action is a solid and quick-playing ruleset, something 40K can't always claim.

I was really pleasantly surprised with this game and I had a lot of fun. I appreciate Curtis for showing me a good time and being a better sport than I would have been when the rolls didn't go his way.

Expect some What a Cowboy content soon, as well as further installments in our FIW Sharp Practice campaign.