Bolt Action Bat Rep: Rangers Vs. SS (Noobtastic!)

Today, we re-enter the NEWB ZONE as I am very excited to bring to you our first attempt at a Bolt Action Bat Rep. Me, and new Throck of Warfighter (and very old friend) Amok decided to throw down 750 points of SS vs. Rangers and just fight over victory points to test out the rules and the feel of the game. Bolt Action seems fun, and is certainly a lighter lift than Flames. But, after a couple of reads through the rule I'm a little worried about the abstraction of the rules.

For the uninitiated, Bolt Action is all about the "reinforced platoon" as its basic unit. That means a solid core of a couple of squads of PBI (with about 5 to 15 dudes each) with an HQ and then support elements like a tank, machine guns, mortars, armored cars etc...

For each list you pretty much need to buy an HQ (1 to 3 dudes) and the two squads of grunts and then add on whatever else your army list allows (although, no more than 1 tank per platoon). There are all sorts of ways to pimp your basic guys such as giving them SMG's, Panzerfausts, Assault Rifles etc... Also, with the new German Army book the level of vehicles to choose from runs the gamut from early war to late. I'm looking forward to the rest of the army books to get everyone on an even footing. The good news there is there isn't that long to wait. The new Wargames Illustrated has these coming out every two months between now and November 2013 with the Americans in January and the Brits in March.

I feel very much like this when ever I open a new rule set.

To be honest, I love painting in 28mm and so that is the biggest draw for me for Bolt Action. That, and you get big tanks, much bigger than their 15mm equivalent. There is something cool about pushing that Sherman or Puma around the field on the 1/48 scale.

Another great bit about the 28mm form of the hobby is that there are so many great companies making excellent mini's for the WW2 period. The BoltAction.Net forums have a good list to get you started. But today's bat rep features a Puma by Italeri, SS by Victory Force and Warlord Games and Rangers and Shermans also by Warlord.

For this first game I'll be playing the SS (why do I always get stuck with the Bosche?) and Amok will be handling the 2nd Rangers with Sherman support.

Lastly, apologies for the unpainted-ness of the models. I'm working diligently on getting both armies painted up (in fact, since this bat rep was photographed the rangers are now almost half done and the Sherman is nearly complete!) So without any more ado, the Bat Rep!

Aaaaaand, we're back! (with Bat Rep!)

The Throck of War Team, back from some needed R&R
I'm that saucy minx in the center.

Well, hello there stranger! It's been a good long time since I've been able to do anything with my humble blog, but I'm very happy to say ThrockOfWar is back in action! Having navigated an election, a super storm, getting my car totaled, the holidays part 1 and a pretty nasty illness it's taken me a bit longer to get here than I would've liked. But here I am, nay here we are! The Throck of War team is still in tact and we've even gained a few members.

Over the next couple of weeks I'll be posting up a backlog of stuff I've photographed over the last couple of months including:

~An Afrika Corps photo study for my mid war army, with WIP pics of the actual army to follow.
~WIP Picks of my 101st Para's & Welsh Guards for some upcoming market garden fun
~A pic dump from a Tournament at Huzzah Hobbies from late September where I got housed but Loon actually won the darn thing.
~Bolt Action Learn to Play fun and WIP pics of my SS and Ranger armies
~And hopefully much much more!

But first up I bring you a most excellent Bat Rep as last night my boy from the WWPD Forums Pyrrhic Victory and I threw down an epic 1780 point late war battle.

Scenario: Counter Attack
Points: 1780
Attacker: 99th ID by Pyrrhic Victory (Confident Trained from Devil's Charge)
Defender: 12. Volksgrenadierkompanie by Throckmorton (Confident Vet's from NUTS!)
Place: Our FLGS Eagle & Empire, Alexandria, VA.

The Board:

The Board with objectives. I deploy bottom right, Pyrrhic deploys top right. 

Read on for the list's and the actual bat rep!

Please Stand By. We'll be back I promise.

Please excuse the silence.

As you've probably noticed, we've not been posting much at all these last few weeks. Election season is extremely busy for me with travel and long hours and all sorts of other craziness.

I and the other guys who help out around here are still playing, painting and having much FOW fun, in fact I have a few blog posts on the back burner that will be coming out in the next few weeks (hopefully).

But please do excuse the absence, I've had a hell of a lot of fun growing this blog over the last 6 months or so and will continue to do so once that whole Presidential election thing is over.

Until then I urge you all to do two things: First, HAVE FUN! And...

If you're in the states do as the nice lady says on November 6th.

Barrage Con!

Well hello there Throck's and Throckette's! This weekend Crazed Loon, me and a buddy of ours headed up to beautiful Harve De Grace Maryland for Barrage Con 16 to participate in the 1575 LW Tournament held by the fine gentlemen from I-95 gamers.

It's about a two hour drive up I-95 from Throck HQ and it was, I must say, well worth it. First of all, most importantly, and I can't stress this enough.

There is No Museum in Harve De Grace Maryland.

They Just want you to think there is. 

I'm telling you, they're cagey. They really want you to not think there is a museum, and there isn't, despite their attempts to convince you that it's there, do not believe their lies. It's not a decoy, it's simply not real.

Although, the Blues Brothers have taken up residence... I always wondered where they went after the movies...

A little worse for wear, but still keeping it real. 

But you're not here for the travelogue are you! You want to hear about all the war gamey goodness and see a ton of pictures of games in action. Well, I aim to please, so let's get down to the nitty gritty. First off, here's the list I took:

28mm SS from Warlord Games

The new 28mm WW2 Mini's Game from
Osprey Publishing and Warlord Games

So, Bolt Action officially launched Monday (I think) and I finally got my copy of the book yesterday. Needless to say, I'm pretty jazzed and like what I've read so far. It also got me motivated to finish those SS troops I post up earlier in the week.

These figures come from the Warlord Games Waffen-SS box set and will be the veterans in the German army I'm building. Why did I go for Waffen-SS? Because I'm painting Fallschirm's for my mid-war flames army, I have no plans on doing a 15mm SS army and because they get the coolest toys and the best looking camo, in my humble opinion.

Fantastic Movie about the Hurtgen Forrest

After some research I decided to have them be fall based (think post-Market Garden, just around the time of the Hurtgen Forrest) which mean a brown oak leaf camo scheme, although I may do some in green as well in future batches. And honestly, I think they turned out pretty well.

The one thing I'd change from the paint job right now is the pants. I think I'm going to keep them field grey throughout the rest of what I paint. It may not (or may) be strictly accurate, but in terms of breaking up the model, I think it will help.

One of my original complaints about the Warlord Games models, that the faces look cartoony, turns out to be a bit over blown (I'm willing to admit when I'm wrong!). It all comes down to how you paint them, and even the more stoic faces turned out pretty nicely in end.

I've clearly got some more work to do on my eyes, but after being away from the larger scale for awhile I think they've turned out OK. Overall, I'm quite happy with both the quality of the models and my final product.

As always, I'm looking for ways to get better, so let me know what you think!

Here's the pics!

Late War Tourney at Dropzone Games with tons of pics.

(I finally set up the google follow thing, so you know, follow me!)

Hey all! On the heels of my 2 win 3 loss drubbing at NOVA open a couple of weekends back I decided to pick my self up, dust myself off and head out to another tournament.

This time, joined by one of my partners in crime, Crazed Loon, we headed out to Dropzone Games a new "destination" store in the hinterlands between DC and Baltimore.

It's bigger than that. But here's the front room

It's a little shiny, but Ironheart Artisan's is
their own local goodness. 

Dropzone is set in the ashes of the old Games Workshop Battle Bunker, which was a huge store, so we figured it would be a large space but I have to tell you we were wow'd when we got there. In the front room alone there were at least 12 6x4 tables, and there were 2 other rooms in the back, one with 4 and one with 7 tables. And that wasn't all, there were at least two other large spaces they are planning to expand into. In other words,

this place had a ton of space. Enough, in fact, to accommodate not only our 18 man tournament, but a Kings of War tourney as well.

Even though they've been open about a month (I think) they had a ton of really quality terrain! Clearly the owners have put some epic work into the thing. Mad props to them (do kids still say "Props"?)

And wait, there's more. The guys actually do their own casting of bases, movement trays, and smoke markers (for us FOW folks!). And they do it in house. Check them out online at Ironheart Artisans

Needless to say, I was quite impressed. They've also got a ton of FOW stock and a good start on some Warlord Games stock.

If you get the chance, GO TO THIS STORE. It's worth the trip. In fact, I think it might be the location of the next Throck of War tournie, if they let me and I get my ass in gear.

But what about the tournament? To start, they had a cook out, which is awesome. Grilled meat and wargaming always go well together and props on them for thinking ahead on that.

The event was a 1650 Late War 3 round, 2 hours a round, tournament with 18 players. Luckily, the play field was much more diverse this time around, with plenty of German, Russian, American and Brit players to go around. This made me very happy indeed. However, the two hour round was a bit short I think.

Bolt... Action? Yep!

The faces on the models kind of look like that.
Wacky right?

Well hello there dear readers! Man I have been sick the last couple of days. Bad for work, but good for you! I got a solid start on some Bolt Action figures I picked up a dropzone games (a fabulous store you should try and get to if you're ever in the DC/Baltimore area).

But! You say "Bolt Action Throck? I thought this was a flames of war site!?" To which I heartily respond "Look to your right good sir! See that blog description? We are primarily Flames but other stuff too!"

Why Bolt Action? Because I like World War 2, the look of the uniforms, the scope of history, the amazing stories. And it's new and shiny. And who doesn't like that?

If you don't know what bolt action is, well, it's a 28mm World War 2 miniatures game. It's published jointly by Warlord Games (who'll make the mini's) and the venerable historical publishing house, Osprey Publishing. Intriguingly, there was a whole line of mini's from Warlord before there was ever even a rule set, in other words, we can buy all we want without the wait! Score!

For those of us chomping a bit more at the... crap... bit. Head on over to BoltAction.Net to check out the WWPD guys take on the game it is, as always, quality. Either way, I was inspired by what I had read and seen to start collecting a couple of small forces. In this case, I'm going to do US Rangers (I'm told they lead the way or... something) and Waffen SS (cause every good guy needs an excellently dressed bad guy to kill).

NOVA Late War Tourney: Capstone 3

The only reason this is here is because
I saw it today and it looked cool. Enjoy.

(YEAH I KNOW, I'm a little late on this one, I was travelling for work then we lost power last night. I'm sure those of you in MD share my hatred for Pepco.)

Welcome to the third in my capstone series of posts. The purpose of these is to explore, six months in, how I'm finding Flames of War in terms of hobbying, list building, game playing, and rules mongering. Part 1 dealt with the list building. Part two (amongst multiple other hobby posts) dealt with the building and painting and now, in part three we get to throw down for real!

Last weekend I had the opportunity to go and get trounced at NOVA open at a 1750 late war tournament. And I have to say, to start, that all of the people I played against were pure gentlemen. This is the first time, and I've played and lost in many tournaments in my time, that I've been in a tournie where I actually wanted to keep playing the game when we were done.

There's something about the other systems I've played in the past (mainly Warhammer/40k and Warmahordes) that are so fiddly and "gotcha" that I just get annoyed. And while I'll get more into system comparisons in the last capstone post, I think it needs to be mentioned, that the Flames of War rules really strike a solid balance for tournament play with just a few exceptions.

There are a couple of reasons why I like the concept of tournaments: You get to play other people than your normal group, you really get a solid handle on the rules, you get to (occasionally) win cool stuff. Now, in previous systems tournaments it's been the people who have turned me away as much as it's been the rules, the meta and tricksy nature of the games. This isn't to say that there are great and fun people playing other games, it just seems I always ran into that minority that would rather win at the cost of personal acrimony rather than play the stinking game with the guy across the table from them.

NOVA Open, Early War Fun

Can you see what is wicked cool,
possibly "metal" about this pic?

Kay, so, I'm on the road today. Up in good ole NYC. For those of you who were wondering, yes it's hot a sweaty here as well.

WWPD did some great picture dumps (here and here) today of the NOVA Open fun, and I thought I'd join along with my second dump.

This is the early war pic-o-rama. I was lucky enough to get to be the ringer for this. My first early war games ever, in my first tournament ever! Despite all of that, I couldn't keep from winning one game (SORRY KEVIN! I didn't know the laffly's would hurt that much!).

As I'm on the road I'll keep it short and to the point. It was a small tourney, run by a great dude, your friend and mine Scott of Itty Bitty Soldier fame. He and the NOVA folks ran a great series events with extra awesome prize support. So I say HUZZAH! to them.

Without any further ado, I give you the early war pic dump.

NOVA Open Recap, Thursday

Wrong year, but I needed a logo....

(First a note: 10,000 page visits in 3 months! WEWT! My deepest thanks to everyone who has been reading and let's shoot 10,000 more by December! ~Throck)

Well hey all. So the next couple of posts are going to cover NOVA open, first here is going to be the pre Late War tourney stuff. Today is just going to be Thursday, because, it turns out I took a TON of pics, which is directly proportionate to how much much the weekend was.

And wow, was fun had. I got the chance to hand out and drink heavily with the illustrious Steven of WWPD fame, Scott our tourney organizer and owner of the Itty Bitty Soldiers Blog and Tom of WWPD and Building a Better Wargame. And I must tell you, shenanigans were had.

Let's just say that ain't just diet Coke. Also, props to Steven
on the MacGyver stir stick. 

First I give you a word: 
Vagilyons (vag-eye-lons)
That's for you Scott.

Nuff Said



Second, after the break, I give you Photo dump of an Early War game played by Tom and Steven with Steven playing the Russians out of Wargaming Monthly and Tom playing Polish Cavalry and Train!