WAR!

Hold Your Fire: After Weekend Report

This past weekend was Chicagolands first local, dedicated Bolt Action Tournament. While these Italian gunners were lining up a perfect shot on a T-34, lots of Bolt Action was happening!

We had 17 players attend with a lot of new faces to our older group. A great networking and meet up of lots of different players in the state.  From experienced to brand new players, all the games were tense and exciting!

Lots of great terrain, tables, and time were donated from the community to continue the local tradition of exceptional scenes to set our combats upon.  Here are some of the featured tables.

plastic legions great French village

Belgium fields

European Town

Tunisia Airfield

Rhineland Farm

The weekend was a blast and everyone is super stoked to play more Bolt Action and looking forward to Adepticon!

We had a pretty good spread of Nations.

3 Russian
1 Japanese
1 Italian
3 US
2 British
7 German

Two of the US players were closely separated for the top 1 and 2 spots.



My African Italians were awarded a Best Appearance recognition; always a close race and a great reason to keep improving!




I will leave everyone with some action shots, but check back for an exciting announcement concerning 2015's Adepticon Bolt Action Events!

 German trucks try to storm a Russian ruin.

 British Red Devils attack the German held airfield.

 The Allies defend a key town from a German count offensive.

 A German machine gun team rethinks engaging that Russian tank.

 An Italian tank scouts the ruins...

 ...while the Fiat 3000 provides cover from the trees.

 A German assault gun is discovered!

The Italian gunners adjust they're aim to the new threat.

Bongiorno: Flower Power

Fun fact: Dr. Seuss illustrated tons of political cartoons during world war two. 

That brings us to the conclusion of Africa Orientale Italiana! While meandering through the desert our hero, Lt. Amedeo Guillet, takes his most trusted cavalrymen to reconnaissance the defenses deep in East Africa. 

 Armed with such weapons as the Beretta model 38 machine gun and traditional sabers. One of they're forgotten conflicts was when they charged the British 4/11th Sikhs Regiment of the 5th Indian Division.

 With the surrender of Italian forces in East Africa in 1941, our intrepid commander refused to surrender and retreated into the desert; to wage a 'Lawrence of Arabia' guerrilla war. Known to locals and British garrisons as, Comandante Diavolo.

 Now that I have these models all finished up and I see the cavalry squads arrayed, I may have gone a bit overboard on this conversion project. It started with some beautiful Perry French dragoons and a hack saw and ended with 20 more 40mm models... 2 full squads of cavalry in a WWII game...

 Decals are from Company B, a little large but in the end you wouldn't be able to really see them if they were smaller and would not want to really put them on a model either...

Having originally wanted to showcase the eastern front Italian cavalry regiments when they successfully charged against Siberian Infantry. The Africa Campaign had a more romantic nature to it, as much as war could relate to that.

 Here is 1st squad in the force. Having established some strong defenses, the Lt. surveys the scene.

 The mortar team takes aim, or maybe just picks some meadow flowers.

 In the rules, the Italians get the chance to place defensive works on the table.

 The Africa Orientale Italiana only supports the most modern and elite armored support. The Fiat 3000 (right) is based on the WWI French FT-17. The smoke screens these burning vehicles gave they're infantry was invaluable... The FT-17 kit is made by Trench Worx. Top quality stuff, some of the best.

 While the tanks maybe outdated, Italian artillery was quite renowned for bravery and accuracy. These truck mounted 90/53 AA guns were the siblings to the German 88. Often more deadly in anti-tank roles than anti-air.

 It could still melt the rivets off an American Stuart. (Looking at you Plastic Legions, it also works on armored cars...)

This was the inspiration for the uniform scheme, on the left is the Savoia cavalry man, the eastern front cavalry divisions.

Avanti IT!

 Rounding out the remainder of my Malifaux crew at these little fellows. They sure do like to clown around! Pun pun pun pun pun pun.... They are all little minions controlled by the puppet master in my last post. More of a swarm tactic.Continuing the basing theme of a Victorian Venice.

Also continuing my inspiration of "things that scared me". They were painted in the likeness of Tom Curry's representation of the clown IT. Besides him and that little leprechaun horror movie, they round out the top 3 of childhood fears. 

Avanti! While the very last of my Malifaux crew, Teddy, got side lined; these fellows took his place.




 A couple squads of Italians have formed up in the square. While originally purchased for a Eastern front force from the Perry Brothers, I doubled down and went with a neutral paint scheme to be able to use them for both North Africa and the eastern front.

 

 If you see some horses in the background, that is because they are. The entire inspiration of building this army was 2 units. The heroic and often fatal charges of Italian cavalry on the eastern front, or the guerrilla warfare from horse back in East Africa. 

Here are two of the internets best articles on the subject that inspired my interest.

North Africa Raiders 

Eastern Front: The Last Cavalry Charge

Unrelated, but I highly, highly recommend reading the book, "An Army at Dawn", Rick Atkinson's 1/3 series on America in World War 2 and the invasions and operations that led to the end of the war. Army at Dawn is the North Africa campaign, Torch through Tunisia.

 

 Much can be said and debated about the scale of Perrys to other companies models. But they're metal lines are almost perfectly in scale with warlords and should not be a concern when considering buying these models. I really wanted to capture the posses of the "action" models and mounted up some fortifications for them to be defending.

 The second unit that inspired this army, is NOT the tank below, but an anti aircraft gun that was truck mounted. It will appear later, once painted of course!

The L6/40 light tank is made by Company B, and like most Italian armor, it did not fair well.... Outdated from the onset it turned into a recon tank due to its low profile and quickness.

Crimson Doom

“The thrill of a thousand worlds dying at once, but my ultimate goal lies beyond the downfall... Bow before the Crimson King! Bow… or die!”

Continuing down the rabbit hole, we have Malifaux's master of puppets, Collodi. First off this guy comes off as a character from the streets of Venice; but going deeper he inspires the arch villain from Stephen King's The Dark Tower saga. 

 The overall basing was very ad-lib and the whole crew has got an orange dusted, white stone ruin. Part of the desert terrain found in the pages on the aforementioned book series.

 The Crimson King is intent on reaping the benefits of a decaying world.

 Part of the King's henchmen are his green "doombots". Not to give away too much of the story, but the fantasy world crosses over into modern reality. In which, the henchmen were designed on what were thought as powerful creatures from the other world's culture.

 In the book, the robot warriors were wolves in green hoods armed with golden snitch hand grenades and laser swords. One of the crazy cross overs involved in the decaying world of the The Dark Tower.

 While still reading the rules, painting progress continues!

I really like how the green turned out, got some new colors in the works to move away from my comfort zone of the red spectrum.