Bolt Action Four Army Battle Report! Polish Inaugural Fight!

Our latest Bolt Action Battle involved 4 armies and the Polish Army's inaugural battle. On this grand Soviet hamlet table our fictitious battle involved the German and Japanese armies confronting the Polish and Soviet forces. The game was to control the four objectives seen as the yellow stars. Each army received 750 points.

This was an early war action which involved plenty of infantry. The armor on the table consisted of a Panzer III for the Germans, a CHi-Ha with the light howitzer and tankette for Japan. The Russians brought a T34 and the Poles fielded an Ursus Armored car and a twin turreted 7TP. The Germans also had an AT Gun and the Polish Army brought a medium howitzer.

All armies had to designate who would be in on the first wave. The only reserves were the Poles who kept a truck and unit of 10 infantry off the table.

As things began, the Polish sniper and 7TP moved in on the left side along with the Soviet mortar team and a couple units of infantry.

On the right side the T34 moved in to oppose the CHi-Ha and tankette. He fired and missed. The Polish transport truck raced in across the center of the board stopping next to the far right objective. He was promptly hit by a slurry of machine gun fire and was knocked out disgorging the 12 infantry inside. 2 men died but the Poles were on the first objective. Two Soviet infantry squads and the Ursus armored car moved in to support them.

On the opposing side of the table the Japanese piled all of their units along with a couple German units against the Polish on the objective. The Germans deployed a unit of infantry to the center and a 6 man squad on their far right.

On turn two the Germans brought the Panzer III on to support the infantry squad on their right flank. It promptly fired at the T34 and missed. The T34 returned the favor by also missing. Snipers all missed and a few pin markers were exchanged on both sides.

On turn 3 the Panzer III was able to fire first, missing again. The T34 did not miss this time scoring a hit, penetrating the armor and destroying the German tank!

With the Panzer gone, the only trouble the T34 could possibly have were the Japanese suicide anti-tank team with lunge mines! The Poles on the objective continued to hold out taking tons of fire. The supporting Soviet infantry was also being whittled down. The Polish army brought in their reserve transport and infantry for additional support on the right, hoping to hold the objective. With the last die pulled being Japanese, the suicide team moved within striking distance of the T34!

Turn 4 started with two dice each for the Germans and the Poles. The Polish units tried but could not kill the Japanese suicide team. The next die fell to the Japanese who lunged at the T34 and destroyed it!! The Ursus advanced in support of the right flank but the Poles on the objective were finally wiped out due to having to many pins! The supporting two Russian infantry units fell too, leaving just two men from one of the squads hunkered down behind the destroyed T34. Only the newly arrived Polish infantry squad remained, close enough to contend the objective.

On turn 5 the Chi-Ha was able to crush the remaining Polish infantry. In doing so, its flank was open to the Polish artillery who scored a hit destroying the Japanese armor. Sadly it was to late to help the deceased infantry on the right flank. The Ursus was able to add pins and kill a few opposing infantry but the center and right were now in the hands of the Axis forces while the left two were unoccupied. At the close of turn 5 the German infantry squad, alone on our far left, made a run for the objective nearest them.

Turn six started with a furious exchange of mortar and MMG fire from both sides. The soviets had a 12 man rifle squad hiding in the farmhouse since turn 1. They dislodged themselves, moved into the swampy area, fired on the Germans heading for the left most objective and killed all but one. The twin turreted 7TP with 10 dice was able to kill the last German on the left flank. This allowed the Polish sniper team to run down the hill and capture the left objective.

With four dice left (1 German, 1 Polish and 2 Russian) the Allies had 1 objective and the Axis 2. The Polish die was pulled and their HQ squad ran across the road to contest the center right objective. The Germans fired on the Russian HQ unit but missed. With the last 2 order dice, the Soviet HQ unit ran to occupy the center left objective and ran the last 2 man infantry squad to contest the far right objective.

There the game ended in a victory for the Allied Team holding two objectives and contesting the other two. It wound up being a very close game where most of the action centered on the right objective till the last turn.

The Polish trucks got the infantry into action right away. Having a 12 man squad kept them in the game, taking fire and attracting a lot of attention, till the end of turn 4. There was a great moment of elation on the Allied side when the T34 stood victorious with very little to threaten it. Then a great moment of elation on the Axis side when a stick mine destroyed the T34!

At the end of a close game, on a great table, the Polish sniper team watches over the left objective as the Soviets emerge from the swamp!

Hope You Have A Great Battle!!

Miniature Photography and Photoshop Fun with Bolt Action

Having a collection of miniature vehicles, infantry, buildings and scenery allows us to take some pretty nice photos of all the above. We recently had Josh Henderson available and decided to let him have at the above mentioned vehicles and scenery to photograph and prepare for some Photoshop action. Here is a fine example of his work, so let's take a closer look at what he can do.

With minimal lighting and a creative mind Josh began with a 4Ground cityscape located somewhere in northern France.

With a few tweaks and a couple layers in Photoshop you can go from this to...

this in a very short time.

Here is a nice clear shot down the scale street with good depth of field but needing atmosphere.

Bring in the atmosphere, a tighter angle and now you have the tension of a looming engagement in the image.

Now take it into Photoshop, working with some layers, color and contrast adjustments and filters, and POW there you have it. This one is a simple example of building on a decent photo, but there are those that think they can do the same in Instagram with a filter pack. That may be true, but lets look at some things you can't do there.

Here we move to the Russian countryside where a T-34 and an outdated T-28 are attempting to stem the German tide. Again we have enough ambiance but need a little more.

Simple color correction and the addition of mountain range in the background gives life and depth to the photo.

With the same two Trenchworxs models and scene we see that Josh changed the angle and brightened the lighting.

Again a simple color correction, some additional haze and a skyline in the background bring emotion to the photo.

We personally love this shot with the old Soviet T-35 land battleship plodding along, infantry in close support and a modern T-34 providing support on the hill above. The tank riders are from Warlord Games.

Josh provides a crisp dawn blue sky and a powerful muzzle blast from the T-34. Additional mist, color corrections and retouching provide us a finished image of the Soviet early morning counter attack!

One last image to show you how our intro photo started. Working with the lighting and adding a few directional spot lights Josh created a dynamic well designed image.

But once again he finished with a fantastic, well composed and action packed image.The muzzle flashes, blast debris and bullet tracers give this final photo a story all its own.

For Josh's other real artwork, check out his website at Joshlikesdrawing.com

Have a Great Battle
The Old Crow

Soviet Armor From Trenchworx for the Eastern Front

If you are not familiar with Trenchworx, you should be! Trenchworx designs and manufactures high quality scale models for gamers and hobbyists. They design all of their models with accurate detail and ease of assembly. Trenchworx has had a three successful Kickstarters; Tanks of WW1, Tanks in Manchuria and Tanks on the Western Front.

One of the Manchuria tanks is the OT-26. The OT-26 or HT-26 was the first of a series of flamethrower tanks based on the T-26 light tank. It was produced by mounting a Model 1933 flame-thrower in the right hand turret of the twin turreted T-26 Model 1931. In early examples the second turret was retained, but it was then removed to make more space for fuel.

Trenchworx starts all models using in-house 3D printing technology and eventually convert to resin kits. Their resin cast products are manufactured in their facility in Sandy, Utah.

The BT-7 (Bystrochodnij Tankov or “Fast Tank” type 7) was derived from the 1930 American-built Christie tank, which had been perfected and modified into the BT-2 and BT-5 series. These were pure cavalry tanks, designed for speed, with good armament but weak armor.

The Soviet BT-7 was produced between 1935 and 1940. Several thousand were built during the opening stages of World War II and among those 154, BT-7A artillery tanks were produced.

The inspiration for the Trenchworks company began in July of 2013. Wanting to create models for their favorite table top war games and using the 3D printers of their parent company Worxsimple, it began with that simple statement of “wouldn’t it be cool to have…”

"We started with a T34/76 turret for one of Nate’s models. Next a Sherman 105 and Calliope turret was needed. After a couple of weeks of modeling and printing various kits, Dave said “Nuts to turrets. Let’s build a tank!” A week later we had a brand new Jagdpanther (cause why start small!)."

That very same Jagdpanther can still be seen on their Trenchworx home page and is still a favorite.
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Here you can see another fine example of their hard work, the T-28. The Soviet T-28 is a multi-turreted tank used between 1933 to 1945.  Over 500 tanks were manufactured.  The tank had one large turret with a 76.2mm gun and two smaller turrets with 7.62mm machine guns.

This Trenchworx (1/56) scale resin cast kit allows you to equip the tank with either the KT-28 76.2 mm gun or the improved L-10 76.2 mm gun.  The guns are interchangeable and attached to the turret with magnets.  Magnets are included for the main turret and the main gun.

Since the first tank rolled of the line at Trenchworx, they have designed, printed and shipped thousands of new models to customers around the world. Nate has been posting his progress on the BoltAction.net forums with great support, commentary and even model suggestions.

And now, the Soviet T-35 “land battleship”! This Soviet monstrosity was a multi-turreted heavy tank used between 1935 to 1941.  Weighing in at 45 tonnes, just over 60 tanks were manufactured.

The tank had one large turret with a 76.2mm gun and two smaller turrets with 45mm 20k guns and an additional five 7.62mm machine guns.

They apparently did not participate in the border wars in Mongolia, the invasion of Poland or the Winter War. By June 1940 they were seen as nearly obsolete and costly to operate,

Have a Great Battle!
The Old Crow

Wasteland Terrain & Russian T34/85 Medium Tanks from Warlord Games

Lately we completed a new batch of custom Wasteland Terrain and worked with David Dinsmore to begin production on some Warlord Games armor. All of these are now listed on Ebay for any who are interested. Look for Battleground-Hobbies on Ebay.

Each Terrain piece has a hard base made of MDF board and the top is carved polystyrene insulation board. We showed how these are built on a previous blog post.

Now about the T-34 series, with its sloping armor that changed the principles of tank design during the war. The sloping, angular layout of the T-34 increased the effective armor thickness, and also saw a larger proportion of shells deflected away than penetrated its armor.

The introduction of the T-34 into action saw German tank design follow suit with similarly angled armor on the likes of the Panther and King Tiger. As German tank design came to the fore, the Soviet war machine once again raised the bar with the T-34/85.

The T-34/85, the very symbol of Soviet military strength in the Second World War, had a new turret to house the more powerful 85mm ZiS gun. A supremely rugged and reliable tank, the T-34/85 had excellent off-road capability, especially in the marshland or snow of the Eastern Front, and was easy for the crew to operate and maintain.

The T-34/85's great strength lay in its adaptation of the T-34/76 tank design which preceded it. This ensured a far smoother and faster production line than would have been the case with a completely new design.

Another major advantage was the sheer number of tanks the Soviet tank factories could produce - by the summer of 1944 the Soviet war machine could produce more T-34/85s in a month than the Germans had Panther tanks in the whole of the Eastern Front!

With over 21,000 of the 57,000 T-34s built during WWII being T-34/85s, the Russian credo was clearly one of quantity over quality, although it was an unwise Panzer commander who discounted the ability of the T-34/85.

Now that our history lesson is over, you can see the job David did in painting these Russian Tanks! Here is another he completed, a US Sherman, also ready for sale.

We'll have a batch of German Armor very soon. Panther IVs, Stugs and a Hetzer are all on the way. If you have a request for a specific piece of armor you'd like painted, please let us know!

Have A Great Battle,
The Old Crow