Bolt Action II - Duel in the Sun Campaign - Rules

Bolt Action II Duel in the Sun Escalation Campaign

The campaign will feature force lists drawn from the Duel in the Sun supplement, Tunisia, the Rommel’s Defeat theater selector.  The idea is to encourage people to paint an army at a pace to keep up with the campaign.  If you don’t want to paint a new army, that works too, though, the units you field still have to come from the list below.

GERMANS

•Rommel’s Defeat Reinforced Platoon (Armies of Germany).

ITALIANS

•War in Africa Reinforced Platoon (Armies of Italy and the Axis).

USA

•Rommel’s Defeat Reinforced Platoon (Armies of the United States) – represents a US force up during the last stages of the Tunisian campaign (from early April to early May 1943).

BRITISH & COMMONWEALTH

•Tunisia Reinforced Platoon (Armies of Great Britain).

•Indian Division Reinforced Platoon (Duel in the Sun).

•Behind Enemy Lines Reinforced Platoon (Armies of Great Britain) – For battles fought in Tunisia, you can choose SAS Infantry Squads.

FRENCH

•Free French Reinforced Platoon (Duel in the Sun) – representing the Free French fighting alongside the main Allied armies.

•Vichy French Reinforced Platoon (Duel in the Sun) – representing the Vichy French fighting alongside the main Axis armies.

The campaign will proceed on an increasing points level.

Round 1 – 300 points (choose from options below)

Reinforced Platoon

Lieutenant – First or Second

Infantry squads

Plus

Medic

Machine gun teams

Mortar teams

Round 2 – 425 points (choose for options below)

Reinforced Platoon

Lieutenant – First or Second

Infantry squads

Plus

Medic

Machine gun teams

Mortar teams

Additional Infantry squads

Transport vehicle or tow (soft-skins or armored) 1 per infantry unit in the reinforced platoon.

Anti-tank teams

Round 3 – 550 points (choose for options below)

Reinforced Platoon

Lieutenant – First or Second

Infantry squads

Plus

Medic

Machine gun teams

Mortar teams

Additional Infantry squads

Transport vehicle or tow (soft-skins or armored) 1 per infantry unit in the reinforced platoon.

Anti-tank teams

Field Artillery, Anti-aircraft or Anti-tank gun

Armored Car

Round 4 – 675 points (choose for options below)

Reinforced Platoon

Lieutenant – First or Second

Infantry squads

Plus

Captain or Major

Medic

Forward Observer (either Artillery or Air)

Machine gun teams

Mortar teams

Additional Infantry squads

Transport vehicle or tow (soft-skins or armored) 1 per infantry unit in the reinforced platoon.

Anti-tank teams

Field Artillery, Anti-aircraft or Anti-tank gun

Armored Car

Round 5 – 850 points (choose for options below)

Reinforced Platoon

Lieutenant – First or Second

Infantry squads

Plus

Captain or Major

Medic

Forward Observer (either Artillery or Air)

Flamethrower team

Machine gun teams

Mortar teams

Additional Infantry squads

Transport vehicle or tow (soft-skins or armored) 1 per infantry unit in the reinforced platoon.

Anti-tank teams

Field Artillery, Anti-aircraft or Anti-tank gun

Armored Car

Tank, Tank Destroyer, Anti-aircraft vehicle or Self-propelled Artillery

Round 6 – 1000 points (choose for options below)

Reinforced Platoon

Lieutenant – First or Second

Infantry squads

Plus

Captain or Major

Medic

Forward Observer (either Artillery or Air)

Flamethrower team

Sniper Team

Machine gun teams

Mortar teams

Additional Infantry squads

Transport vehicle or tow (soft-skins or armored) 1 per infantry unit in the reinforced platoon.

Anti-tank teams

Field Artillery, Anti-aircraft or Anti-tank gun

Armored Car

Tank, Tank Destroyer, Anti-aircraft vehicle or Self-propelled Artillery

Throughout the campaign each player will keep a personal total of victory points as well as a team (Axis/Allies) points.  So there will be both an individual victor and a “side” victor.

Bolt Action II - Duel in the Sun Campaign

To celebrate the release of Bolt Action II, I am setting up an escalation campaign based on the Duel in the Sun book from Warlord Games.  The idea behind this is to have some fun and get some miniatures painted!

Given the people involved and the armies they desire to use, I have chosen Tunisia as the theater as it will allow American, British/Commonwealth, German, Italian & French forces to participate.

Should be a lot of fun.

Tim, they call him...

Team Yankee

“A tank and its crew has but one reason to exist. To maneuver the tank’s cannon to a position where it could do the most damage and feed it once it was there.” 

― Harold Coyle, Team Yankee: A Novel of World War III

When I was in my teen years and early twenties we had this Cold War going on.  On the last Friday of every month, at 10:30 am we were reminded of  that threat when the air raid sirens would sound for a minute, followed by the all clear (for testing purposes).   I remember thinking if the Soviets were smart they would attack on precisely the last Friday of every month at 10:30 am.

On November 9th, 1989 the Berlin Wall came down and the Cold War threat began to wane.

In Winter of 2015 Battlefront's ads for their Team-Yankee release caught my eye.  I looked at a friend of mine and asked, "Would you like to play this?"

"Hell yes!" was his response.

Seven months later this is the result.

I have been working for over three years on my Warhammer Fantasy Battle Vampire army.  Some of the GW miniatures I am not very happy with, the Corpse Cart being one of them.
 

To remedy this, I did a little "kitbashing".

The Corpse Cart is mounted on a chariot base, so I started there.  Next I needed something menacing and "creepy"

I choose GW's Lord of Nurgle as a starting place.

The figure just said creepy to me.  The one I got was very used and had a missing hand.  I found a hand in the bits box, and after removing the branch through his head, he just needed some painting.

So, now I had my "Pale Horseman" but he looked a bit lonely on that chariot base, so I added a broken plinth and skeletal dogs (Hell Hounds?) from my bits box.

I painted them all up and the result is below (forgive the dramatic lighting).

March Forward Flames of War Tourney

I tied for 1st place in the tournament yesterday!  Sometimes things just work and they did for me!

What this has really taught me is I need to keep painting my miniatures.  I have a whole list of projects I need to finish and start.  I am going to concentrate on getting my DAK painted and my Vampire Counts for the Warhammer Fantasy League I am playing in.

-Tim, they call him...

Painter's Block (Part 2)

Earlier this month, I decided to embark on a project to paint up some of my long ago purchased 15mm DAK for a Flames of War tournament  (Painter's Block (Part 1)).

After two weeks I am very pleased with my progress.  Anyone who knows me, knows I am a slow painter.  

In the past couple of weeks I have painted:

4x Command SMG teams
3x Light mortar teams
2x Anti-tank team
4x HMG teams
4x PaK 36 gun teams
3x PaK38 gun teams
1x FlaK 36 gun team (stripped and repainted).

So now I am ready for the tournament.

Even better I really enjoyed painting these guys and am going to keep working on my Afrika Korps.

-Tim, they call him...

Painter's Block (Part 1)

Like most miniature painters, I go through periods where I just can't seem to paint.  I want to, I really do, but the "mojo" just isn't there.  

A decade or so ago when Flames of War first came out, I bought some painted Afrika Korps platoons and tanks.  I also bought a bunch of support platoons and vehicles in blister packs (unpainted).  I never painted the blisters.  I played FoW with the painted DAK troops I bought. 

 It always bugged me cause I could never have more than a few platoons of infantry, an HMG platoon and some tank, etc.  I spent a lot of time "noodling" out how I would paint them, but I never did. I decided to play in an early war FoW tournament that HMGS-PSW was putting on in late March.  I decided to take something different, a DAK MG Kompanie.

So my force would need:

Command

MG-Kompanie HQ      2 x Cmd SMG teams

Combat Platoons

MG-Platoon

                        1x Cmd SMG team

1x Light mortar team

1x Anti-tank rifle team

4x MG34 HMG team

MG-Platoon

                        1x Cmd SMG team

1x Light mortar team

4x MG34 HMG team

Weapons Platoon

Schützen Anti-tank Gun Platoon        

1x Cmd SMG team

3x 3.7cm PaK36 gun

3x Kfz 70 trucks

Divisional Support

Anti-tank Gun Platoon

1x Cmd SMG team

3x 5cm PaK38 gun

3x Kfz 70 trucks

Heavy Anti-aircraft Gun Platoon         

1x Cmd SMG team

1x 8.8cm FlaK36 anti-tank gun (8 crew)

One interesting thing about the MG kompanie is you can swap out the HMG teams for Rifle/MG teams before you deploy.  I had plenty of rifle teams, but only one HMG platoon.  I did have one 88 FlaK36, but it needed some work.  So I had a lot to paint.

I have always worked better with a deadline so with brush in hand I head off to my nerd cave.