A Bolt Action campaign: may 1940, invasion of the Netherlands

After months of planning and a sneaky pandemic my friend Michael and myself finally started our Bolt Action campaign this week. We are using the campaign rules as published by warlord Games, with a few houserules to make them slightly less convoluted.

We plan to fight 6 consecutive games, representing the advance of german forces through the south of the Netherlands in may 1940. We plan to modify existing scenario's from various books to suit our games. The following battles will be played:

Raid of the Heumen lock-complex (may 10th, Maas-Waal channel defence line)

Assault of the Peel-Raamstelling at Mill (may 10th)

Counterattack at Mill (may 10th)

Hasty Defence of the Willemsvaart (may 11th)

Retreat through Brabant (may 12th)

Attack on Dordrecht (May 13th)

The campaign rules allow each player to assemble a company size masterlist with support units, from which you select units for each battle. Casualties suffered need to be replaced after each battle with reinforcement points earned. Surviving units can gain experience.

To introduce a Fog of War in bolt action, we used counters to represent units deployed, which would only be replaced with their corresponding units when they fired, or moved out of cover into line of sight. Counters can be targeted by fire, but only suffer pin markers.

Raid of the Heumen lock-complex

Early in the night german infiltrators dressed as railroadworkers and military policemen tried to seize various bridges across the Maas-Waal kanaal. In some cases they were uncovered by the border battalioans guarding these bridges, or the bridge was blown with infiltrators on top off it. At Heumen some 30 german soldiers managed to get across the bridge at a lock compex, before revealing themselves and assaulting the defenders. They managed to hold out untill reinforcements arrived, thwarting various dutch attempts to retake the bridge and destroy it.

We started the scenario with two forces of 750 points. The germans (RED) could deploy up to 3 infantry squads and an officer on the dutch side of the bridge, within 12" of it. Other units had to start on the far side of the canal, which can only be crossed by infantry at the lock doors and the bridge. The Dutch start occupying the three bunkers and the breastworks present.

Objective of the germans is to take out at least two of the dutch bunkers covering the bridge, while the Dutch need to recapture either the bridge or the small wooden guardhouse next to it, in order to blow the bridge.

The first turn the Germans seized the initiative and surged a unit forward towards the bunker near the road. Dutch units fired upon the german infantry advancing towards the bunker, but came under intense artillery and mortar fire in return. On the left flank the units occupying the bunkers went into ambush, ready to counter any german attempt to cross the canal.

The second turn saw the germans seizing the first bunker in close combat. Accurate mortar fire hit the dutch unit covering the bunker. Dutch artillery fire form the ancient 8 staal covering the road failed to hit, but did convince the german officer to redeploy his infantry from the guard house in a safer position behind a nearby hedge, now that the first bunker was in their hands. A squad of german infantry took their chances and charged across the bridge to reinforce the units near the guard house.

The third turn saw two dutch infantry squads reveiling themselves and work their way up the side of the road towards the guard house. Aided by a Fubar on the german infantry that just crossed the road they bravely advanced. Elsewhere some shots were exchanged and some unrevealed units redeployed towards the tableside where the action took place.

On the fourth turn the dutch advanced further, coming within charge range of the empty guardhouse. The 8-staal in ambush still threatened the german units, so they sat tight and took some pinning shots at the advancing Dutch infantry. At the end of the turn the luftwaffe liaison called in a Stuka, which duly arrived and pinned a lot of dutch units and blasted apart one of the advancing infantry squads.

In the mean time a dutch unit of regular Politietroepen had arrived from reserve, took some potshots at the german occupying the nearby pillbox and at the start of the next turn charged in. They managed to retake the bunker with only minimal losses. As a reaction to this manouvre the germans advanced their veteran Infiltrators back towards the guardhouse and reoccupied it. The two units of dutch inexperienced troops near that same guardhouse remained pinned down, taking further casualties.

The last turns saw some scattered shots taken at various units, eliminating both the german and dutch light artillery. The dutch defenders on ambush detered any further german advances, and continuous german fire kept the advanced dutch units pinned down. We both tried to preserve our forces, unwiling to gamble with our troops, knowing that further casualties were going to be hard to replace. Thus the battle ended in a hard fought draw, with the germans still firmly in posession of the bridge, and the dutch clinging to their bunkers.

The recovery rolls in the post battle fase of the campaign allowed us to regain some lost infantry, and with the resupply points most casualties were replaced with new recruits. On both sides the mortars performed good and gained some hard earned xp, as did the german officer leading his men and the dutch politietroepen that retook the bunker. Next time the german's are going to assault the defences at Mill.