Finally a game - Bolt Action Western Desert 1942

I coerced my wife to play the traditional New Year's Day wargame with me. This year we played a game of Bolt Action set in the Western Desert c.1942 at around 700 points a side.

There was no real choosing of sides as my father-in-law had served in Eighth Army in the desert campaign, so my wife was obviously the Desert Rat.

The Desert Rats: 2 Regular infantry squads with command, 2" mortar team and transports and a Lee for support.

The Afika Korps: 2 Veteran infantry squads with command and transports and a Pz IIIJ for support.

The Brits had the manpower advantage with 2 extra men per squad and also had a mortar for support. The Afrika Korps were vets though. After some moving round the shooting started. I lost a few infantry to a shot from the Lee but in the next round my Pz III took care of the pesky Tommy tank.

One of my infantry squads was then decimated by a combination lucky mortar shot and the withering SMLE and Bren fire put up by the Brits. 

The game was then decided by a British bayonet charge onto my remaining infantry squad (they don't like it up them!) After a right fracas I lost the close combat and was left with the Pz III and the transports intact. At that point we decided to call it a draw and have dinner!

This was my first game of Bolt Action and I enjoyed it. I've had the rules since 2013 but I spend 99% of my hobby time in the prep phase and never get round to a game. If there's one resolution I want to stick to it's to play more games and actually use the stuff I've got. It was good to get the old desert board out the loft. Sometimes I think we're so intent on getting the next thing we forget how much good stuff we've already got. 

You'll see from the photos that I use Battlefront minis and tanks. I have quite a large collection of their stuff for Western Desert and Med but have never played FOW.  I think that they work really well for Bolt Action with some modifications.  

To help with identification and tracking I add a post-it note to the bottom of each base with a little bit left showing on which I note the armament of each base and leave a space to mark casualties.  In addition I don't have Bolt Action dice. I made 2 sets of chits with the orders on and then use different coloured dice to decide who goes next. The player them just places the chit next to the base. It worked fine. If I can get hold of a couple of sets of BA dice for a fair price I'll do it but there's lot of other things that I'd rather pay £20 on.