Imperial Japan vs Italians! Bolt Action Battle Report

So in a quiet town within Europe, the dreaded Japanese Empire strikes again! This time against the Italians.

I have been bugging this opponent to play against me for a while now as I wanted to see how they were and how the Japanese would face up against them.

For this game though I took a slightly different list from my normal horde though. Normally I throw in several units of 15 Militia to soak up damage while my mains run around killing things. This time though I tried a pre-Tank War list. Everything came in motorized! And very very veteran as well!

My list was as follows:

• 2nd Lieutenant with Trooper - Veteran
• 2x13 Veteran Infantry
• 1x11 Veteran Infantry
• 3 General Trucks - Regular
• Ho-Ni III Tank Destroyer - Regular
• Prime Mover - Regular
• Type 2 Twin AA Gun
• Type 92 Tankette

My Opponent had something like this:

• 2nd Lieutenants with extra trooper
• 3x11 infantry units
• 2x5 veterans with SMGs
• super tiny flame tank
• medium howitzer
• heavy howitzer

There might have been more, but not much more I think. Considering that this was only 1000 point game!

We rolled for missions and got Top Secret. Which was that an objective was placed in the center of the table, and each army was to capture it, and take it off their side of the board. 

Immediately I asked if we should re-roll the mission as I had 3 trucks full of troops, and would hold the advantage of getting up to the objective faster. But, being the good sport that my opponent is, he kept with the mission. Only because he knew that it was his fault not to include a truck of troops. But we pressed on!

My photo for the first turn didn't turn out it seems.. but it mainly was me setting up my trucks, unloading the troops, and setting up to capture the objectives. One of my trucks however failed to come on the board, and my Ho-ni failed to hit his flame tank. His troops also set up, and his 2 howitzers showed up with direct lines of fire upon the main objective marker. 

By Turn 2 we were all set up to see how this game would go down. And it would play out with regards to how the center of the table went and how his firing abilities would tackle the objective. 

Immediately I made a bee-line for the objective to pick it up into my unit, but also putting them out in the open. 

His first howitzer fired upon them, but missed due to being behind hard cover, and giving me some advantages there. 

At this point an idea came to me, to use my Trucks as screens for the unit on the objective. So one goes screaming up one side to block against the central force, and the other pops around to the other road and blocks his other howitzer! To say that the Italian player was not happy with this result is an understatement! But considering that losing troops means nothing to the objective ( and they are captured US Trucks anyways :D ) it is nothing to see them get blown up and turned into wrecks soon afterwards! Providing me now with more hard cover in both directions and making his job quite a bit more difficult. 

The Ho-Ni finally took a pot shot, and easily 2 pens against it. Giving it a second pin marker ( the first being the shot itself! ) and also setting it afire. To which he failed his morale, and immediately abandoned all hope with it!

His guys did make both trucks into wrecks though, and then promptly missed the central unit once more. The the cover was not needed for him to miss the unit though :) 

Turn 3 was a complete upset. We had a 3rd party draw the first dice, which went to my Japanese. So the unit ran behind the building and handed the objective off to the 2nd Lieutenant there. 

He attempted to fire at them with the howitzer once more, but couldn't hit. Another dice for me where the Lieutenant unit ran and jumped into the truck. Italians got another dice and tried to charge into one of my Veteran units, but were shot down fully in the charge! The first time I have ever killed a unit ( even if it was 5 guys at 4 men strong ) with shooting! 

But when I got the next dice, the truck took off on my side of the board, and the game was called. Japanese win on turn 3, and we think back on how this could have been played out differently. Honestly.. dunno if it could have.. other than if this was a different scenario, where he was the defender and I was the attacker. Then maybe it would have been a different ( and longer ) game. 

The unit above was what killed his suicide unit at the end. You can see how the trucks are lined up to create cover for the unit that is now behind the building. Inside the building is another unit of Veterans though. So I had the center pretty much covered with amble troops to support them there. 

We also did a small comparison of some of the vehicles on the board. from left to right.. 

Warlords US Truck; Warlords IJA Ho-Ni; Unknown maker IJA Type 92 Tankette; Warlords Brit Bren Carrier; Unknown Italian Flame Tank. Was interesting to see the differences in scale being used here!

No game next week as I am in a conference in London unfortunately. But I have a game set up for the week after! But with a twist... I will attempt to play as the British, and let my opponent try out my horde Japanese forces instead! See how it is to be on the receiving end of the army! That should be a cracking game though!