Bolt Action - Japanese!

So while at Overlord, I got to see a demo game run by the good boys from Newbury and Reading Wargames club. Seeing the Germans vs the Americans being played out there. And some really nicely painted armies being played with as well!

Like this weathered and beaten up American tank of some sort. Now I say some sort as this is a genre that I have not looked or cared for in a long time ( since grade school ) and so my knowledge on the different units, or tanks, or equipment is severely lacking here! But I do like how they look, and the game mechanics again intrigued me so of course I had to buy a starter box of them!

But for me I need to pick something that is not as common obviously. I mean, I don't want to get to a point where I might begin to play the game and be having Germans vs Germans all the time or Americans vs Americans ( with some broken combos that makes your opponent cry ). So I went with the Japanese!!! Which fits my game style it seems with their kamikaze style of fighting and charging into battle!

Not to say that I don't like the other models.. especially when painted up like how these were done..

But I just think that I can make them look more interesting with the Japanese and have a lot more fun with it at the same time. Plus it will be a challenge for me to learn this new genre and the history behind the forces as well!

So with that.. I had the choice of cherry picking my forces for the Japanese.. or to just grab the big 1000 pt starter box. I can see the logic of cherry picking them out.. but then again it would cost me much more than just buying the starter box here. So that is what I ended up with!

Yeah quite a few pieces to get put together. Thankfully since I have no idea what I am doing, I picked up their codex as well!

Which will help with army building, background on them, and also understanding the different theaters of war that they were a part of. And how this might affect the way in which I build up the forces to play with. I should be able to better understand how they play, and how to build them all from this and the photos above.

Only question is how to achieve the color schemes that I am seeing here. To which I might do a bit more digging around to better understand the logic behind their colors.

Warlord had a set of Vallejo Model colors that would work nicely for this set of models, but I think I will explore other alternatives for them as well.

I am actually going to try out using the Scale75 colors to paint these guys up. Thought they might come out a bit more matte than I like, but I will see how I can correct that in time with them.

I also want to think about which fights my forces will come from, and base them around that a bit more. Make their camouflage and basing to match it. And maybe a few pieces of terrain to set the mood better also... but we will see as that is really getting ahead of me here!

Now let's see when I begin to work on these.. I might try out a unit and a character soon though. See if I can figure out a scheme for them, and maybe even enter them to Salute's historical unit category? I know it has no chance, but it might motivate me a bit here.

Anyone out there play Bolt Action? Seeing the dynamics of how units take turns to go is reallllllly interesting and makes for something very different from other games. But anyways.. that is for another post when/if I ever get a chance to give it a go!