Bolt Action - Michigan GT Wrap Up

Today we have a special guest poster in the form of our old buddy Mike:

  Last month we held the first annual Bolt Action, "Back to the Front!" Event at the Michigan GT. The GT started as a 40k event and grew to include Warmachine / Hordes. It now hosts Firestorm Armada, AoS, Infinity, and of course Bolt Action!

We utilized the Bolt Action.net format at 1250 points with 2.5 hour rounds. We sold out with about a week left to register, which was pretty awesome – 16 dudes signing up in a young community for BA was a solid showing. We even had one Canadian and two Hoosiers. We received prize support from the following extremely generous sponsors:

• NWS-Online

• First Corps

• Askari Miniatures

• Gamersgrass

• Crescent Root Studio

• Charlie Foxtrot

• Warlord Games

• Wartime Miniatures

• Cigar Box Battles

• Any Scale Models

• Historique

• Army Group North

• JTFM

• Trenchworx

• Blitzkrieg

These sponsors really brought the players to the tables – each of the 16 players who came (nobody was a no-show) walked away with $30-50 in prize support with a $25 buy-in.

In preparation for the tourney I printed out the the BA.net format rules on a single sheet, the actual scenarios and rules for the event, and each person’s list x3. I corrected the lists in Acrobat, changing up the shots on MMGs, adding in D6 HE for heavy or super heavy tanks, etc. This made it easy for those who showed up – there were no issues with the format. I also added in special rules at the end for MMGs on ambush etc. Each player also received a Fresh Coast Gaming pin marker and objective marker created for them from Army Group North Miniatures!

They’re really awesome, email the AGNM and check it out.

  We setup eight tables, each with a theme. We had two desert tables, one Soviet collective farm table, one Pacific table, one France table with bocage, one city table, and two European village tables. It worked out really well.

  We played only Axis vs Allies the whole day because I felt the strength of the game lies in the theme. We gave away Best Axis, Best Allied, Best Minor Powers, Best Painted, and Hanoswag awards. Best Painted and Hanoswag received gold trophies =D

  The three ‘best of’ awards also came with some original art by our buddy Lee. Overall our spread of players was pretty good – we had about 50% brand new or new players and 50% experienced players. Due to the amount of new players, I probably should have run this event at 1000 pts or maybe even 800 pts.

  We used 2.5 hour rounds but still many players didn’t finish. One player showed up with 29 order dice – maybe I should have used a dice limit just in terms of time to finish. Although we did see a lot of Tigers on the board due to the D6 HE change and higher points values (and newer players).

We had the following factions present:

• British x2

• American x3

• Canadian x1

• Soviet x2

• German x7

• Italian x1

  Lots of Germans as you can see! Congratulations to Aaron for taking top Axis, Joe for taking top Allies, and Paul for taking top Minor Powers as Italians. Jeff won Best Painted and Mark won Hanoswag with his 4th Division New Zealanders.

  Some highlights include Paul’s Italians FUBARing three times in one game, a flamethrower team taking out a Tiger, and plenty of ramming and driving into buildings (we had never done that before!). The newer players could definitely see the different strategies evolving before their eyes while playing and I did my best to help out with comments during play.

  Brian and Jeremy both finished new tanks for the event – a StuH42 and a Tiger I! Both looked great and while Jeremy’s Tiger let him down a few times, Brian’s StuH42 performed admirably.

  Overall it was a great day – lots of fun, lots of new players learning a ton about the game. We had tons of 40kers, Warmachiners, and Infinityers walk by saying how cool it looked. In the immortal words of MacArthur – We Shall Return (in 2016). Check out a few more pictures and put us on the calendar for next year!

Till next time....