First Game, First AAR

So i travelled 45mins north to play my first game of Bolt Action on Wednesday, met a heap of new people and saw some great games, scenery, and armies painted for quite a few systems.

500pts UK vs USA (training exercise) somewhere on the English Moors

we rolled for mission and got scenario 3 "Point Defence" i elected to defend! a fault that will become apparent quickly
Set up

All UK forces off board the US dig in and weather a prepatory bombardment

left flank

Right flank

The US which was all , but for 2 units pinned by the bombardment took to ground the first turn, allowing the UK to move up and take position among the tree lines on the opposing ridge, turn 2 came and went with the US chaotically trying to clear their pins before the UK descended upon the objectives, to limited avail however with an exciting turn of luck while the US were regrouping the UK artillery unloaded aiming for my sole MMG team however due to lack of clear co-ordinates the shot went totally wide and hit the entire British right flank in the tree lines

A rallying cheers went up amongst the US who were just starting to raise their heads - 2 rifle squads, a Sherman, and the army HQ all pinned was this to be the downfall of the Brits?

Turn 3 seizing the opportunity the M24 sped out and around the orchard to take on the Brit Sherman from the side to no avail just a glancing hit, but rack up an extra pin Tommy and just to throw more confuzion into the mix the pintal HMG opened up and forced heads down along the tree line.

Turn 4 The brits achieved some rallying, with the far right squad rolling through their pins and taking out my opposing US unit that was approaching the tree line, the M24 moves closer again using the pintal HMG to suppress the squad hiding in the tree line, while this time the 75mm loaded the HE and targeted in reprisal the farthest squad (I must apologise at this stage nearlly all the photo's from my right flank were blurry and didnot come out) over on the right my mortar spotter has cleared his pins and is directing fire against a unit of rifles approaching towards my right flank objective, i have a mixed arm unit there that is also trying to defend the point, but they are taking casualties from a snipe team that on the extreme British left (they can just be seen on the edge of the pic below).

Turn 5 The Brits are hurriedly trying to remove those pins, or fire through them with the earlier miss fired arty, and 2 round of HMG fire from the M24 their right flank is almost locked down added to that the MMG although now missing a man is still adding to the fire as is now the HQ unit who suddenly grew a set and stroud  up the field and took position assisting the MMG with adding fire into the tree line.

Over on my right sees our units engage in a bloody melee attack, which was quick and brutal with the US unit decimate the UK squad and as we were still being hampered by that sniper we took a consolidatory move into the nearby tree line and discover a radio team making a spearhead forward.

We both agreed to end it there and not play a turn 6 the US successfully defended its 3 objectives, and our casualties were 8 men. from memory the UK lost around 11 men i think...
What did i get from the game? Pins suck!!! and if i have chance to play the attacker i will - the prep bomb was so effective in tying me down for 2 turns if the UK arty hadn't of missed and hit his own units i would of been screwed! and those pins on the Sherman were so so critical, for me my star players were the M24, and my right flank mixed unit. My mortars did squat and with both spotter and crew pinned it took ages to fire and didnt score a hit all night, HQ didnt do a thing really running backwards and forward trying to help remove those pins achieved little and they worked better when they were firing on the enemy. Outstanding units for the enemy would have to be the Sniper and the rifle unit on my far left both these teams scored the majority of the kills and it was a shame that the rifle unit was targeted by most of my left flank force and destroyed... but thats warfare, im sure we made a few mistakes and did stuff wrong but it was an enjoyable game i loved the random activation (even when on 2 consecutive turns the UK pulled 3 or more activations in a row - next time im leaving the wife at home as she was the drawer of random dice). 
All up a great game we played like gentlemen, no arguments, no grief - Warlord games you have aced it a fine product, and i will be travelling again on a Wednesday to play more games.
VP