Iron Forest Club Days 01/02/2015 - Banzai!!!!!!

So another weeks rolls by and no sooner than I can say "wow, that went.." it is Sunday - club day :)! After catching a quick bit of sleep from the previous nights fun shift at the local Super M (Discovered that Canvey Island consumes a ridiculous amount of ready to eat jelly :S please share theories) I made my way to Iron Forest Games.

John and Jason had opened the club for me earlier and had already squeezed in a couple of games of Mordhiem for Jason's campaign. The first game was Jason's Mercs vs Tony's Dwarves and I heard Tony got a bit of a kickin! Loosing three dwarves permanently in the process - ouch! The second game was Phil's Sisters of Sigmar vs John's Norsemen - I heard that Phil didn't fair much better than Tony either! Next week is the final games of the campaign and I believe Sir Rodric is due a game with Jason... wooden spoon anyone?

After I got myself sorted I accepted a game against a new visitor to IFG - Leigh who is one of the founding members of Blood and Iron - a Essex bolt action gaming group.  Naturally he invited me to a game of Bolt Action - my US army vs his Imperial Japanese. So after a quick ooogling of his figures, we set up and begun the game.

NOTE: Me and Leigh are both raising new armies so please excuse the unpainted nature of the figures - they will be painted soon :)

Deployment

Before the game begun Leigh versed me in the rules of the Japanese and their powerful banzai charge. Upon this knowledge I made the wise assumption that I couldn't afford to get assaulted and decided as a plan (Like those work :P) to approach the enemy until in long range and than making a fighting withdraw, concentrating fire on exposed units in the plan of pinning them down.

US Sniper team taking position on the far left flank.

I placed my Sniper Team hidden within a ruined cottage on the far left flank with the Sherman at the bottom of the hill.

Next along is a seven man team of veteran infantry, with one BAR and SMG. They deployed near the wheat field - hoping to make the most of the cover asap. Centre deployment of the battlefield was the HQ team - hiding behind boccage - ready to instil discipline where needed.

Than finally on the right flank was another seven man infantry team - same composition and a bazooka team.

Opposing me - from left to right (from my perspective) was a veteran Japanese infantry team, position behind a hill. Next along was his "tank bombers" not sure of the proper term and his mounted HQ who positioned themselves in the safety of the Mediterranean village.

In the ploughed field adjacent was another infantry team and a light mortar team - a pain in the arse for my sniper team! And lastly a type3 Chi-Nu was within the ruined hamlet on the far right flank.

As planned I pushed a steady advance, all my units take position in the cover they could find. My sherman pounded the infantry team as it moved from safety from behind the hill, causing little damage but pinning none the less.

On the right flank, the japanese mortar began to rain down on the unit in the wheat field but luckily not quite finding its mark. Meanwhile my bazooka team and infantry team moved into position within the ruined farmstead.

note the figs behind the tank are "dead pile"

The bazooka team opened fire on the Chi-Nu but only managing to drop a couple of pin markers.

Back on the left flank - the combined fire of the infantry and sherman made serious damage on the enemy infantry team. The Chi-Nu managed to land a couple of rounds on the sherman but no more than pinning in effect.

And from here is where it went wrong for me. The enemy infantry team who started in the ploughed field moved steadily up the centre of the board. My infantry team on the far right tried to pin them down but there fire had disappointing effect. This allowed the enemy to take perfect position behind the centre hill to BANZAI!!!!

Into the infantry team in the wheat field and my HQ - effortlessly wiping both out....

At the same time a lucky shot from the Japanese mortar landed bang on my sniper team... SPLAT!!!

Seeing everything going pete tong, I used my sherman to hurtle MMG fire into the Banzai unit but not enough as they managed to charge from the wheat field into my bazooka team, slaughtering them. 

The infantry team on the far right, sensing their peril and starting to get seriously suppressed from combined fire from the mortar team and the Chi-Nu, withdrew from the barn and unleashed crossfire with the Sherman tank into the unit that assaulted the bazooka team - wiping them out.

With only the mortar team, and Chi-Nu remaining the infantry hunkered down in the safety of a ruined cottage while the Sherman moved in to finish them off - only managing to wipe out the mortar team and rout the Chi-Nu. It was a great game - the sudden turn of misfortune for me only made the game even more tense and exciting and the close victory felt very satisfactory for me and Leigh.

At the same time to me and Leigh game, Tony and Alex was having a go at Infinity 3rd Edtion - I dont know the details of the game other than it was Tony's Nomads vs Alex's Yu-Jing. But did manage to get a few snaps of the game :)

After a quick break, we broke into a another game of Bolt Action, this time a multilayer team match with me, Tony and John sharing a US force vs Jason and Leigh who had a mixed German, Japanese axis force. I wont go into this game in depth other than it was an absolute massacre for the US - with only John's excellent use of the Sherman managing to retain any form of moral victory for our team :P

Lastly while this was going down, Phil and Alex had a game of 30k. Phil's Catachan Imperial Guard vs Alex's Sons of Horus. I didn't follow this game closely enough to report on other than they had a ton of fun and when the dust settled, it ended in a draw.

It was such a great day at the club, glad to see old friends and great to see the club being fully utilised. With all the tables being used and a vast variety of games being played down over the course of the day - nice to see we have come along way from May 2013 :)

Thanks for your time, cya soon ;)