Ston Bridge

This Thursday our club did a couple of Market Garden games, since the date was about right for the 79th anniversary. One was a big Flames of War game, that I failed to photograph, whilst the other was a Bolt Action game covering the US attack on Ston Bridge. I played that one because Bolt Action is the lesser of two evils.

Caesar organised this game, with various people providing figures (some of which were far from accurate but helped make up numbers). The paratroopers would land (deploy) randomly to the right of the table, looking to capture objectives around the bridge. There were some German units on the table, and reinforcements would quickly appear along the long edges.

Here's the brief.

The paratroopers have landed!

They quickly advanced, seeking cover and positions from which to attack the German defenders.

Not really knowing the rules or how odds worked in this game I decided a direct approach was best, and simply assaulted one of the objectives, defended by an 88mm gun. 

Despite horrible casualties I took it.

My other troops were tied up by a couple of building full of Germans. Note that the armoured car represented a jeep with a machine-gun, so was far less impressive than it looked.

With a taste for close combat I moved into the ground-floor of each building, since the Germans had chosen to deploy upstairs. Bryan turned his other 88mm gun on the ground floor of one of his buildings, ruthlessly risking its total collapse (and the loss of his defending squad) in order to wipe out the attacking Americans.

The first of the German reinforcements arrived, sweeping onto the board and assaulting my heavy machine-gun. So that was lost, despite a gallant fight.

Peter wasn't going to be left out of the assaults, and took the other 88mm gun with a wild charge. We now controlled both objectives on our side of the river.

We now had to cross the bridge and take the final objective, then hold them for a couple of turns, but we became pinned down in a firefight on the banks of the canal and aware of steadily increasing numbers of German reinforcements on the other bank. Running out of troops we realised that we simply didn't have the strength to take it and called it a night. 

As games of Bolt Action go it was pretty exciting; thanks to everyone involved in putting it on.