Over the last four episodes of Home Guard Radio I have been talking about getting an army built for Bolt Action that would be usable in a tournament and in regular play. I love my Panzer Lehr army that I have built but it was built from a point of view of looking good and without the knowledge of what works well in the game. The result was that I ended up with a lot of vehicles and a couple of squads that were not very flexible. I decided that I was going to start a force that would be built to be played with rather than on what i think looks cool, i need to create a balance between these two positions. After some time pouring over the 1000 point army boxes that Warlord Games sell I narrowed it down to either British or Marine Corp. Im not a fan of the British models, don’t get me wrong there nice kits but I wanted something a little different and Bonnar has them, for a while I thought about British Airborne but only for a little while. In the end the United States Marine Corp won the battle and the Beards ‘n’ Buckshot Brigade began to evolve.
I decided that this army was going to combine the looking good aspect and playing well so I bought myself the Armies of the United States book and sat down to figure out what I could create from the 1000 point army box, initially I was aiming for 750 points as this is what we play locally with the occasional 1000 point games. Having played against Nick’s (Terrain4cake) Us Airborne and AndyM (3colourbased) I knew that a veteran unit can be a tough prospect for people to face off against as the jump from 4+ to 5+ to remove the model is a large one. I got to thinking that I was going to use the late war USMC entry in the forces book so it made sense to me that these would be the battle hardened veterans of the corp. So the all vets list began to emerge from my twisted mind. A quick visit to 6s2hit store down the road and I was the proud owner of the 1000 point USMC box set at a really good price.
Over the course of playing games with my Panzer Lehr I came to the conclusion that I preferred 8 man units of troops as they were chunky enough to do some damage when laying down fire but not to large that they became very expensive. This time I also promised to myself that I will stay on the wagon and not go all fan boy and buy a mountain of tanks, thankfully the USMC box come with an armoured transport rather than a tank. I decided to limit myself to what I could create from the army box itself as I am trying to cut down my spending on plastic crack to allow for the purchase of a new pc (not because she who must be obeyed told me too).
The creation of the army on paper was actually a lot of fun and I did it at work to occupy my time. I knew that they would all be veterans even the support elements as this was my theme. From playing games in the local area and talking about them on Home Guard Radio the idea of 1st lieutenants began to look very appealing as the moral boost they give will help immensely when you consider that the army itself is small and elite plus the Marines should have a big tough hombre leading them in to battle a battle hardened veteran like Gunny from the HBO television show the Pacific.
With this in mind the 750 list began to emerge:
Veteran 1st Lieutenant with SMG
Veteran Sniper
Veteran Forward Air Observer
Veteran Bazooka Team
8 Late War Veteran Marines with 2 SMG’s and a Shotgun
8 Late War Veteran Marines with 2 SMG’s and a Shotgun
8 Late War Veteran Marines with 3 Bar’s
8 Late War Veteran Marines with 3 Bar’s
Now a lot of people look at the list and start to realize that I am lacking in anti armour capability and this is true to a certain extent, I am relying on the Bazooka team and the Air Observer to be able to deal with armoured threats. This is ok however because at the points level were playing at in the area at the moment the heaviest armour we have seen is a T34 Flame Tank run by Ali from Home Guard Radio (That Guy) and Tim (The original That Guy) now seeing as between the three of us we work weird shifts then the chance of me playing them is small, not tactically sound but it works. The sniper is there as I am a bit of a history nut and I have a lot of respect for the achievements of the late Carlos Hathcock so I think that all marine armies should have a sniper, in game it is useful for tying up units as the opponents are always worried about a sniper. My Bazooka team have been an interesting mix of results the leader of the team is called Crazy Larry as in the last outing he sat on the half way line in the open for 3 turns tying to take out an enemy jeep and survived unscathed despite the whole army going after him.
The Air observer is there because the US national rule about buy one get one free air strikes is great and I love the idea of an air strike thundering down on the unsuspecting enemy. The rule book says that we should create a little token to represent the air strike target, well I had to go one step to far this time I could not just use some simple marker so I picked up this cheap on Ebay.
The kit was simple to build and didn’t cost very much and it looks awesome on the table despite not being painted yet.
All that leaves in the army is the Marines themselves, the 8 man squads that make up the core of the beards ‘n’ buckshot brigade. I decided months ago that I would for a central core of the force and no matter the points this core would be included in the list, it is made up of these 4 units and the lieutenant. There are two short range squads with there shotguns and Smg’s and two longer range units with there bars the intention is to steal an idea from Bonnar’s list and adopt a bunny hopping fire and advance tactic where the Bar Squad will act as covering fire for the assault units. This has worked rather well in the first two outings that the army has had. Some more practice with the deployment and I think I will have it nailed to be a successful tactic. The assault units have been devastating in combat in recent games and there 5+ helps them survive a lot longer than normal as well.
These wip shots are not great as I have lost the charger for my decent camera and the first until is basically finished but I thought I would post them up to let people see that I have actually done some work on them. More pictures will follow over the next few days including the weapons teams on their scenic bases.
Coming next time the progression of the Beards ‘n’ Buckshot Brigade to 1000 points and some more Wip shots.
