Walking the Line

For something like 600 years now, Pete and I have been either planning or actively playing through the Bolt Action campaign from the Germany Strikes! book.

We're reaching the end - the last game for us to play is the second part of a Maginot Line scenario. Before lockdown began, at some point in the mid-nineties, we played the first part which saw French relief forces trying to break through the German lines attacking the defences. I was able to get enough units through to give me some sort of relief force, so the next step was to actually prepare the fortifications.

To that end, I've pulled together an excellent set of defences, which will definitely halt the German advance in its tracks (so long as they don't do anything dastardly like sneak around the end).

Please advance on these from the front only

So, let's have a look at the details.

The slot of doom

The door of somewhat reduced doom

First of all was a Coastal Defence Bunker from Warlord. I thought this kit came out pretty well, although I took issue with the claims that the roof was removable and the doors able to open. In the event, I had to glue the roof on so that the bunker would keep its shape, and the doors ended up glued so that they'd appear to hang properly.

I then followed that with a Flak Bunker (also from Warlord).

Slot, and this time, roof of doom

Door plus ladder of lesser doom

Again, I like the look of the thing once it's done, but again the box claims you can open the doors and remove the roof. The doors, ok, I think that could have been possible but I didn't bother. But the roof can't be removable if you're going to glue on the ladder, and if you're not going to glue it on I think it's going to get broken and/or lost. Also, without the roof glued on the whole thing wants to bend out of shape. Anyway, long story short, I've glued the roof on.

Bunkers need weapons. On the Maginot Line this means cloches, so I have these:

Dakka dakka dakka dakka

Machine gun cloches that I picked up from Salute some number of years ago (told you this had been going on a long time). These go onto the top of above-ground blockhouses, so they'll sit on the roof of the bunkers. For the flak bunker that means I'll need to come up with some sort of cunning base arrangement, so I'll look to do that before we have the game.

Finally, some of the blockhouses on the Line are buried, and armed with big guns in turrets. I therefore needed some of those...

Boom boom boom

I got these along with the cloches. They're from a company called Last Man Last Bullet, which I can't say I'd ever heard of before I started searching for Maginot Line bits. At least some of them are in fact 20mm scale, but I can't remember which and I can't say that it matters. The important thing is the aforementioned big guns (twin howitzers in fact).

Right, that's some painting done, so we must inevitably come to some numbers. Here they are!

Painted: 99
Acquired: 108

This seems to show that I'm hovering around breaking even. Having spent some time this weekend contemplating the ridiculous pile of unpainted stuff currently in my garage, I really should try a bit harder on that... Keep watching to see if I develop any willpower over the rest of the year!