Miniature Wargaming with Spudnick: AAR: Bolt Action: Romanians, First Blood.

Friday, December 23, 2016

AAR: Bolt Action: Romanians, First Blood.

It is fun to make this post sound like the Romanians were a bunch of little "Rambos" taking out anyone who blinked wrong. This was truly not the case! The reason could be as simple as a comment made during the "wives dueling" game. One of my fellow wargaming buddies mentioned wanting to be "a fly on the wall" for my wife and I's next game. I could not see the reasoning in this, since she lost a game running my troops. In a sense, she was going to win the game losing or not. If she won, she won! If she lost, my troops lost, since they were not hers, she won! However, I guess that did not matter for the next game. A bigger gamers' myth exists out there to explain my Romanians losing: they were freshly painted!
There might be a few out there to cry out "Shenanigans!" on such an excuse. Honestly, I have no idea why the new stuff always does shitty. I think there are a combination of reasons that lead to these landslide losses when it comes to new troops on the field. One, they are "green" troops despite rating them as high as "veteran". Two, the whole myth in your head about "new" psychologically distracts you from playing good. Three, you chose the army, instead of the army choosing you. This actually happens in real history! Four, you do not know the "special rules" for the new troops. Five, all of the previous reasons are a bunch of "bull", you just need a reason for your bad rolling day!
New, old, worn out, or peed on, the results of a game and new stuff just happen. And if you are really peeing on your miniatures, you a drunk and had too much at the club. Rolling at that point is besides the point! That fact is that there is always going to be that memory of a bad game with a newly painted army. I think humans tend to be negative by nature. Despite nearly every miniature newly produced on the table, I can say I have had one individual miniature that made a winning difference that was new. That was my German Neferwerfer 41. That thing killed like crazy! It killed so well at a convention game that it was the most hated unit in three out of the four games! So the myth is a myth, if not common.
In the case of the Romanians against my wife's American infantry, it was a slaughter against them. In the defense of my new army, I did do some bold moves against my wife. I flanked two units against her infantry when I know she loves assaults. The good news was that I killed one squad of infantry and her Sherman tank, The bad was the loss of all of my core squads and a mortar round killed my Panzer IV G. I guess the tank hatch was still open! To add insult to injury, my wife decided not to chase after me, since she knew she was winning. Why risk that? We played one more turn just to see if I could kill that silly bazooka team that was going to go after my Panzer IV that died. If I had pulled it off, it would have been a "Draw" instead of a "Loss". Hopefully, they will do better next time. Below was the show. Enjoy!