Tiger 131 and how it steered me to Chain of Command

 The 1/32nd scale Bolt Action force project has finally been grounded.

    Actually, it got put on indefinite hold some time ago because I felt that Bolt Action was becoming less interesting as a ruleset. I am an honest-to-goodness military historian (I gots papers and and letters after my name and ever'thing) and like my historically-based wargames to allow a reasonable facsimile of actual forces. With Bolt Action, you get small platoon-sized infantry units slogging it out on a small area (good), supported by on-table super-heavy artillery and heavy tanks and tank destroyers (not good). The Warhammer 40K roots show themselves in a rather inelegant and undiginified manner. If I want to play a fantasy/sci-fi wargame then there are plenty of other rulesets to choose from.

    The final straw (for me) was the 'Tiger Terror' rule which assumed that all on-table opponents would be terrified by the appearance of German tanks. I assume that the authors had decided to go with the inaccurate stories of Allied tank crews retreating rather than face the Tiger, but these stories were hugely exaggerated and largely down to hyperbolic reporting. Both the Soviet and Allied armies captured and destroyed Tigers within months of the tank's first limited introduction in September 1942 (Tiger 131 at Bovington, incidentally, was probably captured in Spring of 1943), so the tanks and their capabilities and weaknesses were not unknown by any means. In any case, the Allies in particular were already used to being outgunned by German armour and modifying their tactics accordingly.

    So, goodbye to Bolt Action and hello to Chain of Command. Faithful old Rapid Fire, of course, never left me.

    Anyhow, enough of this rant, I have figures to paint.