Painful Poles

 Wednesday 14th July,

                      Back to basics tonight with a Garvald Film Production of a Bolt Action game set in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944.This was actually a last minute call up as the intended players were all waylaid by maladies,rearranged games and forgetfulness so the tracksuit was taken off and I was straight off the bench into war torn Warsaw and what a game it was.

The gathering.

Getting down to business.

      El Presidente for life had set up a very nice table festooned with buildings and rubble ready for an exciting game of tooing and froing throughout the evening especially when myself being the German thought we had it all tied up only to be shot in the back-literally .

House party-Polish style.

Polish flamethrower team.

              The forces were divvied out and I found myself in charge of German police units and some unenthusiastic Ostfront troops who were to prove that they would rather have been somewhere else.Their job was to hold the fort to give time for my bit more motivated reinforcements time to muster and counterattack.The Polish resistance had the ability to basically appear anywhere as they had the benefit of the sewer system to help them with hidden movement.They also had traps and other sneaky tricks up their sleeves as I found out to my cost later on.I imbedded my men behind cover in various buildings and awaited the vengeful hordes which weren’t to long in coming.

Reinforcements arrive.

Colonel Radl wishing he was back in Alderney.

Fisticuffs at close quarters.

                                                             It was mostly hordes of infantry who threatened to overcome my mere garrison so I made sure that they were well behind cover and this proved to be fruitful as my two German police units were doing most of the spadework and holding the Polish resistance off but this would only be for so long as Colin started to pour infantry backed up by a flamethrower into the first building losing a lot of attackers in the process.Even when he finally got the flamethrower into the firing line,the damage was minimal with the indignity at the end of the attack of running out of fuel.My first police squad rallied and done away with these usurpers.The only problem was that force of Polish numbers was doing away with this squad.I  moved a squad of Ostfront infantry towards them to give them some support but this squad was ambushed by insurgents coming out of the sewers in front of them making them hit the dirt.This squad began to take fire from all sides and even the presence of Colonel Radl straight out of Eagle Has Landed didn't help them as firstly he was taken out by a sniper and the rest of the squad just disintegrated.A bit of irony for Radl,escaping a firing squad on Alderney to get shot by a sniper in Warsaw.

“Get oot ma way!”

Shot in the back.

Coming out the sewer.

                                                  The Poles were getting the upperhand in the early skirmishes due to El Presidente getting lucky when it came to drawing his activation dice so it was no surprise when another of his squads appeared out of a sewer in front of the townhall and proceeded to do away with my other Ostfront squad who were moving to support the German HQ and mortar team who were being isolated in the townhall.Time for some reinforcements from the German side which came in the form of a proper army squad backed up by a Brummbar.Time to make these Poles pay-wrong!

A great combination.

Not a very good ambush.

Trying to take care of business.

                                                   As soon as my first reinforcement squad arrived on to the table they were met by a resistance squad who were hiding in one of the first buildings ready to gun down my poor lads.Luckily the Poles couldn't shoot for toffee and even the PIAT they had been given was useless so I turned my lads towards this enemy and eventually cleared this nest of vipers,leaving my Brummbar without any real opposition and a chance to mop up.As I said one was getting overconfident.I drove the Brummbar straight up the mainstreet straight into Colin's trap!

Plotting revenge.

Pioneer transport.

Rache-Revenge.

                                                       Maybe if I had read a wee bit about the uprising I would have read about some of the Polish ruses.As my Brummbar passed the so called wreck of a Panther tank covered in oily rags and spewing smoke it suddenly sprang into action and turned its turret towards the rear end of my Brummbar and opened fire turning it into a lot of scrap metal-bummer!This is what you get for being overconfident and sending armour up a street that hasn't been cleared by infantry first.

Ready for a scrap.

                                                 This made the rest of my reinforcements spring into action firstly with the arrival of A Stug all guns blazing but alas it couldn't hit a barn door.I brought another infantry squad on this time armed with a Panzerfaust but it had been taking lessons from the Stug and it also missed but that wouldn't last forever and third time lucky a squad of Pioneers decided to rush the tank and luckily overwhelm it rendering it useless.Hurrah!

My mortar boys.

This was my HQ but I don’t think the horse would have went down well in the townhall.

                                    By this time the Polish resistance were taking a toll on my beleaguered defenders as firstly the Ostfront squad lying in the middle of the street were done away with,the townhall was cleared of Germans and finally the Poles had swarmed through the first Police garrisoned building doing away with my first squad in the process leaving only my second police squad holding on for dear life.This now drew fire from all quarters but they hung on behind the thick Polish walls only vacating the premises once due to a terrible rally dice roll but they quickly regrouped and headed back into their original building depriving the Poles of some victory points.

Cossacks moving up-only in the Garvald Film Studios.

Meine Junge holding on.

                                                       The game was heading for full time so I started moving my forces up to try and retake some buildings and victory locations.I proceeded to move one of my squads into the townhall but they were thwarted by resistance fighters holding on for dear life and this was to be the last piece of action as the game fizzled out to a score draw.If the game had gone on longer I'm sure due to my reinforcements arriving,both armour and infantry,a German victory would have been assured or something along these lines.

The final scene!

                                             Once again a great game played as always fair square by gentlemen as all our ruffian members were all away doing trivial things.My thanks to Colin for putting on a great table to fight over and also provide all the figures a lot of whom had their first outing.

                                          I'll see you all when I see you.

                                   This has been a Garvald Film Studio presentation. 

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