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This was a blog post that I put up yesterday, but I thought I'd also make a thread here.

While I've had hobby projects planned for this year, it seems that they've been usurped by my promise to fellow SJGA member Sam to participate in a campaign based on the 1939 Invastion of Poland at the outset of World War II using Bolt Action.

Sam has apparently already amassed quite the collection of Polish infantry, guns, and vehicles, so I will need to put together a matching company using both my own miniatures and those from fellow commanders.

Luckily, Warlord has a good range of Early War Germans, and there are plenty of other manufacturers as well.

I've also put together a simple three linked game campaign chart that we could use, inspired by Steve Balagan's work:



It's fairly straightforward. The only concern is that the rules for Bolt Action assume a "fair fight" of equal points value, which may be difficult to do if we're going to make this a fight between two companies. I'll be discussing this with other club members.

There's also the potential of using the ladder campaign system from TooFatLardies' At the Sharp End supplement for Chain of Command. It probably wouldn't be too hard to adapt to Bolt Action.

Another idea I've had is to add certain elements from Platoon Forward, written by Joseph Legan and also published by TooFatLardies. It's a system-independent set of rules to "add personality to your tactical level games" - perfect for Bolt Action. There's command traits, in-game events, and simple reinforcement rules to add a little flavor to the games.

Also, I've been looking into reading material to cover the campaign:

Case White: The German Army in the Polish Campaign, William Russ
Case White: The Invasion of Poland 1939, Robert Forczyk
First to Fight: The Polish War 1939, Roger Moorhouse
Poland 1939: The Birth of Blitzkrieg, Steven Zaloga
September Campaign + Poland in Flames compilation, Alexander Kawczynski

So look forward to seeing plenty of 1939 German infantry and equipment in the upcoming painting updates!

I think from a high level perspective your set up will work.

Based on your input you may just need to change the criteria for a win at the mission level. So in Round 1 the Germans would need to win by a larger margin to count as a victory and Poland would need a larger win in Round 3.

Although if you're playing from a pool and once a unit/model is dead it's dead (assuming no recovery/repair roll) you wouldn't need to modify anything. As now players will need to decide how much to risk each battle, so may keep items in reserve

I think it really comes down to the out of battle stuff you want to use and how complicated you want to get.

We'll have to see. It depends on how the other players want to handle this. If it's going to be too much of a problem to coordinate players in the ongoing pandemic, we may have to abandon the casualties/reinforcements and just play straightforward "X amount of points" games.

If not, we can use multiple platoons and keep track of casualties. At the Sharp End has a good chart for models lost/kept/in recovery after each game.

So work has begun. I'll post pics if/when the Polish side posts anything, but I finished assembling a decently sized 1939 or 1940 reinforced-platoon with armor options.



The first squad is complete. Two more to go, then I'll work on either support weapons or vehicles.

No Soviets?

The Soviet invasion on September 17 was an important part of the campaign.

Also it would be a nice touch to add some time counter that is supposed to trigger action by Western allies.

When this time limit is met, nothing happens.

Eumerin wrote:
No Soviets?

The Soviet invasion on September 17 was an important part of the campaign.

There will be a single Soviet v. Polish game after the three initial games happen, since someone else in the club has a Soviet army that should work.

I just finished Case White by Robert Forczyk, and while there was some fights between the Polish and Soviet forces, it doesn't seem like there was the same kind of fighting that had occurred when Germany invaded. Mostly the "liberation" of east Poland, since the Polish forces in west Poland were shattered and trying to fall back to Warsaw.

Cyel wrote:
Also it would be a nice touch to add some time counter that is supposed to trigger action by Western allies.

When this time limit is met, nothing happens.

The German commander gets a strongly worded letter.

In my group we personaly found out that what worked out best was to set one or two strictly defined scenarios as introductions, then to go easy on rules and just build them as the story goes to reflect what happened. It gives up most competitive sides of it but since you basically would have to playtest once through the whole campaign to first see if the rules you implemented or even converted from other systems work fine and as intended.

Having people committed to what they do, debatting what come's next, having it made on the fly has , calls for everyone to put efforts in the matter, but turned out to work out best on our part, rather than try to set actual rules.

As far as casualties are concerned, the simpliest way is to actually pay attention to particular characters and vehicules, and then to ressurect say a third of your lost points during the previous game, allowing you to simulate reinforcements or wounded/mind-shattered soldiers back on their feet and manning up the assault.

Thanks for the advice, Walter. I'll keep that in mind during the next group discussion on how we'll play out the campaign.

More work has been done. I finished a second infantry squad and two guns - a Le.IG 18 infantry support gun and a Pak 36 anti-tank gun.

It turns out that painting single color-tone vehicles is super easy with a little spray primer.

Also, these were my first attempts with transfers. I'm very happy with how they turned out.


Sd.Kfz 222


Sd.Kfz 231 6-rad

Actually most germanique vehicules are a blessing because early war grey as well as late war camo are fairly easy to paint and look how beautiful. Yours look perfect! I would just add a tiny detail which would be another decal on the flat area on the front of the 222. Are the kits from warlord by the way?

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
Actually most germanique vehicules are a blessing because early war grey as well as late war camo are fairly easy to paint and look how beautiful. Yours look perfect! I would just add a tiny detail which would be another decal on the flat area on the front of the 222. Are the kits from warlord by the way?

Thank you! They are Warlord, yes. I think, if I had the chance, I'd prefer to try the plastic Rubicon kits.

I'll take at look at the decals I have and see if there's something I can add. Maybe a plate from the Opel Blitz transfer sheet.

And here's more work I've done in the meantime:


Medium mortar and medium machine gun


Opel Blitz


Rubicon's Citroen Traction Avant (field car for the officers)


38(t)s, one regular and one command version (missing the hull mounted MG for a command radio)

Only improvement I could suggest is that transition on the glass could be smoother but looks good anyway, especially on the tabletop where you don't necessarely put to much attention on details.
Plus that's from a bad painter so take it with a grain of salt!

+1 for the french car

The glass definitely looks more natural at arms length!

Here's the last of the vehicles for the platoon. The third tank and a Kradschützen team.

This is really nice work, man. Thanks for sharing. I hope you'll let us know how the campaign goes!

 creeping-deth87 wrote:
This is really nice work, man. Thanks for sharing. I hope you'll let us know how the campaign goes!

Will do! It looks like we'll be on target for December, maybe even November.

Here's a look at some of the work other club members are doing, mustering the Polish response:



It looks I'll have my hands full dealing with Polish Lancers!

As for the campaign, why are you modifying Bolt Action with Chain of Command campaign rules? You should just play Chain of Command instead.

Bolt Action is the game of choice for the area, although I did entice the other guy running the Polish forces to pickup a copy of CoC.

Last few minis are finished! Officers, support models, and light weapons teams.







I might add another tank or two (like a Panzer II or IV) just for variety's sake, but this pretty much covers everything an invading German force could muster when invading Poland.

There's no such thing "enough tanks" anyway, go ahead!