After Action Report - Kings Border Clash 2025

It was a dark and wintry Friday night in Albury when we set up the hall ready for the inaugural 2025 Kings Birthday Border Clash tournament. As we had plenty of space and folding tables, we were able to provide a very civilised gaming setup with space and an empty table between the gaming boards. This allowed players to properly set up their gear on the central tables and have space to store their troops on the edge of the boards.

The DemoGamers were able to provide the 6 gaming boards plus a very detailed demonstration board. We need to do some more scenery days to expand our roads, hedges, trees and more to properly fill the boards!

The tournament attracted 12 players, of which 7 were new - that is, they had played less than 5 games before this event. We are not counting just competition games, but any games at all. Our seasoned players enjoyed the varied tables and opponents who improved each round of play. The first round had more basic questions, but by the third round every player was having more challenges as all the new players had mastered the basics and were trying new strategies and tactics. The best part of new players is that they don't know certain moves aren't normally done. So when they are tried in the game, all participants learn why they aren't normally done, or discover some interesting new options to try next time!

Here are our volunteers and the layout after finishing set up around 9pm on Friday evening.

We always try to ensure our historical boards tell a story. It's always more interesting fighting over "The Manor" or "The Factory" or "The fishing Village" than just a random collection of terrain pieces.

We also setup the Outer Cherbourg board. This will be enhanced, ready for Victorious Tabletop Game Show in August.

As part of the Tournament, we not only supplied the 6 boards, but also 3 tournament armies, 4 demo armies and the spare dice and tapes as required. We want to ensure that all the new players get to enjoy their day with all the right gear.

Here are a couple of highlights of the day. This photo shows the successful advance of a German squad with a panzerfaust, close to the very heavy Churchill tank. Boom! A well spent 15 points for the panzerfaust.

We were relaxed about painted armies as we knew we had so many brand new players. Everyone understood that grey "ghost" armies are OK, just so we can bring new players in. Even so, we had many well painted armies which really worked well with the detailed boards.

Sometimes, the dice gods are not on your side. As players quote "Bolt Action Happens" when the vagaries of the dice rolls dismantle their best laid plans.

Here the squad went to pass an order test with only one pin. 12. FUBAR! They then rolled friendly fire and shot at the officer team right next to them. All hit, but no wounds. Phew!

Another sad tale was the Flak 88mm attempting to pass an order test and getting a 12, then run off the table. Boom. A very expensive order dice abandoned in the field. At least the player with most FUBARs won a prize and choice from the prize table.

The sponsorship for the day was exceptional. Plenty of choice for certificate winners and after they all had a go, there was enough for all participants to have a pick. No one left without prizes worth more than their entry fee.

Thank you to our excellent sponsors:

Warlord Games

War & Peace Games

Wargames Warehouse

Khaki Green

Wargames Atlantic

Eureka Miniatures

The Combat Company

Inn Games

Dice Of War

Dark Castle Terrain

Tabletop Battlefield Terrain in 3D

We have been asked to show the boards we used in the tournament so here they are:

The Bocage Board - Normandy

Lots of bocage which counts as hard cover, and a lot of it is sight blocking terrain for infantry.

Deceptively open in patches, then blocked in others.

The Chateau - France

Bordering fields and a manicured garden. More open areas, with hard and soft cover walls, plus rough grounds for the wheat fields.

Jungle Pipe Factory

Railway line through bamboo jungle and paddy fields.

A lovely mix of hard and soft cover, lanes of fire and hiding places and buildings to fight over.

The City that shall be named

We have collected lots of lovely buildings over the years and wanted to see how a game worked with lots of buildings in Bolt Action v3. It worked well, despite all the fears from the changes to buildings made in v2 and carried through to v3. Yes, being in a building when facing a tank or gun is sad, but you can move through buildings and the tank can't catch you! And you can pop up behind a tank really easily. Viva la Panzerfaust and Bazooka!

Time for more roads!

 

Our Lady of the Snow - Winter Church board

A very large church dominates the board with fields, hedges and walls and a smaller house with orchard.

 

Jungle Fishing Village

We purchased the Sarissa Precision Far East village buildings a long time ago, built and undercoated them and stored them for later use. The board worked surprisingly well.

A randomly laid out series of wooden buildings around the main gathering shack in the centre, surrounded by vision blocking bamboo thickets.

The village borders a beach with a statue facing the sea on a cliff. Very yellow sand! (We'll have to fix that)

Scenery Boot Camp - June 2025

Does your wargaming army need something worth fighting over?

Of course it does!

Nothing improves a game as much as excellent scenery.

But the funding competition between more soldiers, vehicles and gear versus scenery is challenging.

Come to our Scenery Boot Camp.

We will make some really nifty scenery such as:

• Hedges
• Fences
• Roads - country and city
• Walls
• Sand Bags
• ... and more.

Join us and you can take some of the scenery you have made home, ready to make more and you'll still have funds for the next troops!

More details are here. Get in quick!

You can also see a lot of articles we have already created for creating cost effective - and great looking - scenery here.

Anzac Day 2025 Boot Camp - The battle fields

The secret to a good battlefield for a Bolt Action game is the scenery has to look good and make sense from a terrain point of view. Why are the troops fighting over this bit of dirt? Where will objectives be?

The next step is considering the mix of cover - hard, soft, rough ground, distance from each side, and so on. Forces with different mixes of infantry, heavy weapons, vehicles, transports and guns need to be able to compete. Naturally, some boards are better for some force mixes than others. But with Bolt Action, there is always a chance. As players frequently confess, "The Dice Gods are fickle."

These are the four game boards on which we will be running the demonstration games. Four players per board, each with 600 point armies, in teams of two fighting side by side.

Board 1 - The Chateau

This popular country holiday retreat has lovely paved roads, county track and nearby woods and fields.

A small German Panzer Grenadier squad carefully approaches the Chateau, hiding behind the Hanomag and border hedge.

Board 2 - The Jungle Pipe Factory

The train tracks are the only civilised approach to the factory, with rice paddies and jungle surrounding this pipe factory.

A small squad of Japanese soldiers follow the Chi-Ha tank into the train platform at the factory.

Board 3 - Normandy Farm

This lovely farm is surrounded by bocage (Normandy hedges with stone bases), fields and long grass. Roads are blocked by down trees. A fine board for short range fighting!

Americans hug their large Sherman tank as they approach the farmhouse blocked by the large fallen tree.

Board 4 - Winter Normandy Church

A chilly Winter board centred on the large Church and nearby small village. Fields, tree lines and hedges block sight.

A Finnish sniper team watches ver the board from the Bell tower.

The 2017 U-Boat Railway Station Board

Starting to play test the board

We have been planning a new board for this season's public participation games fr some time. The core idea was to have a board which provided the following features:

1. A certain "Wow!" factor which would attract visitors to investigate the game further.
2. Lots of tactical options
3. An excuse to show off some of our newer buildings and scenery
4. A fun board with plenty of tense moments.

This is in line with our article on How to Run A Public Participation Game.

Here is the link to a couple of short videos we put up about this board as it was too large to capture in one or two photos:

U-Boat Railway Station Board Overview

U-Boat Railway Station - a look inside

Our first play-test had the road down the middle with the Railway Station and Stone Hotel opposite each other along the long edge. While this worked in the game it had one major failing.

The Russians have the Cafe. The Germans really want their coffee.

It's a long way to reach over the Railway Station

No-one actually fought in the buildings other than the cafe. Now that is a waste of good playing real-estate!
So the board has been reconfigured.
Now the Railway Station bisects the board and there are reasons to go into lots of buildings. Now that should make for suitably deadly encounters all over the board!
The other innovation we are experimenting with this time around is to have differing size paired enemy forces with non-synchronised game turns. This means that we will have 8 dice armies (about 900 points) for those that can play longer (about 2 to 2.5 hrs) and smaller starter armies of 5 dice (500 pts) for those that can only play 1 to 1.5 hours.
The forces can still fire at the enemies and work with their allies, but they will find that one pair f players may be at turn 5 and another at turn 2. Other than a most enjoyable chaos and interesting situations, players pairs joining in on an already active board are treated as "reinforcements". We expect to see a longer game in progress and in the middle a shorter player pair starts and finishes before they have completed their game! We'll see how this all works in the real world, but it looks interesting enough to try.
The reason we want to attempt this is so that more people can experience the fun that is Bolt Action wargaming.

The Australians are rushing through the Station gardens

Often visitors to conventions or events only have a limited time to play. "Just give us an hour and you'll get a good taste of how this works," we'll say and once they are in we are sure they will get a taste for more.
As always we provide all the armies and everything required to play.
You will note we haven't added any of the free stuff like Artillery observers or free armies. This is because the games are for new players and the game results in this style of game can be really badly impacted by the apparent imbalances of the free stuff on smaller armies. When they play a proper 1,000 point or greater game then these are all put back into play.

Here are some of the armies we will be using:

Finally not afraid of the pseudo-Tiger, the Allies attack

1 Hour (5 Dice) Armies

500 point 1 Hour Germans

85 First Lieutenant and Buddy
123 Heer Grenadiers (SMG,LMG, 8 Rifles)
123 Heer Grenadiers (SMG,LMG, 8 Rifles)
125 Heer Veterans (SMG, LMG, 6 Rifles)
50 MMG Team
508 Total: 5 Dice

500 Point 1 Hour British

85 First Lieutenant and Buddy
123 Regular Infantry (SMG,LMG, 8 Rifles)
123 Regular Infantry (SMG,LMG, 8 Rifles)
125 Veteran Infantry (SMG, LMG, 6 Rifles)
50 MMG Team
508 Total: 5 Dice

500 point 1 Hour French

85 First Lieutenant and Buddy
120 Regular Infantry (LMG, 9 Rifles)
120 Regular Infantry (LMG, 9 Rifles)
70 Inexperienced Infantry (10 Rifles)
70 Inexperienced Infantry (10 Rifles)
42 Veteran Renault FT tank
507 Total: 6 Dice

Reworking of the board

A Dalek bringing Tea to the Railway Station

500 point 1 Hour French

85 First Lieutenant and Buddy
120 Regular Infantry (LMG, 9 Rifles)
120 Regular Infantry (LMG, 9 Rifles)
70 Inexperienced Infantry (10 Rifles)
70 Inexperienced Infantry (10 Rifles)
42 Veteran Renault FT tank
507 Total: 6 Dice

Pz IV and Cromwell facing it off down the road

An Aerial shot of the board

The FT17 "Tank of Fear" fits in the doors of the Railway Station.

500 point 1 Hour Russian

95 First Lieutenant and 2 Buddies
143 LMG Squad (SMG, 2 LMG, 7 Rifles)
70 Inexperienced Infantry (10 Rifles)
70 Inexperienced Infantry (10 Rifles)
70 Inexperienced Infantry (10 Rifles)
55 MMG Team with Gun Shield
503 Total: 6 Dice

The view from the U-Boat tower.

2 Hour (8 Dice) Armies

900 Point 2 Hour German

85 First Lieutenant and Buddy
123 Heer Grenadiers (SMG,LMG, 8 Rifles)
123 Heer Grenadiers (SMG,LMG, 8 Rifles)
119 Volks Grenadier (5 AssR, LMG, 2 Rifles, 2 PzFst)
119 Volks Grenadier (5 AssR, LMG, 2 Rifles, 2 PzFst)
50 MMG Team
50 Sniper Team
235 Panzer IV H
904 Total: 8 Dice

900 Point 2 Hour Australian

95 First Lieutenant and 2 Buddies
123 Regular Infantry (SMG,LMG, 8 Rifles)
123 Regular Infantry (SMG,LMG, 8 Rifles)
123 Regular Infantry (SMG,LMG, 8 Rifles)
123 Regular Infantry (SMG,LMG, 8 Rifles)
50 MMG Team
60 Medium Mortar Team with Spotter
205 Cromwell Tank
902 Total: 8 Dice

900 Point 2 Hour USA

85 First Lieutenant and 2 Buddies
120 Regular Infantry (2 BAR, 9 Rifles)
120 Regular Infantry (2 BAR, 9 Rifles)
120 Regular Infantry (2 BAR, 9 Rifles)

120 Regular Infantry (2 BAR, 9 Rifles)

50 MMG Team
50 MMG Team
230 Sherman M4A1
905 Total: 8 Dice

Overall we are looking at having a very busy time!

The conventions we will be attending are:
MOAB - Mother Of All Battles 30 Sep and 1 Oct 2017
Little Wars Canberra 12 November 2017
Goulburn Library 4 November 2017
CanCon 2018 Australia Day 2018

Now That is What I Call a Railway Station

We have just completed a marvellous MDF building kit from Things from the Basement "20th Century Railway Station".

This is a wargamer's building - tough, transportable, multi level with stairs and lots of places to place your models. It comes as unpainted laser cut MDF with instructions you can download from their web site.

45 inches - Infantry take four turns to traverse this station

This is definitely an advanced kit, part of the "Master Builder Series". It is not too difficult, but there is a lot to do. One suggestion I have already made to the very helpful guys from Things From The Basement is to number the pieces and match the part numbers to the instructions.
We started on the left hand tower and once we mastered that the concepts all flowed through to the rest of the building.

I'm about to start my game long charge!

I can see you but you're out of range.

This is actually five buildings in one. The left and right towers, the two connecting halls and then the main hall.
For this building we decided to approach it different to our normal impatient method. Rather than just building then try painting it afterwards, we did most of the painting and other effects before we glued it all together.
Instead of painting the floors I made some "tiles" by using Pages and creating a multi coloured grid of main tiles, with the alternate darker tiles having a train wheel in the centre.
Then we made some smaller light and dark green "tiles" for the edges and some black and white squares for the entrances, stair landings and ticket booths.

Just add trains.

Multi Level with stairs, hand rails and balcony

We thought a logo would look grand so I found a stylistic rose, duplicated and mirrored it and added the initials "TDG" - The Demo Gamers.
The effect worked.
We used a variety of colours from sample paint pots you can obtain from the paint or hardware stores. These are inexpensive and can be whatever colour you request.
The hardest decision was what colour to paint the train station. This led to a search on the Internet for train stations.
By accident we stumbled across the Dunedin train station in New Zealand. Click the link. It's an amazing station. Now we had the concept and just had to put it in place.

Lots of windows and doors to fire from.

The Main Hall with ticket booths, telephone booth and clock.

Initially we were just going to paint the stone parts a dark grey, but my son said we should make it look more like stone. So back to computer I went. I found a sample stone picture, duplicated and meshed it all together so I had a full page of stonework.
Then we painted all the interior walls a beige colour and applied the stonework to the outside. The floors were all prepared with our tile-work, painted with a satin varnish to both make it look better, but more importantly, protect it from dust and marks.
Then the walls went up and already we had a great start.
My wife and daughters helped in painting all the white facings and trim and the red roofs.
As each part was completed we put it all together. Although there was a delay in getting the building constructed as we had to paint the parts first, the result was a much cleaner production. The white trim could be painted without worrying about marking adjoining walls and the results are really crisp. It also meant that younger hands and older eyes could easily paint the parts.
As you can see there are A LOT of windows and trim!
The final stage were the main hall ticket booths, telephone box and signs.
The telephone booth had to be blue of course and the ticket booths were green as that is the sample pot colour we had at hand. Once more it was all painted and prepared before we glued each part in place. Then we just touched up the edges. The door handles and clock hands are separate pieces which meant we could paint them gold/brass and glue them in place making it all very neat.
I didn't bother using the laser cut writing on the signs as I would never be able to get this straight or neat enough. So back to the computer to create the lettering.
I also found a clock face with no hands and roman numerals which I scaled appropriately and glued in place.
After each of the signs and clock were in place we also varnished them for safety and then glued in place.
The longest search was for a suitable looking train timetable. I found one which we used but even scaled down to 28mm scale it is still readable (with good eyes or my favourite tool, a photo and then zoom on the screen). It's a pity the French train station has trains departing for Salisbury, but I suspect all trains are delayed by the war.
Overall this is a great model and am very glad that the early draft version had been used in game and shared on the Bolt Action Facebook page. This led me to track down the production model, make a very reasonable deal with the guys to send it all the way to Australia and then plan our construction.

I think your train may be late.

This Railway Station will be taking a key role in the upcoming public participation games we will be running over the rest of this year. Stay tuned for more details.
We will also be updating our Bolt Action building considerations. This is definitely not a standard size building in normal game terms!
(Note these building considerations will be updated to take into account the fine changes to buildings in Bolt Action v2 very shortly)

Our Building Clarifications

Now that's a city fight

Over the last few years we have collected a lot of buildings.  After all, there are so many wonderful buildings now available which make a board so much more worth fighting over.
Buildings not only enhance the attractiveness of the board, they also add another dimension to the game with height considerations, cover, firing positions, additional observation issues and more. The Bolt Action rules for buildings are pretty reasonable but they assume a boring small building with no interior details. However, many of the MDF buildings have lots of interior details like rooms, stairs and interior walls which make a whole new area in which to fight.
In our demo games we almost always have some or many buildings.  After all, how can we resist?
As such we have developed a series of clarifications which allow us to use the buildings and take into account the full details of the inner and outer features.

Click to download the PDF

Our PDF lists all the building rules from the Bolt Action Rulebook and FAQ and our clarifications we use when running demo games.
These have been play tested over a great many games and seem to work out pretty well for us. We figured it would be good to share it with the Bolt Action community as a matter of interest.
These would be classified as "House Rules" and would not be used in tournaments, but for a board with lots of detailed buildings they make a lot of sense and enhance the building based gameplay.

We have also created a video overview of our building collection. Even we were surprised at how many buildings we have!  After all, the collection has grown by a few here and a few there and before you know it we have a busy little town for our men to fight over.

The Building Personalisation Project

Everyone helps out. But there's a cost. Girls add pretty bits.

As you may have noticed looking over our blog, we have quite a few buildings from a number of different companies.  One issue with this is having our buildings stand out and have more of a personalised nature.  Through various means, we have collected many 4Ground terrace houses and they all look pretty much the same. So, in preparation for Cancon 2015 we have finally sat down, done the work and put our own touch on the buildings.
The paint we have used is all from sample pots purchased from the local paint store. We asked the store clerk for any colours which would match the WWII period.  It is a sort of restoration, we explained.

Now there is daily Mass at our St Michael's church.

The Church needed some long planned customisations.  We built an inner wall with two side doors leading to the rear changing rooms and church office. Then we added a stone floor to the church and lots of different touches such as the stained glass windows and crucifix. My son looked at the bare church and thought, "Why not?" and constructed the altar and sanctuary and then went a little over board and created the altar cloth, candles, host and chalice too. Add in a few religious pictures and of course Saint Michael, patron saint of paratroopers, and the church was finally complete.
Then my wife and daughter got creative and looked in my son's box of many colours and selected lots of bright colours.  These made the doors and window sills very special.

A good place to hide a bazooka team

If you are visiting Cancon next week, pop over and you will see lots of special touches.  There are carpets and rugs in some of the houses, chairs and tables, glass in some windows, edges highlighted, smoke from chimneys and more.  Basically, we wanted to create a town in which people would live so the battle makes a lot more sense.
We did a short video walkthrough of some of the personalisations.
Enjoy.

These citizens have made their homes special.

Lime Green and Blue are perfect colours.