Bolt Action squads for Band of Brothers?

[Raven Morpheus]

Hey all

I don't play it but I've an urge to do some Bolt Action stuff, specifically to recreate some of the "Band of Brothers" at the attack on Foy, but not en-masse. Basically I'd like to have something like the following -

• Command unit with figures to represent at least Major Richard Winters (Captain at the time of the attack on Foy?) and Colonel Sink.
• A squad (or two?) representing the main cast, i.e. Donald Malarky, "Popeye" Wynn, "Shifty" Powers, Norman Dike, Eugene Roe, Ronald Speirs, Joseph Liebgot, Carwood Lipton, Frank Perconte, John Martin, George Luz, Bull Randleman, maybe a couple of others (but sadly not Joseph Toye or William Guarnere as they were severely injured before Foy, nor Buck Compton, all 3 were casualties of the shelling at Bois Jacques as I understand it).
• 30 cal./mortar squad.

More of a "warband" than an army.

I'll probably be as butt-retentive as building them individually with weapons loadouts as near to what I can see in the attack on Foy in episode 7 of Band of Brothers...

...altthough, and without getting to army size details, and I know the show is full of historical errors, I could probably do with a schooling on the hierachy at Foy as there seems to be several lieutenants and sergents in the show, i.e. which Lt led which Sgt(s), who were in charge of which men making up which squads (to me the show isn't clear on that)? A lot of the cast seem to be lieutenants or sergeants!?


Basically, other than buying a US Army Infantry (Winter) Platoon box set (I'm not sure I need 30 figures), and 30 cal./mortar squads, I'm confused and don't know where to start without ending up with a mish-mash of guys from various platoons/squads all mixed up.


Anyone here any ideas on what to buy (besides the aforementioned) to best represent what I'm trying to?


Thanks in advance.

 

[Stoof]

I think you would need to mix both non-winter normal Airborne and winter infantry for Foy, as I don't think everyone was issued the big coats and warm clothing?

The regular airborne come with a 30 cal so you're good there (not sure about the winter guys).

But you will end up with way more models than you need. However, you can usually buy individual sprues from eBay. A sprue of each would probably do your main characters.

 

[Raven Morpheus]

Ah, thank you, yes, not everyone has a winter coat. I think Lt Norman Dike does, but for example Lt Ronald Speirs doesn't, and he'd probably be best represented running with a Thompson.

I'm going to have to rewatch that episode and take notes...

I've just seen that Warlord handily sell sprues of 6 of airborne or winter infantry, so I may be good just buying single sprues. There are two types of US airborne though, d-day and not d-day, and Warlord don't seem to have a d-day airborne sprue, hmmm, guess it's ebay for those if I need them...

Not finding anything helpful for a radioman, i.e. George Luz...

 

[Stoof]

There is a metal airborne radio man in one of the support Airborne HQ sets. Not terribly expensive and you may be able to use the others anyway.

 

[Raven Morpheus]

Thanks. Must have missed that earlier. Frank Perconte looks like he was using a radio handset at Foy. Medic will be handy for Eugene Roe...

Might have to do some surgery on the radioman figures though because, having just watched the initial run in at the attack on Foy, both Luz and Perconte wear the winter long coat...

 

[Raven Morpheus]

Right, so, made a plan, based on what you see in Band of Brothers episode 7 during the attack on Foy (the last 15-20 minutes or so)...

18 guys including command officers, built from 2 each of Warlord's US Winter and US Airborne sprues(4 sprues, 24 possible figures in total), a 30 cal. 2 man team from the Airborne sprues, plus a medic and radioman from the Airborne HQ '44-'45 set and a mortar team...

Not really properly structured, not an army - 1 colonel, 2 captains, 3 lieutenants, 5 sergeants, 4 techs, 2 privates and a random no-name BAR guy, but I'm guessing I'd need far more bodies to make it properly structured...

...just a random group "because I feel like it". Something different for a change...

Y'all probably see these in the new year as I need to buy them (duh!) and I want to try to concentrate on a few other things in the meantime.

Thanks for the help Stoof.

 

[BigBadPhattz]

Give a look to LittleWarsTV on YouTube. They wargamed the attack on Foy a couple of times. They discussed in their revisit that focusing on the E Company attack made for a rather lacklustre game. Bolt Action would be the right game for that slice of the battle, but the US player can only march up the board into gunfire, and the German player just sits in a building and fires MG’s.
The Solution they went with was to zoom out to the full attack on Foy, including the rest of the battalion.
If you want to stick with Easy Company give them some extra special rules, add some random modifiers to the game each turn, and let the game get a bit more “Hollywood” to keep your players engaged and keep it fun

 

[Hobo86]

what war/battle/conflict are you trying to depict?
the US airborne in the battle of the bulge wasn't equipped with winter camo and they used improvised winter camoclothing (sheets)