February 8, 2024 • 31 mins
This week we discuss the armies of Slovakia in Bolt Action.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Music.
(00:08):
Welcome to Tabletop Tommies. I'm Johnny. And I'm Phil.
And in today's episode we're talking about the armies of Slovakia.
How to field them in bolt action.
The rules for the armies of Slovakia are found in case blue from page 116 onwards.
Although the national characteristics aren't there they're actually found on page 133.
(00:30):
So pro tip for you there just skip ahead
if you want to start with the national characteristics so the
slovakian army has four national characteristics in bolt action the
first one we have is take cover this is
to reflect how slovak forces unofficially adopted a
careful cautious approach to combat what it
means then is that slovak infantry or artillery units that have
(00:51):
already acted in the turn may elect to change their
order dice to down when fired upon at the
end of the turn any unit that has changed its order dice to down must
remain main down for the next turn and the order dice is
not returned to the bag however slovak infantry
and artillery units that do retain their down order dice into the
next turn do not remove d3 pins as usual yeah
(01:12):
i really like this rule because it seems really powerful until you realize what's
actually happening because it's amazing to be able to shoot and then still go
down and then you realize that basically what you're using what you're doing
is you're spending your next turns activation in order to do that and so it's
great for your opponent to keep you down but equally,
if you're on the objective and you're planning to go down on the next turn anyway,
(01:33):
it doesn't really matter.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay And then the only rules query I have with that
film is how do you think that interacts with Wreck-E?
Do you think I can do an escape move if I've already fired?
Or is it exclusively for infantry?
Oh, it's infantry and artillery, yeah, yeah, so you can't do it for vehicles and you don't get.
(01:54):
Infantry in the slovak forces that have the recce
escape move we do have spoilers load
cavalry now they would be
able to recce now i think
because this just says go down i don't think they'd be able to use this
to recce put me on the spot i'd say no yeah because
the recce isn't going down is it it's just that you go down at the
(02:15):
end of your recce it's a different reaction altogether is my reading
yeah so the escape yeah so the escape move
is when you haven't already activated activated and you
are using your order dice for that turn to
do the escape move and at the end of that you get put down
yeah the only reason that i thought it might the
only reason i brought it up is because obviously when you're in ambush or have
(02:38):
an activated jet you can opt to go down in the same way you can opt to do an
escape move but i i'm gonna say that they can't do their escape move if they've
already fired i'm gonna lean towards that finally agreement okay the second
one we we have is reliable weaponry. Nice.
So this means that Slovak LMGs cost five points less than usual.
So, for example, adding an LMG to an infantry squad costs 15 points rather than 20.
(03:03):
And these price changes are already reflected in the unit profile.
So you can't take the unit profile from Case Blue and then take another five
off. It's already included there.
Yeah. It's nice enough. I'm not sure it makes it amazing, but... No, I mean...
Gary Morgan may have a view on this because LMGs are the way forward.
And now that you're getting a five-point reduction, you might see him at a UK
(03:27):
event with some Slovaks of LMGs.
The problem is he's been getting them for free with the Schutzen scores,
hasn't he, with theatre.
Yeah, it won't seem as much of a reduction if you've been, yeah,
just taking your free one with your Schutzens.
Exactly, yeah. And then the next national characteristic, sir,
is jury-rigged machinery.
This one was interesting because I always thought it was jerry-rigged,
(03:48):
But I think it's actually two different expressions that mean slightly different things. Okay.
In the game terms, what this means is that Slovak vehicles ignore one pin when
modifying their morale value during an order test.
The vehicle must still test without modifiers if it has a single pin on it when issued an order.
I'd rather you didn't have to do the test, but it's not bad,
(04:08):
is it? If you've got to take the test, then great to do it with one fewer than you actually have.
So the final one is limited officers. officers and this reflects how due to
a lack of officers the Slovak army relied heavily on its NCOs.
So what this means in game terms is that once per game as soon as an officer
has been removed as a casualty the NCO of the nearest infantry squad within
(04:30):
12 inches of the officer when he became a casualty takes over command of the reinforced platoon.
That NCO gains the benefits of a second lieutenant so he
gets the plus one to all order and morale test to his own unit and those
within six inches he remains with his original squad
the officer is still removed as a casualty so would
still count as an order dice being taken and the
(04:51):
newly promoted officer is also granted the u-men snaps
action ability the french have the same rule basically
in a different half don't pre-french have it in the northwest europe
selector from western desert yeah nice i
mean it's not a bad rule no bit situational i
think when you really need that again i imagine objectives games where
the unit that's within 12 year officers gone down on
(05:12):
the objective already they're staying down next turn they now have
the officer with them to boost their morale once once the
actual officer's been killed and yeah yeah yeah it's quite
a nice little perk that i have used it in a game with
the french and it's been a bonus to have yeah yeah and i
think that's probably a nice summary of all the national characteristics they're
actually that they're all just a nice little bonus to have and none of them
(05:32):
are sort of game breaking or going to change anything hugely it's just they're
all little nice things that i think you're going to have to sort of find a nice
synergy with as you go through and none of them are negative either yeah i think
they realized the mistake with that when.
Yeah i think i've been burned by that before yeah
okay so the units then
(05:54):
johnny yeah should we start with the stuff that's fairly standard this
time there's a bit of a change so let's start
all the way at the end of the transports i reckon you're
gonna get some form of jeep or car you're gonna get a truck
it probably hasn't got an mmg which you're going to comment on
and you're going to to get some form
of artillery tow or tractor basically bang on
(06:16):
i mean the specifics slightly different but
generally you hit the nail on the head so you do
get a field car bigger than a jeep carries five men
25 points regular you do get a truck 39 points regular as usual neither of those
can have a machine gun but you've got two options there and then you do get
the tractor 15 points soft skin yeah additionally though the thing that you
(06:39):
missed is they've added the whole strong limber to the Slovak entries.
Okay, so it's appearing as actually part of the army list, which actually appears
as within some of the army lists already, not just as a generic option,
but as a this-is-part-of-the-armies-of option.
Yeah, it's in a lot. I think it's in quite a few of the supplements as a generic
unit that can be added to every single army.
(07:01):
I think they've just added this in case you don't have those other supplements.
If you are starting bolt action specifically with Slovakia, you're ready to go.
You're also probably in the minority, but fair play if you do that. Yeah, probably.
I mean, maybe it's if you've gone down the club and there's already one of every
other nation being played and you're just looking through the back catalogue
(07:21):
for something interesting.
So we've done our transport.
Are we going to see a wide variety of armoured vehicles?
I think the way that you phrased the question implies you know the answer to
that question. I am in suspense along with our listeners.
I imagine you have a suspicion that there's not going to be that many options.
Possibly. And you'd be correct. There's basically one of each.
So you can you get an armored car you get a tank nice
(07:44):
the armored car is actually pretty tasty okay it's
recce yeah it's almost seven it isn't open
it gets two light machine guns one on the turret
one on the hull okay so that's all pretty good and it has a really interesting
special rule which is that it can go through rough ground but only at an advanced
rate and only nine inches and it only gets a single 90 degree pivot so basically
(08:07):
what it's saying is it can go through through rough ground as though it's tracked.
As though it's tracked, yeah. Okay.
Which is an interesting, especially when you combine it with that recce,
because it means you can sort of reverse through the woods, as it were. With a pivot.
With a pivot, if you need it, to make sure you get to the other side.
So that's your armoured car. You do also get a tank, which...
This one isn't as tasty, I'd say, Phil. Okay. So let's see what you think of it.
(08:31):
It's armor eight, 135 points. You get a light anti-tank gun,
coax MMG, hull-mounted MMG.
It's basically a steward, isn't it? Without the DACA, yeah.
Yeah, you don't get the option to add any more machine guns,
but other than that, it's basically a steward. You don't get the thin sides or the vulnerable.
Yeah. It's tidy. It's effectively what a 35T is, isn't it?
(08:53):
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. The one benefit to it is if you do decide to run a Slovakian
armored platoon, you can actually make this a command vehicle.
So you can actually ditch the anti-tank gun, make it the command vehicle and
save yourself 25 points.
So for 110 points, you've got a command vehicle with two machine guns.
And I imagine you'd use the same model because I don't know the specific tank.
(09:15):
It's the LTVZ 35 slash 38.
But most of the command tanks you keep a
barrel on it don't you just because you don't want to distinguish the command
tank from the other tanks to make yourself a target it's interesting
that they don't get the 38t which is a czech built czech
design tank which the germans get in the early war period that is interesting
actually that and i don't know why that is i wish i did i've got the answer
(09:39):
it's that after germany annexed czechoslovakia then the production of 38t started
so actually the the Slovak army didn't really have access to it because it was
being produced for Germany.
Interesting. And I realised, I don't think I said the name of the armoured car. It's the OAVZ-30.
So there you go. So not a huge amount of choice there in that section,
(10:01):
but at least you got one of each. Yep.
Okay. We're going to get a big selection of artillery, anti-aircraft and anti-tank
guns, aren't we? I can feel it.
Yeah, you actually do get more of a choice than you'd imagine.
You've got your standard medium and light howitzers I won't dwell you've got a light AT gun,
(10:22):
medium AT gun and then in the anti-aircraft gun section is where you find the
fun right so you get a light autocannon on a rotating platform which is always
nice to have it set explicitly so so,
i think the faq says that if the model has a rotating platform it has a rotating
platform yeah but then you can get different types of the model and it gets a bit.
(10:46):
And so it's quite nice here they've said the 20 mil
version it has a rotating platform
so that's nice and clear other than that it's not really that noteworthy
no but that is noteworthy is you.
Actually get an 88 that's cool i'm not sure
it is the german 88 it's basically
an 8.8 centimeter meter gun flak exact same
(11:08):
rules as the germans 160 points regular you can
add a spotter it's got versatile so it can fire as a
medium howitzer the fluff in the in
case blue says by august 1941 slovakia had.
Been able to add a couple of the powerful 8.8 centimeter
flak guns to their mobile division which makes me think
that they've bought these from germany cool so
(11:31):
it's actually a really nice include i think when you don't
have much anti-tank elsewhere in the list yeah and
obviously because it's the 88 you can fire it as a effective as
a house i can't do as well as a as a direct firing it's
a heavy super heavy anti-tank gun yeah yeah it's pretty
good and again you're getting the seven man crew so it's like having an extra squad
on the table so would recommend
(11:53):
and also if you're at if you're
starting the army from fresh it's a good way to
spend about 20 of your points to take a veteran one with a spotter yeah
so that's your
artillery section in summary anything that's
caught your eye i mean it does what it needs to do you've got some howitzers
you've got some at you've got some anti-tank and and you've got the aa yeah
(12:17):
yeah i think the flex a nice addition because otherwise it's just a bit sort
of bland sure you'll never guess what's in the infantry support section i'll
give you i'll give you a stab at it because i think you'll be able to get all of them.
No flamethrower. Correct. No HMG. Correct.
Everything else you'd expect to see. So go ahead. What do you expect to see?
(12:41):
Medium machine gun, light mortar, medium mortar sniper.
Yep, exactly. So that's exactly it. And all the regular veterans sees sniper
can't be inexperienced.
So it's basically the most standard it could be. The only thing that I'm not
seeing that I was expecting to see is an anti-tank rifle. That's true.
Yeah, I missed that one off to be fair.
(13:01):
Yeah, and not that I know of any historical reason why the field did a lot or anything.
It's just I imagine nearly every nation at that point in history had a few in
the stockpile ready to go in case. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And so it's a bit of a surprise that's not in there, but there you go.
So we haven't had massive variety so far.
(13:23):
Therefore, you're going to find the ability to customize your army through infantry choices.
Indeed, yeah. Am I correct, Johnny? Absolutely correct.
So much so, before we get to it, I'm going to really tease it,
and I'll quickly just cap over the HQ choices, which are unsurprisingly very standard.
(13:44):
All the officers at all the veterancies, so second lieutenant all the way up
to major, inexperienced all the way up to veteran, medic, regular veteran,
and a forward artillery observer, but no air.
Okay, yep, fair enough. So there we go. Now to the fun part.
The bit we've all been waiting for.
I'm ready. So what do you reckon we're going to get in here?
(14:05):
Something inexperienced, something regular, something veteran.
Something which is a salty and hopefully something which is stubborn.
Nice. I mean, you're basically on the money. The thing that's interesting in
this one, I think, compared to the other minors, is you know how,
say, like the partisans we did last, where it goes an inexperienced squad,
a regular squad, and a veteran squad.
(14:26):
Squad but then the more modern books you've got
a single entry with all three veterancies this is
aligned with the more modern books so you get a rifle section six to
thirteen men and at all those three veterancies 15 point light machine gun can
take bicycles nice cool but yeah they've basically combined all those three
(14:47):
into a single entry yeah it's fairly standard squad it's fairly standard but they can be up to 13 men,
which is slightly different.
You don't often see that in terms of full-size squads being 13 outside of Japanese being 15 and so on.
Yeah, it is a bit of a quick one. I'm not sure the historical reasons for it, really.
(15:08):
Other than that, I think they just organized the infantry like that.
Yeah, I'd imagine that's how they organized the platoons in order of battles
and that sort of thing. Yeah.
So yeah, the next one is,
engineer section oh do you get a flavor no and.
It's very much a thematic engineer section it's
(15:28):
there for your custom missions where you've got like minefields
and barbed wire sort of six men up to
13 again and you can
have an lmg and anti-tank grenades okay so it's basically
the rifle section but only at veteran yeah
and you can use it to clear minefields etc okay nice
i think that one's what we're
(15:50):
not going to see generic events we're going to see that at
like narrative game yeah sure yeah you
do have now this might be your interest you can
have some motorcycles if you'd like yes please 15 points
though for regular well if i've burnt
half or a fifth of my army on on the flack we're going
to run out of points so yeah might have to cut back on the flak.
(16:11):
But there we go yeah regular veteran lmg anti-tank
grenades and again this one
though is only four to eight men okay so
i don't really have much to say about that squad if i'm honest no
it is cool though when you do see a event i
was at recently in cardiff somebody did bring early war
(16:32):
germans mounted on motorbikes the um the squad
rather than the armored car version and i thought that was cool yeah they
are really cool it's just such a shame that the rules mean that because you
can't fire when you're on there no i don't think you can charge either you lose
them when you dismount yeah yeah you're basically paying for a transport that
disappears which isn't bad it's just generally those points are better spent
(16:55):
elsewhere i always find like your veteran flack.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Take a second veteran flag. Or maybe the next unit?
Maybe. This one will be close to your heart, I think. It's a Dragoon group.
Oh, cool. So they're on horseback.
You're paying 15 points a man for the privilege, but they are veterans,
(17:16):
so it's only two points a horse you're paying. The NCO can have a submachine gun.
However, they have the classic cavalry special rule that some of the miners get,
that hungarians for example get this rule where they're
not designed to be fighting they're designed to be doing recon and stuff and
so okay they're not allowed to voluntarily move into contact with the enemy
(17:39):
while they're mounted and so they don't get to use that tough fighter ability
that was gonna be my question so they do they still get tough fighter but they can't voluntarily.
Initiate combat exactly because they're on the
horse they're still tough fighters but they're never allowed to
charge while on horseback and so the only way
you're going to get to use that special rule is if you can charge somebody
(18:01):
charges you yeah if you can lure someone to charge you so
maybe you're on the objective yeah but then you're
not going to get i don't know because you can't go down on your
horse yeah yeah you you're probably better
off putting a infantry squad on that objective the the
big benefit is they don't get minus one to
arrive rifle reserve and so if you do
(18:22):
decide to hold them back or put them in outflank for some reason to race across
the table or to counter the opponent but they have cavalry carbines don't they
so from horseback they can only fire as pistols for six inches yeah so they
can't charge and initiate combat they can't act like cossacks where they can
fire rifles normally from horseback.
(18:42):
Yeah let's gloss over them and move on to the next one yeah i
mean they don't count as moving them when they shoot the pistols which is nice and so
i mean at least they're slightly better in their
army book version than the hungarians originally because
they didn't even have carbines originally okay and so
they couldn't they could neither charge nor shoot from horseback and so they
really were bad and luckily they've added in the faq that you can now they come
(19:05):
standard with carbines okay so yeah i'm not i'm not i'm not really rushing to
model them no but here's Here's one that you did predict, which is your stubborn squad.
Nice. So the Slovakian army actually did have paratroopers trained by Germany. Okay, cool. And so...
(19:26):
They've got a lot of, they're basically equipped with German weapons,
but they're paratroopers. And so in bolt action, what that means is they're stubborn.
Because they've got the German weapons and equipment, again,
you get a few more options.
So you're paying five points extra on a normal squad because you're stubborn.
So five to 10 men are 14 points each.
You can have up to three SMGs. You can have your light machine gun,
(19:50):
you can have your anti-tank grenades.
Okay. So I think that's a tasty little squad, to be honest. Yeah.
Yeah, so this is the unit where you can take the most SMGs so far.
Because we haven't had any tough fighters, have we? And spoilers,
I think this might be the most SMGs we'll see in the whole army. Okay.
Yeah, I think I know what I'm going to look at if I were to build a Slovak army
(20:12):
in terms of the main unit, yeah. I think so, yeah.
Well, we've got one more for you. Let's see. So this is the final infantry choice you could take.
You could have some partisans. Cool. my one
complaint here with this squad is yes
they exist but they haven't given them anything to make them unique because
basically you can have them as inexperienced or regular five to twenty men like
(20:35):
in the partisans book other than that the only things they can have is a light
machine gun anti-tank grenades and they don't get any sort of quirky yes and you can't take them as,
pistolerios no just rifles yeah okay and for me that it would be nice if they'd
been given some some sort of, you know, when the Canadians have hate the SS,
(20:56):
where in close quarters the count is fanatic,
something like that where it's like.
These guys are so...
Determined to fight that they've joined a
partisan movement therefore when they're
fighting this specific enemy they get this perk yeah
i think that would be a really nice little rule to add
on that really wouldn't have changed much but it
(21:18):
would have given you a reason to run them over just a normal rifle section yeah
okay so there's all your squads i think you're right i
think part the paratroopers are the way to go on that yeah so as
per case blue you can just build the Slovakian army
as per the generic reinforced platoon
you would find in the bolt action rule book however I
believe there's a couple of theater selectors is that right Phil
(21:41):
so there are a couple of theater selectors on page 164
and the first one is interestingly called Slovak generic reinforced platoon
the reason I say interestingly is because it it does restrict what you can take
so there are certain sections you have to take as part of the core but you can't
choose from all of the possible possible selections for example you can't take
(22:01):
the born paratroopers or the engineers.
And then when it comes to your optional infantry it's
nought to four whereas in the bolt action rule
book generic platoon it's always nought to three at this
point but effectively that that platoon as
it says in the book it's a collection of slovak combat units from throughout
their conflicts so it is your vanilla theater selector to represent slovakia
(22:23):
on the eastern front at this time yeah so this one I think you can't separate
the word Slovak from generic there it's the Slovak generic reinforced platoon
rather than just the Slovak.
Generic reinforced platoon. Or the generic reinforced platoon for the Slovaks. Yeah, indeed.
So that's one of their theatre options that isn't overly exciting because it's
(22:45):
basically just a generic reinforced platoon.
Do they have more? Yeah, so they have the Slovak Mobile Division reinforced
platoon, which was the newly independent state of Slovakia's primary contribution
to the invasion of the Soviet Union.
It was involved in almost continuous fighting from June 1941 to March 1943.
Suffered relatively light casualties due to
(23:06):
the cautious manner in which they were used as you can imagine
from the title it's quite mobile so for example
your compulsory sections can either be the
rifle sections or dragoon or the motorcycle reconnaissance sections so if you
really wanted to you could have a couple of cavalry units in there as your dragoons
as your infantry or a couple of those motorcycle reconnaissance sections we
(23:27):
saw and then when it comes to the the the rest of the options it's usual not
to one and so on you're not to four for your infantry,
it's rifles dragoons motorcycles and not to one engineer so you can't take paratroopers
and you can't take the partisans in this theater selector really quite bland
these two theaters look yeah it's a bit of a shame because like that's a great
(23:51):
way to add flavor to an army that otherwise Otherwise, it's quite bland.
Now, I imagine when Alex Smith, who wrote the book,
obviously, he must have found enough material and enough things worthy of interest
to actually put together the Slovak army as a standalone army.
Otherwise, that wouldn't be appearing in Case Blue.
(24:13):
On the flip side, their contribution, and this is not to be disparaging towards
Slovakia's contribution to World War II,
their contribution probably isn't as well not probably it wasn't as significant
as other nations and therefore the ability in bolt action to really flesh out a lot of variety,
is maybe not there so it's a
(24:33):
bit of a case of do you include it do you include them in the first place
as a separate entity which is what's happened but in
doing so you end up with people like you and i criticizing the
lack of variety in their units and that's theater selectors
or do you you not include them at all in which case you've
just ignored you know a significant albeit small contribution to world war ii
(24:55):
in terms of the grand scheme of things yeah and as you say it's only a very
small part of a very big book and so it's not like we've written an entire armies
of book for this one nation and so yeah in fairness.
You would need to commit a lot of time to do it in a lot of detail and so i
think you've got a nice middle ground here where it's probably unfair to say
(25:17):
it is bland but at the same time,
i guess it's just not that exciting because there's come and i imagine it's
one of those things where because we've got so much choice in other nations
but if this was sort of you're brand new to the game and all the nations what
this sort of level of variety yeah yeah you You wouldn't feel hard done by.
(25:38):
No, if you look at the actual amount of text on the page, it's in line with,
if not more than, you know, Belgium and Norway and so on.
So it just very much feels like one of those nations that could have appeared
in the armies of Italy and the Axis, for example.
Yeah, indeed. And speaking of sort of their contribution to the war,
(26:00):
one of the things that I did learn in preparation for this is that they were
involved in the invasion of Poland.
And so they actually sent three infantry divisions obviously working under the
german army command army group south i believe and so this i think it was yeah
three infantry divisions and.
Motorized group so that was
(26:23):
quite interesting and then i think when they actually when when
germany invaded the ussr i believe they didn't join the original invasion i
think the german commanders weren't really either that bothered or that keen
on the Slovakian army being involved in the original invasion but I think they
did send some forces to join after the initial invasion,
(26:44):
presumably that was they weren't certain of the ability of the Slovakian troops to perform,
with a level of confidence from their German allies yeah I think so and I imagine it's also just.
The quantity of troops they're supplying you've then
got to kit them out you're then creating separate supply chains if they've got
different weapons i imagine i think yeah they didn't ask them to come along
(27:06):
but i think the slovakians just joined along which i imagine is probably because
they were expecting to be rewarded in return after a successful campaign so,
if you are inspired to take a bolt action slovakian army
you may be wondering how you're going to model them and
there are some 3d print options out
(27:26):
there i think it's s skis print the
design studio you often see them eskice interesting
yeah so they they are a significant
bolt action 3d design print studio you often
see them on ebay and etsy they do a range of
slovakian troops i say a range it's not massive but there
are some it seems though that the
(27:49):
generally the way to do it is to use the italian models
and to trim the rim of
the helmet because the savakian helmet drops straight
down whereas the italian helmets slightly dip out and curve outwards yeah it's
kind of quite similar to the german airborne helmet isn't it yeah but it's not
(28:11):
as shaped german airborne helmet always reminds me of a christmas pudding you
know you know you know the the.
Plastic tub you get yeah it was putting the hills remind me
of that these are slightly more angular whilst
being rounded at the same time this is
where a podcast as opposed to a youtube episode
(28:33):
fails because you can't see me gesticulating and trying
to show you the shape of the helmet or even we could
just show a picture that would be even better yes maybe that
can be the image we we share when we the
helmet we'll share we'll share an image on facebook okay of
the two types of all the different types of helmets alongside each other and
you can decide which one's the closest i have seen
(28:55):
other people suggest using the japanese helmet problem
with that is is obviously if you're using warlord games japanese
their faces are attached to their helmets and the japanese faces
for warlord games are very much asian faces as
opposed to european faces yeah i
mean it is quite similar to the british airborne helmet yeah
(29:15):
but the british born helmet is always modeled with
the scrimnet and the camo on it isn't it
that yeah quite often i imagine in
the i haven't got any airborne from warlord i.
Don't believe british airborne and so i
can't guarantee but i would imagine there's one or two without the
netting i think from memory they're either the berets or their
(29:36):
scrim net oh really wow yeah so
tldr get the italian box set trim off the bottom of the helmets nice or get
3d prints that's how i'm just quickly googling more lords british airborne yeah
they're all wearing berries oh god vegetation on the heads exactly yeah you're absolutely right.
(29:59):
I wonder, actually, they must have worn berets as well.
As in the Slovakians. Yeah, yeah, the Slovakians must have had berets. Yeah, yeah.
And so you could potentially just do them in their berets, I suppose.
Maybe, yeah. It depends on what they were like. Should we wrap this bit up? Yeah.
So, yeah, Slovakian army. It's nice to see another army in bolt action.
(30:20):
It's been nice how over, you know, some of the campaign books,
they are introducing either a whole brand new army like this or
a very fleshed out option like
the free french for example or like the commando option
you got in d-day the ss options the fortune maker
options you got in the d-day books as well so it is nice to
give you a bit of variety i'm not sure you're going
(30:44):
to see them very often i'm definitely not going
to sit here and go this has piqued my interest i'm going to go
and get a slovakian army if you do play slovakian armies
do let us know genuinely actually i'm interested to find
out people that do and why they do but it's
a no for me but it's cool to see it yeah first
one in a while that i'm gonna say i'm not
(31:05):
interested in building this one okay so unlike the norwegians
and the greeks norwegians greeks partisans i've
probably got enough forces now this one it just it just lacks a unique selling
point for me fair enough but there we go i look forward to seeing and all of
your armies on the social media etc as ever thank you for listening do please
(31:26):
like share and subscribe ta-ta for now ta-ta for now.
Music.
Music.
(00:08):
Welcome to Tabletop Tommies. I'm Johnny. And I'm Phil.
And in today's episode we're talking about the armies of Slovakia.
How to field them in bolt action.
The rules for the armies of Slovakia are found in case blue from page 116 onwards.
Although the national characteristics aren't there they're actually found on page 133.
(00:30):
So pro tip for you there just skip ahead
if you want to start with the national characteristics so the
slovakian army has four national characteristics in bolt action the
first one we have is take cover this is
to reflect how slovak forces unofficially adopted a
careful cautious approach to combat what it
means then is that slovak infantry or artillery units that have
(00:51):
already acted in the turn may elect to change their
order dice to down when fired upon at the
end of the turn any unit that has changed its order dice to down must
remain main down for the next turn and the order dice is
not returned to the bag however slovak infantry
and artillery units that do retain their down order dice into the
next turn do not remove d3 pins as usual yeah
(01:12):
i really like this rule because it seems really powerful until you realize what's
actually happening because it's amazing to be able to shoot and then still go
down and then you realize that basically what you're using what you're doing
is you're spending your next turns activation in order to do that and so it's
great for your opponent to keep you down but equally,
if you're on the objective and you're planning to go down on the next turn anyway,
(01:33):
it doesn't really matter.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay And then the only rules query I have with that
film is how do you think that interacts with Wreck-E?
Do you think I can do an escape move if I've already fired?
Or is it exclusively for infantry?
Oh, it's infantry and artillery, yeah, yeah, so you can't do it for vehicles and you don't get.
(01:54):
Infantry in the slovak forces that have the recce
escape move we do have spoilers load
cavalry now they would be
able to recce now i think
because this just says go down i don't think they'd be able to use this
to recce put me on the spot i'd say no yeah because
the recce isn't going down is it it's just that you go down at the
(02:15):
end of your recce it's a different reaction altogether is my reading
yeah so the escape yeah so the escape move
is when you haven't already activated activated and you
are using your order dice for that turn to
do the escape move and at the end of that you get put down
yeah the only reason that i thought it might the
only reason i brought it up is because obviously when you're in ambush or have
(02:38):
an activated jet you can opt to go down in the same way you can opt to do an
escape move but i i'm gonna say that they can't do their escape move if they've
already fired i'm gonna lean towards that finally agreement okay the second
one we we have is reliable weaponry. Nice.
So this means that Slovak LMGs cost five points less than usual.
So, for example, adding an LMG to an infantry squad costs 15 points rather than 20.
(03:03):
And these price changes are already reflected in the unit profile.
So you can't take the unit profile from Case Blue and then take another five
off. It's already included there.
Yeah. It's nice enough. I'm not sure it makes it amazing, but... No, I mean...
Gary Morgan may have a view on this because LMGs are the way forward.
And now that you're getting a five-point reduction, you might see him at a UK
(03:27):
event with some Slovaks of LMGs.
The problem is he's been getting them for free with the Schutzen scores,
hasn't he, with theatre.
Yeah, it won't seem as much of a reduction if you've been, yeah,
just taking your free one with your Schutzens.
Exactly, yeah. And then the next national characteristic, sir,
is jury-rigged machinery.
This one was interesting because I always thought it was jerry-rigged,
(03:48):
But I think it's actually two different expressions that mean slightly different things. Okay.
In the game terms, what this means is that Slovak vehicles ignore one pin when
modifying their morale value during an order test.
The vehicle must still test without modifiers if it has a single pin on it when issued an order.
I'd rather you didn't have to do the test, but it's not bad,
(04:08):
is it? If you've got to take the test, then great to do it with one fewer than you actually have.
So the final one is limited officers. officers and this reflects how due to
a lack of officers the Slovak army relied heavily on its NCOs.
So what this means in game terms is that once per game as soon as an officer
has been removed as a casualty the NCO of the nearest infantry squad within
(04:30):
12 inches of the officer when he became a casualty takes over command of the reinforced platoon.
That NCO gains the benefits of a second lieutenant so he
gets the plus one to all order and morale test to his own unit and those
within six inches he remains with his original squad
the officer is still removed as a casualty so would
still count as an order dice being taken and the
(04:51):
newly promoted officer is also granted the u-men snaps
action ability the french have the same rule basically
in a different half don't pre-french have it in the northwest europe
selector from western desert yeah nice i
mean it's not a bad rule no bit situational i
think when you really need that again i imagine objectives games where
the unit that's within 12 year officers gone down on
(05:12):
the objective already they're staying down next turn they now have
the officer with them to boost their morale once once the
actual officer's been killed and yeah yeah yeah it's quite
a nice little perk that i have used it in a game with
the french and it's been a bonus to have yeah yeah and i
think that's probably a nice summary of all the national characteristics they're
actually that they're all just a nice little bonus to have and none of them
(05:32):
are sort of game breaking or going to change anything hugely it's just they're
all little nice things that i think you're going to have to sort of find a nice
synergy with as you go through and none of them are negative either yeah i think
they realized the mistake with that when.
Yeah i think i've been burned by that before yeah
okay so the units then
(05:54):
johnny yeah should we start with the stuff that's fairly standard this
time there's a bit of a change so let's start
all the way at the end of the transports i reckon you're
gonna get some form of jeep or car you're gonna get a truck
it probably hasn't got an mmg which you're going to comment on
and you're going to to get some form
of artillery tow or tractor basically bang on
(06:16):
i mean the specifics slightly different but
generally you hit the nail on the head so you do
get a field car bigger than a jeep carries five men
25 points regular you do get a truck 39 points regular as usual neither of those
can have a machine gun but you've got two options there and then you do get
the tractor 15 points soft skin yeah additionally though the thing that you
(06:39):
missed is they've added the whole strong limber to the Slovak entries.
Okay, so it's appearing as actually part of the army list, which actually appears
as within some of the army lists already, not just as a generic option,
but as a this-is-part-of-the-armies-of option.
Yeah, it's in a lot. I think it's in quite a few of the supplements as a generic
unit that can be added to every single army.
(07:01):
I think they've just added this in case you don't have those other supplements.
If you are starting bolt action specifically with Slovakia, you're ready to go.
You're also probably in the minority, but fair play if you do that. Yeah, probably.
I mean, maybe it's if you've gone down the club and there's already one of every
other nation being played and you're just looking through the back catalogue
(07:21):
for something interesting.
So we've done our transport.
Are we going to see a wide variety of armoured vehicles?
I think the way that you phrased the question implies you know the answer to
that question. I am in suspense along with our listeners.
I imagine you have a suspicion that there's not going to be that many options.
Possibly. And you'd be correct. There's basically one of each.
So you can you get an armored car you get a tank nice
(07:44):
the armored car is actually pretty tasty okay it's
recce yeah it's almost seven it isn't open
it gets two light machine guns one on the turret
one on the hull okay so that's all pretty good and it has a really interesting
special rule which is that it can go through rough ground but only at an advanced
rate and only nine inches and it only gets a single 90 degree pivot so basically
(08:07):
what it's saying is it can go through through rough ground as though it's tracked.
As though it's tracked, yeah. Okay.
Which is an interesting, especially when you combine it with that recce,
because it means you can sort of reverse through the woods, as it were. With a pivot.
With a pivot, if you need it, to make sure you get to the other side.
So that's your armoured car. You do also get a tank, which...
This one isn't as tasty, I'd say, Phil. Okay. So let's see what you think of it.
(08:31):
It's armor eight, 135 points. You get a light anti-tank gun,
coax MMG, hull-mounted MMG.
It's basically a steward, isn't it? Without the DACA, yeah.
Yeah, you don't get the option to add any more machine guns,
but other than that, it's basically a steward. You don't get the thin sides or the vulnerable.
Yeah. It's tidy. It's effectively what a 35T is, isn't it?
(08:53):
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. The one benefit to it is if you do decide to run a Slovakian
armored platoon, you can actually make this a command vehicle.
So you can actually ditch the anti-tank gun, make it the command vehicle and
save yourself 25 points.
So for 110 points, you've got a command vehicle with two machine guns.
And I imagine you'd use the same model because I don't know the specific tank.
(09:15):
It's the LTVZ 35 slash 38.
But most of the command tanks you keep a
barrel on it don't you just because you don't want to distinguish the command
tank from the other tanks to make yourself a target it's interesting
that they don't get the 38t which is a czech built czech
design tank which the germans get in the early war period that is interesting
actually that and i don't know why that is i wish i did i've got the answer
(09:39):
it's that after germany annexed czechoslovakia then the production of 38t started
so actually the the Slovak army didn't really have access to it because it was
being produced for Germany.
Interesting. And I realised, I don't think I said the name of the armoured car. It's the OAVZ-30.
So there you go. So not a huge amount of choice there in that section,
(10:01):
but at least you got one of each. Yep.
Okay. We're going to get a big selection of artillery, anti-aircraft and anti-tank
guns, aren't we? I can feel it.
Yeah, you actually do get more of a choice than you'd imagine.
You've got your standard medium and light howitzers I won't dwell you've got a light AT gun,
(10:22):
medium AT gun and then in the anti-aircraft gun section is where you find the
fun right so you get a light autocannon on a rotating platform which is always
nice to have it set explicitly so so,
i think the faq says that if the model has a rotating platform it has a rotating
platform yeah but then you can get different types of the model and it gets a bit.
(10:46):
And so it's quite nice here they've said the 20 mil
version it has a rotating platform
so that's nice and clear other than that it's not really that noteworthy
no but that is noteworthy is you.
Actually get an 88 that's cool i'm not sure
it is the german 88 it's basically
an 8.8 centimeter meter gun flak exact same
(11:08):
rules as the germans 160 points regular you can
add a spotter it's got versatile so it can fire as a
medium howitzer the fluff in the in
case blue says by august 1941 slovakia had.
Been able to add a couple of the powerful 8.8 centimeter
flak guns to their mobile division which makes me think
that they've bought these from germany cool so
(11:31):
it's actually a really nice include i think when you don't
have much anti-tank elsewhere in the list yeah and
obviously because it's the 88 you can fire it as a effective as
a house i can't do as well as a as a direct firing it's
a heavy super heavy anti-tank gun yeah yeah it's pretty
good and again you're getting the seven man crew so it's like having an extra squad
on the table so would recommend
(11:53):
and also if you're at if you're
starting the army from fresh it's a good way to
spend about 20 of your points to take a veteran one with a spotter yeah
so that's your
artillery section in summary anything that's
caught your eye i mean it does what it needs to do you've got some howitzers
you've got some at you've got some anti-tank and and you've got the aa yeah
(12:17):
yeah i think the flex a nice addition because otherwise it's just a bit sort
of bland sure you'll never guess what's in the infantry support section i'll
give you i'll give you a stab at it because i think you'll be able to get all of them.
No flamethrower. Correct. No HMG. Correct.
Everything else you'd expect to see. So go ahead. What do you expect to see?
(12:41):
Medium machine gun, light mortar, medium mortar sniper.
Yep, exactly. So that's exactly it. And all the regular veterans sees sniper
can't be inexperienced.
So it's basically the most standard it could be. The only thing that I'm not
seeing that I was expecting to see is an anti-tank rifle. That's true.
Yeah, I missed that one off to be fair.
(13:01):
Yeah, and not that I know of any historical reason why the field did a lot or anything.
It's just I imagine nearly every nation at that point in history had a few in
the stockpile ready to go in case. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And so it's a bit of a surprise that's not in there, but there you go.
So we haven't had massive variety so far.
(13:23):
Therefore, you're going to find the ability to customize your army through infantry choices.
Indeed, yeah. Am I correct, Johnny? Absolutely correct.
So much so, before we get to it, I'm going to really tease it,
and I'll quickly just cap over the HQ choices, which are unsurprisingly very standard.
(13:44):
All the officers at all the veterancies, so second lieutenant all the way up
to major, inexperienced all the way up to veteran, medic, regular veteran,
and a forward artillery observer, but no air.
Okay, yep, fair enough. So there we go. Now to the fun part.
The bit we've all been waiting for.
I'm ready. So what do you reckon we're going to get in here?
(14:05):
Something inexperienced, something regular, something veteran.
Something which is a salty and hopefully something which is stubborn.
Nice. I mean, you're basically on the money. The thing that's interesting in
this one, I think, compared to the other minors, is you know how,
say, like the partisans we did last, where it goes an inexperienced squad,
a regular squad, and a veteran squad.
(14:26):
Squad but then the more modern books you've got
a single entry with all three veterancies this is
aligned with the more modern books so you get a rifle section six to
thirteen men and at all those three veterancies 15 point light machine gun can
take bicycles nice cool but yeah they've basically combined all those three
(14:47):
into a single entry yeah it's fairly standard squad it's fairly standard but they can be up to 13 men,
which is slightly different.
You don't often see that in terms of full-size squads being 13 outside of Japanese being 15 and so on.
Yeah, it is a bit of a quick one. I'm not sure the historical reasons for it, really.
(15:08):
Other than that, I think they just organized the infantry like that.
Yeah, I'd imagine that's how they organized the platoons in order of battles
and that sort of thing. Yeah.
So yeah, the next one is,
engineer section oh do you get a flavor no and.
It's very much a thematic engineer section it's
(15:28):
there for your custom missions where you've got like minefields
and barbed wire sort of six men up to
13 again and you can
have an lmg and anti-tank grenades okay so it's basically
the rifle section but only at veteran yeah
and you can use it to clear minefields etc okay nice
i think that one's what we're
(15:50):
not going to see generic events we're going to see that at
like narrative game yeah sure yeah you
do have now this might be your interest you can
have some motorcycles if you'd like yes please 15 points
though for regular well if i've burnt
half or a fifth of my army on on the flack we're going
to run out of points so yeah might have to cut back on the flak.
(16:11):
But there we go yeah regular veteran lmg anti-tank
grenades and again this one
though is only four to eight men okay so
i don't really have much to say about that squad if i'm honest no
it is cool though when you do see a event i
was at recently in cardiff somebody did bring early war
(16:32):
germans mounted on motorbikes the um the squad
rather than the armored car version and i thought that was cool yeah they
are really cool it's just such a shame that the rules mean that because you
can't fire when you're on there no i don't think you can charge either you lose
them when you dismount yeah yeah you're basically paying for a transport that
disappears which isn't bad it's just generally those points are better spent
(16:55):
elsewhere i always find like your veteran flack.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Take a second veteran flag. Or maybe the next unit?
Maybe. This one will be close to your heart, I think. It's a Dragoon group.
Oh, cool. So they're on horseback.
You're paying 15 points a man for the privilege, but they are veterans,
(17:16):
so it's only two points a horse you're paying. The NCO can have a submachine gun.
However, they have the classic cavalry special rule that some of the miners get,
that hungarians for example get this rule where they're
not designed to be fighting they're designed to be doing recon and stuff and
so okay they're not allowed to voluntarily move into contact with the enemy
(17:39):
while they're mounted and so they don't get to use that tough fighter ability
that was gonna be my question so they do they still get tough fighter but they can't voluntarily.
Initiate combat exactly because they're on the
horse they're still tough fighters but they're never allowed to
charge while on horseback and so the only way
you're going to get to use that special rule is if you can charge somebody
(18:01):
charges you yeah if you can lure someone to charge you so
maybe you're on the objective yeah but then you're
not going to get i don't know because you can't go down on your
horse yeah yeah you you're probably better
off putting a infantry squad on that objective the the
big benefit is they don't get minus one to
arrive rifle reserve and so if you do
(18:22):
decide to hold them back or put them in outflank for some reason to race across
the table or to counter the opponent but they have cavalry carbines don't they
so from horseback they can only fire as pistols for six inches yeah so they
can't charge and initiate combat they can't act like cossacks where they can
fire rifles normally from horseback.
(18:42):
Yeah let's gloss over them and move on to the next one yeah i
mean they don't count as moving them when they shoot the pistols which is nice and so
i mean at least they're slightly better in their
army book version than the hungarians originally because
they didn't even have carbines originally okay and so
they couldn't they could neither charge nor shoot from horseback and so they
really were bad and luckily they've added in the faq that you can now they come
(19:05):
standard with carbines okay so yeah i'm not i'm not i'm not really rushing to
model them no but here's Here's one that you did predict, which is your stubborn squad.
Nice. So the Slovakian army actually did have paratroopers trained by Germany. Okay, cool. And so...
(19:26):
They've got a lot of, they're basically equipped with German weapons,
but they're paratroopers. And so in bolt action, what that means is they're stubborn.
Because they've got the German weapons and equipment, again,
you get a few more options.
So you're paying five points extra on a normal squad because you're stubborn.
So five to 10 men are 14 points each.
You can have up to three SMGs. You can have your light machine gun,
(19:50):
you can have your anti-tank grenades.
Okay. So I think that's a tasty little squad, to be honest. Yeah.
Yeah, so this is the unit where you can take the most SMGs so far.
Because we haven't had any tough fighters, have we? And spoilers,
I think this might be the most SMGs we'll see in the whole army. Okay.
Yeah, I think I know what I'm going to look at if I were to build a Slovak army
(20:12):
in terms of the main unit, yeah. I think so, yeah.
Well, we've got one more for you. Let's see. So this is the final infantry choice you could take.
You could have some partisans. Cool. my one
complaint here with this squad is yes
they exist but they haven't given them anything to make them unique because
basically you can have them as inexperienced or regular five to twenty men like
(20:35):
in the partisans book other than that the only things they can have is a light
machine gun anti-tank grenades and they don't get any sort of quirky yes and you can't take them as,
pistolerios no just rifles yeah okay and for me that it would be nice if they'd
been given some some sort of, you know, when the Canadians have hate the SS,
(20:56):
where in close quarters the count is fanatic,
something like that where it's like.
These guys are so...
Determined to fight that they've joined a
partisan movement therefore when they're
fighting this specific enemy they get this perk yeah
i think that would be a really nice little rule to add
on that really wouldn't have changed much but it
(21:18):
would have given you a reason to run them over just a normal rifle section yeah
okay so there's all your squads i think you're right i
think part the paratroopers are the way to go on that yeah so as
per case blue you can just build the Slovakian army
as per the generic reinforced platoon
you would find in the bolt action rule book however I
believe there's a couple of theater selectors is that right Phil
(21:41):
so there are a couple of theater selectors on page 164
and the first one is interestingly called Slovak generic reinforced platoon
the reason I say interestingly is because it it does restrict what you can take
so there are certain sections you have to take as part of the core but you can't
choose from all of the possible possible selections for example you can't take
(22:01):
the born paratroopers or the engineers.
And then when it comes to your optional infantry it's
nought to four whereas in the bolt action rule
book generic platoon it's always nought to three at this
point but effectively that that platoon as
it says in the book it's a collection of slovak combat units from throughout
their conflicts so it is your vanilla theater selector to represent slovakia
(22:23):
on the eastern front at this time yeah so this one I think you can't separate
the word Slovak from generic there it's the Slovak generic reinforced platoon
rather than just the Slovak.
Generic reinforced platoon. Or the generic reinforced platoon for the Slovaks. Yeah, indeed.
So that's one of their theatre options that isn't overly exciting because it's
(22:45):
basically just a generic reinforced platoon.
Do they have more? Yeah, so they have the Slovak Mobile Division reinforced
platoon, which was the newly independent state of Slovakia's primary contribution
to the invasion of the Soviet Union.
It was involved in almost continuous fighting from June 1941 to March 1943.
Suffered relatively light casualties due to
(23:06):
the cautious manner in which they were used as you can imagine
from the title it's quite mobile so for example
your compulsory sections can either be the
rifle sections or dragoon or the motorcycle reconnaissance sections so if you
really wanted to you could have a couple of cavalry units in there as your dragoons
as your infantry or a couple of those motorcycle reconnaissance sections we
(23:27):
saw and then when it comes to the the the rest of the options it's usual not
to one and so on you're not to four for your infantry,
it's rifles dragoons motorcycles and not to one engineer so you can't take paratroopers
and you can't take the partisans in this theater selector really quite bland
these two theaters look yeah it's a bit of a shame because like that's a great
(23:51):
way to add flavor to an army that otherwise Otherwise, it's quite bland.
Now, I imagine when Alex Smith, who wrote the book,
obviously, he must have found enough material and enough things worthy of interest
to actually put together the Slovak army as a standalone army.
Otherwise, that wouldn't be appearing in Case Blue.
(24:13):
On the flip side, their contribution, and this is not to be disparaging towards
Slovakia's contribution to World War II,
their contribution probably isn't as well not probably it wasn't as significant
as other nations and therefore the ability in bolt action to really flesh out a lot of variety,
is maybe not there so it's a
(24:33):
bit of a case of do you include it do you include them in the first place
as a separate entity which is what's happened but in
doing so you end up with people like you and i criticizing the
lack of variety in their units and that's theater selectors
or do you you not include them at all in which case you've
just ignored you know a significant albeit small contribution to world war ii
(24:55):
in terms of the grand scheme of things yeah and as you say it's only a very
small part of a very big book and so it's not like we've written an entire armies
of book for this one nation and so yeah in fairness.
You would need to commit a lot of time to do it in a lot of detail and so i
think you've got a nice middle ground here where it's probably unfair to say
(25:17):
it is bland but at the same time,
i guess it's just not that exciting because there's come and i imagine it's
one of those things where because we've got so much choice in other nations
but if this was sort of you're brand new to the game and all the nations what
this sort of level of variety yeah yeah you You wouldn't feel hard done by.
(25:38):
No, if you look at the actual amount of text on the page, it's in line with,
if not more than, you know, Belgium and Norway and so on.
So it just very much feels like one of those nations that could have appeared
in the armies of Italy and the Axis, for example.
Yeah, indeed. And speaking of sort of their contribution to the war,
(26:00):
one of the things that I did learn in preparation for this is that they were
involved in the invasion of Poland.
And so they actually sent three infantry divisions obviously working under the
german army command army group south i believe and so this i think it was yeah
three infantry divisions and.
Motorized group so that was
(26:23):
quite interesting and then i think when they actually when when
germany invaded the ussr i believe they didn't join the original invasion i
think the german commanders weren't really either that bothered or that keen
on the Slovakian army being involved in the original invasion but I think they
did send some forces to join after the initial invasion,
(26:44):
presumably that was they weren't certain of the ability of the Slovakian troops to perform,
with a level of confidence from their German allies yeah I think so and I imagine it's also just.
The quantity of troops they're supplying you've then
got to kit them out you're then creating separate supply chains if they've got
different weapons i imagine i think yeah they didn't ask them to come along
(27:06):
but i think the slovakians just joined along which i imagine is probably because
they were expecting to be rewarded in return after a successful campaign so,
if you are inspired to take a bolt action slovakian army
you may be wondering how you're going to model them and
there are some 3d print options out
(27:26):
there i think it's s skis print the
design studio you often see them eskice interesting
yeah so they they are a significant
bolt action 3d design print studio you often
see them on ebay and etsy they do a range of
slovakian troops i say a range it's not massive but there
are some it seems though that the
(27:49):
generally the way to do it is to use the italian models
and to trim the rim of
the helmet because the savakian helmet drops straight
down whereas the italian helmets slightly dip out and curve outwards yeah it's
kind of quite similar to the german airborne helmet isn't it yeah but it's not
(28:11):
as shaped german airborne helmet always reminds me of a christmas pudding you
know you know you know the the.
Plastic tub you get yeah it was putting the hills remind me
of that these are slightly more angular whilst
being rounded at the same time this is
where a podcast as opposed to a youtube episode
(28:33):
fails because you can't see me gesticulating and trying
to show you the shape of the helmet or even we could
just show a picture that would be even better yes maybe that
can be the image we we share when we the
helmet we'll share we'll share an image on facebook okay of
the two types of all the different types of helmets alongside each other and
you can decide which one's the closest i have seen
(28:55):
other people suggest using the japanese helmet problem
with that is is obviously if you're using warlord games japanese
their faces are attached to their helmets and the japanese faces
for warlord games are very much asian faces as
opposed to european faces yeah i
mean it is quite similar to the british airborne helmet yeah
(29:15):
but the british born helmet is always modeled with
the scrimnet and the camo on it isn't it
that yeah quite often i imagine in
the i haven't got any airborne from warlord i.
Don't believe british airborne and so i
can't guarantee but i would imagine there's one or two without the
netting i think from memory they're either the berets or their
(29:36):
scrim net oh really wow yeah so
tldr get the italian box set trim off the bottom of the helmets nice or get
3d prints that's how i'm just quickly googling more lords british airborne yeah
they're all wearing berries oh god vegetation on the heads exactly yeah you're absolutely right.
(29:59):
I wonder, actually, they must have worn berets as well.
As in the Slovakians. Yeah, yeah, the Slovakians must have had berets. Yeah, yeah.
And so you could potentially just do them in their berets, I suppose.
Maybe, yeah. It depends on what they were like. Should we wrap this bit up? Yeah.
So, yeah, Slovakian army. It's nice to see another army in bolt action.
(30:20):
It's been nice how over, you know, some of the campaign books,
they are introducing either a whole brand new army like this or
a very fleshed out option like
the free french for example or like the commando option
you got in d-day the ss options the fortune maker
options you got in the d-day books as well so it is nice to
give you a bit of variety i'm not sure you're going
(30:44):
to see them very often i'm definitely not going
to sit here and go this has piqued my interest i'm going to go
and get a slovakian army if you do play slovakian armies
do let us know genuinely actually i'm interested to find
out people that do and why they do but it's
a no for me but it's cool to see it yeah first
one in a while that i'm gonna say i'm not
(31:05):
interested in building this one okay so unlike the norwegians
and the greeks norwegians greeks partisans i've
probably got enough forces now this one it just it just lacks a unique selling
point for me fair enough but there we go i look forward to seeing and all of
your armies on the social media etc as ever thank you for listening do please
(31:26):
like share and subscribe ta-ta for now ta-ta for now.
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