Pre-orders for Armies of Great Britain: Third Edition are well underway, and we’ve been revealing more of the contents each week. This time, we’re having a look at some really fun and funky units and bits of kit – from the sublime to the slightly ridiculous – that are uniquely British in nature. Let’s enter the garden shed of ingenuity!
We’ll start with the Blacker Bombard! One of a clutch of unconventional weapons hastily developed by the British after Dunkirk to defend against the anticipated German invasion, this weird-looking spigot mortar (essentially a mortar without a traditional barrel, where the round fitted over a ‘spigot’ or spike instead of inside a tube) hurled a 20-pound high explosive shell that was theoretically supposed to stop German Panzers. While this seems unlikely, on the Bolt Action tabletop it’s actually quite a nifty little weapon against infantry. 40 points at Regular to chuck a 2” template at rifle range? Go on, then! It also has the added bonus of looking really peculiar, giving you the satisfaction of watching your opponents double-take when you deploy it. It’s been a staple of Armies of Great Britain over the years, and it proudly takes its place in Third Edition to sling HE with great enthusiasm and unusual mechanics.
Next up, we’ve got the Light Tank Mk VII Tetrarch. Originally built as a ‘normal’ light tank, and subsequently re-roled to be landed by glider alongside airborne units, this rather ‘petite’ machine would actually see quite a bit of service around the world. Individually, they weren’t the most impressive combat vehicles in the world, with their thin armour and light gun, but in airborne service they operated on the principle of ‘any tank is a better tank than no tank at all’!
The most unusual thing about the Tetrarch (quite aside from the idea of a glider-borne tank!) is the ‘Littlejohn’ adaptor that many would be fitted with. This was an attempt to improve the anti-tank performance of the 2pdr gun, and operated on the ‘squeeze-bore’ principle, where the barrel actually narrowed down its length. While in real life it did work, it was a fragile device, and if broken would render the gun useless. Naturally, with something this cool, we had to have it in Bolt Action, and it’s been in since the beginning. The rules have been tweaked slightly for simplicity in Bolt Action: Third Edition, but a Tetrarch with a Littlejohn adaptor is actually a reasonably punchy little tank, for not very many points at all! The extra Pen value means it’s capable of taking on more heavily armoured foes than you’d expect, and the loss of the HE isn’t really that much of a hindrance. Take some shots at your opponent’s heavy armour, and confound them with engineering brilliance – just don’t roll a 1!
Finally, there’s the mighty Archer SP 17-pdr. This vehicle is a certified classic of British engineering bodgery, and while its design might seem daft, there’s actually a surprising degree of logic behind it. At its core, the Archer is a Valentine tank chassis with an open superstructure mounting a lethal 17pdr gun. Sounds like a no-brainer, right? There’s just one slight peculiarity – the gun is fixed facing rearwards! This actually makes a reasonable amount of sense for a tank destroyer – it could lie in wait in ambush for the enemy, take a shot, and immediately drive away – forwards – to reposition.
Now, in Bolt Action terms, it means that you’ve got a really powerful gun for not very many points (particularly with the new Light HE rule for the 17pdr) on a medium tank chassis, but one that requires some careful handling to mitigate the rear-facing gun. I really like the Archer as a unit that sits on Ambush until it’s needed to ruin an enemy tank’s day, but if you’re feeling really cheeky you can also drive it past your opponent’s vehicle, and then blast them in the rear armour from behind. It’s a bit bonkers – but it’s very British!
Want to get weird and wonderful with all the strange units available to British forces? Make sure you pre-order Armies of Great Britain: Third Edition, and wield the full arsenal of oddities!
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