Operation Critical Hit – Week One Briefing

Welcome to Operation Critical Hit, our new global campaign for Bolt Action, Blood Red Skies, and Victory at Sea! It’s kicking off this week, so listen in for a briefing on how it all works – remember, knowledge is power!

So, what is Operation Critical Hit anyway?

In a nutshell, Operation Critical Hit is a five-week global campaign for our three World War Two game systems, where your results decide the ebb and flow of future battles, as well as the overall outcome! 

How does it work?

Each week, you’ll be fighting over four theatres of operations – the Eastern Front, North-West Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Pacific – across all three games. You’ll note there’s a handy hex map for each! These maps will be updated weekly as the balance of power shifts, and each week will see the conflict move to a different hex. You can tell where you’ll be able to deploy with the handy Air, Land, and Sea markers. Once you’ve played your games, make sure to report your results – remember, if you don’t sign up and report your results, they won’t count, and in so doing, you might inadvertently hand the initiative to the enemy!

Where do I sign up?*

*An account is required to submit results. Note that the full Operation Critical Hit website will not be live until the start of the Campaign, 12 August 2023. Once live, you’ll be able to submit your game results immediately.

D-Day dawns for Operation Critical Hit! The global campaign kicks off this week, so let’s take a look at the three missions you’ll be playing for the first phase. Each week, we’ll recap the action, set out the upcoming missions, and talk about the rewards for the victors – that’s right, rewards!

Week One

Listen in, soldiers – it’s time for your weekly briefing. Remember, there are four theatres (North-West Europe, the Mediterranean, the Eastern Front, and the Pacific) to fight for dominance over, across three game systems, and each week you’ll play a different mission across them – there’ll be no shortage of tabletop carnage! This week’s orders are in!

Bolt Action: The war on land begins with an absolute classic – Meeting Engagement. This can be found on page 135 of your Bolt Action rulebook, and sees both armies entering the table with one objective – smash the opposition! It’s a nice simple way to get the ball rolling, and see who can gain the upper hand on the ground early on.

Blood Red Skies: The air war starts with a Fighter Sweep, from page 51 of Air Strike! Again, we’re keeping things simple… to begin with! Control of the skies will be vital throughout the campaign, so getting an early lead here is crucial as the opposing air forces try to figure out the strengths and weaknesses of the enemy.

Victory at Sea: With Victory at Sea’s slightly different mission system, the first week’s naval action will be played using the Attrition vs Destroy! conditions from the War at Sea scenario generator on pages 54-55 of the main rulebook as fleets clash on the high seas. Historically, Allied dominance of the oceans played a massive part in their ultimate victory, and the winner of Operation Critical Hit will need to achieve the same – it all starts here!

Weekly Victory Bonus

As the campaign is just beginning, no victory bonuses will be in effect – because nobody’s won anything yet! However, the prize for overall victory (across all three systems and all four maps!) at the end of this week is a serious bonus for next week’s Blood Red Skies games.

The side that accrues overall victory in Week One will be able to make use of the Restricted Airfields theatre card in Week Two games of Blood Red Skies – this is in addition to the normally allowed allocation of theatre cards – a powerful bonus indeed!

Let’s take a look at which hexes you’ll be fighting for control of in week one:

This is the calm before the storm. From 12 August, once your reports start coming in, you’ll be able to see the balance of power live on the Operation Critical Hit website.

Share Your Stories

This is your war – we want to hear your stories! If you’ve had a particularly enjoyable game, or a single heroic moment (or been betrayed by the Dice Gods in comical fashion, those are always great!), we want to know about it. Head over to the dedicated Facebook group and share your tales of tabletop mayhem. If you’ve got a particularly legendary game – perhaps on a beautiful table, or one that went down to the absolute wire between two hardened competitors, or even a game that was just plain fun – then you can even submit your own battle reports and images as part of the results submission process on the Operation Critical Hit website. We’ll be featuring the best of them in our weekly roundups, and if a game is truly great, then it might even get an article of its own in our newsletter! Don’t be shy – your miniatures deserve their day in the sun!

That’s all you need to know for this week. Play hard, play fair, and may the best side win. Good luck, and have fun!

Operation Critical Hit Special Figure – Redcap, Corps of Military Police

Equipped with a submachine gun, armband, and authoritarian moustache, our Redcap limited-edition miniature is only available through friendly local gaming stores that are participating in the campaign, or FREE when purchasing any of our WWII-based starter sets from the Warlord Games Webstore for the duration of the campaign. It’s the perfect opportunity to explore a new theatre or expand your existing tabletop operations to land, sea or air.