A Forward Observer (often referred to as a ‘FOO’ for ‘Forward Observation Officer’) is essentially the ‘eyes’ of a particular form of long-range firepower, be that artillery, close air support, or naval gunfire.

Regardless of the exact type of support he’s calling on, his job remains more or less the same – deploy to the battlefield with the rest of the troops, identify a target that really needs to go away, radio in the targeting information… and then run like hell to get out of the blast radius! If he’s done his job right, a few moments later a large amount of high-explosive nastiness will arrive on target by express delivery, the enemy will cease to be, and the FOO can head home for tea and medals. If only it were always so easy on the Bolt Action tabletop!

Forward Observers in Bolt Action fall into one of two categories – Artillery and Air – and are available to the vast majority of armies, with some forces having their own unique national characteristics involving Forward Observers, which we’ll discuss in due time. At their core, both Air and Artillery FOOs function in basically the same way, and perform essentially the same role – causing a large area of the tabletop battlefield to be covered in explosions, Pin markers, and (hopefully) destroyed units (from the warlords website)!

The real advantage of them for the British Commandos is not because they are free because of the well coordinated artillery batteries that supported the PBI, but rather they provide some level of heavy firepower that you don’t often have.

I have also glued together, based and undercoated the eight riflemen for the Intelligence Unit posted on yesterday. See below.

Tomorrow the “Medic” team.