"My impressions of Bolt Action! rules" Topic

In spite of playing in two demo games at GenCon recently, I still didn't have a good sense of how Bolt Action! played. This was mainly due to time constraints that made the games feel rushed, glossing over parts of the rules, and inconsistent administration of the rules. Based mainly on what I'd read about the rules online, I bought the rules anyway. (I thought the Pinning system sounded interesting.)

I'm glad I did. I played a game of Bolt Action with a couple of friends Friday night and if I had to sum it up in one word, I'd say "fun!" This was a bit surprising to me based on my previous experience with the game. We played a smaller game than I had at GenCon, but left out the vehicles since I hadn't read through that part of the rules yet.

I've read several comments that it plays like 40K or Warmaster, but I can't comment on those statements since I haven't played those rules. My impressions of the game are based mainly on the three games I've played in so far.

What I liked:
1. It was fun.
2. A player could handle an infantry platoon without too much trouble.
3. The random activation order of units kept players engaged throughout the turn.
4. The Pinning and Activation rules did a decent job of making things difficult for players and showing a gradual decrease in a unit's abilities in combat.
5. The game was sufficiently detailed to reflect significant differences between units & weapons without becoming bogged down in minutia.
6. Game play was fairly simple so rules and modifiers could be picked up by new players quickly.

What I didn't like:
1. In spite of the relative ease of play, the random unit activation made the game play slower than I had expected. I believe the rules were designed to be played with two players, and that is probably where they play best. Since the game essentially only allows one unit at a time to activate, adding more players or units tends to slow things down quite a bit. Next time, I'll probably try something like drawing out two dice at a time to see if that helps speed things up any.
2. Aside from the Pinning rules, the Morale rules proper seem pretty weak. Units tend to die to the last man much more than they fail a morale test and become routed (picked up). It didn't feel right when my Soviet squad didn't have to check morale until it got down to a single figure. (It failed, but had needed a respectable 6 or less (2d6) to pass
3. The "look" of the game initially struck me negatively. For a 1:1 figure scale game, I'm used to seeing squads spread out to reduce casualties. But there is no need to do this in BA. HE fire doesn't use a template and small arms fire rules allow figures to "fire through" their squad-mates, so bunching is not only not penalized, it is encouraged by the 1" maximum spacing for figures of the same squad. However, after playing a few games I've gotten used to this and can rationalize it away by figuring that the miniatures are so much bigger than the likely ground scale that "bunching" is probably a better representation of unit frontage when compared with weapon range than "spreading out" would be.

Overall, if you want a highly detailed set of rules, keep looking. Are generalizations made in weapon types and other areas? Certainly. Is BA perfect? Hardly. But is it fun? Yes!!

Craig

Excellent review and summary. Thanks.

Did you see Warlord has the dice available for pre-order.

How many dice are you going to need for a normal size game?

I for one am very excited! I just received the start of a USMC force from Brigade in the US. These are the first Paul Hicks sculpts I'll paint as well as my first foray into 28mm WWII. Just got to clear some space on the painting desk first.

Thanks again Craig.

Wiznard

Thanks for sharing the info, and review.

So, by random unit activation, does that mean it is card driven?

How do the pinning rules work?

@ Wiznard
I'm not sure what a "normal" game would need dice-wise. The demo games I played at GenCon were on the large side, I think. They had 15-20 dice per side. The game I played Friday used 15 dice total. So maybe 10-20 per side.

@ Mako
The game uses 1d6 per unit. Examples of "units" are: an infantry squad, a platoon HQ section, a MMG or mortar team, and a single vehicle. Use one color of dice for each side (or optionally, each player). Put all the dice in a container, mix, and draw one out. That side (or player) selects a unit and acts with it. As a plus, you can use the dice to mark what order (there are 6) the unit does that turn.

Pinning works like this: Every time a unit fires and inflicts 1 or more hits on its target, the target gets a Pin marker (some HE weapons can inflict multiple Pin markers with a single shot). Units with Pin markers must roll to activate their order (no roll necessary if no Pin markers). Every pin marker is a -1 to order activation and morale (2d6 roll) and a -1 to firing at other units (d6 roll). If a unit fails its order activation it does nothing that turn. Units that succeed in passing their order activation check can follow their given order but also get to remove a Pin marker. One of the orders is Rally. A successful Rally removes an additional d6 Pin markers.

I just played it yesterday for the first time. Definitely fun to play and I think I'll be picking up the book, too. Your review was spot on.

"glossing over parts of the rules, and inconsistent administration of the rules"

I was one of the ones helping run games at Gen Con. Not making excuses but a couple of us had not read the final Bolt Action rules, only the PDF. So a few things had been changed for the final product.

We were given three hour time slots by Gen Con staff. So to get the games running we did have to gloss over the rules to get the games going.

I'm glad you gave the rules a chance and enjoy them. My goal when running a game at a convention is to give the players a taste of the rules. Cause there is no way to cover everything in a three hour time slot at a con.

Sweeet!! A new gateway drug…er…rules…to get more 28mm WW2 players into the mix!!!

Agreed. Spot on from my play at Gencon as well. The neat thing about the rules though was after just a few unit activations, I was fairly confident enough to "know" the rules for the rest of the demo. Granted, it was not using every little rule in the book, more of a demo set, but it also means the learning curve will be fairly quick.

I will feed it to my game group in steadily more complex games over a month or so (we game once a week). That should allow us to get infantry, specialists, vehicles, off-board artillery/airstrikes worked in progressively in that order. At least that's the goal.

A friend of mine bought the rules at GenCon but is useing 20mm 1/72 figures.

Thanks for the detailed reply Forager!

I really appreciate it, and have a much better understanding of the system now.

Sounds like a decent one.

I received my copy last week and have only managed to play 2 games so far. The first game was a straight platoon vs platoon affair with with no assets. I used Germans and Americans. The US had 4 dice HQ plus 3 squads. I decided to run the Germans as fire teams effectively. 3 squads were NCO, MG42 team and 2 riflemen. 3 squads of NCO and 4 riflemen. So the Germans had 7 dice including the HQ. Gave them a lot of flexibility and probably led to them winning the game although they were outnumbered. The lists are flexible enough that I could've modeled the better command of the fireteam led by the Feldwebel as Veteran or Regular and the MG fireteam as a level lower (Regular or Inexperienced).

I played a bit of 40K many years ago and honestly cannot see much similarity. It's a game written to get lots of 28mm figs on the table so you will see models that we wouldn't expect to see on the table such as medium mortars etc these could be dealt with by house rules easily enough but otherwise it achieves what it sets out to do – Present pretty pictures of lots of 28mm figures on beautiful terrain playing fun games much like the other WG offerings Black Powder and Hail Caesar. I suspect that a lot of people will be playing this regardless of the detractors.

Any particular reason you would play these rules with 28mm rather than 20 or even 15mm figures?

Given what's been said about spreading units out, could it reasonably be played with multi-based figures?

We have had plenty of morale checks , the chances of just
These really are thee WW2 ruleset .. and they have completely revived all our club mbrs interest in the period ( in 20mm and 28mm ) .

Chances of having just one figure left standing are small ..
and don't forget if a unit has pins equal to its morale value then then the unit is removed automatically .

''If a target loses half or more of its men from the fire of one enemy unit, then the player makes an immediate morale check. This is the same as an order test, and all modifiers apply. If the test is passed, the fight continues. If the check is failed, remove the unit from the board as it has scattered''

So, 2nd edition 40k (1990's) plus a healthy admixture of Stargrunt.

Always helpful to see a "hands on" account-there seem to be so many rule sets for WW2 small actions vying for attention, each with their own supporters, that I am totally confused. Rule sets aren't cheap, and I'm less inclined than I used to be to be to fork out the cash just for curiousity.

How does it compare with the excellent "Fireball Forward" ?

Seems to me it is a completely different animal altogether. Fireball uses based models which represent more men, and Bolt Action is a skirmish game. I will gladly play both, though (although Fireball will ALWAYS be my go-to WW II game!).

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This title will be released on September 18, 2012.

I ordered this and the German book saved a lot of money on them

Is there a PDF or other file out there with enough rules to get the hang of things so a person could decide on purchasing the full rules thereafter?

I'd have thought that the rules were best for a small scale as rifle range is only 24". Maybe 10mm from Pendraken?

Is there a PDF or other file out there with enough rules to get the hang of things so a person could decide on purchasing the full rules thereafter?

Not that I am aware of. Just look for reviews and AARs for Bolt Action here and elsewhere online.

@ parrskool

I did try out the initial demo version of Fireball Forward and played through the scenario provided a couple times.

I thought FF had some interesting ideas, but felt that it was not as intuitive as BA. That demo version needed to be edited/organized better also. I just felt like FF was the kind of game I would need to play frequently in order to stay proficient with. BA, on the other hand, appears to be more straightforward and probably will stick with me more easily.

@ dwight

Chances of having just one figure left standing are small ..and don't forget if a unit has pins equal to its morale value then then the unit is removed automatically

I don't know about the odds of having only one figure left, but it happened to me. As for the automatic Rout, racking up the 8-10 Pin markers for this to happen will probably take some time. The rules themselves even admit that "…units will usually be wiped out long before their morale collapses…" (p.23, Routed Units)

Craig

Maybe you could change the scale from inches to cm's in BA ?

The morale rules could be adjusted im sure with some house rules without breaking the system.

I was at the Oklahoma City demo Saturday August 25th and have been on some playtests before then. The rules make for a good game. It's not a model of historical combat; a 24" range for rifles feels right for infantry with 6" basic movement. If you're needing to reflect actual ranges with ground scales look else where. If you want to play a game against a friend after each of you buys a box of 30 plastic figures then this is the game for you.

It's a lot like Saga [newish Dark Age skirmish rules, pretty good game]in scale-ability. At a certain point things bog down and take to much time. Where that point is is going to be different for different people. You can do a big 5/6 person a side mega-game with Bolt Action but it can be slow going at times while you wait for your die to come up. It could be fun if you had a "general" on each side dictating which "CO" received the action die. The game is easy enough to come up with house rules.

I'm running an early German motorcycle platoon with 38t's and a Marder or two. The rules will handle that force. It's not so much that the rules are designed more for infantry combat, it's more the matter of company/platoon builds. Some match ups favor me, others I don't stand a chance against, and then there's the between. No different than any other rule set.

There's some flavor for different tank armor and guns. I'm happy with a simplistic approach. Did I:
1: Kill the tank?
2: Stun the tank crew?
3: Scratch the paint or missed entirely?
Well, the tank can catch fire. But all those that did died anyway on the morale roll so I don't count those.

If flames of war mini's didn't cost so much I'd go that route and base the guys on pennys and use centimeters. I can see using 10 or 6 mm on multiple bases in order to align with terrain.

This is a game you can model and name each one of your guys or run a big Russian infantry unit and choke everyone on submachine gun fire with artillery support off table. Or play hide and seek with assault guns and tanks in city ruins. I'd be willing to run the gauntlet with my 38's without infantry support through a hostile town. How long can 2 squads of SS troops with a MG42 team last against all those Soviet conscripts?

It's only a matter of time before someone paints both sides of Kelly's Hero's.

I think a point that was missed by some of the players at GenCon was that the games were supposed to be walk up demo games that people could come and go and would be played more to a conclusion and then re-started. Unfortunately, the GenCon powers decided to list them as event games and thus wanted tickets for the participation.

As they were designed as demos, the main goal was to show the basic mechanics of the rules i.e. orders, movement, fire and morale. There is more meat to the rules than one would expect.

One thing that we sometimes do with lots of troops/players is that each player gets a die and can move all his respective units when his die is activated. Another option, that is listed in the rules, is for a different color die for each player. This speeds up the play as there is less debating about who needs the die worst.

What is written on each side of the order dice?

Dice available for pre order here:-

link

You can see what is marked on the dice from the piccies

So, gamers could use order markers instead of buying the dice then (if I understand their use correctly)?

Absolutely!

I played it today and it was fantastic. Exactly what I want out of a platoon level WW2 skirmish game.

It would work really, really well with both 6mm/microarmor and 10mm without any changes to the measurements of the game. Though if you had your special or heavy weapons on a base of multiple troopers, you might have to mark casaulties until the base is removed.