"Bolt Action gripes" Topic

So I finally had my first game of Bolt Action on the weekend, and while it was a fun enough game where I got to roll a lot of dice and move my little men around on a nice board, I came out of it with a fairly sour taste in my mouth. The two main complaints I had were:

1. Weapon Ranges: A rifle has a maximum range of 24", a machine gun 36" (!). Seriously? A rifle with a maximum possible range of 37 scale yards? I thought that the accepted wisdom was that a WW2-era rifle was considered effective out to 500 yards. That's more than an order of magnitude of difference.

2. Manoeuvre Units: Historically, a WW2 squad was broken into two fire teams: the LMG to pin the enemy, and the rifle team to close and assault. In Bolt Action, the unit of manoeuvre is the squad – with the unit cohesion rules, it's not possible to separate your rifle team from your LMG team. I'm not sure how I'm expected to use anything like real WW2 tactics with this setup.

Are these acceptable abstractions? Am I just being too grumpy about the lack of realism in Bolt Action? I'm entirely in favour of wielding abstractions as a way to make a game more fun and less complicated, but it shouldn't be at the cost of throwing out even the most basic features of period tactics.

And yes, I know I'm free to modify the rules and play as I like, but I would also like to be able to take a Bolt Action force to club night and be able to play the rules as written.

As you will see on the post at the beinning of the day -"An independant review of BA….." many people, myself amongst them agree with you.

I guess it depends on the size of the game the rules are supposed to do. If you are looking at a supported company sized battle they may assume that the LMGs are supporting the rifles in an abstract way and the distance is just a part of the abstraction. I thought it was supposed to be more of a skirmish game than that though. I've not played it.

I concur completely with the range issues. My own approach (and I'm playing in 20mm) is to use the given ranges as "short" and beyond as extended.

I like the style of the game and do appreciate the work that's gone into it, but I'm not sure it's really WW2. I have even a suspicion that it may play better for WW1….

The Colonel

Isnt the person who wrote it also wrote one of the 40k editions? He might have used some of his experience from that so its a bit more "pulp/movie" esque compared to a simulation

That is indeed what they say about their approach to designing the game.

Yea…
I have gave it a go and it even felt '40k'-ish…

On weapons ranges – many rules have very small ranges. These rules appear to be written with the express purpose of getting as many pretty 28mm figs and vehicles etc on the table for a fun game with mates. It's not a historical simulation – it's a game with historical miniatures and fluff.

As for the weapons teams I thought the same and with the standard BOB army lists it can be an issue as you are limited to 5 squads of grunts. The German army book remedies this with theatre selector forces where you can have up to 6 squads. This means you can field 6 fire teams which does mean rather large panzer gren units, for example, but at least you can have the fire teams you want.

John O

. Weapon Ranges: A rifle has a maximum range of 24", a machine gun 36" (!). Seriously? A rifle with a maximum possible range of 37 scale yards? I thought that the accepted wisdom was that a WW2-era rifle was considered effective out to 500 yards. That's more than an order of magnitude of difference.

Can you cite an example of a set of WW2 rule where the ground scale and figure scale in sync?

> Can you cite an example of a set of WW2 rule where the ground scale and figure scale in sync?

ASL

seems lately right out of the box new games are not put together too well. The people olay it then have to do house rules to get the product into an semblance of a game for the period.
I dont know about you but in ages past games were played and the rules worked with some fidiling at a later time since alot of us tend to do our own thing when it comes to rule sets. For instance our group played Battalions in Crisis in 20mm for 14 years and had cracking good times and tournament play hat the authors put on with a lot of underappreciated work. . We shook our heads as the authors did'nt include op fire and limited fire for the German tanks (PZ1V=1 shot, Sherman=2 shots ) well we did add these and the game worked fine as we would look back on Tractics that the re write was based on.

Most countries only practiced shooting to 300 yds (USMC to 500 yds). Although the rifle could accurately shoot that far and do damage to its target, shooting farther than 200 or so yards takes a bit of time to aim well enough to hit (IIRC, we're given 6 seconds to aim and shoot at a target at 300 yds – its a challenge for the vast majority of shooters). During that time the target's probably moving, ducking or otherwise not staying neatly in your sight like a paper target does.

ASL has a figure scale, I thought it was hex based, squad counter. Not a miniature game.

Perhaps they are meant for play with 3mm, or 6mm figs.

;-)

Actually, most rules shrink the weapons ranges considerably, so you can play them on an average tabletop.

It's easy enough to change the ranges, if desired.

Weapons ranges could be effective for accurate targeting? Not perfect translations but it could help justify the limited ranges.

As far as the smaller squad/fire team thing, you can do what I'm doing for my US units. I'm using 5 man game squads that will work together as 10 man squads; that's for the veteran units. The inexperienced squads will be 10 man units---not as flexible.

No rules changes necessary while still fairly well addressing the points made.

a WW2 squad was broken into two fire teams

This is easy to correct with a house rule. If you want, allow a squad to form a Fire Team which then gets AMBUSH orders. When the parent portion gets an order die, the Fire Team can then reset to AMBUSH.

If you ever want to reintegrate the fire team, then they are considered separated from their formation and those rules apply.

I have played several BA games and agree with the issues raised by Snod. The ranges are rediculous to say the least and distract from the the tactical accuracy. The issue of manoeuvre units is also corrupted by the limited ranges.
In WWII, fire and manoeuvre was the method that was utilized by most armies and all Americans we so trained.
Another issue that bothered me is, " What's with all the dice???" The dice to determine hits is understandable, but producing their own dice to indicate what a unit "Has" done seemed a bit over the top! (Very GWish!)
Over all, I found BA to be rife with gimmicks and the army organization insane! Why would anyone have a major to command a platoon? The rules seem like they started out to be a platoon level game and the designers thought," Hey, lets broaden the scope of the game without much thought to playability!" Kind of like an author starting out to write a "post it" note and ended up with a Epic!
No thanks BA, I'll stick to Disposible Heroes! It's much better thought out and light years ahead in playability! (I just wish I had not dropped the $$$ on BA's rule book!)

Weapon Ranges: A rifle has a maximum range of 24", a machine gun 36" (!). Seriously?

Yes, I never understood why rule writers do this either. Regardless of ground scale, a standard infantry rifle and an mg in WWII use the same cartridge, and over iron sights, have the same effective range. Which is as far as the eye can see an individual figure in the open.

Most infantry rifles had a simple 'battle sight' preset to around 100 yards, and an adjustable leaf sight arrangement that could be st out to as much as 1200 yards; but this was a hangover from the turn of the century volley firing by platoons, and as Tim says, most firefights were conducted at 200 yards or less.

On tactics, the German panzergrenadier squad has no rifle group, it is nothing more than two LMG teams; kinda difficult to operate these historically if you can't separate them!

Liborn;
Your comments summed it up best for me…I won't be buying BA after all… thanks for helping me save my money. I have played DH on several occasions at convnetions, and my two teenage sons and I enjoy it a lot. I bought it this year for us to learn the rules better and to use it, so it looks like I will stick with it.
Regards,
Hitman

Liborn;
Your comments summed it up best for me…I won't be buying BA after all… thanks for helping me save my money. I have played DH on several occasions at convnetions, and my two teenage sons and I enjoy it a lot. I bought it this year for us to learn the rules better and to use it, so it looks like I will stick with it.

I watched a demo sample being played at WG's booth at H-Con, and it seemed almost laughable with all of the dice rolling. The guy running the demos was demolishing everyone who was coming along to play it, and didn't explain anything to anyone, so no one could pick up on the rules.
Regards,
Hitman

Cavetore and Priestly team up and do WWII, unsurprisingly it looks, smells and tastes like 40K rebranded. The same old 1980s rules tweaked to look a bit different and with the odd gimmick thrown in.

There seem to be two sorts of rule publishers out there now, the guys who publish rules to sell figures who concentrate on mass market appeal an then you have the specialist rule publishers who just write rules and trade on the quality of their games. Guess which ones produce the games people enjoy most?

I read an article about this quite recently but can't remember where.

I thought that the accepted wisdom was that a WW2-era rifle was considered effective out to 500 yards

You ever shot at a target representing a prone infantryman taking cover at 500 yards? (Figure 14 Target – 11 x 7 inches) I have and I'm glad someone invented mortars and artillery….

Whilst the fire of an entire section may be effective at suppressing an individual at such ranges, forget an individual shooter hitting someone, under battle conditions, at anything over 300 metres…

ASL has a figure scale, I thought it was hex based, squad counter. Not a miniature game.

Since there was a licensed series of minis, how can you say it's not a miniatures game?

It's one thing to shoot out to a gazillion meters (200+), it's another to be able to have enough awareness to know what's going on around you, let alone in front, with the noise, (smoke/darkness sometimes) and confusion, darting targets, id'ing friend from foe, as well as the fear that shooting will id your position.

Machine Guns are for suppression (they are kill-y, but primarily for suppression and as a force multiplier).

Ranges should be infinite at skirmish scale – except maybe some submachine guns and pistols -, Situational awareness/reaction should not be. "Spotting" rules usually take this into account in a good rule set – not just being able to see something, but being able to react to it too. I know Arc of Fire does this,Force on Force/Tommorow's War uses a different mechanism, but similar concept – does BA? If not, would not be interested.

BA has no mechanism for hidden movement or spotting. My favourite means for depicting fog of war is the blinds system in I Ain't Been Shot Mum / TW&T. Force On Force is okay-but-not-super, as you still get to know where all the enemy's troops are, even if you can't engage them.

Regarding the correction to a 300-yard effective range, that's still ~8x what Bolt Action gives you.

And as far as what constitutes effective range is concerned, even if the chances of getting killed at 300 yards is slim, being fired on will (should) still have an effect on a group of soldiers. Bolt Action has what I think is an elegant morale system with pin markers, so it should have been simple to have incoming fire create a morale effect at longer ranges, if the game designers had wanted to.

Again, I understand that there are sacrifices in every game where some realism is passed over in favour of playability. The test is if the rules 'feel' like they are giving you a fun and realistic result, even with the abstractions. I'm just trying to come to terms with Bolt Action's particular abstractions, because after my first game they feel silly and gamey.

As far as the not being able to break apart the LMG from the squad…the Americans do not have LMG's in their squads. They can have BAR's, but the 30 cal is considered a MMG and therefore an independent element on the table. Thus, one can easily move and fire with support and use the other squads from the platoon to do so as well.

As far as the ranges, if you want to use 28mm scale something has to give in ranges. Besides the abundant terrain on your table should nullify most longer ranges.

Add in that the use of these rules are destined for the tournament scene…where smaller tables are utilized..it makes sense.

I am really enjoying playing Bolt Action. Great game.

Bede asked:
Can you cite an example of a set of WW2 rule where the ground scale and figure scale in sync?
-------------------
I Ain't Been Shot Mum, if played with 1:300 scale figures. The ground scale is 1:300

Dexter: I was just about to write the same answer.

The ground scale of IABSM is actually a bit less than 1:300, but 1:300 will work fine. Rich used 10mm figures when playtesting the first version of the rules, and the ground scale is somewhere in between. If you want to be picky :-)

FWIW, here's my take on some of the "gripes" that have been mentioned above.

Regarding the ranges, I always looked at these as being relatively correct rather than absolutely so. I don't know that a ground scale is stated anyway, is it? So, for me, it is enough that MG ranges > rifles > SMG > pistols. Obviously concessions have been made to accommodate figure size and playing area, as well as simplifying the charts.

To address the second point, I think it is possible to use "split squads" within the rules when using point-based forces. Just buy the minimum 5 figures for a squad. For the LMG group, use an NCO + 1 or 2 LMG teams + rifles(if only 1 LMG team). For the other group, go with the basic NCO + rifles only. You get two dice, so each group can act independently. This also lets you keep one group in a halftrack transport to fire the vehicle weapons while the other group jumps out to assault an enemy position, if desired.

As for the dice, yeah Warlord makes special dice but they are not required in order to play the game. I've played several games and have yet to play using the special dice. It plays fine using regular dice or markers rather than the special dice. They are a game aid, that's all, not a necessity.

I feel that the use of the term "Major" is more to differentiate the officer's morale bonus value from that of other officers than it is a description of the leaders rank. You could just as easily call him a +4 Lieutenant if that makes you feel better. Besides, use of a "Captain" or "Major" is not required. If you object to them at the platoon level, don't use them or else wait until you field a company.

The Historicon demo story seems to be more an indictment of the person running the demo rather than the game itself. Having played a number of BA games, I don't feel that it has significantly more dice rolling than a lot of other games.

I've not played 40K or most other GW rules, so I can't comment of how BA compares to them. However, I can say the BA offers a fun, playable, and reasonably accurate "large skirmish" game of WWII. I really like that a player can easily handle a platoon or even a company. It's not perfect, to be sure, but it isn't nearly as bad as some would make it out to be either. Most of the complaints I've seen are related to the points values and force selection rules, but if you play among friends and design your own reasonably historical forces without regard to points, BA can be quite enjoyable. I also like that it is very amenable to house rules and other minor tweaks to suit your own tastes.

True, BA doesn't have hidden movement or spotting rules. I think that units can begin deployed Hidden, but once they move, they a placed on the table. I imagine using "blinds" would work fine with BA, though it might prove a problem with those that prefer "points" games or tournaments. Spotting is pretty much just LOS, but terrain features can be defined as to their concealing properties prior to the game starting. I think the lack of hidden movement and spotting is done to simplify and speed play.

I like BA a lot, but it's obviously not for everybody. I'd encourage players to give it a try without the points and force selection rules before bailing on it completely. Make up a decent scenario with what you feel are reasonably historical forces and objectives. You might be surprised.

Bravo, Forager.

I suppose its all about what yer after really. Catch me 10 years ago and I would have probably tranferrred across no problem (I played 40K loads then) However as my now aquired knowledge of WWII, weapons involved, the history behind each army and nation etc etc etc I do find the game a bit over-streamlined. An example would be the simplified categorising of tanks guns into heavy, medium, light etc, and just seems like AT 11, 12, 13 etc for 40K. Its fine to do this, but it doesn't pick up the subtle differences between weapons found all accross the board and their subsequent influence on tactics and strategy. So the Panther's 140ish mm AP at 100m would be treated the same as the Tiger's 120ish AP at the same range. Most vehicels couldn't withstand these at most ranges anyway, but it illustrates the point.

As for weapons ranges, apart from distinctly short/limited range weapons such as Panzerfausts and SMGs/pistols, you could easily make all other weapons unlimited range, but having it that all hits over their actual given range will cause suppressing hits only. This would get over the 'ridiculously short' ranges mentioned, but not making weapons OP. It would bring in the issue of possibly needing to have a hidden, spotting system, so I would have to agree with snodipus about the hidden marker system from IABSM and TW&T.

As for splitting the squad, do that as you will, but US squads were at 12 man strength when at a full compliment, UK were 10, and Grenadiers post 1943 were 9 man (typically, and not allowing for specilaised units and casualties inflicted and not replaced) US MGs yes, were brought in as additional units to support the platoons, and not organic with the suqads as with all other nations.

BA fits nicely into its own corner of the games 'battlefield' and should be viewed for what it is. I am not though too tempted by most of the game, as I am a pernickety historical buff that wants to simulate WWII combat as best I can, and BA doesn't tick enough boxes in that respect for me. I would still play just for the fun of it though, and as mentioned, for a fun, fast play of a smirmish game in a hobby I love.

People have been saying 36/24 inches is silly – What is the ground scale? I've opined elsewhere 40k makes more sense in 10mm with 2-3 figures on a 1 inch base- treat each multi figure base as one equivalent 28mm figure.if its 1 inch 10 yards then thats ok (its the 28mm figures that are wrong!). If it is 1 inch =2 yards then the ground scale is wrong.

Same as IABSM. 12"=80yards – 1:240. I play with 10mm (1:170). With 28mm it would look just as odd as BA.

I played my first BA game on Saturday, just a run through with a mate and six "elements" apiece, one of which was a vehicle each. In the main we enjoyed it, some interesting mechanisms. Our club meets fortnightly and we can average maybe three to four hours of gaming in an evening and have found that we require reasonably quick-play easy to learn rules that will give us a result at the end of the night. BA appears on first play to offer that. Were we to have the luxury of all-day games we would use something like Disposable Heroes or Rapid Fire and field larger forces. I love the infantry rules of DS but we found that fielding multiple vehicles slows things down. I've never played 40k so cannot say how similar they are to BA. All I can say is they seem pretty good to me and I've played a lot worse WW2 rulesets.

did somebody mention "realism'?

No doublt the rounds and the rifles were effective easily up to 500 yards. Human Mk1 squishy eye ball was not.
At 500 yards you can really only see things that are moving, good lucky leading that target and compensating for drop.
I can see a volume of fire from a squad being effective.

The reason why MG's in the same caliber have better range is because they have a spotter often with optics who is correcting which way the lead hose points.

The reason why MG's in the same caliber have better range is because they have a spotter often with optics who is correcting which way the lead hose points.

In the sustained fire role yes; binoculars and often range finders were used. But these are battalion level assets, not platoon/squad/section LMG's

It is used just as well in a squad, they still do it this way today except we have better optics.

You can take "two" five man squads and have them work as a single unit in the manner you describe.

There is no work around for the range issue other than a house rule. Presonally I am not fond of the ranges either and think it could have been handled differently, and still been kept simple.

My own personal house rule for the range issue is to keep the books stated basic range for all weapons. Any shot out to this range is as normal no +/-. Half this range is point blank and is +1 to hit. Each doubling of the basic range results in a -1 penalty.

So a Thompson SMG has a range of 12"

6 / 12 / 24 / 36 / 48
+1 / 0 / -1 / -2 / -3

This would allow almost any unit on the board to target any other unit on the board, so cover becomes more important than ever.

I suppose it comes down to how playable you consider the rest of the rules. If these are the only two problems insurmountable, and is it worth discarding the entire system based on only two factors?

Can you cite an example of a set of WW2 rule where the ground scale and figure scale in sync?

1st Edition Force on Force (since the AA/Osprey team hasn't gotten around to the official v2 WW2 supplement(s), yet). Groundscale is assumed to be close to figure scale, ~1/100 or thereabouts.

Short (effective) rifle ranges are not necessarily a problem. Remember that the M16 was designed around the idea that the average engagement range was 200m.

(As a side note, all the rifles used in WW2 were zero'd at 200 yards or so, and are pretty much point&hit to about 250. No elevation hold or anything fancy required. Aim for the center of the chest and pull the trigger, you will hit an 18" square target.)

I suppose it comes down to how playable you consider the rest of the rules. If these are the only two problems insurmountable, and is it worth discarding the entire system based on only two factors?

If I can't play a WW2 game at the squad-to-platoon level with squad and platoon level tactics, I am not interested in playing that game.

I like the ranges, it encourages people to get stuck in, and makes for a better game.

As for squad sizes, take smaller squads? Sounds like a no brainer.

I can accept the ranges on the weapons, however it than becomes rediculous to play the terrain as wysiwyg. The distortion to scale than becomes absurd. This is no more a war game than Risk.

Should I worry about where the windows are in the barn when it's actually 150m long?

How many of you play rules "as written"? Most of us house rule even our favourite sets so no rules are perfect to anyone. Some people like BA, some don't, just like every other set ever produced. I like them.

Bolt Action is designed as a fun FAST PLAY rule system, where believe it or not, outcomes on the game table mirror what would happen in real life, usually. I personally enjoy the fact that I can play a platoon level game with a vehicle and some support units, and get the game done in an hour or two. I really like miniature war gaming, but I typically don't have an entire afternoon/day to play ONE game. Any game of DH I ever played at a con usually always went over the 4 hour time slot for the table (and that was usually about 2 or 3 turns).

So, if you want a super-duper, mega accurate simulation of WW2 combat, then do not buy Bolt Action. If you want a fun game you can play in an hour or two, that gives reasonably believable results, AND you don't want to spend the entire game looking at charts and hit tables for what you need to roll/modifiers/ect…, then you should give BA an honest chance. I have Nuts!, DH, and BA. If I have all day to game, I'll play DH (if I can find an opponent), if I have an afternoon or evening, I'll play Nuts!, otherwise it's BA all the way.

I love the "…but they give a historical outcome" argument that is so commonly used to excuse a lot of abstraction in some games. So what is the historical outcome? One side wins and the other loses? I can simply roll a D6 and get that kind of historical outcome.

In my opinion the outcome isn't as important as how that outcome is achieved. Does the use of historical tactics in a historical manner lead believable results to arrive at that outcome.

Yes.

For example, if your full strength squad charges an enemy full strength squad, and they aren't supressed (have at least two or three pin markers on them), they will cut you to pieces with defensive fire, and you will most likely lose the ensuing close combat. If you assault a team weapon (MG, mortar, gun), and you do it with TWO squads (one off to either side), one squad can supress the weapons team, and the other can assault, and not suffer any defensive fire, if they are out of the 90 degree firing arc, and more than likely win the assault.

I love how people with only a cursory knowledge of the rules/no knowledge/have only played one game or two spout off about how horrible a rule set is. Like the guy talking about a major leading a platoon. Your FIRST COMPULSORY CHOICE is a second or first LT to lead a minimum of two squads for your first platoon choice. After that, if you want to choose a higher ranking officer to lead a SECOND platoon of at least two squads, you are free to do so. Everyone complaining about compressed range; Name me one 28mm WW2 rule set that actually has accurate weapon ranges AND you can actually play on a table big enough to do it in a platoon sized game. Lots of games have "accurate" weapons ranges, but in order to make use of them, you either put so much terrain on the table, the "accurate" ranges are cancelled out (which is how any decent game table should be anyway), or you are playing a game on an 8'X16' table. Now folks across the pond in the UK can probably do that in gaming clubs, but unfortunately, the gaming club hasn't really caught on here in the US, so most of us either have a 4'X6' table in our house/apartment, or we play on the gaming tables at our FLGS. Nice, big, open tables are for tank combat. In an infantry-centric game, you want to have as much LOS blocking scenery/buildings/cover/woods/clutter on the table as possible, in order to make for a more tactical and fun game, not one where each side can freely shoot into the opponent's deployment zone on turn one. Which is, incidentally, why games with realistic ranges have all sorts of hidden movement/weather conditions that limit sight distance.

I don't play BA, but short ranges are not a problem for me, in my skirmish games I use firing ranges which are much shorter than reality. The wargame table is always smaller than any real battlefield; if firing ranges are longer than the table it prevents most of the movements.

Have bought the rules, have not yet played, but I like the ranges. Like FoW and 40K they provide a reason to maneuver and fun contrast between weapons. Besides, I have yet to find a rule set that is truly 1:1 with respect to terrain, figures, move rates, and weapon ranges. They're all warped to varying degrees.

Just reading through the rules I did notice a problem with the deployment rules in attack/defence mission. Since the rules assume a 4x6 table and deployment is defined as distance from table edge it can be impossible for the attacker to win if the table is too large. Games should really define deployment rules from table center to make them "table independent".

What do people expect from WWII 40,000?

The one thing I find ridiculous is that an LMG is a poorer proposition than 2 rifle men!

The dice rolling fest is typical of Priestly and in fact any Games Workshop hack. I've played Hail Ceasar and found tactics went out the door due to dice rolling for everything (I had units that never moved throughout the whole game thanks to poor dice). And last time I try to play 40K, I estimated I was rolling over 100 dice a turn and occassionaly upwards of 200 (Orks)!

There is introducing a random factor that can stuff your tactics and then there is the GW approach of random factor determines everything.

These kind of games seem to be aimed at people who aren't interested in history or tactics but rather like tanks and pushing little men about without having to think too much about it.

BA makes FOW look like an uber historical simulation! :P