"How large can Bolt Action games go?" Topic

I am looking at this set of rules. They seem pretty cool, but I can't really get a feel concerning just how big it can go?

I see that you can have one tank per infantry platoon. Would adding more vehicles than that break the game? Could you realistically go up to three or four platoons per side? Just if I am in the mood for a big battle.

Bolt Action will be coming out with a free supplement next week (according to their newsletter) allowing you to take armor platoons.

I have read battle report(s) where someone took two platoons. I think if you are playing more than one player per side, that three or four platoons could be okay, but the activation mechanism in inherently oriented towards two players.

Since BA is a game where one unit at a time activates, the number of players is less important than the number of units. You can certainly play a game with a company a side. It's just a matter of how much time you have to play. The guys I play with kept track one game and I think we averaged about 2 minutes per unit activation throughout the course of a game, but maybe we're just slow. So if the game had 30 units total, it took us about an hour per turn. Anyway, one thing we did to help speed up play for larger games was to use differently colored dice for each player and draw 2 dice at a time. A lot of the time, the players could activate 2 units simultaneously, but if either player wanted we would have a "roll off" to see which of the 2 dice had to go first.

As for more vehicles, I think the game can handle more than 1 per platoon but haven't tried it to see.

Craig

We've found it works pretty well and often makes for a better game. For signifiantly larger games we split the table and let the opponents play each other head to head in real time in their respective "sectors". It minimizes players waiting for other players to draw order dice. Makes for some interesting dynamics.

DM

Since it is one tank per platoon, if you played with a Company of infantry you'd still get a platoon of tanks and "legal" armies.

At those sizes, I would pull more than one die at a time and if there happens to be a conflict still go in original order pulled.