"Bolt action tea break dice?" Topic

We currently use Bolt action for our 28mm WW2 games. We like the dice driven unit activation but would like to randomise that a little further by introducing a 'tea break' dice similar to the way the Lardies tea break card works in their games. A dice of the same size as the activation dice would be introduced to the dice bag/container and when randomly drawn would signify the end of the turn. This would theoretically put a possible crimp into any well laid plans. Anyone already do this or is it possibly a little bit of overkill? Interested in your thoughts.

Gerard – Barely legal Wargames society.

Good idea, I like it!
Peter

We do that too, we actually use 2. The turn ends when the second is drawn out.

That's an interesting idea Bruntonboy. Never thought of using two. May well try that.

I like it, may have to give it a try.

Go with brunyonboy's 2 dice. This reduces the risk of the move ending before anyone has had a turn at all and so most turns will end when more than half of the units have been activated.

Yes, that does make sense. We will implement the tea break dice x 2 and see how it goes.

We use 2 Snifter cards for our Mud & Blood games, so I gotta agree with the masses too!

Does this mean, more often than not, that a player's chance of using ALL their units in one turn, disappears? I like the thinking though, great idea!

Ark3n

Does this mean, more often than not, that a player's chance of using ALL their units in one turn, disappears?

Thats the idea. It introduces a little fog of war to the the game. Im going to have to use this idea too.

Can't say I'm a fan of the idea. It doesn't seem particularly well thought out. First, there's already plenty of fog of war. Second, even though the action is broken down with one unit moving at a time that's just a way of making it manageable. Really, everything is happening at once. Third, there are certain units that by thier nature, really should wait toward the end of the turn -- HQ elements, FOs etc. -- they're more of a management unit to tidy things up for the follow on turn. Fourth, it'll likely extend the game.

Fifth, it impacts the value of LMGs.

What fog of war is there in Bolt Action is there as it stands?

At present the fog if war element is represented by the dice. So if you have 8 units you get 8 dice, if your opponent has 9 units they get 9 dice. These dice will be in 2 colours, one for one player one for the other. All of them (17 in this case) get put into a bag or container and shaken up. You then pull a dice; if it's your colour move a unit, if it's your opponent's then they activate one of their units. Keep going until all dice are used up.

This randomness would be the main representation of the fog of war within the game, but all units at present have a dice allocated so will ultimately have it pulled from the container. I would expect the 'Tea break' dice addition would ensure that some units wouldn't get activated. In the Battlegroup system, IABSM, Black powder and many others you don't get to use all your units all the time, so this would be the same. It means your good units get used first, and if they go you are are left with the dregs hoping they will give you victory. Unless your game and victory conditions are based on the number of turns I would say it wouldn't have a negative impact. If you play to win I don't think you would like this idea, if you play the period then you will.

Incidentally the '2 Tea break dice' idea is a good one as BA isn't really an IGOUGO system so if the TB dice got pulled within the first 3 dice it wouldn't have much effect outside chewing up how many turns have been played.

An idea I've not yet used for Lardies games is the 2 tea break cards for unequal forces – the least motivated side ends on the first card, while the better unit keeps going to the second (Reserved actions can still be used)

Similar to the hold cards in TSATF.

Really like the idea and will give it a go.

DM

Seriously, if you want a game that revolves around players only maneuvering and utilizing their most expensive and powerful units then this is a great idea.

Bolt Action already has a fair bit of fog of war in its order mechanic. You have to roll to give an order to a unit that has a pin marker on it with a very real chance that it will fail and do nothing or worse, FUBAR and do something bad.

Neat idea, but there are a few concerns:
1) This means that more often than not players will not be able to move all their units in one turn. This could be bad if there are a lot of pinned units in the game.
2) What about situations where a player needs to think about waiting to activate a unit last, but only to find out it will not move at all. However, if it activated first it loses all of its advantages.
3) The game might start focusing on maneuvering the most powerful units – because either use it or lose it.
4) I agree, BA already has a fair bit of fog of war in it.
5) The ratio of "end turn" dice to order dice is not consistent, which changes game play. What if its a smaller battle with only a total of six or eight units, then you have 2x "turn ends" and 6x or 8x order dice for a 1:3 or 1:4 ratio. Chances are, the turn will end pretty frequent before most of the units are moved. Compare that to a larger game with say a total of 18 total units, then you have 2x "turn ends" and 18 order dice for a 1:9 ratio, which means it is more likely that more units will move before the end of turn dice are pulled. But regardless of the ratio, the odds of having the turn end before all the units have moved is pretty high.
6) There are some other little things, but no need to get into the deep details.

That being said, I like the idea, but there has got to be a better way to do this. Just off the top of my head, how bout' this. Put one "end turn" die in the bag with all the other dice. If the die is pulled before more than half of the units have moved, discard it and continue on as normal. If the die is pulled after more than half of the units have been moved, then the turn ends. This way you know that at least half of the units will move that turn. And quit possibly all the units will move.

Bolt Action has a fair bit of Fog of War through the activation system, but it can be a bit unreal, especially in an attack/defend scenario (god how I hate that term). We generally play with a stronger attacker and a weaker defender. For the first turn (and only the first turn) the defender's units are limited to 'Down' 'Ambush' or 'advance', but in this case 'Down' means 'cannot
be seen' and 'advance' can only be away from the enemy. We've found that that mimics the 'start line' and "kick off at 'x' o'clock" approach reasonably well. The attacker gets to open his manoeuvre pretty reliably and then everything can go pear-shaped in the traditional manner.
The defender generally starts with everything in cover, but can get the odd shot in at a distance if so desired or can use 'fall-back' procedures in a fairly classic pattern.
That said, we only really do games with historically viable units and objectives and I don't suppose it would work for 'balanced forces encounter actions with neutral terrain'.

If the tea break kept coming out early it would spoil the game for me. I like the idea of 2 dice and only on the second one is the turn over. I also like the idea of putting the tea break die in the bag after half the units on the board have been activated.

I think this is just a thing you have to play around with, try out different ways a few times and see what works for you and your buddies.

In a limited number of turns scenario I think it would upset the balance somewhat.

If playing the scenarios from the book with just 6 turns to complete the objetive, using the "tea break" dice would easily make games unwinnable (due not having enough time to complete the mission).

Some interesting objections raised here, which is useful for me. I had considered removing a few dice at random from the bag each turn to introduce a degree of unpredicatability (and not showing the players which colour was removed) – but I was only thinking of taking one or two out each turn.

Thanks for the thoughts above.

It all depends how you want to work the victory conditions.

If applying this method to a standard 'X amount of turns' and then see who wins, then Ruben Megido makes a very valid point, as the varying turn length would potentially chop half the game off.

However if the victory conditions are set as 'achieve' X to win (blow up the ammo dump, rout their army or whatever) you just keep playing till X is achieved, therefore the tea break dice would not be an issue.

I think its a great idea for more historical scenarios and something we will introduce from here on. For a straight 'let's fight' with a more tournament style approach it diverges from the original too much to work

If you worry about pinned units never getting activated, have the ones not yet activated when the TB is drawn, do a rally or down order. It represents them hunkering down instead of doing what their commander (i.e. you) wants them to. A bit like IRL.

But I do understand that some players like Bolt Action like it is and wouldn't like this extra element of friction.

Heck, I tried to inflict a random activation in 40k some years ago at my local club and was met with total indifference. Now Bolt Action introduced exactly that mechanic, funny world isn't it :-)

As an alternative to ending the round on the second tea break, what would happen if the remaining units then got a double move? Would it create more excitement or less? Would it spoil the game completely?
Just a crazy thought from an old man……

Its going to be each to their own on this one but I like to have the un predictability within the turns time span wise. The standard scenarios can be tweaked to make these changes work anyway. The standard BA rules lean heavily towards scenario competition play (this is why there are points in set up) and a pulling of the dice allocation wise could and have swung either way as well as balancing out in other games the added stress of turns ending before you got all your own units moved sounds like the asymmetrical aspect of play working very well. I know statistically it is improbable of one side pulling all its die 1st I like the idea of having to use your troops and assets like your time is limited as in all modern battles these are decisions made in seconds. I do like Last Hussar idea though gives an extra to your decision making (I'd use this for inter-war games mainly but its a very nice idea as I know in BA. morale changes and sides could feasiblely change as to who draws for the 2nd "teabreak" die) again can play the game straight as is or add a few tweaks when and where according to your scenarios you make up. Cheers and happy gaming.

Statisticaly at least with 1 tea break dice ON AVERAGE the game will stop at about half the number of bounds. You will rarely ever get to the end as the odds of pulling the dice last is down to 50% on the last dice pull. In effect it would encorage the use of about half the force or mean that all units only on average move half the distance. This required more turns to get across the board. You could get simmilar average result by halfing the move rate. Its not clear that this is realy fog of war. It looks more like gambling where tactics can be unreasonably thwarted by luck in a way that does not obviously seem to map to any real world impact.

The two dice solution means that the early dice pulls for an end are avoided. However proably on average the game ends quicker and the odds of getting to the end of the bound are similarly poor.