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Hey Fellas,
Thinking about getting into Bolt Action...but I saw Allesio Cavatores name in it....

Has anyone out there played a game of it and can give me an HONEST review?

I bought the Normandy Set, painted the figures, and read the rules. Was not very impressed. Then I stumbled on Battlegroup Kursk. I find this much better. Now I own 3 rule sets-BA, BGK, and FOW. I rate Bolt Action 3d.

http://social.consimworld.com/photo/image-4?context=user

i started with bolt action but like the chap above i now play battlegroup kursk as its a much superior set of rules.

Anyhow a quick review of bolt action, well i liked a few things, i liked the way turns where done keeps both players always part of the game, pinning system from what i remember works rather well.

Now for the stuff that puts me off the rules... flamers are utterly ridiculous, broken in my opinion. The British player in our group pretty much only had to take a churchill crocodile to always win.
Transports are over priced and as such pointless, so if you had ideas of troops and half tracks forget about it.

Tank points are also broken, as a German player the only vehicle worth taking was a puma. everything is destroyed very easily by other armoured vehicles, so a puma had a good chance of killing heavy armour and got other special rules. Anything past a panzer 4 was just a massive waste of points, a tiger or panther ends up being a total handicap because of the high points cost but being like tissue paper. And since your cheaper tanks don't have any trouble knocking things out no need for the bigger guns on the big cats.

Maybe it was however because we played at 20mm we used a high point value for our games, perhaps at 28mm it is more reasonable or balanced but the above points still stand.

Though really the amount of second world war rule sets i have tried is huge, so for me to have settled and be enjoying the battlegroup kursk rules means i really cannot recommend them high enough.

We play in 15mm now and my huge army did not cost alot.

Bolt Action plays fast, rewards the use of cover, has a great pinning system, and has a unique activation system that is, in my opinion, way better than I go-You go. It's a good platoon level, casual game, but it begins to fray at the edges when you take it beyond that.

I agree with most of Salad Fingers' Comments. The points system for Bolt Action has a number of balance issues. Some units and options feel painfully overpriced (most transports, LMGs, most big tanks), and some offer so much for what you pay that you'd be crazy not to take them (American BAR, most vehicle-mounted flamethrowers). In particular, infantry light light machine guns, a staple of any WW2 era squad, are anemic and brutally overpriced. The Flak rule doesn't really work as intended, and most AA guns are literally incapable of shooting down planes. The first armybook released, Germany, did not add any unique army rules, but the Americans, British, and now it seemes Soviets have all gotten additional armywide rules- the British ones specifically seem to be quite good, and the Germans were sort of left holding the bag. We houseruled a set of German national rules to balance what the Americans and British got, but obviously you can't take that to a tournament.

Ultimately, the core game mechanic is solid, fast, tactical, and fun, and I prefer the ruleset to 40k and FoW. The army lists provide a surprising amount of flexibility- one of my friends is currently putting together a British LRDG patrol that's all about fast, unarmored vehicles mounting a ton of machineguns and supported by portee AT guns and a few dismounted men for support. For a casual game with a regular gaming group, it's a great game, especially if you use a few house rules to give LMGs some more bite, etc. In a less casual situation, I can see some of the issues really becoming points of contention.

I have not yet played Battlegroup Kursk, so I can't say how it compares as far as platoon level gaming goes. I did pre-order BG Overlord, ideally as a replacement for Flames of War, but I'll give it a spin at the 28mm platoon level, once I have it, though at the moment I am quite fond of Bolt Action.

Thanks for the heads up guys!!

After seeing the name Rick Priestly on it as well, i picked up a copy this weekend at my FLGS, and am in the process of reading the rules now.

What im really looking for is a "skirmish" level wargame that i can convert into a modern combat game.

Points values can be adjusted so thanks for the advice. I want to use my 1/43 scale vehicles in a modern "Invasion America" style game.

We found a ton 20mm modern figs online and around town and we tried FoF , but the reaction system breaks down after about 3 units per side--we kept forgetting whose turn it was and who was the initiative side.

Wargames, Soldiers, and Strategy, issue 65, did a 3 page article on converting Bolt Action to Vietnam. Nothing too radical in it, since the BA rules can accommodate more modern settings pretty easily, but it might be worth a read if you can find it.

BA's rulebook gives you everything you need to recreate it, though, except perhaps shotguns and grenade launchers, but it's pretty easy to implement them with house rules.

Regarding the vehicles, Warlord released an Armored Platoon expansion pdf on their website that gives some pointers on how to handle running games with more than 1 tank per side- look on their forums, Bolt Action General Discussion, in a stickied post called Command Center.

I'm still new to Bolt Action so I'm going on "first impressions". To me, BA feels like what it is: a 1st edition of a game that still needs a lot of polish. Some things just aren't balanced out yet, be it rules or points, and there are lots of very amateurish typos and errors, specifically in the various army lists. The game feels like it play fast and loose, making it quick fun but not very serious. I think the assault rules are extremely weak, way over simplified in the all-or-nothing style of outcomes. I'm also not a fan of their methods for choosing your forces, as it is like you get to take at least one of every infantry related option imaginable (squads, snipers, flame throwers, HMGs, AT teams, medics, mortars, AT guns, FAOs, and on and on...) but then you have all these choices of neat armored vehicles and you get to take exactly one or two of them in your force.

Overall, it's a fun game but it needs a lot of cleaning up.

Again, guys...Thanks for the feedback.
We will be playing a game this wednesday night using Infantry and Soft skin vehicles. We will see how it works. I was a little intrigued though after readiong the rules...the framework is loose enough to make the "Invasion : America" thing work. Thanks for the feedback on the points values and advise on flamethrowers. We dont play with point values anymore unless we a playing a game of 40K. We think the sometimes "lopsided" nature of assymetrical engagements is pretty fun and challenging.
We are going to try a play on the old 2nd ed 40k "Datafax" for vehicles...different charts for tires and armor and engine...I think it will make for a funner game.

If you want a skirmish game for Moderns, I would put away Bolt Action and pick up Force-on-Force. I own them both.

I think Force-on-Force is one of the coolest things I have played in a long time. It takes bit to get use to the action/Reaction turn, but it keeps both players completely in the game. You are always doing something.

Now, I still love Rick and the very "British" way he writes games systems. I also enjoy Bolt Action, but I love Force-on-Force.

Easy E --
Thanks for the advise, but I already own Force On Force and it is SWEET, but our games are getting too big to manage in the 3 hr window we have to play in. I like the reaction system as well, but the same thing that makes the game cool, kinda wrecks the flow as well. We been playin wargames and RPG's for a long time, and we kept forgetting whose turn it was and what teams acted and what teams didnt act and who had light wounds and serious wounds and who was in optimum range and who wasnt who gets the man protable bonus who doesnt who is equipped better than who whos turn is it??
So we need a faster paced game that is MANAGEABLE. Not a hit on Force on Force, we just couldnt keep it all straight and keep the game going and finish in the 3 hr window we have, thats all.

Those are fair criticisms, and F-on-F works best with small forces. I also typicall modify the Flesh/Serious/ Dead to simply injured/Down.

Bolt Action does have a cleaner turn system, that does nto fall into boring I-go-U-go, there is some ebb and flow. The casualty system is also much smoother.