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2012/09/08 15:06:06
Subject: Warlord's WW2 Bolt Action. Plastic T34/85 Tank
Bolt Action is finally out! And some extra goodies
Three weeks ahead of schedule we’ve released our new WWII rulebook – Bolt Action! We know you’ve been anticipating the day with barely concealed excitement. Now you can place your order for this superb rulebook and also ensure you receive a rather special miniature for free. Take a gulp of your canteen, soldier and read your orders…
Written by veteran game designers Alessio Cavatore and Rick Priestley, Bolt Action provides all the rules needed to bring the great battles of World War II to your tabletop. Using miniature soldiers, tanks and terrain, you can fight battles in the shattered towns of occupied France, the barren deserts of North Africa, and even the sweltering jungles of the Pacific.
Players get to decide which of the major or minor World War II powers they would like to represent, and then construct their armies from the lists provided. Army options are almost limitless, allowing you to build the kind of army that most appeals to your style of play. The choice is yours.
Created as a joint project between Warlord Games and Osprey Publishing, the leading independent military history publisher, Bolt Action is sure to be the most popular new wargame on the market.
Contents
Introduction
Basic rules
Advanced rules
Scenarios
Quick reference sheets
Index
Anyone placing an order with us for the Bolt Action rulebook will also receive this superb free miniature – a British Paratrooper aiding a wounded comrade in the heat of battle!
Sculpted by one of the previous owners of Bolt Action and the man that sculpted much of the original Bolt Action range – Paul Hicks. Hicksy is still sculpting for us as you will have seen by his recent offerings – SAS in NW Europe, Crimean War British Lancers, Crimean War British Hussars…
You can only get hold of this exclusive miniature by ordering the Bolt Action rulebook directly from us at Warlord Games.
Order your copy now!
As you can see from the images here, the rulebook is a thing of beauty – not only full of great photos of miniatures but also plenty of information and anecdotes as you’ve come to expect from a Warlord Games book.
Speaking of free miniatures, we’ll also be giving away a bespoke miniature for those of you ordering one of the forthcoming Bolt Action supplements ditectly from us. We’ll bring you more details on that nearer the time but suffice to say that orders for the German supplement will receive a miniature of SS-Obersturmbannführer Otto Skorzeny and the American supplement will be accompanied by none other than Colonel ’Chesty’ Puller! We’re too good to you, you know…
I mean how large are the forces? In terms of number of models, etc?
'Standard' game size is 1000 points.
That translates to...20-30 infantry models in 2-4 squads with a small command team (3-5 men); 3-ish infantry support teams (such as a 3-4 man MMG/HMG, 2 man bazooka team, 3 man mortar team, etc.); 1-2 guns (usually 3-4 men plus a gun); and 1-3 vehicles.
The game scales up and down...going up typically means more vehicles. For example, a tank is ~250 points while an infantry platoon (command team plus 2 squads) is ~250-500 points dependent on experience and gear. The 'big' tanks like a King Tiger is ~400 points.
So if you buy a box of infantry, a MG team, a mortar team, an infantry AT team, a gun, and a tank; you'll be a 1000 points or close to it.
2012/09/09 06:13:00
Subject: Warlord's WW2 Bolt Action rulebook now relased
I'll be playing this tomorrow at a local club gaming day. It looks promising.
I like 20mm/1:72 plastics for WW2 rather than 28mm. There are way, way more 1:72 vehicle, gun emplacement and equipment kits in 1:72 than in 28mm.
With this being a joint Osprey production, I'm gathering it won't be any more married to 28mm Bolt Action miniatures than Hail Caesar! and Black Powder were to 28mm miniatures.
Probably my favorite thing about historicals is that the rules have to stand on their own merit and the miniatures have to stand on their own merit because there are multiple sources for each and you can mix and match your favorites easily.
This is getting to be more and more the case with fantasy and sci-fi as well.
Balance in pick up games? Two people, each with their own goals for the game, design half a board game on their own without knowing the layout of the board and hope it all works out. Good luck with that. The faster you can find like minded individuals who want the same things from the game as you, the better.
2012/09/09 06:23:55
Subject: Re:Warlord's WW2 Bolt Action rulebook now relased
I bought a copy at Colours yesterday. I've read most of the rules and basically 40k with a few tweaks and changes which is good if it gets more people playing historical but I can see some purist historical gamers not wanting to touch them because of that... Personally I'm looking forward to my first game with them
Mick
Digitus Impudicus! Armies-
2012/09/09 07:05:50
Subject: Warlord's WW2 Bolt Action rulebook now relased
I also played some games (I really dig rules, and especially WW II rules).
Short version: I like the rules. 8)
Bolt Action seem to prefer simple rules that are written in broad strokes. The funny thing is IMO that BA and my system Victory Decision is always doing it simpler on opposing ends.
Some Examples:
Bolt Action Activation, extremely simple and luck depended
movement, standard complex
Very simplistic move rates for vehicles
No pre-measuring
simple vehicles types (an armoured car is an armoured car - period)
Victory Decision Alternate Activation modified by Ld extremely simple, move leader arrange the rest around in Ld distance
more detailed move rates for vehicles
Always pre-measuring
different move and armour rates for vehicles of the the same type.
Both games seem to have the same fun level. BA is favouring bigger armies as Rick has explained, but this is no surprise since it comes from a mini company.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mick A wrote: I bought a copy at Colours yesterday. I've read most of the rules and basically 40k with a few tweaks and changes which is good if it gets more people playing historical but I can see some purist historical gamers not wanting to touch them because of that... Personally I'm looking forward to my first game with them
Sorry have to disagree on that.
It is NOT 40K like.
Unit activations totally different and makes a VERY different game. Shooting, CC etc also different. A simpler vehicles system (in fact a bit too generic..).
The list goes...
scipio.au wrote: Has anyone got much familiarity with the game? What size are we talking about in terms of figures and the like?
Or you could've checked out the army deals I linked to get an idea of what you're looking at here.
No need to be unpleasant. And yeah, I saw those. My question is along the lines of "are those actual usable and reasonable armies?". Because, you know, the Hail Caesar starter box isn't. Nor have been the various 40k Boxes, or the recent FoW one, or most GW Batallions, or....
scipio.au wrote: Has anyone got much familiarity with the game? What size are we talking about in terms of figures and the like?
Or you could've checked out the army deals I linked to get an idea of what you're looking at here.
No need to be unpleasant. And yeah, I saw those. My question is along the lines of "are those actual usable and reasonable armies?". Because, you know, the Hail Caesar starter box isn't. Nor have been the various 40k Boxes, or the recent FoW one, or most GW Batallions, or....
They are playable and also quite balanced. A bit infantry heavy, but BA is this way...
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2012/09/09 09:01:19
Mick A wrote: I bought a copy at Colours yesterday. I've read most of the rules and basically 40k with a few tweaks and changes which is good if it gets more people playing historical but I can see some purist historical gamers not wanting to touch them because of that... Personally I'm looking forward to my first game with them
Mick
It shares similar features to 40k, Warmachine, Hordes, other 20mm mini-games, etc.; but I would not say it plays like these games.
For me the two biggest features / differences are the unit activitation and the role of suppression.
Regarding turning off historical...I dis-agree. The game is flexible to create various historical force orgs without imposing these on you. That could turn off people who want the game to ONLY allow (force) historical on everyone. If you are looking for a real-world historical simulation - no mini game does this well enough, I'd recommend playing Combat Mission (computer) as it accuately models all the physical aspects of reality and can do the math for you behind the scenes to make that happen.
2012/09/09 14:24:05
Subject: Warlord's WW2 Bolt Action rulebook now relased
No need to be unpleasant. And yeah, I saw those. My question is along the lines of "are those actual usable and reasonable armies?". Because, you know, the Hail Caesar starter box isn't. Nor have been the various 40k Boxes, or the recent FoW one, or most GW Batallions, or....
I think it might be your avatar. When I had an angry Zap Brannigan, people were snarky with me all the time. Since I changed to a frozen corpse, people have suddenly become far, far more pleasant in their responses to me. I think people might see the crazy shouting guy and react to it, for better or worse.
The game really does seem to be focused on the 20-40 miniatures and a tank level. So the army sets they are selling seem to be actual full armies.
I'll be playing it in a couple hours and will report back later.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2012/09/09 14:24:27
Balance in pick up games? Two people, each with their own goals for the game, design half a board game on their own without knowing the layout of the board and hope it all works out. Good luck with that. The faster you can find like minded individuals who want the same things from the game as you, the better.
2012/09/09 15:02:14
Subject: Warlord's WW2 Bolt Action rulebook now relased
I think it might be your avatar. When I had an angry Zap Brannigan, people were snarky with me all the time. Since I changed to a frozen corpse, people have suddenly become far, far more pleasant in their responses to me. I think people might see the crazy shouting guy and react to it, for better or worse.
Haha right so now people feel sorry for you because they associate you with being a frozen corpse?
Actually there might be something to it, not so much these days but I've always used the same avatar (12-13 years on some forums) and back in the old days - when you had the likes of the GW forums banning mention of squats (so it was a form of trolling i guess haha) I used to sometimes get comments like 'yeah but your avatar is a squat'
The turn structure is interesting. You put a die in a cup for each unit on your side. Same for the opponent. Then you draw a die and the side who's colour it is gets to choose one unit to activate. You choose an order. You can stay still and fire, move and fire, double move, hit the dirt for cover, rally, or ambush (a true overwatch reaction ability). And the end of each turn you can choose to leave the getting down for cover die or the ambush die on the model, which means it will be in that mode for the entire turn.
The shooting is a bit like 40k. Only there are modifiers. For moving, for range, for cover, etc.,. That determines your target number and you roll your dice. Then you take all the hits and roll trying to get equal to the quality of the target. 3+ for rookies, 4+ for regulars and 5+ for veterans. I guess the idea is that they are better or worse at hugging cover and staying out of sight.
Every time you score a hit with a unit shooting at another, it gets a pinned marker-- whether you kill a target or not. If you activate something with pinned markers, you make a morale check (2d6 roll under like 40k or Warmachine) with a -1 to your morale for each pinned marker. You can shed pinned markers at a rate of one per turn if you do other stuff or you can rally and get rid of lots of them.
Most combat will be shooting. But close combat is deadly. The defender gets a full round of shooting at all chargers, so make sure you pile up the pinned marker before you go in (as each pin marker gives you -1 to shoot).
I was expecting the vehicles system to be really bland, but it's basically a reworked version of 40k's rules. You can pivot once during your movement and many vehicles go about 9" or 18" on a double move (but with no pivots on that). Guns and vehicles are separated into categories by size (medium, heavy, etc.,) and type (anti-tank, heavy explosive). You can fire at a single target in every arc of fire, so if you have a turret it can swivel to the left while your hull mounted machine gun shoots forward at a different target.
There's a damage table like 40k, but the results play into the whole pinning system, so it's far more satisfying than just getting the result and being done. There's also the possibility of getting massive damage and rolling more than one attempt on the damage table.
Reserve rules are fabulous. Absolutely excellent. You choose when they come on by dedicating an order die to them when one of yours is pulled out of the cup. So say you have 4 units on the board and 3 in reserve. You pull a die out of the cup and decide to either is it on one of the units on the table, or use it on a reserve unit. You could then choose advance and move 6" onto the table and shoot. Or you could choose one of your reserve units and pass play without bringing in the unit if you want to wait for future turns. My opponent masterfully held his reserves back until late in the game and they totally changed the tide of battle.
It was nice that it isn't just optimal to get everything on the table as fast as possible and ram it at the enemy as fast as possible.
Snipers were neat-- they killed some squad leaders and took out a personal anti-tank weapon.
Some scenarios have attackers and defenders and they equalize the attacker by having a preliminary bombardment which starts the defender off with some pinning markers.
The book is a nice small hard cover about 10x7.5 inches or so. Very, very nice, with lots of clear explanation text and good diagrams.
Final thoughts
I just ordered a copy. It was absolutely a blast to play. While it has some basic similarities to 40k (which is unsurprising considering Rick Priestly co-wrote 40k) like the roll-to-hit, roll-to-wound mechanic. But the use of modifiers to hit and no saves at all meant it went faster than having a third round of rolling for saves. And the turn structure and true overwatch through the ambush order means there is lots of player interaction during the game.
It also would work perfectly with no changes to the ranges or movement for any scale of World War 2 miniatures. The ground scale is already compressed, so Micro-armor would work perfectly, as would 10mm, 15mm, 20mm/1:72 or the default 28mm. 40mm and 54mm/1:35 would probably not work well as the vehicles would be a bit big.
If 40k was based on these rules with sci-fi added on, I would get back into 40kimmediately. Instead, however, I've ordered a copy and dug out my existing WW2 models out of storage. Though I may end up going with 6mm/micro-armour as it would work so, so well.
Balance in pick up games? Two people, each with their own goals for the game, design half a board game on their own without knowing the layout of the board and hope it all works out. Good luck with that. The faster you can find like minded individuals who want the same things from the game as you, the better.
2012/09/10 13:37:21
Subject: Warlord's WW2 Bolt Action rulebook now relased
scipio.au wrote: Has anyone got much familiarity with the game? What size are we talking about in terms of figures and the like?
I heard a reference to it on the most recent WWPD podcast and they said it's 28mm and designed so an 'army' is a platoon or two in most cases... So less than 50 models, definitely.
Working on someting you'll either love or hate. Hopefully to be revealed by November.
Play the games that make you happy.
2012/09/14 19:16:58
Subject: Re:Warlord's WW2 Bolt Action rulebook now relased
No need to be unpleasant. And yeah, I saw those. My question is along the lines of "are those actual usable and reasonable armies?". Because, you know, the Hail Caesar starter box isn't. Nor have been the various 40k Boxes, or the recent FoW one, or most GW Batallions, or....
I think it might be your avatar. When I had an angry Zap Brannigan, people were snarky with me all the time. Since I changed to a frozen corpse, people have suddenly become far, far more pleasant in their responses to me. I think people might see the crazy shouting guy and react to it, for better or worse.
The game really does seem to be focused on the 20-40 miniatures and a tank level. So the army sets they are selling seem to be actual full armies.
I heard a reference to it on the most recent WWPD podcast and they said it's 28mm and designed so an 'army' is a platoon or two in most cases... So less than 50 models, definitely.
Thanks for the actual answers, guys. People who are snarky for no reason can go to hell, TBH, and expect the same from me down the line. Great review as well, FW. I'll definitely be picking up a copy to get more use out of these models.
Looks like it'll turn out that between my existing (and waiting to ship) Warlord, West Wind and WGF stuff, I'll be pretty close to having forces for the UK, Germany and US. Just need a little bit more armour and infantry between the three and it'll be a go. I always kept umming and ahhing over WG's Wittmann's Tiger. Though I guess it might be a bit OP for this sort of scale of battle. Maybe a PzIV instead. Or as well.
Hmm found a/some "negative" or at least a "critical" review(s) of the game. Anyone here who has played have any thoughts on this?
PLayed a game a week or so back. The rules are fast to learn, fairly intuitive and pretty fun. Unfortunatly close assault is like WWWAAAAYYYY broken. I see no need to never take anytrhing but SMG armed infantry with anti-tank grenades. When the range for a rifle is only 24" the defender is only going to get one ( maybe 2) phases of fire on the assaulting unit ( maybe 3-4 casualties) before they are assaulted and totally destroyed by the SMG's. And when you can get a 12 man squad of Soviets SMG w. AT grenades for something like 160 points and keep a 1st lieutenant or two nearby to keep them moving you can spam a human wave that not much stands up to.
oh also as for more brokeness in assault you can move 6, run 12 but only in open ground but you can assault 12" regardless of terrain. Prettymuch the rules are a good beer and pretzels vanilla WW2 set. If you remove assault or make up a house rule giving defensive fire or requiring a leadership test to assault and when being assaulted to stand it might help but I've not tried it out yet.
Also just thought of another bug/feature. Tanks while fairly hard to destroy really don't seem to have much affect on the battle. without infantry support they can be swarmed and destroyed by AT infantry and their main gun and MG's really don't do enough damage to blunt a focused infantry attack. ( so much like real life YMMV). And to me I;d of loved to see hit locations for the tanks . Even if it was just something like track, hull and turret with different damage effects. But that's not hard to bodge up houserules for.
it's not a question of realism or not. It's the all or nothign nature of close combat in the game. everything else you have to roll to hit with modifiers tacked on due to cover, moving, pin markers. then you have to roll to actually wound and remove models.
In Assault it's simply you charge 12" no matter whats in the way. Since you charged you attack first. you roll to wound no modifiers they remove models for every success. Then they attack back, you remove a model for every success. whoever lost the most models looses the combat and the entire squad is destroyed automatically.
It's a way to bypass modifiers and eliminate rolling to wound form the equation. Your cutting out half the math that mitigates casualties and extends the game. And turning it into an all or nothing charge fest where CC is king. essentially a WW2 40K. but at least in 40k if you loose a round of CC you might stick around to fight another round and turn the tables on the enemy.
I watched another game being played last night and as soon as one person charged and everyone saw the effect that assault had. Suddenly everyone stopped shooting ( unless they couldn't charge) at each other and it became a mass chargefest
Had a look at the rules (not played yet) this week and I am not sure I'll like them.
That it's basically WW2 flavour 40k with a mix of 2nd and 3rd editions with order dice from EPIC thrown in is greatly off putting. There's lots of little niggles in it, and mostly I blame Allessio for them since it's nearly all the same competitive gaming things he usually does.
It's certainly going down the route of Flames of War in only really being barely associated with the history for the sake of context. There's little that really seems to make this a WW2 game rather than what's a pretty generic system.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2012/09/15 14:33:29
2012/09/15 14:53:58
Subject: Warlord's WW2 Bolt Action rulebook now relased
kenshin620 wrote: Hmm found a/some "negative" or at least a "critical" review(s) of the game. Anyone here who has played have any thoughts on this?]
The comments on assault are wrong. They either read the rules and played them wrong or are making them up. Assaults are brutal versus the tarpits like 40k. Closr combat is not an extended brawl like in the movies.
You can human wave (especially with the soviets, which is like no duh!), but you have pass an orders test if suppressed. You have to get lucky to get it off without a lot of planning.
These reviews are funny, so far everyone I have seen liked it. Not everybody found it engaging enough to buy and play, but no one found it lacking.
The most critical review so far (and true) is this is a squad based game not a highly detailed tactical simulation (which apparently is what some people want).
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2012/09/16 02:37:35
2012/09/16 01:15:15
Subject: Warlord's WW2 Bolt Action rulebook now relased
Frankly, I'll be waiting for Soviet infantry to go plastic before I buy any.
It sounds like a small scale WW2 Miniatures game using 28mm figures. Essentially a smallish, more relaxed WW2 40k-ish game, not requiring too many models. Which, yes, is what some people want. Like me. I can't be bothered finishing the painting of my 1/100 DAK force - it's been shelved for about 8 years because the infantry was tedious as all hell.
The thing about close combat is that the defenders get a full round of shooting as a reaction. So unless they are pinned first, then they're going to seriously hurt the attackers on the way in.
I found the games really came down to the pin markers. And with rifles, you can can get pretty good at judging what's just over 12". So if someone runs within 12", you back up a couple of inches and shoot. They get a pinning marker they'll have to test before they can run at you again. Having the LT there to spur on the SMG armed assaulters will help make sure it happens, but there should be enough fire lanes to layer pinning onto the thing. In the last game I played, the sniper team just took the squad leader out on the all SMG infantry units, which gave them a permanent -1 to their checks.
Any defender worth his salt is going to give ground unless they are holding cover and then assaulting will be simultaneous-- but the defender still gets their full round of shooting first (I saw no mention of the reaction fire in the comments about close combat). If you're not going to lose by giving up an objective by backing up, defenders should just reposition outside of 12".
The only two times someone could bypass your ability to do so is if you're pinned and fail to move (and then you should be run over by assaulting infantry) or if the opponent moves the attackers into position near the end of a turn and then pulls the first die and attacks before you can back off. And even then, you'll still get your shooting.
Also:
The Germans are now making extensive use of a new type of barbed wire. This new type is made of a non-corrosive metal, and is thicker than ordinary wire. It is square in cross-section, rather than round. The wire, which is twisted, has 3/4-inch barbs, 4 inches apart. -- U.S. WWII Intelligence Bulletin, September, 1943
Can't charge through terrain you can't move through:
Spoiler:
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, by RAW, you can't assault into rough terrain as you can't run into rough terrain. This is going to be errata'd to allow it but at half speed. So you don't just ignore terrain.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2012/09/17 18:44:45
Balance in pick up games? Two people, each with their own goals for the game, design half a board game on their own without knowing the layout of the board and hope it all works out. Good luck with that. The faster you can find like minded individuals who want the same things from the game as you, the better.
