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Well Gents,
*Ahem*
I must say, I think Bolt Action has possibly placed a nail in the coffin for 40k for me. I must say that I have played about 5-6 games of Bolt Action, and have loved everyone, win or lose. I just find the simplicity of the game so refreshing, pick up and go. Everyone I introduce to it is pretty efficient at the rules by turn 3. I have a small German army and a small US army (400 points), and I recently bought a Soviet Infantry box, basically more than enough to make a 400 point force as well. There isn't much substance to this post, but I figured I would share for anyone else who is on the fence about the game. Definitely give it a go, you should not regret it. I also have an FOW Open Fire box that I will be cracking open and porting over to Bolt Action rules as well, that should be very interesting. I am also wondering of the possibility of doing a hybrid between 40k and BA. I have found the latest editions of 40k becoming too complicated, so a possible simplification and merging of the order roll would be interesting. I love the fluff of 40k to give it all up, if I could combine it with BA that would be perfect.

Actually on a side note, any ideas on where to pick up decent, but cheap, 15mm/FOW sized terrain? Majority of my terrain is 28mm. Looking to make a 4x4 Urban/Stalingrad table for the FOW.

I will echo the above sentiment. Bolt Action is a great game and is a nice transition from 40k to the rest of the wargaming market.

I second Custom Line. Although I moved to the battlegroup ruleset a few months back Bot Action is a great transition. It works well in 15mm and your wallet will thank you in spades. I still have a running thread on 15mm Bolt Action on here.

Welcome to the amazing world of tabletop gaming outside of 40k.

Edit: individually base the open fire figures on pennies and you will be all set and then some.

Even at 28mm it's a much more fun and cheaper alternative to 40k.

It's nice and relatively simple (it lacks the pages of special rules that 40k loves).

We also found the same in my FLGS. My gaming buddy was a big Warhammer Fantasy player and he wanted to try 40k once. I brought 1500pts each of Dark Eldar and Deathwing along with the Assault on Normandy models.

We played a game of each and from then on he's switched totally to Bolt Action. The evening after our game he went home and ordered the rulebook and a small Soviet army. We have a complete blast playing it and it's pretty much taken over our wargaming time. Another player is also getting into the game a lot now and we're having a great time. With any luck it'll expand even further.

I really enjoy the simple and fun style of the game a lot.

I'm very interested to read into and perhaps get into the Battlegroup ruleset as well. I've heard many good things about it and I want to know more. I think that moving to 15mm will really help as the game starts to expand. With 28mm Bolt Action we've already put two tables together (8' x 6') to give ourselves room to move and play with bigger games without it feeling like a 40k parking lot apocalypse game. It would be a lot of fun to recreate some larger engagements with smaller models.

Same here great game . I love 40k in a fluffy casual non competive way . But the other games out there are great . Bolt action is one of them . Fun to play easy to learn . Great change of pace for people getting the main stream game burn out . Also what's great is warlord is a great source for getting the miniatures . The army boxes are great get started deals that come with army list printed on the box ready for play . Thewarstore.com is good way to get the miniatures etc if your flgs can't get them . I ran some demos the other day at my flgs . Every one had a great time and showed interest in getting into it . Bottom line is I agree with you

Fun stuff

It has been a blast, I have been tempted to demo a game of it at the local hobby store that seems to have a big 40k following. Hopefully I can try it out. The store sells almost no Warlord product, so fingers crossed!

I also must say that the warlord products are great. I bought one soviet box and have more than enough models to make a 400 point demo army! I do wish they were a little easier to assemble, I somewhat miss the clunkiness of the 40k models.

I'll second this statement. Bolt Action is great fun, and very simple.

If you've ever played Epic: Armageddon before it was canned, it will come very naturally - it is literally 28mm Epic Armageddon - order dice, pin markers (blast markers), command checks, et al.

The fact that your 'roll to kill' (it's not 'toughness' per se) is dependent on your troops quality, as are your chances of them passing command checks, you can really feel the difference in quality of troops with theoretically the same weapons.

An army consisting of nothing but Soviet Conscript infantry (only half of whom get real guns*) versus an elite German panzergrenadier force can look like odds of 3 or 4 to one yet it's actually very balanced.


One warning: play the game at 1500-2000 points as per 40k. Some armies get army-wide bonuses (Germans get better light machineguns, Americans get semi-automatic rifles) that scale in value with the size of the game, other armies get free units (The british get a free artillery observer, the russians a free conscript infantry squad).

In small games the latter outweigh the former, in big games the reverse. At 1500-2000 points they're about equal.

* "The man with the rifle will fire. When the man with the rifle is killed, the man without the rifle will pick up the rifle and fire..." - enemy at the gates

 MadMaverick76 wrote:
It has been a blast, I have been tempted to demo a game of it at the local hobby store that seems to have a big 40k following. Hopefully I can try it out. The store sells almost no Warlord product, so fingers crossed!

I also must say that the warlord products are great. I bought one soviet box and have more than enough models to make a 400 point demo army! I do wish they were a little easier to assemble, I somewhat miss the clunkiness of the 40k models.

Their troop stuff is reasonably good. I've had a lot of problems with significantly bent rifle barrels on my Airborne troops (the sculpt detail is very good, but the end of the garands and carbines will often be so bent that you cannot fix it without the material breaking). Similarly, both my armored car and my panzer from Warlord have had absolutely horrible metal. The metal bits were rock hard and extremely brittle. Also, the tracks did not mate up well to the body of the tank, requiring putty filling.

I've done one carbine barrel repair and 5 garand repairs out of about 26 or so models. I also had to build an all new barrel for my SdKfz as well as putty work on my Panzer IV and a rebuild of all of the shurzen supports.

Game play is good, and sculpt quality is good, but the quality of casting has been mediocre or poor.

New starter coming soon, which is great as the current starter isn't really a great starter IMHO.

http://www.warlordgames.com/preview-new-bolt-action-introductory-game/

D-Day Firefight has everything you need to get started in Bolt Action:
Bolt Action mini-rulebook
1 modular plastic ruined farmhouse
10 plastic multi-pose 28mm German infantry
1 plastic 1:56 scale Sd.Kfz 251/1C Hanomag half-track
20 plastic multi-pose 28mm US Army troops
Scenario booklet
Quick reference sheet
60 Pin Markers
2 Rulers
8 order dice, two sets of 4 in two different colours
10 six sided dice

Looks like an interesting update.

Just looking at the old set, maybe they should keep it around as an 'expansion.' 20 more infantry for both sides, additional dice, terrain, and the full rulebook seems like a good add-on to the updated starter set.

I'm looking at moving away from FoW, and Bolt Action was always one of the rulesets I was thinking of moving into to keep my WWII gaming alive.

locarno24 wrote:I'll second this statement. Bolt Action is great fun, and very simple.

If you've ever played Epic: Armageddon before it was canned, it will come very naturally - it is literally 28mm Epic Armageddon - order dice, pin markers (blast markers), command checks, et al.

The fact that your 'roll to kill' (it's not 'toughness' per se) is dependent on your troops quality, as are your chances of them passing command checks, you can really feel the difference in quality of troops with theoretically the same weapons.

An army consisting of nothing but Soviet Conscript infantry (only half of whom get real guns*) versus an elite German panzergrenadier force can look like odds of 3 or 4 to one yet it's actually very balanced.


One warning: play the game at 1500-2000 points as per 40k. Some armies get army-wide bonuses (Germans get better light machineguns, Americans get semi-automatic rifles) that scale in value with the size of the game, other armies get free units (The british get a free artillery observer, the russians a free conscript infantry squad).

In small games the latter outweigh the former, in big games the reverse. At 1500-2000 points they're about equal.

* "The man with the rifle will fire. When the man with the rifle is killed, the man without the rifle will pick up the rifle and fire..." - enemy at the gates

I have been thinking about bumping it up. I have two other buddies that I am getting into it. I need to sit down and glue up my soviets. Once we get a three way battle or two underway, then I will look to expand the battle. Right now just doing 400 point battles, although I am about to play the Soviets, so I know my buddies won't be happy to see that I bring about 40 guys to their 25, so I definitely get your point in regards to game size.

Maniac_nmt wrote:
Their troop stuff is reasonably good. I've had a lot of problems with significantly bent rifle barrels on my Airborne troops (the sculpt detail is very good, but the end of the garands and carbines will often be so bent that you cannot fix it without the material breaking). Similarly, both my armored car and my panzer from Warlord have had absolutely horrible metal. The metal bits were rock hard and extremely brittle. Also, the tracks did not mate up well to the body of the tank, requiring putty filling.

I've done one carbine barrel repair and 5 garand repairs out of about 26 or so models. I also had to build an all new barrel for my SdKfz as well as putty work on my Panzer IV and a rebuild of all of the shurzen supports.

Game play is good, and sculpt quality is good, but the quality of casting has been mediocre or poor.

I just am having a hard time assembling them as quickly as the 40k models. I have had this soviet box sitting because I am just too scared to undertake the task of building it all, I believe I will start this afternoon and hope to be done by tonight! 37 guys here I come!

BrookM wrote:New starter coming soon, which is great as the current starter isn't really a great starter IMHO.

http://www.warlordgames.com/preview-new-bolt-action-introductory-game/

Spoiler:

D-Day Firefight has everything you need to get started in Bolt Action:
Bolt Action mini-rulebook
1 modular plastic ruined farmhouse
10 plastic multi-pose 28mm German infantry
1 plastic 1:56 scale Sd.Kfz 251/1C Hanomag half-track
20 plastic multi-pose 28mm US Army troops
Scenario booklet
Quick reference sheet
60 Pin Markers
2 Rulers
8 order dice, two sets of 4 in two different colours
10 six sided dice

This looks great! Definitely something I may pick up to give my buddies a decent starter army. Wish they would include a machine gun team or something though to add some variety.

infinite_array wrote:Looks like an interesting update.

Just looking at the old set, maybe they should keep it around as an 'expansion.' 20 more infantry for both sides, additional dice, terrain, and the full rulebook seems like a good add-on to the updated starter set.

I'm looking at moving away from FoW, and Bolt Action was always one of the rulesets I was thinking of moving into to keep my WWII gaming alive.

It has been great, I was looking into FoW, but the rules seemed a bit too complicated, especially compared to Bolt Action.

Not to mention, the current FoW starter has some of the worst plastics I've ever had the displeasure of attempting to assemble.

Bolt Action is amazing, my only caveat, imho, is that it should be played with just a few squads and some support, it works amazingly well with smaller point games focusing on a single platoon with some support.

Another vote for BA and a note that you can use easyarmy.com to build your platoons and print out PDF/other type rosters for easy game play.

privateer4hire wrote:
Another vote for BA and a note that you can use easyarmy.com to build your platoons and print out PDF/other type rosters for easy game play.

Also look up Boltaction.net. They have a lot of reviews on equipment and models, plus a nice downloads section with excel based army lists that are easy to use:

http://www.boltaction.net/p/downloads.html

How many dudes are we looking at for a 1500pt game?

I've got a sour taste in my mouth regarding large scale 28mm, if it gets too unwieldly might roll w/ FoW for the bigger ones

Edit: also seconding the whinge about FoW plastics in the starter box. I picked up two allied sets, and while the infantry are superb those Shermans were atrocious to put together.

Well, Bolt Action games are typically 500/1000 from what I can tell, and not 1000/1500 like 40k.

My 500 point Airborne list has about 14 infantry, a lt, a forward air observer, a howitzer (with 3 men and a gun), a MMG team (two or 3 men), and a Mortar squad (3 men and a mortar).

At 1000 I have approx. 3 nine man teams, a lt, 2 MMG squads, Air Ob, two jeeps, a two man bazooka team, a howitzer, and a couple other fidly bits.

My 1k Germans have 3 10 man squads, a mortar team, 2nd lt, an armored car, a panzer, and a few other bits.

Tanks are points expensive, transports are not spammed in general, and most stuff revolves around infantry.

Depending on the experience level of the infantry, they are cheap but not effective, moderately costed and effective, or expensive and highly effective

I will say this, it was hilarious to see the local 40k players apply their logic to Bolt Action.

"So, if I min-max two platoons I can field two of those super nazi tanks in one game?"

 BrookM wrote:
I will say this, it was hilarious to see the local 40k players apply their logic to Bolt Action.

"So, if I min-max two platoons I can field two of those super nazi tanks in one game?"

I played last night, with a 40k buddy. We played Demolition, basically capture enemy base for one turn, you win. Anyway, after the game he was trying to figure out how to fit the most LMGs into his army at 400 points. He rolled with an army of 4x Heer with an LMG, 3x Rifles, and an NCO. He got stomped in the second game to say the least.

Great game, I still dislike the assembly of the models. They are a bit too finicky, I wish they would make sprues that already are holding the weapons. I know it would cut down on customization, but it would definitely streamline the assembly process. Even if they just did it in their starter sets like GW. The models could be more static, but easier for new players to assemble. To say the least, I have a lot of glue stuck on my hands currently.

From the Russian (I think) plastics onwards the arms come with weapons attached, so no more crappy fiddling like with ze Germans, Brits or Americans.

 BrookM wrote:
From the Russian (I think) plastics onwards the arms come with weapons attached, so no more crappy fiddling like with ze Germans, Brits or Americans.

The Soviet infantry box I just bought was still separate. Did you read this somewhere or have you gotten some models like that? It would be fantastic if it were true though! It took me roughly 2 hours to assemble about 15 Soviets, with losing about a pound of skin in the process!

My bad, it was either the Russian or the Japanese plastics that came with arms attached to weapons. I wouldn't hold my breath for a change in sprues any time soon, plastic molds are hella expensive and Warlord is not made of money.

the Japanese have a lot or weapons attached to arms but also individual weapons to allow specific customization if needs be.
I started collecting Germans after starting with Japan and its an entirely different type of assembly lol. I spent about 2 hours and managed to assemble 7 guys. After that i gave up and just painted 7 guys. Haven't had the motivation to assemble the remaining 20+

Just keep in mind that the Germans and Brits were their first Bolt Action plastics Warlord had done and they certainly look the part. They're thankfully improving with every new kit and from what I've heard Italeri isn't doing a gakky job either with their stuff.

There are also some metal ranges for WW2 in 28mm and several ranges of 15mm metal or plastic, and a wide variety of 20mm/1:72 scale.

AS far as number of models in an army goes, well thats really depends on you army selection (Obvious I know) but what i mean is:

If you take a Russian horde that would be representative of early battles against the germans then yeah you're going to need a lot of models but beware the game, I feel, accurately portrays the quality difference in troops when you have a bunch of inexperienced soviets fighting some veteran germans. I have consistently taken a thrashing from, about 27 german veterans, while my horde of inexperienced soviet infantry (72 grunts at one point) I felt like I was replaying those early scenes from enemy at the gates where I was just sending warm bodies to their death..


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Definitely consider Bolt action in 15mm, Even battlefronts models make a cheap army.

Warsmith262 wrote:
AS far as number of models in an army goes, well thats really depends on you army selection (Obvious I know) but what i mean is:

If you take a Russian horde that would be representative of early battles against the germans then yeah you're going to need a lot of models but beware the game, I feel, accurately portrays the quality difference in troops when you have a bunch of inexperienced soviets fighting some veteran germans. I have consistently taken a thrashing from, about 27 german veterans, while my horde of inexperienced soviet infantry (72 grunts at one point) I felt like I was replaying those early scenes from enemy at the gates where I was just sending warm bodies to their death..


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Definitely consider Bolt action in 15mm, Even battlefronts models make a cheap army.

I am currently sitting on some unpainted FOW Open Fire! minis, so he temptation is there. Just lack any 15mm terrain at the moment.

Sticking to 28mm myself, there's plenty of other companies out there with minis. I'm seriously tempted to get a box of 8th Army and DAK minis from the Perry twins, those boxes have more than enough models for some nice 500 pt platoons.

MadMaverick. as far as 15mm terrain goes, foam core board is cheap and easy..Im about to start making some for my 15mm. Ill post some pics of my ruined city stuff when I get more into it. Until then I have next to no terrain making experience and managed these basic buildings for my FoF games.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/595198.page

The buildings i made i posted pics of are for 20mm so not much bigger!