Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Agree on scaling down to small sections/fire teams as units working nicely, indeed think thats the best way to play it. (avoids a lot of the issues around not being able to split fire as well)

Vehicle rules 'work' with a small number of vehicles as a set of streamlined rules for something thats auxiliary to the main action without dominating - they just feel horrible when vehicles are meant to be a bit more important.

General plastic kits contents? the only one I have had is the Japanese one which lacks the flame throwers and other such support weapons - the Warlord site though has photos of the spures which they sell individually so you can see whats on the various weapons ones - generally anything they have in good supply in common infantry units.

Pegasus bridge would be amazing to try.

The game works a lot better if you think of it very much as the game of the film, not the game of the actual war - less about recreating the war and more about creating what people think it was like from films.

Prefer other games personally but BA is a game thats worth investigating

leopard wrote:


The game works a lot better if you think of it very much as the game of the film, not the game of the actual war - less about recreating the war and more about creating what people think it was like from films.

Prefer other games personally but BA is a game thats worth investigating

Yeah I agree. As frozewastes once said it its the comic book of the movie of the war.....which I have zeroed problem with. Thoigh i think it primarily gets that reputation from its "herioc" minis.It's a great game with some great mechanics. I prefer battlegroup for tanks and penetration values but it's just that... A preference. I know BA has very little in common with 40k outside of dice but I do think that BA is still a good gateway into hisoricals from GW.

This list builder has a ton of info that massively reduces the need for the army books:

http://boltaction.easyarmy.com/

I'd advise using Chain of Command..... not being pedantic but it has a much better feel to it for WWII skirmish than BA. and you can shoot your rifle across Pegasus bridge!

Darrell.

I'm sure there are "better" or more realistic WWII historicals out there, but again... I am coming to BA not because I desperately wanted to get into historical games so much as we want to play a GREAT platoon level game period (after being so very exhausted by 40k's imbalances, etc...)

So having friends who love BA, and also seeing impressions of it being "heroic" and sort of a movie-esque version of WWII battles, probably speak to it being a good transition from our, to date, exclusively sci-fi/fantasy game consumption.

It isn't to say I won't dig deeper and for something more hardcore, but for the moment the extent of my table-top knowledge of WWII is a couple games of the Axis and Allies miniatures game which was sold in random booster packs. :-p

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:


It isn't to say I won't deep deeper and for something more hardcore, but for the moment the extent of my table-top knowledge of WWII is a couple games of the Axis and Allies miniatures game which was sold in random booster packs. :-p

That's the beauty of those ww2 minis. Lovingly paint up those warlord figures and you'll have the models ready for other rules sets.

That's the plan.

Also, I tried poking around that EasyArmy link (a site I am very familiar with as a Kings of War player). A quick question though... Does it only list some abilities/rules? I noticed, for example that a Ranger unit in the US Army list has "Rangers lead the way", with no explanation for what that is. And Gliders apparently have no rules listed to explain how they work even though the Airborne Pathfinders reference them.

If you view your army list when you're done on easyarmy it has summaries of all the special rules. * NOTE that easyarmy uses the units from the army book so will be different. For example in the main rulebook there's just a catch-all "veteran US troops" entry that covers like US Rangers and US Airborne, etc; whereas the army book has separate entries with different options, which is what easyarmy uses.

As for the weapons, yeah, the Warlord site has the views of the sprues. It's mainly the common stuff, so the US weapon sprue for instance has lots of Garands and Springfields, a sniper rifle, Thompsons, bazooka, pistol, etc. The plastic Grenadiers however have all the weapons on the main sprue so you get a mix of MG42's, rifles, SMG, assault rifles, panzerfausts. Even a tiny iron cross to decorate someone with!

* A word of warning though, the US infantry are kind of a pain to assemble as they were some of Warlord's first plastics. Legs, body, head, each arm, backpack, and weapons are all separate pieces. However the nice new Grenadiers you'll be getting are a brand new kit and are far less pieces (most weapons have both arms molded on, legs/torso are one piece, etc). So get a new bottle of plastic glue ready

Most of the rarer weapons, like a flamethrower, are gonna be in the metal blister packs.

Now, in addition to all the plastics Warlord has and continues to release (plastic US Airborne coming soon!), there's also Perry who make plastic British Desert Rats and plastic German Afrika Korps. If you decide to branch out to different armies/theatre, and you find the Africa campaign as interesting as I do, their plastic box sets literally contain everything you need for a platoon in one box. For example, the German Afrika Korps box has an officer, radio man/observer, thirty infantry, and three support teams - which can be made as either antitank rifle team, MG team, or light mortar team. You can get a 500 point army from a $35 plastic box set Two sets of each would easily give you some historically accurate lists of two understrength platoons for each side.

Man I was hoping for plastic paras before Xmas but I doubt we will see them till March. My US infantry is just staring to look a little dated next to my new pzgrenadiers.

So are the Warlord American infantry in Firefight D-Day obnoxious enough to assemble that I really should skip right to one of those Perry boxes?

If you don't like to assemble, go metal. If you don't like broken weapons, Go Crusader Miniatures.

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:
So are the Warlord American infantry in Firefight D-Day obnoxious enough to assemble that I really should skip right to one of those Perry boxes?

They are jerks - having said that, I've assembled and painted like 80 of them so they're not THAT bad. I'm overstating it by a bit so you'll be pleasantly surprised, haha.

The Perry plastics are only available in the two flavors of British Desert Rats and German Afrika Korps - so that's why it's my recommendation if you and your lady want to move to another theater

 snurl wrote:
If you don't like to assemble, go metal. If you don't like broken weapons, Go Crusader Miniatures.

This is a sad part of Warlord's metal ranges. Their metal infantry routinely have broken rifles/weapons (or bent so badly that in repairing them they will break).

Artizan also does a lot of nice metal infantry. Black Tree Design is really hit and miss for pewter minis (some are okay, others are horrible). Gorgon studios look like they have some nice stuff, and there is also Brigade Games (who look like they have some very nice USMC and Gebirgsjager).

 Maniac_nmt wrote:

 snurl wrote:
If you don't like to assemble, go metal. If you don't like broken weapons, Go Crusader Miniatures.

This is a sad part of Warlord's metal ranges. Their metal infantry routinely have broken rifles/weapons (or bent so badly that in repairing them they will break).

Artizan also does a lot of nice metal infantry. Black Tree Design is really hit and miss for pewter minis (some are okay, others are horrible). Gorgon studios look like they have some nice stuff, and there is also Brigade Games (who look like they have some very nice USMC and Gebirgsjager).

The primary offenders for Warlord's snappy rifles were the Waffen-SS, Fallschirmjager, and US Airborne (especially). Hence the reason the Grenadiers and Fallschirmjager were released in plastic and the US Airborne are next. Then, the blame for broken rifles can fall squarely on user error.

The great thing is that Warlord cust svc is so great they'll replace any malformed models asap, unlike, say, BTD who'll take weeks to respond to an email.

Incidentally Doug, I do think EasyArmy withholds some rules. I just tried pulling up a PDF list, and while common special rules appear, unit specific ones like "Rangers Lead the Way" do not.

Am I doing something wrong, or should I assume 20% of the rules were held back so people would be sure to buy the books? :-p

Anyway... just waiting on our stuff now. Our friends ordered from Warlord who apparently estimate 18-28 business days to arrive in the US. YIKES.

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:
Incidentally Doug, I do think EasyArmy withholds some rules. I just tried pulling up a PDF list, and while common special rules appear, unit specific ones like "Rangers Lead the Way" do not.

Am I doing something wrong, or should I assume 20% of the rules were held back so people would be sure to buy the books? :-p

Anyway... just waiting on our stuff now. Our friends ordered from Warlord who apparently estimate 18-28 business days to arrive in the US. YIKES.

It's probably just an oversight? Dunno, easyarmy is a fan creation so it's often worth double checking (I had spotted a points error at one point and emailed the guy and he fixed it)

Whoa how did it ship? Royal Mail traditionally takes about 8-10 business days I've found. I've placed like 25 orders thru Warlord direct

It could just be that they're being extra cautious in their estimates due to the holidays. The wording was something akin to "This is estimated for delivery in 10-12 business days (but may take up to 28 business days)."

Now to just figure out what to build for our first games. Do players tend to max out the "special weapons"? Waffen SS for example, can ALL be upgraded to carry Assault Rifles. If it common to do so?

I ask only because in terms of raw model count, our 2x starters will have far fewer Germans, meaning we need to be that much more mindful of how we initially build them.

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:
It could just be that they're being extra cautious in their estimates due to the holidays. The wording was something akin to "This is estimated for delivery in 10-12 business days (but may take up to 28 business days)."

Now to just figure out what to build for our first games. Do players tend to max out the "special weapons"? Waffen SS for example, can ALL be upgraded to carry Assault Rifles. If it common to do so?

I ask only because in terms of raw model count, our 2x starters will have far fewer Germans, meaning we need to be that much more mindful of how we initially build them.

Honestly the best way to start is to play the couple scenarios in the Getting Started guide, they'll show you how to assemble your guys. Or, just glue some legs/torsos to bases to play those out

And yeah, SS Vets all w/ Assault Rifles can be common - but expensive. (warlord even makes a set of ten metal "Veteran Grenadiers" and all ten of assault rifles) And those expensive units generate less dice. Which is why I can defeat a veteran SS army with early war Polish because I have twice as many order dice, haha.

I'm more of a fan of Grenadier units with mixed equipment as I mentioned in this post: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/672942.page#8311955 that have a mix of firepower (MG42 dice), assault (assault rifles), and antitank (panzerfausts) and can take a few casualties (riflemen). Very versatile but outnumbered, which I feel reflects the late war German units

Warlord has gotten me things across the Atlantic in 7 days pretty consistently. Sure Xmas will put a damper on that at the moment though.

Never been over two weeks for me however.

Any speculation when 2nd edition will come around?

 judgedoug wrote:

 Maniac_nmt wrote:

 snurl wrote:
If you don't like to assemble, go metal. If you don't like broken weapons, Go Crusader Miniatures.

This is a sad part of Warlord's metal ranges. Their metal infantry routinely have broken rifles/weapons (or bent so badly that in repairing them they will break).

Artizan also does a lot of nice metal infantry. Black Tree Design is really hit and miss for pewter minis (some are okay, others are horrible). Gorgon studios look like they have some nice stuff, and there is also Brigade Games (who look like they have some very nice USMC and Gebirgsjager).

The primary offenders for Warlord's snappy rifles were the Waffen-SS, Fallschirmjager, and US Airborne (especially). Hence the reason the Grenadiers and Fallschirmjager were released in plastic and the US Airborne are next. Then, the blame for broken rifles can fall squarely on user error.

The great thing is that Warlord cust svc is so great they'll replace any malformed models asap, unlike, say, BTD who'll take weeks to respond to an email.

I remember a time that I got a Churchill that had little pits and dimples covering its hull as well as a slight miscast towards the peak of the bow. I got on to Warlords and within two days they got back to me. Now I expected to possibly have to send the old hull back to confirm and that I would get a new hull piece.
They sent me a new tank.
I will reiterate - a tank I purchased from Warlord Games had a slight fault in one piece and they sent me an entirely new tank.

As far as I am concerned that sealed my loyalty.

 Strombones wrote:
Any speculation when 2nd edition will come around?

Probably at least 12-18 months away, minimum. The main rulebook has just been released in Spanish and French (and German within the last 6 months)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 master of ordinance wrote:
I remember a time that I got a Churchill that had little pits and dimples covering its hull as well as a slight miscast towards the peak of the bow. I got on to Warlords and within two days they got back to me. Now I expected to possibly have to send the old hull back to confirm and that I would get a new hull piece.
They sent me a new tank.
I will reiterate - a tank I purchased from Warlord Games had a slight fault in one piece and they sent me an entirely new tank.

As far as I am concerned that sealed my loyalty.

Hey nice! and either a) free battle damaged Churchill or b) free destroyed Churchill terrain piece

Well, I had been considering a mark VIII so option A was chosen... And after a small amount of chopping and glueing 'Clanker' was born, my third tank in my Churchill Platoon.

Guessing v2 will build on the Antares sic fi changes to the system (D10 and so on) so will probably be done once thats been out for a while

leopard wrote:
Guessing v2 will build on the Antares sic fi changes to the system (D10 and so on) so will probably be done once thats been out for a while

hmm I never thought of that. I could go for some d10.

I read the GoA rules a while back thinking they would be pretty much Bolt Action but I feel like they were pretty different. Though my memory is pretty fuzzy about it. I don't play too much BA to be in the loop but as far as I now, and correct me if I'm wrong, there are only a small amount of complaints with it. Ie..LMGs over costed and that damned recce rule. That thing drove me crazy. I wouldn't mind it so much if they could do it only if they had not already taken an order.

As The Judge pointed out they are printing stuff in other languages so it seems unlikely a new version will come soon.

I just want more new plastic infantry kits....Hey Warlord...I got these cheeseburgers man..

Probably not; Bolt Action is primarily Alessio whereas GoA is primarily Rick. Since Alessio's thing is simple, elegant mechanics I would surmise that any BA2 would basically be BA1+errata and the much bandied about infantry MG's getting +1 dice.

edit - I say this because it has been previously mentioned that any changes will be in the rulebook, with no changes in the army books (other than errata in future revised printings). So points costs, etc, will stay the same.

I'm Bolt Action curious at the moment, thanks for this useful thread.

I'm probably going into it tank first (I'm a tread head) as something to paint over Christmas.
Not decided on faction yet - what would most people recommend as a good 'all around tank' for Brits, Germans and Sovs. I'd imagine Cromwell, Panzer IV and T34 76/85 ?
I do like a Stug, but I'd imagine they're a bit more specialized ?

Oh, would also prefer a plastic kit over resin/metal

Bartali wrote:
I'm Bolt Action curious at the moment, thanks for this useful thread.

I'm probably going into it tank first (I'm a tread head) as something to paint over Christmas.
Not decided on faction yet - what would most people recommend as a good 'all around tank' for Brits, Germans and Sovs. I'd imagine Cromwell, Panzer IV and T34 76/85 ?
I do like a Stug, but I'd imagine they're a bit more specialized ?

Oh, would also prefer a plastic kit over resin/metal

Warlord does have a pretty great variety of tanks in plastic - off the top of my head - not including the armored cars, half tracks

British - Cromwell
USA - M4 Sherman
Germany - Panther A, Tiger 1E late, Panzer IV F/G/H, Panzer III J/K/L/M, Stug III G/Stuh42 combo
USSR - T-34/76 obr 41/42/43, T-34/85

Warlord also makes the combo sets (Armoured Fury with two Panthers and two Shermans) as well as the Tank Platoon sets where you save like $10-$15, and some of them come with infantry (StuG box, and T-34 platoons, come with some infantry too).

and then Rubicon also makes plastic tank kits, adding: (also not including the half tracks and trucks)
British - Crusader
USA - M4A3 Sherman, M8 Scott/M5A1, M5A1 Stuart Recce
Germany - Stug III, Tiger 1E e/m/l, Panther G, Panther D/A, Panzer IV F2/G/H, Panzer III J/M/N
USSR - T-34/85 obr 44/45, T-34/76 obr 40/41/42

I'd just be happy if Bolt Action got rid of true line of sight. It creates stupid things like "I'm going to use only crouching figures so they can hide behind this wall".

Bartali wrote:
I'm Bolt Action curious at the moment, thanks for this useful thread.

I'm probably going into it tank first (I'm a tread head) as something to paint over Christmas.
Not decided on faction yet - what would most people recommend as a good 'all around tank' for Brits, Germans and Sovs. I'd imagine Cromwell, Panzer IV and T34 76/85 ?
I do like a Stug, but I'd imagine they're a bit more specialized ?

Oh, would also prefer a plastic kit over resin/metal

The Stug is a great tank killer and if used correctly will murder other tanks. Just keep it hidden.

The British all rounder is the Cromwell - average armour, decent speed, an average gun with a great HE shell. That said I personally prefer the Churchill with its heavier armour.... And nothing looks better than a three Churchill platoon

The German all rounder is the Panzer IV which has the same armour and speed as the Cromwell but has a better gun. That said its HE shell is no where near as good as the Cromwell's, making it a more specialised tank killer. The Sturmgeschutz III ausf G makes a great alternative - as I mentioned above it is an amazing long range tank killer and its low silhouette allows it to really take advantage of cover. I actually use a Stug with my Germans and it has not let me down yet.

For the Soviets you have a choice between the T-34 or the T-34/85. The Regular T-34 has average armour, an average gun and average speed but is a very cheap vehicle. On the other hand the '85 is pretty much a Panzer IV - a great tank killer.

 TheWaspinator wrote:
I'd just be happy if Bolt Action got rid of true line of sight. It creates stupid things like "I'm going to use only crouching figures so they can hide behind this wall".

Just don't play with dicks that pull crap like that. Or, what I would do, play it as though that's what the actual soldiers would do and just roll with it. If they are DBs about it, then don't play with them again.


Ghidorah