Partially through, and wow, Dr. Brown's got some great thoughts on being a historian and tackling the problems of gamified conflict. I know there's plenty wrong with Bolt Action if one is looking to simulate that level of WW2, but he did get me wondering about how you could lower the amount of casualties and make the game more about morale. Maybe some sort of stopgap measure, like changing the "to hit" rolls to be 4,5,6 instead of 3,4,5, and then make those hit into pins. Then, any 6's rolled are rolled again, and any 4+s are actual casualties. That would mean much more pins being thrown out, but no where near as many casualties. As an example, say my squad of German infantry (9 men with rifles, 1 with LMG), so they'd fire 13 dice. They're firing at French infantry who are regulars. They get 3 hits (needing 5s or 6s), two of which are 6s. So they roll again and get a 3 and 5. So the French squad takes 3 pins and loses 1 squad members. I do like the idea of playing 28mm company action games, with squads just being squads and not having a breakdown of weapons in it.
|