The Weekender XLBS: Bolt Action Bonanza!!!
March 9, 2014 by warzan
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![Games Workshop Kick Off Grot Week For Warhammer 40,000 [Updated]](https://images.beastsofwar.com/2026/04/grot-new-40k-news-cover-600-338.jpg)
Happy Sunday guys! Have to say, my last five games or so of 40k have been list free, just roughly equal models wise, points costs and force organization were out the window. I’ve won a couple and lost a few, but it was fun. Depending on who was outnumbering who, we changed the scenario we played making up our own objectives. One of the scenarios we came up with was essentially playing the whole of the Zulu movie where my space marines were holding out in a small compound against a horde of Daemons. Yes, i was shouting lines from the movie. Epic moments gaming all the way for me.
Back in the day the Roukes Drift battle was played out as a series of scenarios in White Dwarf as Orks Drift IIRC.
“Bloodbath at Orc’s Drift” was a scenario box set for 2nd ed WFB.
I have the white dwarf your talking about @tribune it was June 1998, issue 222 and that was my inspiration. Probably the best battle report I’ve ever read in white dwarf, certainly the only one i still go back to and read 16 years later!
It’s “Gehirn”, I think…
But on to the other thing: then you start spamming your list with cheap units to gain more activations and that’s where alternate activation breaks down…
Perhaps say you have to have a similar number of units in each force?
It struggles when both players gave a lot of activations too. Once you’re into double figure for both armies then we found that one player would sometimes rack off a few activations in a row at the start of the turn which put the other player at a real disadvantage. At lower dice numbers it works great.
What is typical in a 40K army these days – I used to struggle to get 6-7 units in the army (I suppose there are things like Combat tactics too!)
“Double figures” is maybe a bit low. I think we were running around 15 dice each when we ran into problems.
Great show guys! I’m with Warren on ‘Ambush’ in 40k! Can you imagine death company in a building, a stupid xenos unit walks with assault range and get wiped in 1 round, epic moments!!
I think it would work, but maybe impose a limit on the amount of units you can put in “Ambush” like for every three units in your army, you can have one in “Ambush” per turn. Would stop what @lloyd is assuming everyone would do and (creates word) spambush. Power gamers would spambush the crap out of you.
Pegasus bridge does look nice. But at £175 you can get to feck i’ll make do with carpet tiles. :-p
As for the 40K overwatch. I’d say it could work if you didn’t allow moving. Shooting and assaulting would be a quick snap rection but moving as well would be too much.
Good Idea!
Taking movement out and only allowing shoot and assault, would be very thematic!
Bolt action looks really cool, plus the price! £80 quid for a 1000 point force, you could pretty much use any 28mm historical ww2 company, plus any plastic 1:56 (or 1:48 at a pinch) tank
shopping me thinks
Great timing fellas. Today’s all about Bolt Action. As soon as I’ve finished XLBS I’m off to WMMS to collect a few bits and bobs from Warlord and hopefully get in a game.
Bolt action, has been a bit of a revelation to us here lol
It took half a demo at the last Mantic day and I was hooked.
Well guys, in our group we have been playing 40k using the ‘dice in the bag’ system from Bolt Action for a while now and it does work really well. We were fed up with the 40k system that means if you get first turn you can wipe the floor with your opponent leaving a sour taste of a game. When Bolt Action came out, it was a revelation. We have re-written the 40k rules and to a degree, the codexes to fit around the Bolt Action style of play. This has worked really well.
Some of the changes we have made include :-
We have changed the WS and I values to created a Fight value and have kept the BS as a Shoot value.
We have completely removed the to hit and to wound charts and amalgamated them into a single roll based on your Fight / Shoot value.
We are using the orders on the dice from Bolt action (using the Bolt Action dice) and YES, THE AMBUSH DOES WORK !!! How does it work ? Well,we class ambush as how it should be, if in Ambush and the opportunity arises, you can shoot out of sequence (not do a whole activation !!).
We have done many other changes as it is a work in progress but overall it really does work well using the Bolt Action system. It gives you Epic cinematic games as written in the 40k novels, and not a tournament style metagame.
Whole activation cannot work because of chain reaction overwatch (i am in overwatch you pass my line of sight, i stop your movement and i start moving my overwatch then i go in line of sight of another unit in overwatch which stops my movement and start again…..)
Very much like the old world war 2 rules called “Crossfire”
Move, shoot and assault is too much for overwatch. Remember, you can come out of ambush at any point. So I’m in overwatch. Dave shoots me and then assaults. I weather the shooting and then when he is in short range, I come out of overwatch. I get to shoot him at short range and no cover. Then I assault HIM?!? How the heck does that pan out? The guys in power armour stop and stand still so they can get charged?
Happy Sunday!
My group’s first proper game of BA was pretty much just ‘take what you have’ and ended up with my Americans holding a ruined village against 2 German armies when the British player got sick and couldn’t turn up to play! I ended up getting overwhelmed, but my Sherman fought right to the last turn despite being immobile and on fire! A Panzer had to basically press it’s muzzle against my tank’s side to take it out…
A fun twist with the Dice is to include 2 Dice of different colours to those being used by the armies in the bag- for example grey for Germans, green for Americans plus 2 red Dice. Once both red Dice are drawn the Turn ends even if there are still Units left to Activate. It adds a bit more uncertainty and time-pressure to the game, especially when you need to capture an objective!
Beyond the Gates of Antares is basically Sci-Fi BA and I think it’s going to be fantastic- there’s an article on the Warlord site that gives more info on Ambush and so on…
No they weren’t Para’s, they were the Ox and Bucks light infantry! (ie my old regiment The Royal Green Jackets) They were part of the airborne division, but not paratroopers. (rant over)
Rant taken on the chin mate 😉
I’ll be sure and correct in a future vid 🙂
Funny thing on the ox and bucks did you see the front of the box??? It calls them paras as well, I think people (me included) call all airborne paras even the glider borne bit of the 6th airborne.
Expanding it further a guy from my beloved R.A.M.C in the airborne would he be a para??
Lieutenant Herbert ‘Den’ Brotheridge was the name of the first man.
The Royal Green Jackets is the regiment most if my family served in (mainly the Bardo part of the clan) I think mainly after the war in the 60s in Malaysia.
Bit of triva on the RGJ, when they reformed in the resuffel a few years AFO part of it became part of the Irish Guards… How’s that for full circle for BoW.
The Ox and Bucks were a light infantry unit and part of the Airlanding brigade of the 6th Airborne division.
It is a common mistake people make, they think all the division dropped in and so are classed as paras. Paras drop out of planes, Airlanding come in by glider.
I have done a lot of study over the years on the action at pegasus bridge and was very lucky for my 40th last year to be able to visit it, I did take a load of photos while I was there.
Madame Gondree can’t do enough for British servicemen and British tourists, worth a visit if you get a chance.
Dave. The term ‘para’ is used for all military parachutists so yes all troops (like myself) in your beloved RAMC that have completed the all arms ‘P’ Company course and the requisite 7 jumps which enables them to wear the british parachute wings are ‘paras’.
Wearing the maroon beret these days just means you are attached to 16 Air Assault Brigade (Old 5 Airborne Brigade) and need not have completed ‘P’ Company but may air land via helicopter insertion or airlift.
Hope that helps 🙂
on the subject of hand in the bag rules, do you think that using that type of unit activation would work for FoW? As the more I think about it the more I think that it would and could become the standard for all skirmish games.
Yes mate it certainly will work for FOW. The group that I game with are very open minded and we like to try different rules mechanics in our games.
I think the days of the you go I go is coming to an end, its been fine in its day but the more you can get all players involved in a turn is better to me.
Give it a try the next time you play FOW and see for yourself.
@warzan Good stuff as usual, but please stop making all the games look and sound so good, my wallet is empty and my cards feel like they are made from resin. You have obviously been busy and there is lots of footage being put together, but what has happened to Dropzone Commander Invasion part 2? It’s been nearly a month since part 1.
Not far away. @lloyd is working on the edit 🙂
There are so many responses to that….but I’ll stick with thanks for the reply 🙂
It was Warren’s demo vid that got me hooked in the first place – never really looked at historical gaming until I watched that…..
Will be introducing my new gaming club to Bolt Action tomorrow so really looking forward to seeing what you guys come up with for the series as I can get them to watch as well (although any gamer worth his salt should be watching already of course ;))
Now I just have the decision of what theatre we’re gonna go for, am torn between getting a US airborne and USMC army! 🙂
Fantastic, I’ve been holding off pegasus bridge in the hope you guys would pick it up and do something with it. Looking forward to seeing the results!
To whom it may concern, please stuff up the beeping again, that was very entertaining!
Likewise @olliep, it was the BOW Bolt Action vid that persuaded me to get involved. I’m now desperately trying to glue the models together to get a game in…
So much Airporn!
Bolt Action has me excited, love the mechanics, already picked up the rules and German army book. Dread to think how much cash I’m gonna spaff at the Warlord stand at Salute next month.
Will they have a top shelf for their airporn products @warzan?
Last two weeks the green screen of death has returned with a vengeance. Still using Chrome. Hadn’t happened in a long time.
Anyone else have this again or have a fix?
I had that issue last week, with Firefox, but not this week. I assumed it was my connection although possibly not if others are suffering too.
I use Firefox and have never suffered from the problem Josh. Also have no problems watching on my ipad.
Hoping the BoW gang can maybe make a downloadable version of backstage vids at some point in the future for those guys struggling.
Green screen of death 🙁
Yep same here… this is an almost weekly occurrence. Surely there is a better method guys?
Is anyone else just getting a gree screen??????
Ok.
A couple of weeks ago I have actually played a game of 40K using bolt action rules.
This is how I played them.
1. I put the dice in the bags as depending on the amount of units on the table. If units were deemed to be arriving from reserve then a dice would be placed in the bag for them as well. Reserves could arrive whenever you want throughout the turn.
A dice would also be placed for independent characters however you would be forced to remove an additional dice if you wished to also activate the unit he was in.
2. When you removed a die you would be allowed to activate that unit for the moving and shooting phase only. There are various reasons for this. These include stuff like multiple combats overwatch shots and a couple of other things that would make it somewhat over complicated.
3. After all the dice were drawn from the bag the assault phase would start. This would be done in the traditional 40K style. So depending on whose turn it was would depend on who would do the assault. However, directly after that it would be your opponents turn to do his assault phase. The next turn of the game the person who went second in the assault phase would then go first.
There is logic to this. Each person has their own phase (Move shoot and assault) in one turn of the game.
4 The dice are put into the bag and it starts again.
Some people may disagree with me on splitting up the phases like that however it allows for the game to scale up more easily. It has also worked very well for me and added a lot of tactical depth.
i do play word of tanks on the PC i use a few tanks but i do love my t-127 and my t-44 user name is karrimor on the eu side 🙂
and dave i can not w8 for you to start FOW again 🙂
It is so lovely to see such wonderful enthusiasm regarding the ‘revelations’ of events such as Pegasus Bridge. I am 55, been war-gaming for over 45 years, and encountered such history at school and directly from my father who was an infantryman in the British 8th Army during the ’39-’45 period. Have played various rules systems over the years, gaming out the event in miniature. So it is, as I say, most warming to see the next generation getting enjoyment playing a ‘new’ rules system and re-fighting an event that has been fought on tabletops worldwide, thousands of times over.
Revelation? well yes, there was a war-gaming life before GW, they did not invent it, as some seem to be under the false impression!
Well done lads, good vid, and I’ll close on this: if you are serious about gaming out ‘Pegasus Bridge’, then reading the book with that title written by Stephen E. Ambrose is obligatory!
and for additional ‘fluff’ for more Bolt Action games, ‘Band of Brothers’ by the same author.
TTFN and very happy gaming ahead chaps!
Warren, I yelled “Brainwurst” at you a number of times during this show. That’s one of Westwind’s starter set for Secrets of the Third Reich, which includes a number America troops, but a tonne of German zombies, including ones with explosive vests. I intend on mixing my Bolt Action with SotTR, to make a glorious hybrid.
Google says it’s Köpfchen
Wie Gehts!! The German word for brains is kopfchen. You also said “sprechen hoffen” which translates as to “speak of hope”. LOL. You guys have totally sold me on Bolt Action. I am an avid Flames player with FOUR battlefoam bags of goodies. I am now making a nice list of my new Bolt Action goodies! Looking forward to the 28mm scale. Cheers! Und Tchuss!!! Bis Spater……
Bolt Action works well enough for 15mm as well
Warren, since you love the whole fog-of-war feel generated by the random drawing of activation dice so much, you really should give Muskets&Tomahawks a go. Its done with cards instead but has the same feel to it. It also has a brilliant optional rule: there are 3 extra cards shuffled into the deck and once all 3 are flipped the turn is over. Adds even more tension.
I have only just got into Bolt Action (cos of your battle report) and had a couple of games to figure out the rules. Next time we play we’re throwing 3 extra dice into the bag to add random turn length. Hopefully it will be as good as in M&T.
Great show as ever and loving the terrain.
World of Twilight has a similar activation system to BA and also has an early turn ending system like M&T. Bryan Ansell’s “Rules With No Name” uses a deck of cards for activating which has one card that forces a re-shuffle when it comes out. I’m pretty certain the Lardies have the same type of thing in one of their games.
You do realize that the ‘blasphemy’ you have just advocated, to use an ‘imported’ process in a GW 40K game, means that you will be damned to be visited by the GW Inquisitors from now until eternity!!!!! The Emperor commands it!!!
Mwahahahahahaha! you fooooools!!!!
Damn, Heresy is good lol
I’d agree with @warzan views on what Bolt Action dice have brought to the table and I also see Saga dice and battlebaords in the same light. In essence both are pretty basic intuitive games and very easy to learn, then you add a handful of special d6 and you get two of the best games I’ve played.
Loved your terrain I use similar carpet tiles myself for fields. The hedges are novel and I’ll certainly be making some of them.
I’m wondering if you were to turn up at a club spend half an hour or so dressing a table with terrain and invite some people to play how long it would be before that would be the excepted standard for the rest of the group. Terrain certainly makes a game come to life.
Very few Battles in history are balanced so just fielding the troops you want works well if your focus is on the spectacle of the game instead of a need to win at all costs.
You can always redress the balance with the scenario or by rearranging the topography
Welcome to the ‘real’ world of war-gaming, people. As you are now discovering, there is a whole ‘universe’ of games, rules, genres etc etc etc, outside of the ‘world’ that GW have been producing since the late 80’s!!!!!
I have played WH40K since the original Rogue Trader I purchased at Games Day 1987. Back then it was a nice change to the traditional historic based genres of miniatures gaming. I have also played the original D&D since the late 70’s, Runequest – original, Traveller – the original and many many more besides, etc etc etc, just incase there are those out there who may feel I am not qualified to comment on GW’s stuff! I have probably spent as much on GW products over the years as all the other game systems I have in my collection!
In my humble opinion, the rules now being produced by GW have become silly, geared to one primary purpose, to part you, the gaming public from your ever more hard earned cash!
WAKE UP!!!!!
Yep Green Screen of death after 28 minutes. This also happened with last weeks one
OK lets not break any long running current trends like my opinion being the most disliked and discounted on this site.
Needless to say I wear this as a badge of honor 🙂
Right,
You remove all things from 40k like advantages in running sternguard vets. with special ammo. at the same time you remove the disadvantages like the point cost to run that elite troop choice. Provided you take pedro as a HQ choice…
One step further you remove things that may in fact not theory give any one player a clear cut advantage or hidden crutch that doesn’t surface until the game is well on its way.
You no longer have the war game 40k…
No my friends what you have now is “dinner with the schmucks”,
complete with Sippy cups and wet wipes in case somebody has an accident
Not being mean spirited and I am a big fan of BoW…
Always will be, however don’t want to see ‘ard boys tournaments being held
at the local nursery or kinder care.
Just to save face for those lacking the grey matter to run with the big dogs and are screaming its a balance issue instead of what it really is.
Tell ya what Warren me and my son are setting up your version trial game with the d6 as mentioned.
Will you humble me in return and try 6th edition with escalation and stronghold assault rules applied and give us a review of it please and thank you for considering it. ahead of time…
No problem, as you know I’m revisiting 40K this year and escalation etc is on my list of things to try out
Shall all loose ends meet in the halls of Odin 🙂
Cheers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eu2zPRfdww8
looking forward to it…
Was never mentioned on the demo Bolt Action game but where do you get that bag? It doesn’t come in the starter box or does it?
Nope that has to be bought separately, but you can use a cup or anything that hides the dice.
Though I would advise never playing against Dynamo: Magician Impossible. He got twenty activations off in a row and he only had ten units! I missed an entire turn because somehow my order dice were in my shoe…
Shoe! Shoe!
I played him once and I’m still pulling the bloody things out of my a
Yes but we like the bag 🙂 where can it be pur-chased?
Try here: http://store.warlordgames.com/collections/bolt-action/dice
Hey guys, awesome XLBS! Love the Bolt Action 40k idea. It really had my mind racing with cinematic ideas of guard units looking out of their trenches into the darkness, only panicking as ten 8ft tall power armoured demigods plow into vision. All hell breaks loose as lasguns start a popping.
I think the main problem would be with numbers. But houserules can rectify those sorts of issues quite easily. For example, rather than Guard squads acting individually, they are more likely to act on a platoon level, with the command units barking orders as the enemy pops in to view. So you make it that guard have to activate as one platoon, not squad.
There are a multitude of other armies that have a horde feel, but things like tyranids could have dice for synapse creatures, and they in turn, during their activation, can choose which units in their synapse range to activate, up to a max of say, 2 or 3 units, or if that is too many, a number of models, so it can activate itself and 30 wounds worth of models, so activating carnifexes etc would use more wound allocations, but you could move a block of 30 gaunts.
With the Ambush, I do think that would break the system if you gained the activation of all the actions you could take. I think it should be, as people have said, you can choose to move, assault, or shoot. I know moving was left out by people, but how cool would a bait and switch be, a unit of tactical marines seeing a unit of berserkers charging at them, frothing at the mouth, lead by a chaos lord, going, wait, we can’t take this, fall back, leaving the berserkers in no mans land, while tactical squads, Omega and Arctus, flank in to gun them down in a cross fire, or requesting a fire mission on their location by a stormtalon, as they retreat and as the berserkers close the position, they see them running but hear a sudden whine of engines as rockets get spewed out into their squad from a passing flyer! Epic cinematic moments.
I could ramble on like this for days, but I think you get my points!
Just an afterthought, maybe take out the move option as a choice, replace it with a “voluntary fallback”. You roll a standard fallback move, as if you had failed a break test from shooting, but in your next turn it doesn’t need a rally, you auto rally at the end of the turn, as dice go back into the bag, and are free to act as normal the next turn. This changes things in an important way. Imagine, if you would, the same aforementioned Tactical squad. In timeline 1, a unit of berserkers moves into view from behind a building. The tactical squad issues it’s fallback command. With cool, collected efficiency born of decades of elite training and combat experience, they fall back into a safe position, taking them out of the range of the oncoming foe. (say they rolled 8″ on their fallback.) Then in timeline 2, the proverbial manure hits the fan, the berserkers stride into view, gore covered chain axes whiring, and the sergeant issues the fallback order, but they are caught too flat footed. The berserkers are on them in am instance, taking full advantage of their hated foes miniscule moment of hesitation, but that second lost is enough time for them to close the 10 metres into the tactical squad, catching them flat footed and forcing them into a fight to the death. (ie, the squad fluffs it’s roll, only getting a 3, leaving them in range of their adversaries, but caught mid flight.)
In the case of the latter, they would test, as per the normal rules for being assaulted when feeling, and would work out the effects as normal. So space marines, I believe, not played this edition, would regroup and fight on. But lesser troups, like guardsmen etc, would take a leadership test, if they pass, they are caught and fight, if they fail, they are hacked down as they attempt to flee. Again, this lends a more cinematic, tense alternative to just moving away, adding a layer of risk to the manouever of tactical retreats from a position of overwatch (or unready readiness).
Please excuse the multitude of typos, it is getting late!
Also, as mentioned above, the last two videos for me have to be restarted about 3 times, crashing my flash player. I don’t know whats going on, but nothing else hurts my flash like XLBS. Maybe too much awesome.
Man, you guys have me all excited for Bolt Action and it doesn’t seem readily available in the States! Curse you Beasts of War!
@ghostbear: You can get it at most FLGS, as I got mine if for some reason they do not carry it they could possibly order it for you through their distributor. You can also, order it directly from Warlord Games, but that takes some time. There are several on-line stores that carry it based here in the US. I like to support my FLGS as much as possible as they do a lot for the local gaming community. That is where I got all my minis from for my series of articles on Bolt Action.
I’ll have to take a look, as the game system seems really solid.
Your FLGS should be able to special order it. There is a hobby town near me that stocks it.
Great show guys. Still loving the terrain board.
Bolt Action…I am trying to resist as I still have to paint my FoW army but I know I will end up buying it soon.
Pegasus Bridge set looks awesome. Definitely a purchase for a group though.
Looking forward to what you make of it.
Just picking x units in 40K would not work due to the disparity between all the different types. You should try Chain of Command as the games method of army selection pretty much as you played. You basically start with an infantry platoon and depending on their ratings you can select a few extra’s like snipers and HMG’s, this deployment and the pre-game scouting is why I play CoC and not BA, can’t be doing with all the number crunching to play BA.
Allowing a full turn with an Overwatch in 40K would be to powerful, just selecting one option would be ok.
Bolt action and 40k Mashup idea I’m liking very much.
I like the thought of random activation will make the game more tactical and I will be trying this at the club soon. I have to agree that at first “glance” a full action when on overwatch seems very powerful, will try it that way and also with overwatch allowing 1 type of action and let you know how it plays out.
Flyers and reserves can be bought on from round 2 by simply playing an activation dice on them. This makes overwatch for AA guns interesting, std scenario – 5 man tac squad behind a defence line with a quad gun. Standard rules it can shoot at whatever it likes in turn 1 and the use interceptor and skyfire to shoot at 1 flyer IF it comes on in turn 2. Bolt Action style, if you want a chance to use interceptor then you have to forego anything in turn 1 and sit on overwatch. This might stop my puny Eldar Flyers getting knocked out the turn that they come on the board and
make air power more part of the game again.
Bolt Action is a great game with an awesome rules set. It makes for really cinematic moments. However, I feel like the Germans have been somewhat shafted by the rules – and most of my local club feels the same.
We get the ability to roll for a new NCO and also the Buzzsaw but that really doesn’t feel like it stacks up against how awesome some of the other forces are. For example the Americans not suffering a penalty for moving and shooting is just insane and means even if you wanted to play offensively the Americans are JUST going to be better at it than you.
I have found myself in practically every game now just thinking ‘I need to stay still and hold positions’. This has worked well enough and I have fought every game more or less to a draw. But that’s just it…a draw. It might be because I have somewhat smaller units of Veterans over large units of regular troops but I find myself fighting a losing battle most of the time.
I have alleviated this somewhat with a sniper and artillery observer calling in strikes and the ability to pin is helpful for making a unit stay down and plug it full of machine guns. This however doesn’t change the feeling that the Germans might have got a raw deal.
Maybe I’m missing something but me and a few other German players have been gaming since before Christmas and each game has been either a failure, a slim win, or a massive draw…many, many draws.
I could just be bad at the game though. I do enjoy it and I think the system is a lot of fun however.
In terms of using the game rules for other systems we’ve been talking about doing it with some of the new Afterlife Miniatures, or using the DUST figures in place of Bolt Action ones.
BoW Ben
think I will give that bag of dice in my flames of war a go and c how it go 🙂
Awesome show yet again, we need more Deadzone,
Reaper miniatures game warlord does the same thing for activation but with cards instead of dice. I have always thought it would be good to play other games using that system
I ‘ve been getting green screen in chrome but switched to Safari – no problem.
Regarding overwatch and 40k, I would suggest that the unit in overwatch have 3 choices:
1. Shoot only the unit that activated.
2. Assault only the unit that activated
3. Move, i.e. anything that counts as a move.
For simplicity sake I would not allow individuals to go into overwatch because you have to deal with special powers and psykers and what could be used. Only units and vehicles can go into overwatch.
Also, why not consider using the pinning rules as well. The only caveat is the shooting unit must be able to wound a unit in order to pin it. Keeps a guy with a bolt pistol from pinning a Titan or large vehicle.
I liked the pinning mechanic, and definitely think I’ll be trying that out!
Also agree with the guy that mentioned Warlord from Reaper. They were the first to use the random mechanic for activation – identical to Bolt Action.
Can anyone tell me how to get to ‘hobby lab’??? I’m dying to see how these terrain pieces are made! 🙂
They start recording next week mate (Studio is being used by Romain at the moment) expect them to start rolling out after that 🙂
Thanks for the reply Warren. I’m still waiting with baited breath 😉
Just played my first bolt action mash up. A hq and 2 troop choices per side I took a chaos lord with little load out because of points. And two units of 10 emporia children vs my fiancées Lilith hesperax and two units off 10 wyches. The dice mechanic worked really well giving my misses the upper hand by drawing dice before me. As for over watch we kept it with snap fire as a charge reaction however we added a move or assault reaction to over watch allowing me to put my self out of range of her charge giving me the upper hand to be able to shoot a full wack strait into her unit when I drew my dice. Not sure how it plays for big games but don’t know why it would not scale up
Ok. First comment as a backstager. First of all this vid and the hope for “Hobby Lab” was the final drop, that committed me on back stage. Looking forward to that.
I played a rather large game of Bolt Action on a convention in Hamburg,Germany a few weeks ago and loved the game, but thought it might work better with smaller armies. Converting those “hand in the bag”-rules for 40k and other systems is a great idea. Not so sure about overwatch though. We have a turn-system for multiplayer games. Lets say 4 Players. Then you assign everyone and Ace of a 32 or 52 card deck. Then you shuffle the deck and start drawing. The card that comes up, that color determines which player goes next.
Looking forward to FoW:FTW Season 2. Hope you didn’t film the whole season already, because I loved the interaction in the comments to the single vids.
And last to teach some german again: Brains (in the sense what zombies call out) would be “Gehirn” or in short “Hirn”. So have your zombies go “HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRRRRN!”. That would be awesome.
Ok, so I’m sold on the idea of Bolt Action for a rules set at least to try but after a heavy investment of 15mm Flames of War models don’t really want to shell out, build and paint whole new world war 2 armies. How well does this scale down to 15mm to avoid all this pain and anguish? Or does it not scale down at all?
I would be very interested in that question as well. I have a pile of 15mm – 1/100 WWII stuff as well, terrain and minis and even some aircraft. The mechanics for Bolt Action look very interesting (the bag of dice initiative / turn sequence), but I’m not sure I want to drop another few hundred $$ and weekends of painting just to get started on a new system.
Some of these mini games seem to “compress” distance scales a little bit to better fit constraints of a table. Maybe shrinking Bolt Action to 15mm but keeping all the ranges / rules out of the book would actually open the game up a little and make it better?
Many old games also call “overwatch” and “ambush” something like “opportunity fire,” where a unit assumes a defensive posture under cover in front of some open terrain and waits for an enemy to advance across that terrain. Far from breaking games (as the some might fear with 40K) this kind of mechanic is the only thing that SAVED the game (as it did for AH’s old PanzerBlitz/Panzer Leader series).