Bolt Action
This is a new venture and after 3 games with these rules I enjoy the way they play and have not had any major issues with the game. My hope is that when Warlord Games bring out their "Army" books they will address some of the "gamey" aspects related to force list creation. At this stage you cannot field some historical platoon structures while being able to mix troop types that would not have fought together at this scale.
As a game it sort of sits as what "Too Fat Lardies" would call "large scale skirmish". This means that your basic force is based around a platoon and doesn't focus on issues related to individual characters that you might find in say Lord of the Rings or a Pulp game.
The use of random activation is well done as it means that you have to think carefullly about the actions you are going to have a unit do. While you can use the Warlord Games order dice they are not necessary and it is just as easy using normal six sided dice as long as both players have the same sized dice.
The game flows smoothly and with 1000 points per side a game can be done and dusted within 2 hours making ideal for an evening or afternoon game and fits nicely into competition game timeframe. Given that I have only played 3 games that 2 hours also includes flicking through the rule book to sort out issues.
The rules themselves are well presented with excellent colour photos and diagrams to explain rule points. However, the text including the force lists is riddled with errors. Warlord Games have made a big issue out of how they got the rules out 3 weeks ahead of schedule but they should have used to is time to sort out errors. Most of the errors relate to spelling, cost of vehicles or even repeating sentences. Its not a good look when gamers are becoming increasingly critical.
There have been comments about Bolt Action being 40K for World War 2 but I cant really see it. There are no to hit and to wound tables that are common to Games Workshop rulesets. It seems that because Rick Preistley is involved it must be like 40K. The only similarity at this stage is the "Ambush" order is a bit like "Overwatch". The other similarity is that gamers are looking at "killer" rather than historical forces which is the gamers issue.
As a game it sort of sits as what "Too Fat Lardies" would call "large scale skirmish". This means that your basic force is based around a platoon and doesn't focus on issues related to individual characters that you might find in say Lord of the Rings or a Pulp game.
The use of random activation is well done as it means that you have to think carefullly about the actions you are going to have a unit do. While you can use the Warlord Games order dice they are not necessary and it is just as easy using normal six sided dice as long as both players have the same sized dice.
The game flows smoothly and with 1000 points per side a game can be done and dusted within 2 hours making ideal for an evening or afternoon game and fits nicely into competition game timeframe. Given that I have only played 3 games that 2 hours also includes flicking through the rule book to sort out issues.
The rules themselves are well presented with excellent colour photos and diagrams to explain rule points. However, the text including the force lists is riddled with errors. Warlord Games have made a big issue out of how they got the rules out 3 weeks ahead of schedule but they should have used to is time to sort out errors. Most of the errors relate to spelling, cost of vehicles or even repeating sentences. Its not a good look when gamers are becoming increasingly critical.
There have been comments about Bolt Action being 40K for World War 2 but I cant really see it. There are no to hit and to wound tables that are common to Games Workshop rulesets. It seems that because Rick Preistley is involved it must be like 40K. The only similarity at this stage is the "Ambush" order is a bit like "Overwatch". The other similarity is that gamers are looking at "killer" rather than historical forces which is the gamers issue.
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