It’s not true, but it’s a good enough lie to give the right impression of bolt action.

Bolt action is a unit based D6 game with mostly plastic minis from a company in Nottingham(staffed by more than a few ex gw people) and the similarities pretty much end there.

Y’know how in Infinity each trooper gives you an order? Same with bolt action, only you have units not troopers, and both players orders (represented by dice) go in a bag, and whoever’s dice comes out gets to pick any of their units to use it, rice and repeat until all the dice are out of the bag, then they go back in the bag for turn 2.

I always figured that people meant it’s not quite historical gaming, it’s whoever has the most competitive list wins, like 40k. I would agree that it’s more of a 70s war movie version of WWII, but can be historical if you want it to be.

I think the historical accuracy (or lack thereof) is down to how you approach the game.
Add in an approach to list building from a ‘game-ist’ perspective instead of a pure historical and you will get something that’s closer to an action movie.

@andre61 :  popular & easy to learn systems often get compared to the big ones in their field, especially by the few people out there who feel the need to prove how superior their system of choice is.

BA tries to make it fun first and accurate second. There is no denying that.
The source materials have plenty of information on building accurate forces if you want to.
The community may be a bit more ‘game’ oriented compared to traditional historical games, which means that tournaments invariably lean towards optimized tournament lists as opposed to historical accurate.

The fact is that it is relatively easy to learn when compared to the more simulation heavy rules out there.
That doesn’t make it ‘bad’. It merely makes it different.
And it can be an excellent first contact with historical gaming in general.

The good thing about historicals is that you can always switch to a different rule set (like ‘Chain of Command’ or ‘Battlegroup’)  while keeping the same army you’ve collected.

Every rule set has its pros and cons.
All you need to do is discover what works for you and what is played most in your area.

I’d suggest you join the upcoming Bolt-action bootcamp here on Beasts of War if you are able to (backstagers get first chance at tickets), because it is the ultimate chance to learn a system straight from the source.

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8th edition 40k is a lot easier to get into … but as it is made by company focused on selling miniatures it will always have a lot of extras that you may need to learn. OTOH … Killteam may just be the ticket to learn the game/universe without having to build&paint an entire army.

That’s what we’re here for 🙂

So don’t hesitate to ask more questions or show us your hobby stuff.