The Weekender XLBS: Bolt Action Bonanza!!!
March 9, 2014 by warzan
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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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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.… Read more »
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.