Early, Mid Or Late? Guides For German Armies In Bolt Action
December 5, 2024 by brennon
Warlord Games have made army building in the new edition of Bolt Action nice and easy with the new Platoon Selector but it can still be somewhat confusing working out what should be in your army based on the period of World War II you're trying to recreate. Early, Mid or Late-War? What units, vehicles and equipment should be popping up?
Blitzkrieg // Bolt Action
With that in mind, the new Armies Of... books will feature a breakdown of the kind of forces you would have seen popping up during those periods. Warlord has specified that "we count 1939-41 as Early, 1942-43 as Mid, and 1944-45 as Late" and whilst there are edge cases across the board, this should give you a helping hand during force selection for those wanting to be accurate.
For example, here is a breakdown of what a Mid-War force might look like for the German army.
Mid-War Force Selection // Bolt Action
This tells you all of the different units that you could pick from when building your armies to fit that timescale. This changes none of the core game mechanics of Bolt Action but just works as a nice quality-of-life upgrade and guide for those perhaps getting into Bolt Action for the first time and wanting to get their armies to fit in.
Mid-War Force Selection // Bolt Action
This kind of guide will be replicated across all of the Armies Of... books that are released for the new edition of the game. It takes a lot of guessing out of the equation and means that if you're doing Historical refights of famous battles, you can try and match it to the units that were there. There's no reason you have to abide by any of this of course and you could go full Hollywood if you prefer!
Mid-War Force Selection // Bolt Action
Sections like this are a nice way for Warlord to make Bolt Action a more inviting wargame to step into and start hobbying. Rather than having to go off and buy a bunch of reference material, you can use this Armies Of... book as a starting point and then when you need to, go and find out more about the Laffly Heavy Tractors if you feel you really need to.
Do you think this is a good addition to the Armies Of... books?
"Sections like this are a nice way for Warlord to make Bolt Action a more inviting wargame to step into and start hobbying..."
I don’t know whether it matters to BA players or not but this system still has some of the issues previous iterations of the lists have had, namely access to weapons not in use for the stated time period. The panzerscherck being one example of a weapon that was starting to appear on the frontlines from very late 1943 yet it’s allowed for battles in 1942 according to this setup. Late SS and fallschirmjager squads will probably include Stg.44s which again were a very late 1944 issue. It puts me off the game in the way Flames of War looks… Read more »
Nah, they don’t care; it’s just a game, and there will always be the people who like the cool toys. I was the first moderator on the Warlord forum not from Warlord, and when Bolt Action came out, the fun thing the kids loved to do was use a medic to shoot the half track MG, when he wasn’t running around saving lives. Why? Because the RULES DID NOT SAY THAT YOU COULD NOT. DOLT ACTION FOR ALL! I quit being a moderator because of the mass influx of Doltehs and the bickering over dumb crap like this. One cannot… Read more »
Mate, do you just rage read every warlord article? If you don’t like the game don’t read the articles.
Inb4 you hit me with a “I really care about the game I just hate where it’s gone”
It could still be a typo.
OTOH … it’s not that kind of game that expects 100% perfect historical authenticity at all times.
You can still play it that way, but even then it will be a bit more gamey and less ‘simulation-like’.
Provided you can accept that (or are lucky with opponents that don’t abuse the system) there is fun to be had.
If not … well there’s plenty of other systems that will be a better fit.