Bolt Action is a World War 2 miniatures game created and published by Warlord Games that puts you at the forefront of the action meaning you are making the tactical decisions that count. Due to this being a miniatures game you will be building, collecting and painting miniatures that represent your chosen nation and pitting them against your opponents forces on tables depicting your preferred theatre from World War 2.
The miniatures used for this game are built around the 28mm scale allowing for you to paint those great details and really add character to your units to make them stand out on the tabletop. The game itself can be played in a competitive style with balanced forces and terrain, or scenario based games where one side has the upper advantage with larger forces or better terrain, based on real conflicts from history where you test your mettle to see if you can succeed.
How does it work?
To start playing you will need to build a force of troops equal to the point value that you want to play, most commonly this is 1000 points, before laying out a battlefield to fight over, that covers a 6 foot by 4 foot table. (Smaller games can be player on smaller tables.) You will then need to gather some dice for determining the results of attacks and morale checks, a tape measure to measure movement and ranges and decide on the mission so you know your deployment zone as well as where the objectives are, then you can begin. The game is played over multiple rounds which are made up of several player turns. A turn starts with one player drawing a coloured order die out of the bag and then the owner of that die chooses which unit they will activate by issuing them one of 6 orders, fire, advance, run, ambush, rally or down. Fire allows you to fire at full effect, advance allows you to move and fire with a penalty, run allows you to move at double speed, ambush means you can hold your fire till something comes into view, the rally order lets you recover from being pinned down and the down order allows you to make the most of cover trying to shield yourself from harm. Every order you give will help you towards completing your objective, though you will have to think which order is the best choice as one bad tactical decision could be the difference between victory and defeat when you get to the final round.
How do I get started?
For this game there are two starter sets that you can purchase for you and a friend to get started with the game. You have the early war based set 'A Gentleman's War' that gets you started with forces from the North Africa theatre while the 'Band of Brothers' set is based during the late war period around the air drops that were happening during D-Day.
Both of these sets come with order dice, a full rulebook (A5 sized), six sided dice, templates and pin markers as well as a cheat sheet for easy rules reference so you can get stuck into the game right away. The Gentleman's War set contains a total of 24 infantry for the British that can be pitted against the 24 infantry of the Germans and each side also gets an armoured car allowing you to build forces up to 500 points each. Meanwhile the Band of Brothers set contains a total of 12 German Grenadiers with a half track defending a ruined farmhouse against 24 US Airborne infantry providing each side with around a 400 point force per player.
Another way to get started, if you know exactly which nation you want to build, is by picking up a Starter Army which gives you a well balanced 1000 point force to start playing with that has plenty of options. The only thing to remember is that these starter sets do not include the order dice, six sided dice, rulebook, templates, pin markers or a cheat sheet. Due to this, if you are new to the miniature gaming hobby, I would lean towards the starter sets over the Starter Armies and then use the contents of a Starter Army box to bolster your forces.
Where can I learn more?
The Bolt Action game is a very popular game system and is played by a lot of gaming groups up and down the country with a plethora of videos online that can show you how it plays. Though, if you are new to the hobby and looking for guidance on where to start and how to grow your collection, we will be doing a series of videos over on our YouTube channel where we will be taking an in depth look at the 'A Gentleman's War' Starter Set and showing you what you get, how to build and paint the models, as well as teaching you how to make some terrain for your tables. A new video for this series will come out weekly with new techniques and models being showcased along with links to where you can get the tools in the descriptions so you can follow along and expanded your collection with us.
You can view our current range below:
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