Bolt Action - Why Consider Heavy Tanks

By: Old Man Morin

We often hear people talk about how Bolt Action is an infantry focused, squad/platoon based game. In that way it is the opposite of games like Flames of War, where later war, bigger tanks with larger guns usually equates to better performance. In BA, smaller early war tanks festooned with piles of machine guns tend to be great because they beat up the games primary units, infantry. Because these tanks tend to be light on armour, many players tend to skimp on anti-tank assets as they are often unnecessary. These smaller vehicles also tend to be pretty cheap, points wise, compared to their larger cousins making them even more attractive when players build their forces. This trend tends to indicate that bigger vehicles are a big no-no. I would tend to disagree.

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Bolt Action - AAR: Tanks in the East

Russians and Germans face off in a head to head counter assault on the Eastern Front.   As the Russians storm forward, the Germans throw lightly armored recon cars and Marders into the the lines in a desperate attempt to stop the onslaught.

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Bolt Action - Review: Blitzkrieg Miniatures Honey Stuart and Bandai Valentine

When Blitzkrieg Miniatures announced that they were going to be offering free shipping world wide I immediate purchased two more of their amazing Honey Stuarts to form the core of a new British Armored Platoon.  The Honey Stuart is a iconic tank and Blitzkrieg Miniatures does this tank justice.  Blitzkrieg makes all resin tanks that require very little assembly.  The Stuart kit includes a hull (with tracks attached), a turret, a hatch, three MMGs and a main gun.  It took me less than twenty minutes to assemble all three of my Honey Stuarts and the detail is as good, if not better than, the best alternative kits on the market.  If your a gamer who wants high quality model tanks, but you don't want to frustratingly labor through the assembly process there is no better choice than Blitzkrieg Miniatures, especially if you game in 1/48 like me.

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Bolt Action - Review: Black Tree Design Tank Crew

For a while now I have been eyeballing the dismounted German and Soviet tank crew from Black Tree Design.  I finally added a bag of each to my cart after the release of Tank War.  In Tank War there are rules for crew to be used when a Tank gets knocked out.  If you are running a Tank War campaign this is important because surviving crew retain their experiences and upgrade, while dead crew, uh well, they do not.  Additionally my creative left brain can think of a few hundred ways to incorporate dismounted tank crew into regular games or homemade scenarios.   Maybe they are the objective in Top Secret, or they are mixed into your partisans or defenders of Berlin.  Whatever you use them for dismounted tank crew give you options and flavor.

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Bolt Action - AAR: Tanks in the City

I live for days I get to put my rubble based soldiers on a city board.  GI Joe and Colby came over for a Bolt Action FTX and Joe brought his new city mat from Frontline Games.  This thing is pure gold and looks fantastic.  After he rolled it out we all knew we had to get a game in on it.  So after our first game we busted out all the building goodies we had and set up a Budapest themed Tank game.  we didn't really use any force organization or point system, just troops on the table and go time.

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Bolt Action - White Washing Tanks

In September, I mentioned that I intended to do some winter-themed tanks in an attempt at representing a white wash camouflage typically seen on the eastern front in the winter of 1942 to 1943. After some easy to replicate steps, I'm very satisfied with the results, especially considering the amount of time dedicated to the project.

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Bolt Action - AAR: Russians vs Germans - Tank War

Had a chance to have a go at a proper Tank War game, this time with a healthy mix of infantry, support, and objectives.   Last time we just ran tanks with no objectives and it turned into two gun lines exchanging fire.  This time there was much more action.
We used the new Tank War Scenerio and rolled up three objectives. These objectives were placed  down the middle of the table, that way no one side had a clear advantage.  The board was fairly open with tall grass and a road with a bombed Soviet column on it. There was a lake shore and a wood on either flank.

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Bolt Action - Ion Dumitru, Romanian Tank Ace

Welcome to Tanko Thursday, a semi-regular article exploring some of the lesser known legendary tankers from the minor nations with house rules for representing them in your own Bolt Action Tank War battles. This week we look at Ion Dumitru, Romanian Tank Ace.

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Bolt Action - Roman Orlik, Polish Tankette Ace

Welcome to Tanko Thursday, a semi-regular article for the next few weeks exploring some of the lesser known legendary tankers from the minor nations with house rules for representing them in your own Bolt Action Tank War battles. This week we discover Roman Orlik, Polish Tankette Ace.

An architecture student prior to the war, Roman Orlik enlisted in the Polish army and became a Sergeant First Class in command of a Polish TKS tankette with 20mm Autocannon, one of the few up-gunned tankettes Poland had. He would become one of the first tank aces of World War II in defense of his homeland.

On the 14th of September, Orlik and his driver Zakrzewski were involved in the Battle of Brochów, a Polish victory in which Orlik destroyed 3 German tanks.

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Bolt Action - AAR: TANK WAR!

Like I mentioned in the most recent episode of BAR (August! - Judson), I recently got a Tank War game in.  This was my first outing with an all tank force since getting Tank Wars, and since the changes to how pins affect tanks.  There was not a ton of planning involved in this game; we finished a standard game early and had some more time to kill, so dropped a dozen tanks on the board.  It was quick and dirty.

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Bolt Action - Luigi Pascucci & Pietro Bruno, Italian Tankers

Welcome to Tanko Thursday, a semi-regular article exploring some of the lesser known legendary tankers from the minor nations with house rules for representing them in your own Bolt Action Tank War battles. This week we look at legendary Italian tankers, Luigi Pascucci and Pietro Bruno.

Luigi Pascucci was a second lieutenant in the 132nd Tank Regiment of the Ariete Division. He would be post-humously awarded the Medaglia D’Oro Al Valore Militare (the Gold Medal for Military Valor), Italy’s highest award for his actions at the second battle of El Alamein.


On the 4th of November, 1942, Pascucci's platoon of M13/40 medium tanks was involved in combat against the British 22nd Armoured Brigade near Bir-El-Abd, to the west of El Alamein. The following day, the 132nd Tank Regiment was ordered to hold the left flank of the Axis retreat.

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Bolt Action - Listing Tank War, Part One

As the forum and other online avenues have showed me over the last few weeks, lots of us are hammering through our first "official" tank lists. In this first part of a two-part article series, I'll walk through my own thought processes for my first list.

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Bolt Action - Börje Brotell, Finnish Tank Destroyer Ace

Welcome to Tanko Thursday, a semi-regular article for the next few weeks exploring some of the lesser known legendary tankers from the minor nations with house rules for representing them in your own Bolt Action Tank War battles. This week we look at Börje Brotell, Tank Destroyer Ace.

In 1943, Finland purchased 30 StuGs from Germany. They saw heavy action in the Battle of Tali-lhantala in June 1944 and following that Finland ordered another 29.

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Bolt Action - Ervin Tarczay, Hungarian Tank Ace

Welcome to Tanko Thursday, a semi-regular article for the next few weeks exploring some of the lesser known legendary tankers from the minor nations with house rules for representing them in your own Bolt Action Tank War battles. This week we look at Ervin Tarczay, Hungarian Tank Ace.

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Bolt Action - Radio Networks in Tank War

Many of us are preparing for Tank Wars from the purchasing, modelling and painting fronts, but before they're on the table, you've got to check out those radios!

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Bolt Action - Optimising Big Tanks, Part 2

In Part I, I spoke about the extras a Heavy plus tank can provide over a lighter vehicle and how to get the most out of them. Today at the request of some readers, I'm going to give some ideas on how I personally would fill out the rest of the list in a typical 1000 point list.

I'll start with a Russian list that I'm currently using. The big center-piece is a veteran IS-2 with pintle HMG. This Heavy tank is bristling with weapon systems that can lay down the pain, but at just over 400 points, this bad boy is a lot of points. So after your behemoth tank, you need infantry. This list uses four units of Soviet scouts, two squads with SMGs, two with Rifles. The idea is to use their forward deployment to hold the enemy back until the IS-2 and other units arrive to reinforce them. The scouts can also start targeting enemy anti-tank assets as they are halfway across the table already.

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Bolt Action - Optimizing Big Tanks

Gather 'round boys and girls, as I divulge my ideas on how to get the most out of those beautiful big girls (queue the Queen! - J), the Heavy and Super-heavy armoured vehicle.  Heavy and Super-heavy tanks are quite rare in the standard (read non-Tank Wars) 1000 point game of Bolt Action because they usually take up 300+ points.  Such a whooping chunk of points can often leave you short on other useful tools and make your list less flexible, but there are things to consider to help you get the most out of these large investment units.

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Bolt Action - Armored Platoons will be Standard

Yesterday morning, for those of us on the east coast of the United States, Alessio Cavatore dropped a big surprise in our laps. It was something that I, after reading the review copy, said was not going to happen in Bolt Action. As Alessio made quite clear in his article, however, I had interpreted it incorrectly.

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Bolt Action - Building and Painting USMC Shermans

Hey guys, Tobu here and speaking of TANK BATTLES I’ve got some pics of a couple Shermans I finished recently for my Marines. I wasn’t originally planning on making a guide when I was building and painting these, but hopefully the pics I took along the way are enough to get an idea of what went on!

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Bolt Action - Review: Tank War

Tank War is here, BARbarians! For your previewing pleasure!

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