Bolt Action - Review: Three First Impressions

Hello everyone!  Welcome to my "Three Firsts" review of BOLT ACTION, a 28mm WW2 ruleset by Warlord Games and Osprey Publishing.

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Homemade Terrain - Fields

Terrain is as important to our hobby as is collecting the miniatures to play the game. Terrain changes the character of every game we play by modifying the conditions our armies find themselves in. Just like the terrain in the real world, our scaled down terrain can benefit and hamper our troops and drastically change our tactics. One of the most common types of terrain found throughout the world is terrain related to agriculture. Those of us who have spent time in the Mid-West of the United States have seen this first hand. Crop production dominates the vast majority of arable land around the world.

For the purposes of most war gaming, we refer to these fertile lands as fields. Fields are areas of land which have been set aside for the purpose of growing and producing crops for human or animal consumption. Contrary to popular belief, fields are not just flat areas of open land.  Fields can be very dynamic and can offer a lot of flavor to any war game. Fields can be plowed, muddy, frozen, dry, ready for harvest and anything in between.  Fields can also be planted on or around hills.

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Polish 10th MCB vs Mittlere Panzerkompanie

Played another Early War vs Patrik down at the club, this time he brought a much more interesting list compared to last week’s Czech Panzerkompanie. This was the first time I got to face a Mittlere Panzerkompanie.

I myself brought the 10th motorized cavalry brigade. The 1500pts lists looked like this.

10th Motorized Cavalry Brigade

Headquarters
Colonel Stanislaw Maczek: 60points
Regiment HQ: 40 points

Combat & Weapons platoons
Zmotoryzowanej company: 2 platoons with 2 HMG’s
Zmotoryzowanej company: 2 platoons with 1 HMG
Zmotoryzowanej AT gun platoon: 3 guns
Zmotoryzowanej AT gun platoon: 3 guns
Reconaissance tank platoon: 5 TKS, (2 with 20mm guns)
Reconaissance tank platoon: 5 TKS, (2 with 20mm guns)

Divisional Support
R-35 tank platoon

Limited Air support Pzl.23 Karas light bomber

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Bolt Action - Review: Warlord German Infantry Plastic Box

After an intial read-through of the new Bolt Action rulebook and a quick demo at Historicon, I knew Bolt Action was something I wanted to check out. It didn't take long to figure out one HQ section and two infantry squads were the compulsary selections for any legal list, and Warlord Games sells plastic infantry box sets that come with just that! What a coincidence! Dano and I had agreed to play Germans and Americans, respectively, when we first got into Flames of War, so this time we agreed to switch it up. I happily picked up a German infantry plastic box set from a booth at Historicon. This box will set you back $36.00 according to the company's website. Although I'll miss painting things Khaki, Field Drab, and Brown Violet, I'd secretly always had a little schwerpunkt envy. The transition to German was destined to happen!

Warlord Games' German infantry plastic box set. The box itself took a beating courtesy of TSA, but the contents were no worse for the wear - and regardless of the interrogators' best efforts, the men surrendered nothing!

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Know the Mission I: Free For All

We are proud to bring you a new premium episode series- Know the Mission.  This will be fairly irregular, recorded when we have an opportunity.  Make no mistake, it will not interfere with the regular podcast!  Additionally, for those of you subscribing to After Hours, these episodes will of course be available at no extra charge!  After Hours, News From the Front, and now Know the Mission- that's a lot of WWPD...  Can y'all handle it?

Without further ado: Know the Mission I- Free For All

The dudes have been wanting to record this for a while, and finally found the time right before Dirty Jon ran off to Aruba to escape his mountain of lead!

In the first episode of Know the Mission, the dudes put "Free For All" under the microscope.  Some of this may be old hat to you veterans out there, but we hope you may find some nugget of wisdom buried somewhere in the ranting and raving!

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Raiding Forces --- SAS

Keeping in line with my series of reviews on the raiding forces, the next up are....the Special Air Service… the SAS!  Previously, previously we talked about the Autosahariana and the  LRDG.

For the SAS, let’ start our review with a quick look at Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_SAS) for a summary of this unit in the Desert War.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Air_Service)

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Bolt Action - Review: Main Rule Book

Editor's Note:  Today marks the launch of our 3rd blog, Bolt Action .Net!  Our good friend Judson MacCaull is at the helm of this new site, and his enthusiasm for Bolt Action is infectious!  So head on over to Bolt Action .Net and welcome in the newest site in the WWPD Network!  Check back for new articles every few days.  http://www.boltaction.net -Steven


This article is a duplicate from http://www.boltaction.net
*****************

I first heard about Bolt Action (Osprey Publishing and Warlord Games) from my long-time, gamer compadre Dano. His FLGS had received a draft copy of the rules, and after checking them out, he called me.

Bolt Action, by Osprey Publishing and Warlord Games

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Bolt Action - Review: Warlord Bolt Action Rulebook

I first heard about Bolt Action (Osprey Publishing and Warlord Games) from my long-time, gamer compadre Dano. His FLGS had received a draft copy of the rules, and after checking them out, he called me.

Bolt Action, by Osprey Publishing and Warlord Games

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WWPD Partner Picks for August 4th, 2012!

Welcome to a new series of articles that we'll be posting most Saturdays!  In this series we're going to prowl the WWPD Network Partners to bring you the content that we thought was interesting, insightful, funny, or just plain bizarre!  So to kick things off, let's pick 3!  Interested in joining the network?

Anatoli's Polish R35 Company
Anatoli is all about researching the Polish forces in the Blitzkrieg era for Flames of War.  If you haven't seen his September campaign yet, do yourself a favor and look it over!  Here, Anatoli has assembled a company comprised of 10 R35s representing the 21st Light Tank Company, one of 5 new tank companies forthcoming in his September Campaign v.2 campaign book!

Throck of War: Historicon 2012
The dudes over at Throck of War discuss their experiences at Historicon 2012!  With plenty of great pictures from the various setups and commentary to match, this is a comprehensive look at the convention!  Of particular interest is the 54mm scale FOW game "for the kids".


Dice Devil's Historicon Video Coverage
Okay!  I promise this is the last you'll hear about Historicon from us!  We just had such a great time that we want to share it with the world.  "Matt Varnish" over at Dice Devils took a ton of video.  So check it out and see what it was all about!

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List Dissection: Bersaglieri

I'm a huge fan of the Bersaglieri in Flames of War.  They certainly represent the cream of the crop for the Italian forces in North Africa which makes them not really representative of the "standard" Italian formation- but that's fine with me!  In Flames of War terms they're one of the more unique choices with their core combat units being comprised of such large numbers of multi-purpose guns.  These guys embraced the "Few Men, Many Weapons" ideaology with both arms.

In Flames of War, the Bersaglieri are a very interesting company. The combat platoons are very large and have a good chance at being elite. They have a 1/3 chance of being trained, a 1/2 chance of being confident veteran, and a 1/6 chance at being fearless vet, thanks to 8 Million Bayonets.  Their Combat platoons are comparable to US Armored Rifles- they can deal with almost anything on their own!  So let's build a list.  We're going for 1625, the current favorite for Mid War thanks to the 2012 US Nationals.

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