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Bolt Action - learning the rules AAR

Last week I played my first game of Bolt Action with my friend. We played a skirmish using my house rules for skirmish play.
 Basically the rules remain the same, but individual figures are given orders instead of whole sections.

 Whenever we play a new set of rules we play through the game by reading through the rules & practicing each major ruling before going to the next stage.

 With this in mind I "chucked" some scenery on the table to block a bit of line of sight and we begun playing through the various phases of the game.

 Using my Alternative History as the background for the game I played the evil Chinese, while my Friend played the Heroic Australians.

 The distance between the troops meant we were able to practice allocating orders and movement before any combat occurred.


The Chinese deployment


The Australian deployment


Chinese dry fire and movement



The Australians advance


The Australians take cover as the Chinese open fire on them

Both sides advanced and the Chinese initiated the firefight, pinning the lead Australian scout.

 Returning fire, the Australians kill one of the Chinese and pin some of the others.

The Chinese casualty meant that some of the Chinese were outside the command radius, meaning I had to move those troops back in to command. This put a bit of a dint in my attack as I had to draw my left flank in a little.

 We ran out of time for the game, mainly due to talking after catching up for the first time in over a month, but the Australians won on body count alone.

 We found the rules worked very well. They are simple enough to learn and play, yet give enough scope for tactics and the initiative system can cause some tense moments when issuing orders.

 There are a lot of people bagging 'Bolt Action' but I don't see what their gripes are all about. The few things I wasn't so happy with I changed. Simple. See an obstacle and climb it.

 Maybe these nay sayers need to do just that - build a bridge and get over it.

 We intend to play a lot more games of Bolt Action, especially as it is easily adaptable to other periods.  I would like to play more games using the Australians vs the Chinese, but there is a general lack of figures in the Chinese range that will make this a bit hard to do.

 Hopefully I will remember to take more photos of the next game as well.



3 comments:

Beccas said...

Bolt Action is a great game. You will probably find those that bag it have not played a single game. I reckon the rules would work very well for Vietnam.

Simon Quinton said...

nice little aar. I may try this game now dam you!

lrqan said...

I agree with Brummie. A nice little Batrep. A good start to new rules.