Battle reports and tactics videos for Bolt Action. We are a group of long time friends and gaming rivals, hang out with us as we throw bones, share strategy and stack ever more grudges against each other!
at 13:40 The soviets inex squad shouldve gotten hard cover. If more then 50% of a unit is in cover, the unit is in cover at 14:27 The 2 damage dice should be rolled seperatly as one could have influence over the other. Throwing an immobilised (adding +1 pin) first and a fire after (order test) works out differently then if the 2 results were reversed. A small, but noticable effect overall, this was a really fun and tense game to watch. The t34 moving onto objective was brilliant, as no unit can get into 1" of it unless theyre assaulting. Im using that move onward ;)
TBH, while I am happy the 1/2 distance general rule is gone, I it MIGHT be best to reintroduce it as a special rule for specific weapons/armies. As you mentioned the move/shoot bonus is insane for US, but it would be perhaps less OP if it applied at to US rifles/BARs at 1/2 range. I know it sounds odd to remove that feature then immediately put it back in on US troops, but it would STILL be a simplification of the overall rules for every other army, and its the only way I can think of to balance a skill that effectively removes 1 of only 2 negative to-hit modifiers in the game (not counting inexperienced). If not that, then the US has to either change that benefit, or go WAAAAY up in points across the board.
@@Swindondruid2 A complicated system of ropes and pulleys old chap, that's how the vehicles got there! Haha Cheers for your kind feedback, glad you enjoyed the battle :)
@@scholaprogenium7276 Thank you. Chindits arrived in light gliders with no vehicles apart from bull-dovers. Also the British didn't use Stuarts with the two light machineguns.
How are dakka Stuart’s dead? All tanks got a nerf to their machine guns and this still means the dakka tanks will still be on the top. If they wanted to hurt dakka tanks, then they shouldn’t have nerfed all tanks. The tank that has the most firepower will still be the dakka tank.
curious what they'll do to veterancy? will there still be a difference in killing or will it be mostly morale differences? never really made sense that veterans where harder to kill when hit.
D6 pins on a flamethrower? thats a dangerous one :p it doesnt matter in the end, it gives D3+1 pins, you rolled a 5, meaning a total of 4 pins. With the 7 the brits rolled they still wouldve died. you also forgot the D2 to burn down the building!
Always nice to see a comment pop up on an older vid, cheers! Haha it's been many batreps since so I can't remember the specifics of this one but D6 pins on a flamer is hilarious!
I'm kind of sceptical. I've loved playing BA for the past 3 years. The pinning was the metric that made it different. These changes feel like the changes between 40K 2nd ed and 3rd edition. 2nd ed was a bit more cruchy with some glaring issues (so for BA 2nd ed the likes of MGs, and pins making no effect in combat etc etc) where as 3rd ed 40K smoothed out a lot of things but the character of the game was watered down and left me feeling meh about it all. I left the game after playing it for a year. It does feel like a 40k-ification of the rules. Not because of the cover saves per se but due to the lessening of the effects of pinning which is for me the defining aspect of the game (even more so than the random dice pulling) One-shot weapons still aren't that appealing to me as I go for the pin over the wounding, but that's a bit nerfed now and so the lean towards kills over pinning doesn't feel right to me for a historic game. Obviously we have to see the effect of the game as a whole package, we live in hope.....
@@arkenhemnall6224 Thanks for taking the time to explain your thoughts clearly, I think you are totally justified in everything you've said mate! Pins I believe will operate functionally very similar to 2nd, more so than it appears at first glance! Suppressing units will still be absolutely vital, pin them in place then hammer them! I cam see more units being "pinned out" in this edition.
@@scholaprogenium7276 yeah bud, thanks for replying. I have been anticipating V.3 for about a while (as we all have) and I wrote and a list of changes and amendments that I thought would be appropriate for a new edition and emailed about a year ago to Marcus Vine directly, so I guess I'm kinda invested that way a bit. The changes so far have not been in keeping with my hopes for the game, so biting my tongue a bit 🤣. But yeah, still has pinning in the game and broadly it's the same thing, so I won't stop playing it. I do have about 3 armies to build so not likely I'll be out of it for many a year to come. Cheers bud
You're only going to take a minus one to hit with any amount of pins but no where does it say that you won't take -4 to order roll so they might not do it in the first place
@@jeffnorris3913 ya, I still think I'll play to pin-out units, it obviously accounting for firepower still coming back due to only the -1. Feels like kills are being weighted more than pins this way, and so a spread of fire power is needed maybe more than concentrated fire as such. We will see. It's always good to see how rules bounce and are weighted against each other to make any game
@@arkenhemnall6224 we just don't know enough yet. Points and national rules are gonna be huge. But I like the MG rules and absolutely love the new way to pick an army
Appreciate you taking the time to get involved in the conversation mate! For me blind firing does not have degrees of accuracy but that's just my interpretation!
@@scholaprogenium7276 you do you, of course, but I think it does. The amount of pin markers should represent the progressive degrading of the morale of the unit, therefore reducing the number of dudes that managed to keep their heads cool. Cheers
One think also noted that by going down in v2 the target was harder to hit and then the hits were halved before the damage roll was taken. So double benifit by going down in v2. V3 no benifit when trying to hit, no benifit when trying to damage only when the save roll is taken do you get the down benifit and it is cumulative if in cover aswell.
Interesting observation! I think we will see the down order have an additional benefit when we get the HE rules, but the ability to get a 2+ in hard cover is very strong (a bit too much in my humble opinion), so does "down" need any more than that?
@@scholaprogenium7276 that that 2+ hard cover save is pretty insane. Makes me wonder if penetration and/or HE will affect wounding/cover or both? IF I fire a HE2 howitzer against a wood fence and the enemy went down behind should they still get a 3+ save (I mean your wounding on 2+ and no more 1/2 hits so maybe)? Against buildings HE historically ignored cover which was cool, but is doing down part of that cover? Against hard cover + a down order HE was a stupid with a -4 to hit AAAAAND 1/2 hits. Either way I like that cover is not on the to hit chart anymore so pins can be applied more consistently. The number of times I have fired 3+ MG units into a hard cover enemy and only get 1 pin (shaken off immediately) is very deflating. Like cool your in cover, but you have 3 MG's suppressing your position yet are able to function like nothing is happening.
Given the historical reasons provided, i think any pintle mounted weapons might still get full shots though im not sure if they want to get that specific
Ngl... an American Hmg firing line seems kinda busted and now inexperienced American infantry never hit on 6/6 and always hit on 5s or 6s if pinned.. you could totally play a horde American army, dont they have 12 man squads as well? if they keep the national rules they will be bonkers...
It's all coming together nicely... OK, I was wrong regarding the cover saves being 6+/5+ and you guys were right in last week's battle report.... but things are getting interesting. It looks like it's going to be much more of a 'fire & manoeuvre' skirmish game, with units moving from cover to cover, under the protection of surpressive fire keeping the enemy pinned. Yeah, it clearly states 'Firer Pinned', so no more -5 on the hit roll for 5 pins, however, I am expecting the multiple pin modifiers to remain for order and morale checks.... so those 5 pins may affect your willingness to stand up and shoot, but will only have a minimum effect on your actual shooting. With regards the lack of a long range modifier, my DAK are very happy..... my Para/SAS not so much, but they are small enough units to make use of any cover (just a pity about the small teams modifier disappearing!). And JP.... US Army, 1250 points (if they stay the same) gets you 14 flamethrowers, but they'll have to walk!
Hahaha I actually have truly enjoyed watching you comment on the Finn videos as you gradually give in to temptation! Welcome to the best faction in BA brother 😁😂
Small teams being removed is a God send. Not a big fan of cover saves tho but I’m hoping the cover rules are more forgiving. And not having a range penalty is huge for MMGs since the range has been increased.
While I hesitate to say that its strong, I feel these changes sort of make inexperienced squads a bit more viable. I think they'll stay 3+ to kill, so they wont be really strong, but I can see them as being decent units to hold ground with. Like, with my French or Dutch, I feel like a rifle platoon made up of inexperienced infantry could hold a flank much better and potentially push, if they have a Major to boost their morale (though I think the higher officers need a drastic reduction of points to make that appealing), now that their ability to shoot hasn't been completely hamstrung with pins (and a rifle platoon of Officer Cadets with Stubborn would do a much better job on top of that). I don't see it being done very often, but I could see a case for some artillery to be taken inexperienced as well, especially ones with gun shields, since the base 'to hit' will always be 5 now, you have a much better chance of hitting anything on the table than you would have in v2. Sure, you might not cause many wounds (especially if the target goes down), but it is much better odds. I think heavy artillery would benefit the most as I suspect HE will ignore cover saves, or at least the penetration value of the weapon will reduce the cover save down (so, if the target squad went down in soft cover that would be 3+ to the cover save, then apply the 4pen value of the heavy artillery and you ignore the cover save entirely, though I think they'll simplify it down to HE ignores cover as its the easiest to remember). Food for thought anyway. I like the changes in general, because they are making Bolt action ever more similar to 40k 5th edition which was my favourite edition.
In my mind they have still kept the 6s by 6s but you would have to tick all those boxes there listed to do so. So rolling a 6 as regular or vet infantry will always be a hit now. That's pretty cool. Wonder if penetration is changed now too effecting that wound roll
I expect national special rules to be scaled down, perhaps even be dropped entirely. They were always a point of contention and unbalanced, taking no account of the size of game being played. The US seems obviously broken now, for the reasons you point out. SPECULATION: A list of special abilities (engineers, fieldcraft; infiltrators; tough fighters...) that every nation has access to, to give individual flavour to their army platoons instead.
I think maybe special rules will be given to officers and their experience rank. I play italian and seen more specials added to officers from tough gut to the more recent case blue book.
I think we should have both. 1-2 simple army wide rules + platoon rules that generally only benefit the units specific to that platoon. For example, I like having hitlers buzzsaw (+1 LMG/MMG shot) as an army special rule as it would be thematically nonsensical to apply it to a single platoon, and difficult to track. However, I think it makes total sense to attach abilities like "tiger fear", or "forward the guns" to specific Armoured platoons, and which might change depending on your armored platoon theater selector (an early war Armour Platoon selector might not have tiger fear for as their was no Tiger, but it could have some kind of communication perk to represent superiority in their early com systems). A good example of this working could be the Soviets You want the "Great Patriotic War" as an army special rule, but the "quantity" free inexperienced squad ability to the Generic Rifle Platoon. Set some minimum limitations (you need to spend x points, OR you need to run max units, or something), but let the player gain that free squad each time they field a rifle platoon. Sounds crazy, but with the HQ + 2 unit tax it could balance.
Finns seem like they should be incredibly happy with these changes, apart from Americans. No longer having the long range penalties on rifles will make those ambushes that much more deadly.
THIS TIME YOU HAVE OUTDONE YOURSELF... I used to get stomped by my local Bolt Action Playgroup... that's when I found your StuG Life Video - Morale was Restored and I claimed Scalps with the Stug,...while everybody called it trash. Then I got better, but of course the PAINFULL LEARNING Curve Continued. Thats when I found BO Mortensen and I avenged all of my Losses. A Jeep drove up ...followed by a Truck... and There was a double BBQ. The Enemy Panzer 4 and some Veterans Gone. HOT DOG TIME! AND NOW... with your and JP'S 2.5... I think I get prepared in a good Way. But not just to take Scaps, but to lead and Teach my Playgroup. Thank you so much for that!! Half Range was cool, But I am glad it's gone. Simple Rules are good. Flow of Game Important. Bolt Action was a cool Game... but I feel now it can be a even GREATER GAME! If you two want to go the Extra Mile in your Videos: Some Basic Timestamps would be cool, if they make sense: 00:00 Intro 05:00 Topic One 16:00 Topic Two 25:00 Summary Not to many. Only if they make sense. You can put them in the bottom of your Description or leave it out. You decide. I would say Timestamps make the Viewer stick around. Because I am right now at min 17:00 And I want to get on with other things... so I could dive into the Topics or skim over them, judging... what do I listen to. Do I come later? 18:55 WARLORD PARTNERSHIP°° GREAT STUFF 20:53 OK GUYS. YOU NEED TIMESTAMPS! IF you don't do them. I would write them for you! 22:24 I hope they Buff AT GUNS. Bo is a History Teacher if I recall it. In one of his Video he Said AT Guns where really Feared. Hiding in Cover...hitting a Tank from miles away!
Was wondering if the gunshield and extra protection rule for buildings will still be valid on the to damage roll. Hope so it still remains a good feel in the game. It is clear they are not part of the cover saves, rightly so as they never affected the to hit roll in the first place.
I think it will depend on the keyword interactions of other weapons. If there are weapons that "ignore cover" (flamethrowers and indirect fire weapons maybe, ) and they want gunshields affected by this it would make sense to make it a cover bonus. If they DON'T want this interaction it would make more sense to add +1 to their toughness.
The two things I’m curious about are Vehicle Cover Saves, and HE vs Cover Saves. Will a Big Ol’ Tank have the chance to shrug off a hit? Put a Tetrarch behind a wooden fence and have a Flak 88 put a round into it, it hits but then the Tetrarch saves on a 5+. Meh, I don’t know. I’m most interested in HE against Cover Saves. Will it be a trade off, as in for every degree of Penetration you lose one Cover Save value? So a 4in HE against a unit that is Down and in Hard Cover would be 2+ modified to 6?
I think this is a fantastic suggestion mate, because 2+ is crazy but with pen being a modifier that would be perfectly reasonable to overcome! We play tested 4+/5+ and 5/6, I personally felt the latter was better for infantry but a 6+ for tanks just isn’t enough and they have been nerfed as it is! Again your pen suggestion might buff tanks a bit!
One thing I forgot to mention from my notes was the lack of modifier for over half range is a big buff to 'fausts, bazookas etc. This is actually huge as getting within 3" with a 'faust is quite tricky and also rather risky. Bazookas and 'shreks being able to fire effectively up to max range (24"?) will balance the lack of small team bonus and make them quite lethal...so maybe not so good for tanks 😅 Thanks for watching!
For Flamethrowers and Pistols, too. Panzerfaust 30 which only has a 6in range. Flamethrower gets out of a transport and advances within 6in. V2 would be Moved, Long Range, Point Blank for a 4+. V3 is Moved, but Point Blank for a 3+.
I agree with Schola, gone is the per pin neg. modifier it is only 1 negative for having a pin. I think\feel the multi pin for certain weapons will still be in.
Current rulebook says "Per pin marker on the firer." The new wording says "Firer is pinned." These are not the same and its now looking like its just a flat -1 if the unit is pinned at all.
@@scholaprogenium7276 it is worse because I am testing a scenario this weekend with Soviets an proxied Finns for winter war. A variation on the alleged events on Vottovaara
It will be an interesting change, but currently Germany has always been a bit robbed on their national traits rule. Extra dice wasn’t necessary the issue imo, it’s pins that needed an update for people to take MMG and LMG.
@@Boltaction1944 No mate, to be clear we have seen cover saves in other printed rules, this is our "guestimated" format! We will post a video Wednesday afternoon with the full update, hope this helps!
With the changes coming, kinda glad I went with two starter boxes for the Japanese and over invested by starting with some of the 30 unit boxes of Brit/Canadian and Germans, then getting a couple vehicles, then getting the Grenadier and Canadian starter boxes so I am set up decently to field some of the new army building armies. Having also suplemmented them before the starter boxes with support boxes I have a couple of everything like mmgs and mortars I can field.
@@patmunro1982 Nice! Yeah its times like this where it is good to have a decent collection, my armies will be sharing their mmgs and howitzers for a while!
Just ordered a Sherman V for my brits to field an armoured platoon...and may or may not have accidentally ordered a german grenadiers starter box too..whoops😜
I played a match using the V3 platoons against a friend. I ran three platoons, one "Polish" Rifle Platoon with a Reg 2nd LT and Man, 4x Reg 8-Man Sections with an LMG in Each, and a Reg Sniper, with the Free Observer and Man. Second Platoon was a Canadian Engineer Platoon with a Vet 2nd Lt with Man, 2x 8-Man Veteran Canadian Engineers with 5 SMGs in each and Stubborn, transported in a 30CWT and an armoured C15TA. Third Platoon was Artillery with an Inexp 2nd Lt (Support), 2x 25lbers, and a Medium Howitzer, all three with a spotter. My opponent ran two US Platoons, the Rifle Platoon with 2x Veteran Spahi squads with a BAR in each, a Veteran/Fanatic Goumier squad, and a Foreign Legion Squad, then a Sniper and a Light Mortar. The Tank Platoon was two Shermans and an M12 (Heavy Howitzer Gun Carriage). Overall, it was 16 VS 11 dice. We didn't play the Machine Gun changes, so all the vehicles had their full dice output. Overall, I know I didn't have too much AT capability, and I deployed my artillery wrong, but I didn't feel too bad about not having a tank. The Shermans were still able to do work, with their 2in HE templates, but I didn't feel like I had already lost the game because I didn't bring any tank. We played an Objective game, and I ended up holding one, and contesting the other two. I really feel excited to see where the Shooting Phase is going, and how Cover Saves will change that. Hopefully we get the details we want this coming week. And the point changes that we know are coming. I'm in love with the Platoon Selectors, though. I think my Armored Platoons will largely consist of maybe two "proper" tanks, but then Self-Propelled Guns (which I think may be KING in V3).
Fascinating, really really interesting to hear your lists in detail, I appreciate you taking the time to type them out mate. As you can tell we are also loving the new selectors, as soon as you lay the army out you get it, they just feel right! Haha I'm seeing motorised artillery being good too, especially if units like the stug get a bit cheaper than their tank equivalents!
Unless tanks get a big buff then I don't think so! I don't doubt they have a warehouse full of mmgs that need shifting though! It's not my job to defend warlord, regardless we are enjoying the updates so far, the new platoons are a lot more fun!
Hard Cover giving a 50% save is too much.... when shooting, it gave a -2, so a 34% modifier, so similar should be used for cover save, 6+ save for soft cover, 5+ for hard cover, both of these are modified by the Down 2 pips, to 4+ and 3+ respectivly. Similarly, if hit, they take a pin - the cover save is for casaulties..... shots hitting the cover remind troops to keep their heads down.... the new rules mean that you are more likly to hit and therefore cause a pin.
Yeah at this stage I'm very interested to see how the cover saves play out, we could easily be miles off! Will it tie into veterancy perhaps? Will cover have any interplay with pins? Although we've tried simple modifier swaps from shooting to cover I wouldn't be surprised by a total rewrite!
@@scholaprogenium7276 I don't think cover and veterancy will interact - veterancy is still the 'wound roll' target, so should still be modified by the soviet engineers armour and penetration etc.
I mentioned in the last test play, that I think it will simply take the cover modifiers and give them to the defender to roll to avoid wounds, rather than the shooter rolling to inflict. If you have vets, you have base 5 or under to save, soft cover you have 6. Past that you might lose a man on sixes followed by sixes. But every 'hit' will still cause that pin. So units in cover are hard to kill, but basically easy to splatter cover with hits to pin them up fast and pin them behind the cover. Regular and green of course are a bit easier to kill as the base wound number is lower.
@@patmunro1982 Yes we seriously considered swapping it to the damage roll for the 2nd play test, after reading your comment, in the end we didn't want to mix things up too much. You could well be right, bring on wednesday!
@@patmunro1982 They are hoping to streamline shooting, so i doubt if the 'Magic 6's' will continue...also, your proposal dosen't make sense (to me) with regards armoured vehicles - the target rolls to avoid the hit?..... I think the core rolls will still remain - you roll to hit (modified by range and movement) any hits causing a Pin, roll to wound (vs. veterancy/armour, modifed by Pen & body armour) then the target rolls any applicable cover save.... we should find out on Wednesday....
0:54 Man I love how the Armies look now! Love 2.5.2... I will watch this Tonight! Can't Wait! I feel playing version 2 Serves no Point anymore... But getting accustomed to Version 3 is.
The pin game seems to be relatively similar because it's easier to hit but we are throwing fewer dice per unit, infantry squads have a potentially higher ceiling than vehicles, so that's something
