Let’s Play: Bolt Action 2nd Edition Demo Game [Archive Rewatch!]
January 7, 2022 by dignity
Warlord Games are in the studio to show off Bolt Action Second Edition and we thought we'd get stuck into a Demo Game to show it off. Who will win; cast your votes now!
Note: You can NO LONGER Win The Band Of Brother Set
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John will be playing as the British army and Justin is opposing him with the Germans. Who do you think will win, and will you be diving into the Second Edition ruleset?
Let Battle Commence!
This weekend I hosted a huge Bolt Action D Day game in my garage titled “The Barrage in the Garage”! One 12 ft beach board with a 3 vs 3 beach landing game on a custom built terrain board and another 1 vs 1 game on a friends Bercourt Manor board firing artillery onto the beach board with Easy Company trying to silence the guns. EPIC!
Nice changes. I can’t wait for my rulebook and starter set to arrive. I just wish I could find some players in Brunswick Ohio. I’ve played a few games, mostly against myself and would love to play against someone who enjoys it as much as me. But I do like the new MG rule. But still think the bugging out rule is dumb. I was in a tactical transportation company and we would never bug out. The co-driver would man the 50 cal and you stayed and fought. I still would now use the bugging out rule. Maybe force at reverse action.
Yeah, I’m not too sure about the “bugging out” rule either. It seems a bit cheesy. I like that MGs have received a buff. However, I’m still not sure that one extra dice and a boost in range goes far enough. It’s still 20pts for an LMG… Machine guns ought to be terrifying. It’s not a weapon you want to come under fire from.
I’ll have to play this new addition a few times before I come to a final conclusion on these changes.
Great video guys. As always, very entertaining.
I don’t know, I am on the fence about changes. Still don’t like the templates which at this point has more to do with needing extra stuff to remember to bring. I can already foresee games where the players forget which units were activated by the Officer and if they had already done something. Finally, I am also a little concerned that with that -2 for Down orders is going really make getting troops out of buildings really tough. Same for keeping a unit pinned down.
I think I am still going to hold off for a while as I have come to enjoy my own house ruled version of 1st edition.
Haven’t managed to play Bolt Action yet, but I’m close to having an 800 pt British Commandos force ready to go. New rules seem like the perfect time for it.
Enjoyed the video. Impressed enough to PreOrder the rules and Starter Set halfway through the video!
Great to see Carriers in use by John. Justin is just too lucky with dice rolling at times!
Chain of command adds a new dynamic that allows a full section or platoon to act as one!
All in all an entertaining and informative video! Keep them coming!
Well done that man. I love impulse buyers (they make me feel normal) . I Hope you have many hours of gaming satisfaction =)
Normal, you say? It’s the “shiny” syndrome I think 🙂
Got the Bolt Action Starter Set last year, about the same time as Flames of War Starter. Just starting to get interested in war games.
Got a FoW Rulebook half a year after that – not to mention DropZone Commander plus other stuff.
Beyond the Gates of Antares Starter Set next.
Just recently the Konflikt 47 Rulebook, German and American Starter Sets. Followed closely by a British 1000pt army with British Command and Rulebook ( as I’ve decided on doing a Commonwealth Canadian Platoon ).
And now, the version 2 . . .
Hi! My name is Jon. And I have a problem! 🙂
Hi Jon , I’m refusing to admit I have a problem =D
This:
http://i1270.photobucket.com/albums/jj607/Blipvertus/Bolt%20Action/B962BBBA-EE69-4FD1-BF31-0A259D67D766_zpszsybu11n.jpg
D-Day, Omaha beach. The allies were brutalized in the water and at the shoreline but turn it around when the engineers flame the German pillboxes.
[IMG]http://i1270.photobucket.com/albums/jj607/Blipvertus/Bolt%20Action/B962BBBA-EE69-4FD1-BF31-0A259D67D766_zpszsybu11n.jpg[/IMG][/URL]
Bolt action Is on my bucket list.. The second edition looks interesting and tidier all round.
Couple of questions as I haven’t played much BA
Why didn’t John fire HE from his Sherman on the first turn at the anti tank team?
And secondly . You can run with a 105?
I’ve never actually played Bolt Action as Chain of Command is the platoon WW2 game of choice at the club I go to, so sadly no comments of interesting stories.
Do use the minis though, which are very nice.
@superfurrymaniac What’s your interesting story involving the minis? 🙂
I played a bit at Dragon’s lair comics and Games in Austin with some people who noted my interest in the models and invited me over.
I felt like the melee was a bit simple but I did enjoy cleaning up a fight that was going rather badly with a Bren-gun on a univ-carrier coming in from the side. I wish that there were some Portee trucks at work in the European theater because the idea of a truck with a six pounder rolling up, dropping a gate and firing on some target seems cooler on a game board than say a lend-lease M7 Priest doing the same thing. Also I wish there had been more motorcycles and armored car stuff going on even though that is probably not at all what taking back France was like.
I like the idea of Konflikt 47 but hope maybe a two-sited pulp variant might be in the offing with characters, maybe stand ins for the Unknown soldier, Haunted Tank, Sgt Rock, and other not quite super-hero but close 60’s and 70’s comic book style things.
i still remember my very first bolt action game i played my new jerrys against my friends commando force and in turn 3 he brought out a unit from reserves and it came on the tabe right next to one of my units and he let loose 10 shots at point blank range and all 10 shots missed due to him rolling 10 ones or twos :p a memory i will never forget 🙂
Looking forward to playing BA2 I hope that the missions have been improved. I’m very disappointed that Warlord couldn’t hold fire on the release of the Konflict47 rules to allow them to be used in conjunction with BA2. What was a great add on to a great game will be out of date as soon as BA2 is released.
looks like it’s house rule time again.
love my waffen SS flamethrower unit, did loads of damage against Warrens @warzan martians at the BA boot camp, even though he did try to probe them several times
Definitely a fan of the rules changes!
Loss of the -1 for shaped charge shots will make my bazooka teams more useful again, but even more happy with the change to the roll of a 1 on the artillery table given how often my forward observer managed that
Making MGs more potent is also a good move as the LMG felt a bit “meh” as a squad support weapon… Will certainly be adding some more MMG teams to my germans now though
U.S. MMG jeeps are going to be a hell of a thing now on the table 🙂
While in real life they were at best an inconvenience at worst irrelevant
I like the look of the new changes, of course it would completely change the way my epic moment played out.
I was playing a grab the intel game with my brother and he’d managed to keep my out on the flanks so he could grab the intel and hightail it out of there. Luckily for me the aim of his artillery was out (rolled a one) so I managed to drop it down hitting his HQ, Cromwell and two infantry units pinning them beyond hope of salvation and also killing his Observer in the process. Didn’t quite manage to steal the win but it was a great way to draw :).
Great game again guys, I feel sorry for John as the dice gods were not with him 🙂
Bolt action is the coolest historical game, bloomin love the way it looks.
I promise if I ever get any bolt action stuff, I will have epic stories to post on here about what happened, until then, I guess I can’t win any? =P
so my best bolt action moment, Fallschirmjager vs US Rangers only a small game though, with a couple squads each side plus other bits and pieces. The game was fairly even until about the second half when the americans started annihilating the germans. However the german medic was not to be defeated! Armed only with a pistol and entirely on his own, he took out the american command, wiped out a 5-man squad in close combat and killed several others and one the game. At no point in the game did he save anyone with the medic test, however he was unstoppable in the fight! Never has my dice rolling been so good and my opponents so bad, im usually the type of person who would manage to fail a test where i have 20 or so dice, and just one of them needs to be anything but a one, but somehow this game the dice gods were with me!
I’ve not played for a few months but the last game was with my British airborne against my mates Herr. I love flamers and I finally got to sneak my flamer team upto the building with a squad of 10 hun’s cowering inside. i managed to burn 5 of them, the rest ran away. My flamer ran out of fuel so he was taken of the board. It wasn’t a bad casualty rate of 10 to 1.
I am looking forward to 2nd edition. Hopefully it will be out in time for our club to start our escalation campaign.
Great game, knowledgeable umpire
That is Bull with the Transports at the end. This game is looking good. Now if only I can find people to play with…So many friends have Imperial Guard armies…
I have to say in the cosplay picture Jon looks so mad that Justin is the tank commander.
Really enjoyed this and what new rules we have seen here seem to have solved many of the niggles I’ve had with the game, Can’t wait to get my hands on it 🙂
I just bought a Japanese starter force with the intention of converting it to a konflikt 47 army, will have to try out bolt action when Its altogether
Great Demo Guys…
To Bad John Rolls as bad as I do lol.
As far as My best memory from a bolt Action game,they are all memorable as the random activation makes them all seem memorable it’s just a brilliant mechanic and the reason Bolt Action has become my new go to game atm.But if I have to pick one I’d go with German vs Soviet Demolition Scenario..where it went back and forth for 2 turns with each player seeing off by the skin of their teeth the opposing forces from their base and it coming down to the last move,last unit,and last roll of the dice and still neither side prevailing the best and most intense tie of any game I’ve ever played.Thanks for everyone involved in making this great game.