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Bolt Action Locked & Loaded: Using Templates In Bolt Action 2.0
October 13, 2016 by dignity
We're back playing some more Bolt Action 2.0 and Chez from Warlord Games is showing Justin just how Templates work in this new edition.
Much like with any other area of effect weapon, the greatest counter is the enemies positioning. You could have a huge army planted in one area ready for their moment to shine but they can all be wiped out in one turn with a highly powerful shot from a well-aimed missile.
Click Here For The Backstage Show To Learn About Countering AOE Attacks
Do you like the introduction to Templates in Bolt Action?
Gives these weapons a much more realistic effect
The templates are an improvement. Far more ‘realistic’ (as much as any game can be ‘realistic’) and creates more challenges for planning unit movements etc. Adds to the game in my opinion.
much better!
I have to ask how are templates more realistic in Bolt Action beyond they can no longer cause more hits than targets (which could have been just added without the need of templates)? It just seems like strange praise to me.
Well, HE is an area-affect weapon, and so in game terms it encourages players to “realistically” space out the models within a unit. In reality, a unit of soldiers typically doesn’t move about all bunched-up shoulder to shoulder, they are usually spaced several metres apart from one another.
I never had a problem with the ‘number of dice to hit’ mechanic that represent HE in the V1 rules, but I did find the tight blobs of infantry visually awkward on the tabletop. I also like that this mechanic allows you to hit multiple units if they are too close together.
See for me I always considered base to base to actually be several yards apart and 1″ coherency to be about the maximum distance before orders could be yelled from man to man for your same reason that men never really did fight shoulder-to-shoulder. A 28mm WWII game is always going to have ground scale issues unless it is played over a huge area. As it stands now a rifle’s maximum range in Bolt Action is shorter than the distance someone could hurl a rock. The was grenades are abstracted in Assault means they basically have a range of 0. So really fixing this one issue really only works for people passing by as everything else is still a mess.
The spacing issue actually has the opposite effect for me on realism as it actually throws off my whole abstracted, telescoping scale with men spread so thin that if they spread out anymore some would probably become separated from their squad.
One of the things I liked best about Bolt Action was it allowed me to abstract all of that for the sake of expediency. I only had a measure a few of the infantry models and then put the rest base to base. This also sped up shooting as I had to do a lot less model to model measuring. Of course I can still do that with the added risk of taking more hits. But I don’t have to like it. Nor do I have to consider it any more realistic than before.
Full disclosure, I don’t like the idea of templates and cannot see anyway they could possibly increase my enjoyment of a game and several ways that could detract from it. That said, I think Bolt Action 2nd edition came up with the best possible way to minimize their effect on my enjoyment. At this point, if I was to update to the new edition (which my group is halfway there as many of our house rules mirror the new ones) I wouldn’t be bothered by most of the template rules more than having to bother to remember to bring a template. I still don’t think they should have been included as Warlord Games could have very easily just added to the indirect rule that a unit could not suffer more hits than models. But it is was it is.
I like the use of the template, much better than a squad being hit Dx hits especially if the squad would only have 2 guys.
Am very much a fan of this move – having been on the receiving end of my regular opponent’s scarily accurate Heavy Mortar (and I mean every roll to hit was a 6!), and then having to remove an entire squad every turn through the 3D6 hits, blast templates make my game much more enjoyable as opposed to the previous dustpan-and-brush approach needed for my dead squads! 🙂
templates wont stop arguments just change them?
That was a hard hitting light mortar 🙂 A one inch template doesn’t hit all figures within an inch of the target that would make it a 2 inch template surely.
I’ve had a few games with the templates now and I prefer them as the damage is now nowhere near so random as before.
So all of these rolls are to wound, rolled after you’ve done your initial roll to hit?
e.g. mortars needing 6 initially indirectly? 5+ shot 2 if no one moved?