Reply To: Bolt Action VS Battlegroup

[civilcourageParticipant 11134xp 5]

I play both and love them both equally. Bolt action is a more beer and pretzels game (IMO) and is very quick to pick up and the rules are quick and simple.

Battlegroup is more of a simulation of actual combat and i always feel is very cinematic. You have to spot units to shoot at them and force morale (Battle rating) plays a big part in the battle.

A good example of how each play is perhaps the use of a bazooka team. In BA you would be lucky to get anywhere near a tank to use the weapon as you’d be gunned down before getting in range (on foot anyway. In BG, because you have to spot units to shoot them, and small teams are hard to see, your bazooka team could creep up on a tank fairly easily (so you would need to make sure you had infantry with the tank flushing out these AT teams).

This leads to a more combined arms in BG whereas BA tends to be very infantry focused.

I usually play in 28mm as i already have the models for BA but most people play 20mm or even 15mm. Saying that though I think you lose something playing BG at 28mm as you cant get beyong a platoon sized game due to the scale and manouvering with vehicles is really limited. We sometimes play in 15mm and it adds so much more to the game.

In short both games are great and like @piers said its ingloriuos vs Band of brothers. Bear in mind though you wont get the full BG experience at 28mm (unless you play on a huge table).

Hope that lot of rambling helps.