Bolt Action

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Bolt Action is a World War II based tabletop war game using 28mm miniatures first published by Warlord Games in 2012, with a second edition released in 2016 and a Korean War based expansion in 2019. Most of its success is attributed to how, in stark contrast to certain more popular games owned by a certain other British wargaming company, not only are models more reasonably priced, those made by third parties are not only explicitly allowed in play but encouraged as Warlord Games could not possibly make miniatures for everything in the war (and, of course, can't possibly own any of the subject matter). This makes the barrier to entry very low in price.

Unusually for a faction based wargame, all units are priced purely on their mechanical abilities with no accounting for relative production cost or commonality. This means any tank with medium armour, a medium anti-tank gun, a turret mounted medium machine gun, a hull mounted machine gun will cost 195 points (at regular quality) unless it has some further special rule attached. Thus a T-34, Type 1 Che-He, Panzer III Ausf L, or Panzer III Ausf M are mechanically identical in their stock configuration. This is likewise the same for infantry so a ten man squad of regular quality riflemen will always cost 100 points no matter who fields them. In absence of mostly arbitrary point pricing, nations are instead made distinct by national special rules (which impact all applicable units), options offered (of those medium tanks, only the T-34 can take a flamethrower variant, while the Soviets can field far, far more SMGs per infantry squad than the Japanese), what units even exist (you won't find any Japanese heavy tanks) and special rules (such as Slow lowering the cost of a unit). This further lowers the barrier to entry because each faction uses the same primary core mechanics.

Often considered Bolt Action‍'‍s most successful innovation to the medium is the "Dice Bag" initiative system. Rather than phase based (Player A's unit's move, then Player B's) or trading unit movements until all units have been moved, each player places a tactilely identical but differently colored tokens (officially dice) in a bag equal to the number of officers, squads, teams and vehicles they control (plus bonus dice for officer quality), then they are drawn from the bag at random and each player can move a unit when a dice of their color is drawn until all units have moved. Thanks to the many advantages this offered over the alternative and relative ease of implementation, it has proven popular enough to back port into other wargames and been copied by future ones.

Tropes used in Bolt Action include:

• Alternate History: The Operation Sea Lion book covers the planned but canceled invasion of the same name. Various historical scenarios mention possible tweaks to reflect possible changes in history.
• Anachronism Stew: Generic platoons, meaning the default Reinforced Platoon, the Tank Platoon added by Tank Wars and the Generic Anti-tank gun Reinforced Platoon hidden in Battle of France, can have any unit a faction fielded from the 1st of September 1939 to the 2nd of September 1945, even if they didn't exist simultaneously. Thus, a Soviet Reinforced Platoon may include both a T34/85 (introduced 1943) and a Commissar (abolished in 1942). This is averted by Theater Selection platoons, which enforce temporally accurate units.
• Awesome but Impractical: Heavy tank armor is 15% better than medium tanks that cost 57.8% as much while shooting just as often, and medium tanks themselves are often considered to push the edge of what's worth it at the game's scale. This especially goes for Maus, which costs 580 points (684 if taken as veteran, needed to prevent it from suffering Death of a Thousand Cuts from light anti-tank weapons) points, over half the standard 1000 most armies are made of and well over three times the 185 points a basic early Sherman costs.
• Bottomless Magazines: Aside from weapons with the "One-Shot" special rule, nothing cares about tracking ammo. Barring limited numbers of captured Panzerfausts usable by Partisans and Soviets, and the Soviet anti-tank dogs, all printed examples of this rule are German (Panzerfaust, Goliath remote controlled bomb, and a late war flamethrower of exceptionally limited ammo that might never have been fielded).
• Boring but Practical: Even discounting other forces getting access to American vehicles via Lend Lease, America has only one unique special rule attached to its units ("Easily Catches Fire", reflecting the flammability of the Sherman's ammo before wet stowage by making damage results that set the tank on fire more devastating), and lack the crazy wunderwaffe and last ditch weapons that provide color to other factions. Despite this it has three simple yet incredibly powerful national special rules and the tools for every job.
• Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys: Rules for France reflect only the Third Republic and Vichy forces with Free France technically a separate faction.
• Commanding Officer Powers: Officers grant morale bonuses to units within a certain range and put extra dice in the dice bag, increasing a player's chance of moving their unit first. Various historical characters can grant totally unique bonuses.
• Creator Provincialism: With Warlord Games being a British company, Commonwealth forces gets a lot of love.
• Critical Hit: Two variants appear, one for accuracy and one for damage. Shots that require a seven or higher on a six sided dice to to hit require a "nigh impossible shot" of a six followed by another six on a confirmation roll. Exceptional damage occurs when a damage roll is six and a following confirmation roll is also six and allows the attacker to pick which model is removed allowing them to remove the NCO to weaken the team's morale and ability to accept orders, or remove special weapons held by the squad. It's entirely possible for a nigh impossible shot to trigger exceptional damage.
• The Dreaded: Reflecting the western allies being deep in paranoia and horror over the Tiger tank (which in reality was already relatively rare, mostly deployed east, and regularly down for maintenance), a special rule called Tiger Fear is attached to Germans Panthers, and Tigers as well as some models of Panzer IV (which were frequently misreported as Tigers due to a strong resemblance). This rule forces opponents witnessing the Tiger to pass a morale check if they want to do anything other than attack the Tiger (or apparent Tiger), which itself requires a morale check if the unit doesn't have anti-tank weapons.
• Elite Army: While the Commonwealth forces can take Inexperienced quality troops, their national special rules only function for Regular or Veteran units. British commandos are a effectively their own sub-army in a few campaign books, and, naturally, they must be Veteran (with the exception of a few support units, who can be Regular). Prohibiting inexperienced units is one of the most common rules for Theater Selectors.
• Fielding Old Men and Boys: The German "Last Levy" is the rare war game example that actually has miniature support for its child soldiers. The British Home Guard has miniatures for the old men part (one of them a set of officially licensed Dad's Army miniatures) but their only option for a "child" miniature is an unarmed boy scout.
• Friendly Fireproof: Variation: Any high explosive attack that would include an allied unit in its blast radius is either an invalid target, or (if the only option) an automatic failure. The only way to kill your own units is to target buildings they are in (presumably because it is also occupied by the enemy) or using the suicide anti-tank units the Japanese and Chinese have access to.
• Glass Cannon: Any heavily armed "Soft-Skinned" vehicle (generally some form of heavy weapons mounted on a truck) can be taken out with small arms fire.
• Historical Domain Character: Special rules for using various accomplished historical soldiers are given.
• Hollywood History: Invoked. Bolt Action heavily leans into the mythology of the war as much as, if not more, than the strict facts so books will acknowledge certain supposed "facts" about the war and equipment from it are myths or greatly exaggerated, but make rules around them anyway because it leads to mechanically varied forces.
• Joke Character: Every faction in Armies of France and the Allies except Partisans (who aren't particularly strong) has the strictly negative Communications Breakdown national special rule to reflect their swift defeats (Even Greece, which won the Greco-Italian war). Campaign books have spent a lot of effort trying to fix these rules.
  • Lethal Joke Character: While it suffers from this rule and lack of unit variety, France's other two national special rules granting it free units have proven very effective in low point games: A free medium artillery worth 75 points and a free inexperienced infantry section worth up to 121 points are much more valuable when one only has 500 points to spend. France also has access to the only two transport options without the negative Opentopped rule outside of campaign books and the Korean War expansion.
• Lightning Bruiser: In contrast to a lot of other nations, American light tanks weren't merely tank lines that hadn't yet developed to "medium" armor/weight, but a separate track that continued development and deployment well after they got medium tanks nailed down and which had its own doctrine of use that reflected its unique combination of agility, armor and firepower. To reflect this, Stuarts and Chaffees can (and should) pay 10 points to gain the "recce" keyword which is normally exclusive to armoured cars and tanks that have an autocannon instead of a proper gun. Plus, Veteran quality American tanks used by Americans have the exclusive ability to move and shoot without accuracy penalty.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Western Desert adds new options for Commonwealth National Special Rules. Unfortunately, each is assigned to a specific part of the Commonwealth (something the core deliberately avoided on the explicit logic that trying to assign a "bravest" or "best shots" to a particular part of the Commonwealth forces was an unneeded minefield and just let the list builders pick a mechanic to go with their theme), yet has no explicit restrictions on units these can take. This means you can have New Zealander Home Guard officers, or Gurkhas that are also Maori and paratroopers.
• Mighty Glacier: British tanks are frequently saddled with the Slow rule, reflecting their "Infantry Tank" design. Various other tanks have the Slow rule, but the British are the faction most plagued by it.
• One-Hit-Point Wonder: Infantry models and soft-skinned vehicles are immediately removed if the damage roll is passed after a successful hit. A squad/team/crew's model count doubles as its HP.
  • Critical Existence Failure: Gun crews (who start with 3 to 8 men, depending on the type and faction fielding them) suffer no ill effect from loss of crew as long as they have at least two models remaining.
• Practical Taunt: Tiger Fear makes it difficult for enemies to attack units other than the (alleged) Tiger.
• Short-Range Long-Range Weapon: As near-standard for non-simulationist wargaming, small arms will barely reach the other side of a house while artillery might as well not even have a maximum range.
• Splash Damage Abuse: Surprisingly averted. High Explosive must still target a unit or building, and thus can only hit what it (or a spotter) can see, and the blast radius explicitly can't be used to bypass minimum range for indirect fire.
• Spoony Bard: Mechanically unique units (as opposed to units with unique combinations of common rules) are almost never worth it, but when they are worth it (like Japanese suicide units) they are absolutely worth it.
• That One Rule: The air strike called by forward air observers involves multiple random tables, little interaction with the opponent, and can easily either win or lose the user the game before the end of the first turn.
• Zerg Rush: Soviet and Chinese forces gain a free inexperienced infantry for free. The French get a copy of their cheapest inexperienced infantry if they buy two. The Japanese get special rules that boost their infantry and counter some of the issues with inexperienced infantry (though boost better infantry as well) and has unique cheap suicidal units for late war. Partisans don't get national special rules boosting their infantry, but can field up to 20 men in a single squad and give every single one a submachine gun.