Bolt Action Compendium

So far, in v3, the focus has been the main rulebook, the minor nations PDFs and Armies of Germany. It’s nice to finally have something for the history buffs and not just competitive play.  Speaking of, right off the bat, they do mention that the lists, units and missions in the book have NOT been playtested and shouldn’t be used for competitive play, this to me is the right direction, keep it fun and historical.

So what do we get in this book?   (Note the above FSJ miniature for Op. Rosselsprung is included as of time of writing)

In a nutshell, we have four sections:  The Mediterranean and Middle East, Asia-Pacific, Eastern Front, and Western Front, and in each section we have suggested forces, rules and missions.

This translates to the Polish (in the desert and at home), Greeks, Brazilians, Japanese SNLF (Marines) Chindits, the Spanish Blue division, the French Resistance and if Patton had had his way, USA vs Russia in 1945.

If you are not a die-in-the-wool history super nerd and only tangentially know about the non-major Operations of WW2 (like me), then there is a lot of history in each section.   Also, some ‘lists’ aren’t really lists, they are suggestions on using an existing list, with some limitations and a few new units or characters.

The Polish Independent Carpathian brigade (SBSK) have a section on how to model them, IE use british 8th Army but suggest to not use any Sten guns whilst officers had US Thompsons.

Likewise it tells you before Tobruk which guns to use, after Tobruk they would have recaptured their own 37mm guns, when to use french 75 mm guns and when to transition to british-made guns.   This section also mentions to use Regular and Veterans since they had fought already in 1939.  The Polish section concludes with FIVE scenarios to fight vs the Italians, mainly in and around Tobruk.

Greeks:  Similar to the above there is a history section, noting the main resistance units fighting the occupation, their exploits and all. I had no idea, but one of the raids was apparently the inspiration for Guns of Navarone.  There is a new HQ  and two new units, the SOE and Andartes squads that you can use in the Partisans army list (downloadable here)  The SOE is a british two man team from the ‘Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare’, the Special Operations Executive, that can be upgraded as below:

The Andartes squad are veteran partisans that can be used in any other Partisan forces.

Operation Rosselsprung:  German FSJ units sent into Croatia to capture or kill Josip Tito.   Again, using the Partisan army for the adversary but a new Force Selector for the FSJ with SS FSJ as the only infantry squads to be taken in the force selector. One mission here where the germans are surrounded on all 4 sides by partisans.

Brazilian Expeditionary Force follows the USA late war force, has a history and modelling painting section and one mission vs the Germans at Monte Castello

Japanese SNLF (Marines) includes a history and then inside the missions is the force selector limits.  Mission 1 SNLF vs the Dutch  Mission 2 SNLF vs the Australians (both have limits on force selectors) with a beach landing

Chindits, use midwar selection guide and there are guides for each mission, basically Rifle and heavy Weapons platoons rule the day.

Continuing the british tradition of having special characters galore we have:

Orde Wingate, Mike Calvert, Bernard Fergusson, George Cairns VC, Tul Bahadur Pun VC, Flossie the Elephant, Phil Cochrane, and for units we have the Chindit Demo team, Burma Rifles Recce Section, and Burmese Scouts.  Campaign style chain of missions with campaign wide rules like Mud jamming MG teams, limited visibility because of the jungle and recommend 50% of table be rough terrain!

There are TEN campaign style missions for the Chindits.

Polish people’s Army, use partisans and soviet gear for the LWP, list is a combination of GB and Soviet books, LWP units are Stubborn

Three mini campaign missions, the Bielski brothers are the named special characters

Spanish Blue Division, use the new German winter models, Rules-wise they get Elon’s buzzsaw and option to make them Fanatics at 1 point, but they get -1 to cover saves “Die on their Feet, not hiding in holes like Rats”

Includes two missions, both at Krasny Bor, in the winter.

French Resistance:  Otto Kuhne (Maquis) German Anti-Fascist resistance fighters  Sadly only 1 mission, Vercors Uprising. I feel there could be a mini campaign here like they did with the Chindits, hopefully in a separate book later on. Liberation of France. At least the models are awesome and colourful, if you are tired of painting uniforms:

Red Star White Star  What Patton wrote and how he felt they should fight the reds then and there. Potential Pershing variants in play, one inspired by bolted-on armour taken from german tanks.. how orkish?

As usual the Russians get the shaft and they suggest you add Unreliable to all your vehicles because Patton thought their tanks were trash. However soviet airpower has a slightly better chance to drive off the second US Air attack from a Forward Air Observer, though I fail to see how that makes up for all Unreliable tanks.  Sadly no points discount was suggested for the Soviets, me personally I’d let them get a discount or get 10% more points to spend on their list or something.

Cheers