Bolt Action

By Troy A. Hill

Southern California (SoCal) isn’t a location that often sees representatives of table-to gaming companies unless they’re homegrown. With major conventions like KublaCon in San Francisco and the Las Vegas Open (LVO) seven and five-hour drives away from the Los Angeles basin, SoCal often misses out on major hobby events.

That changed this week when the co-author of , and Warlord Games North American Demo Team grand-poobah Jon Russell paid SoCal a visit to launch the new Korean supplement and line of miniatures for Bolt Action.

Hosted by the (Pacific South West chapter), Russell visited three stores in the greater Los Angeles area Friday and Saturday, followed by a visit to San Diego in the extreme southern end of California.

By Scott Roach

Photos by the Author

The Royal Tank Museum of Jordan

For most of us as gamers in the world of miniatures, I think for the majority of us we love sitting at a desk painting up our latest acquisition, be it a Leopard 2 for our Team Yankee West Germans, or a Cromwell for that added punch to a British Bolt Action Platoon.  Either way, we always take the time to look at pictures on Google, drag a book of the shelf or reach out to the forums for advice.

For me, I have been fortunate enough to travel.  This has provided excellent opportunities to get to those out of the way Museums around the world and actually reach out and touch some of this living history.  The aim of this article is to allow me to share one of those opportunities with you.

With the way many remember the Korean War today or have learned about it in school or through hearing about it from others, America was nearly single-handedly holding the line against the Communist North. In truth, Great Britain and it’s Commonwealth had a massive presence, with three full brigades exhibiting tactical brilliance and heroism that is still studied today. This article will examine the British and Commonwealth forces present in the Bolt Action – Korea book, and examine what has evolved in their units, rules, and Selectors since the end of World War II.

For anyone who has played British or Commonwealth forces in Bolt Action, the special rules available will be familiar. The same, in fact; you have the two core special rules of Bombardment (rolling two dice per unit for preliminary bombardment and picking the best result) and Artillery Support (free Artillery Forward Observer). You also have the option between five National Characteristics, choosing one. This is the point where you should start constructing the framework for your army, as these can define the way your force fights, and even the way your units are filled out.

by Tom Burgess

Warlord Games has released and within it, forces from the United States and United Nations figure prominently.  Warlord has managed to pack a tremendous variety of platoon options all using the United States generic reinforced platoon list as the baseline.

This is appropriate as so many of the United Nations countries that committed troops to the Korean effort were from armies that had largely been rebuilt and reequipped following World War II by the United States. Accordingly, many of these nations’ armies looked a lot like the US Army’s formations.

In addition to the generic reinforce platoon list, the United States and United Nations player can utilize period selectors that more accurately represent these forces at various stages of the war.  This is important because these forces elevated heavily from the initial unprepared, poorly equipped, and undermanned type units that the US rushed to Korean Peninsula to try to stem the initial North Korean push south.

By Matt Sakrekoff

“At 0830 a staff officer of the 7th Division radioed the ROK Minister of Defense in Seoul: “We are under general attack and heavy artillery fire near the parallel. The enemy has already seized his initial objectives. We require immediate reinforcements. Our reserve is engaged.”

In one of the many dramatic passages from the seminal book on the Korean War, This Kind of War by T.R. Fehrenbach sets the tone of the shocking attack by North Korea across the 38th parallel and the desperate defense by Republic of Korea (ROK) forces. Warlord Games has done a credible job in re-creating the historical organization and tactics for both the Korean Peoples Army (KPA) and the ROK military. Both sides used equipment, organization, and tactics from their respective major supporting international power, e.g. the Soviet Union and the United States.

By Jacob Shober

In a war which echoes even to this day, nearly the whole world had turned their eyes to the Korean Peninsula, and the overt and covert politics playing out.

It was a war which turned allies less than a decade after the end of the Second World War against each other. None was more jarring than the Chinese joining the fight on the side of their communist brethren in the north.

If one observed closely, however, one could see the waves and ripples of the political turmoil and war in China itself that stretched to before the start of WW II, with the two Sino Japanese wars, the Warlord Era, and the Chinese Civil War.

This resulted in the Chinese Communist Party taking control of the country, and presenting the unified force of the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army (PVA). This article will examine the differences between the fractured Chinese forces found in “Empire in Flames”, and the unified forces found in the book, as well as the new units and theatre selectors available to them.

By Troy A. Hill

“Suddenly a low flying aircraft buzzes them and a flare is fired beyond the trees. As they walk the men look up, first at the plane and then at the flare as it hung in the air slowly moving toward the ground. As their eyes lower to the horizon, they widen. Across the road behind another stone wall are figures with the distinctive silhouette of German soldiers. Alarmed the five American stragglers realise they are facing the enemy, feeling a rush of adrenaline they raise their weapons.” – excerpt from Campaign D-Day: Overlord by Warlord Games and Osprey Publishing

That snippet is from the opening text for mission #5 in the new D-Day: Overlord book for Bolt Action. Our gaming group at Brookhurst Hobbies in Garden Grove California is gaming in the Normandy theatre, and we decided to give this scenario a try this past weekend.

By Jacob Shober

Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force: You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you…

—Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander, 6 June 1944

The Allied forces faced one of the most difficult tasks ever undertaken by military forces in the assault on Fortress Europa.

D-Day became one of the events which through its incredible bravery, sacrifice, and test of the human spirit, will never be forgotten for generations to come. Among the other Allied forces, the American landings and paratroopers overcame immense odds to secure the beaches and important inland targets. This allowed the Allies to plant one solid foot that could not be shaken off on the European mainland; the first step towards Berlin and ending the war. The American forces, selectors, and special characters in the D-Day rulebook are a great addition, to both thematic-based forces, as well as providing new tools at your disposal.

By Jacob Shober

The first twenty-four hours of the invasion will be decisive. . . . [T]he fate of Germany depends on the outcome. For the Allies as well as Germany, it will be the longest day.

—Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, 22 April 1944.

D-Day has finally come to , and I can definitely say that the campaign book does it justice. At least from the German perspective, one can definitely feel the gravity of the situation, the desperate hold on the beachhead bunkers and fortifications as wave upon wave of Allied troops storm the beach, drop from the skies, and rain high-caliber naval shells on top of them.

It also shows much of how the Germans appropriated French armor and guns for their own purpose after the successful invasion in 1940. From both a historical and gameplay viewpoint, this campaign book has a lot of content to offer, from the units, to the fortifications, and lastly, the theater selectors.

By Troy A. Hill

Images from the book and/or the

The latest addition to Warlord Games series of campaign books for Bolt Action, Campaign D-Day: Overlord (D-Day), lives up to my expectations.

Almost every WWII game with an ongoing campaign or theatre of operations book is releasing something this year. The year of 2019 marks the 75th anniversary of the breaching of Hitler’s Fortress Europe. Warlord has a fitting combination of games for their soon to launch

That campaign is to combine results of their three flagship WWII games: Bolt Action, Cruel Seas, and Blood Red Skies.

While Warlord has not released details of that campaign yet, the book for D-Day is sure to figure into their plans for the campaign.