With the end of our Operation Market Garden Campaign comes the opportunity to try out the new third edition rules. We played our first Third Edition rules last night and got to pull out the hard cover rulebook that my friend bought me for Christmas.
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| Not a fan of the art on the book (Is he waving hello at the person he is shooting at one handed with a rifle?) |
We played two lists of ~650 points with 3 platoons each - US vs Germans in an engagement set somewhere in Eastern France using the lists in the back of the rule book.
US Forces
Rifle Platoon
Platoon Commander 40
Rifle Squad 7 men
70
NCO SMG
BAR
Rifle Squad 7 men 70
NCO SMG
BAR
Bazooka Anti Tank Team 60
Heavy Weapons Platoon
Platoon Commander 40
Mortar Team + Spotter 60
Heavy Machine gun Team 70
Armoured Platoon
Stuart Light Tank 145
M13 Halftrack 70
Total: 625 Points
German Forces
Rifle Platoon
Platoon Commander 40
Rifle Squad 6
men 79
NCO SMG
MG34
Grenadier Squad 6 men 76
NCO SMG
2 Assault Riffles
Panzer Shrek Anti Tank Team 80
Heavy Weapons Platoon
Platoon Commander 40
Medium Machine Gun Team 50
Medium Machine Gun Team 50
Armoured Platoon
Sdkfz 234/2 155
Hanomag 62
Total: 632 Points
We rolled up the scenario (Seek and Destroy) and got to playing! A few things I noticed from our first game:
- It's much easier to kill small teams now that there's no -1 to hit them. Bazooka teams, officers + man etc really have to watch out as they are easily being hit on 5's with a 5+ cover save.
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| The bazooka team were cut down moments after this photo! |
- The increased amount of officers on the table (which I don't really like) at any time meant a lot of snap-to-actions which results in lot of activations and overall a faster game (which I think is a good thing!).
- The US fire and maneuver rule (+1 shot for ever 3 guys shooting) is lame and I don't think captures the semi automatic nature of their guns or the fire-and-manouver doctrine well. I'd like to see them bring back the no penalty to shooting or perhaps something like being able to shoot and then move extra towards the unit they are shooting at on an advance.
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| Germans firing from their position in the farm |
- The point blank rule is fun and deadly and close combat just feels far too risky now to ever justify (defenders go at the same time but can still shoot as a reaction to the charge) and defenders in cover go FIRST (which I don't like thematically as surely the attackers will be throwing grenades, firing off to keep the defenders heads down no?), I think in 2nd edition combat was too much feast-or-famine situation so I'm overall happy with this.
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| The Stuart enjoyed some point blank shooting |
Overall I thinkV3 is a good game with simple rules and still very true to the 'beer and pretzels' game play of Bolt Action. After playing a fair bit of kill team recently it was very refreshing to have some simple rules to get around! The game was full of awesome moments and the dice were not in my favour giving my opponent a convincing win of 9 points to 4! Looking forward to our next game as we get into it more and trying out some of the new rules on other units (snipers, flamethrowers, fanatics etc). As we are casual players we will ultimately house rule what we like and don't like to ensure that we are having the most FUN which is what bolt action is all about.
Signing off,
Chewie
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