Bolt Action: Armies of Great Britain

161 Pages·2014·11.65 MB·English

by  Peter Dennis

CONTENTS
What Is This Book?
Armoured Platoons
Armoured Platoon Selector
Special Rules for Armoured Platoons
Command Vehicles
Lack of Radios
Radio Networks
Some Guidelines for Tank Platoons
Tank Battle Scenario
Assembling the Forces
Preparing the Battlefield
Tank Battle Scenario
Set Up Objectives
Roll for Sides
Prepare Forces
Objective
First Turn
Game Duration
Victory!
Vehicle Crew Experience
Using These Rules
Crews
Experience
Spending XP
Skills and Crew Quality
Using Skills
Gaining Skills
Unarmed Vehicles and Vehicles with Smaller or Larger Crews
Crew Survival
Legendary Crew
Using Legendary Crew
Skills
Germany
Kurt Knispel
Michael Wittmann
Otto Carius
Ernst Barkmann
The United States
Lafayette G. Pool
Creighton Abrams
Britain and Commonwealth
George ‘Killer’ Dring
Sydney Valpy Radley-Walters, ‘Rad’
Soviet Union
Dmitry Lavrinenko
Zinoviy Kolobanov
France
Captain Pierre Billotte
Great Tank Battles of World War II
The Battle of Arras
Operation Supercharge
Kursk: The Battle of Prokhorovka
Hell’s Highway: The Road to Arnhem
Battle of Bastogne
The Battle of Imphal
The Battle of Berlin
The Battle of Khalkin Gol
Appendix 1: Additional Command Vehicles
Command Bonuses
Germany
Sd.Kfz 253 Armoured Command Half-track
Sd.Kfz 263 Armoured Command Vehicle (8-rad)
Sd.Kfz 265 Command Tank
PzKpfw 35R(f) Command Tank
Grosser Funk PzKpfw 38H(f) Command Tank
Sd.Kfz 250/3, 250/5 and 251/6 Armoured Command Half-tracks
Sd.Kfz 251/3 Armoured Command Half-track
United States
Priest OP (M7 Command Vehicle)
M3 Scout Car
Great Britain
Command Armoured Truck
Italy
Carro Comando M41
Appendix 2: Armoured Recovery Vehicles
ARVs and Force Selection
Armoured Recovery
Germany
Bergepanther
Bergepanzer T-34
Sd.Kfz 9 ‘Famo’ Half-track
United States
M31 ARV
M32 ARV
Britain and Commonwealth
Churchill ARV
Cromwell ARV
Soviet Union
Salvaged T-34 ARV
KV-1T ARV
All Nations
Tank Recovery Tractor
Appendix 3: Tanker’s Guide
Talk like a Tanker
British
US
German
Japan
Soviet Union
Italy
France
Tank Recognition
Appendix 4: Tank Ace!
Game Parameters
Cost and Rank Vehicles
Form Teams
Alternative Team-Forming Method
Team Commander
Game On!
ERRATA AND FAQS – THE COMMAND POST
For your convenience, we have created the Command Post – a section of the Warlord Games online forum that is
your one-stop place for all of the official rules material we publish to support the Bolt Action series of books.
In the Command Post you will find, as free downloads, the latest PDF documents of the Errata and
Frequently Asked Questions. These documents fix any typos and/or rules issues that have crept into our books.
For example (and it’s a very relevant example for this book!), in these documents we have addressed the problem
that heavy tanks used to be too easily pinned – now Veteran armoured vehicles are only pinned by weapons that
actually have a chance of penetrating their armour!
But that’s not all you can find in the Command Post – this area also includes useful gaming aids, like reference
sheets, as well as the evergrowing Additional Units PDF, which lists a number of new units that we have added to
the game, for many of the belligerent nations. And then there’s extra optional rules, tournament guidelines, get-
you-by army lists, rules commentaries, scenarios and more – please come and have a look!
WHAT IS THIS BOOK?
15th Panzer Division attacks towards Alam Halfa Ridge, by Howard Gerrard ©
Osprey Publishing Ltd. Taken from Campaign 158: El Alamein 1942.
Welcome to Bolt Action – Tank War. This book is all about armoured formations in
the Bolt Action game. As Bolt Action players will know, the rulebook envisages
that players who wish to do so will adapt historical formations to represent forces that are
as realistic, or representative, as they want. However, the standard selectors given in the
Bolt Action game allow you to field only a limited number of vehicles in an army. This is
because the standard game is built around the infantry platoon as its basic element, with
other troops taking supporting roles. Even when including as many vehicles as possible in
the standard game, the tanks and armoured cars are likely to be outnumbered by infantry
squads. Not so in Tank War. Tank War is built around armoured formations and makes
provision for entire armies of tanks as well as fully mechanized units such as Panzer
Grenadiers. The rules in this book enable you to field forces based upon these most
powerful of fighting formations, and to field them either against each other or against
forces chosen using the selectors from the main Bolt Action rule book or ‘Armies of’
series supplements.
Panzer III Ausf M
The last thing many Soviet tank crews saw – the monstrous Ferdinand taking aim…
The book is divided into the following sections:
ARMOURED PLATOONS
This is the core section of the Tank War book – the new Armoured Platoons selector
enables players to build a Bolt Action force representing a platoon of armoured fighting
vehicles. This armoured platoon can be accompanied by supporting infantry and artillery
units together with their attendant transportation. This new selector can be used to
represent any armoured or mechanized division of World War II.
As in the case of the Reinforced Platoons in the Bolt Action rulebook, with a force for
Tank War you can field either a single Armoured Platoon or multiple Armoured Platoons,
so long as the total requisition points value remains within the agreed limit for the game.
TANK BATTLE SCENARIO
A new Tank Battle scenario is provided to stage games between armoured forces. This
scenario is ideally suited for fighting battles between armoured units, as opposed to the
scenarios included in the Bolt Action rulebook, which are better suited to fighting games
between Reinforced Platoons. This new scenario is very adaptable because it features a
random number of objectives that are positioned by the players. This means the same
scenario can be adapted to represent many different types of engagement.
VEHICLE CREW EXPERIENCE
This section introduces new rules to represent the cumulative effect of experience on tank
crews. See your tankers improve in quality and gain special fighting skills.
LEGENDARY CREW
Tank aces and other noteworthy tankers of history, with details of their stories and special
rules for your games of Bolt Action.
GREAT TANK BATTLES OF WORLD WAR II
Some of the most famous armoured engagements of World War II and suggestions to help
you recreate them on the tabletop.
APPENDIX 1: ADDITIONAL COMMAND VEHICLES
New command vehicles to go with the ‘Armies of’ series of supplement books for Bolt
Action.
APPENDIX 2: ARMOURED RECOVERY VEHICLES
Rules for and a list of Armoured Recovery Vehicles, for recovering knocked out vehicles
from the battlefield under fire.
APPENDIX 3: TALK LIKE A TANKER
Tanker jargon and slang in several languages to bring extra colour to your wargames –
Zmeya!
APPENDIX 4: TANK ACE!
A light-hearted mini-game pitching the Red team against the Blue team in vehicular
mayhem. May the best tank commander win!
A IS FOR…