Bolt Action VS Chain Of Command

[Truscott Trotter]

if I had to play Bolt Action I would, but I'll be thinking about Chain of Command...
Hahhaha I like that - even more true now for BA V2 where they have multiple activations based on your leaders

[Lardy Rich]

Truscott,

That's interesting.  How does that work?  If a Leader decides to activate two units, do you then rummage around in the bag and remove those two dice?

Rich

[Arlequín]

As there are only two dice colours in the bag, it would hardly be onerous rummaging. I assume that the number of units that can be activated would be tied to his 'rank', sort of much the same as leaders have set CI in CoC.

I see CoC and BA as quite different games. If they used identical ground scales there would be a point of comparison, but they don't. Slogans and catchphrases aside CoC covers the low-end of tactical combat at single platoon level, while for me BA sort of (but not quite) falls between that and IABSM in its scope; and I would suggest closer to IABSM than CoC.

Taking away that both games are 'skirmish games with 28mm figures'... If we were being 'real' CoC would be played with 15mm figures (as some people do), while BA would be played with 6mm figures (which I've never heard of)... that both games are modelled on the use of 28mm 'playing tokens' is their only point of comparison.

That players of both can be routinely heard to say "I can see that figure" to claim line of sight, when in reality 'that figure' is something like 12' (CoC) or 30' (BA) tall, goes towards making a comparison of the two games as being like comparing Chess with Drafts (Checkers) because they use the same board. 

[Truscott Trotter]

Truscott,

That's interesting.  How does that work?  If a Leader decides to activate two units, do you then rummage around in the bag and remove those two dice?

Rich

Yes you rummage and extract 1-4 dice depending on rank and allocate them to units in command range then activate them one at a time in any order. No friction or chance of slippage you just do it. I have hundreds of people tell me its a good minor change and will not upset the balance of the game..........they have not played me tho 

[Lardy Rich]

Arlequin

I wasn't suggesting that the rummaging would be onerous in any way.  Just that from a game designers perspective if you invent a game where the core mechanism is about drawing dice from a bag in order to determine the order of events, then having people stop and remove a number of dice from the bag is a big change in emphasis.  In fact, you are potentially moving so far away from that core mechanism that you change the nature of the game entirely. 

This is not a criticism, but an observation that there is potential there for the end result to be a bit like Cross of Iron, where the decision is about how many dice you use immediately, potentially giving you an immediate advantage, as opposed to how many you leave in the bag for later in order to stop your opponent having an uninterrupted run of play later in the turn.  That is quite a significant move from the original and will very definitely 'change the balance of play' in that it creates some very different command decisions which were not present before.  From a professional perspective, I find that rather interesting. 

Rich
     
 

[Rich H]

There has been a lot of presumption that using an officer early is a good idea for an 'alpha strike'  but i want to save my officer until late in the turn if possible so the enemy has moved as much as possible.

Though i suspect tournaments may eventually limit or exclude snap to action

[Lardy Rich]

Rich

That's precisely how I was envisaging the tactical options which this would throw up.

The big issue seems to be that the phase of play in CoC and the pulling of a dice in BA are two totally different things and you can't compare them.  Indeed, the phase in CoC seems to be more like a turn in BA, but again they are not really comparable.  Apples and Oranges really. 

Rich

 

[Arlequín]

This is not a criticism, but an observation...  

Of course and I took it as that. Had it been a case of sorting through different dice that mean different things, then indeed selection of a few dice would have been onerous.

I certainly agree that changing the rules to allow things to be different as in this case, is indeed a fundamental change in the way the game will be played. Some will see it as an improvement, others the opposite; some may see it as a totally different game. There may even be a YouTube burning of an army or two as a result. A game should evolve however, which is not the same as introducing change for the sake of it. If it produces a better game, then great. Another game did something similar I recall, but seemed to just build upon its mistakes with successive editions; according to some players at least.

As I tried to point out before, my opinion is that BA and CoC are two very different games (still) and nobody is limited to an either/or choice. We may have our preferences and indeed there can be 'community pressure' to play one and not the other at risk of being 'shunned', but the bulk of us are adults and such things don't matter. The apples and oranges/chess and drafts analogies say it all to me.

I do tend to get annoyed by the "in game X you can do this" guys though... Vive la difference!  

Jim

[jetengine]

I notice our Lardy friend (say hi to the M&M cast for me  ) mentioned cross of iron. I've only ever seen it played once using 15mm armour. Is that the correct scale and idea ?

[bound for glory]

Is our group the only lot still playing Battleground World War 2?

[agent_pumpkin]

Is our group the only lot still playing Battleground World War 2?

Yes... and only once you've got all the cobwebs off it....

[bound for glory]

You laugh, but we've been playing battleground ww2 since it was released and we love the shit out of that game.

Afew months back a guy hooked me up with many, many new vehicle charts, and its been working out great.

We were looking to get into the Kursk series of rules, but I've read that they have some goofy stuff going on re the way german squads use mg's.

[Paleskin]

i bought BA ,read it and sold it without playing it,world war 40K springs to mind
CoC have played and enjoyed and want to play more

read into that version of my humblest of opinions what you will

[Gunbird]

We were looking to get into the Kursk series of rules, but I've read that they have some goofy stuff going on re the way german squads use mg's.

If by that you mean Battlegroup (as Kursk is the first book) there is nothing goofy about how they use MG's. Read a bit about it online, join the Battlegroup FB group or the Guild if you are more into a forum format. The author and co publisher are quite active on both and will happily answer any questions. Do read the very extensive FAQ though, we are now a few years in and any question that could be asked can be found there.

[Chico]

I've played both (and a few others in different scales) and too be honest I much prefer Bolt Action.

I'm not by nature a Historic gamer but more a casual gamer/collector of many aspects such as Sci-Fi, Fan &, Apoc. So what I liked most is that it's not really a Historic game at heart but rather a game system with a Historic skin, so allowing gamers to go as historical as they want too.

Now a year later after first dipping my toe into WW2, BA has become my favourite ruleset out of everything I play and that's down to the ease of play and not getting too bogged down with record keeping/list making.

Oh I do get a slight WW40K feeling too but it's from the earlier editions of the WhFB40K game, 2nd 40k rather then the latest trash GW throws out.

Just my 2 cents