A prequel 'Planet of the Apes' wargame - The Initial Confrontation

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Last summer saw the release of some ElastoWitt 54mm Planet of The Apes figures (I think) from the original movies. At the same time, I saw several reviews of these figures on other blogs and Facebook groups. I'm a huge fan of the Planet of the Apes series and I've been planning to do a 'fantasy' and 'sci-fi' gameplay, so a POTA-scenario would be ideal. -But as with all miniatures and soldiers; These Planet of the Apes figures are just impossible to get in Norway, and the shipping costs, rising prices in general and bad exchanges rate can't justify it.

While writing the blogpost on prehistoric warfare, I found information that chimpanzees not only went to "war" and fought other chimpanzees, but they were also found using very simple weapons such as simplified "spears" for hunting. Chimpanzees have also been reported to have attacked both humans and gorillas. Chimpanzees are very territorial, about 4 times as strong as a human of similar size, and they can reach speeds of 40 kph/25 mph.

This got me thinking if Planet of the Apes could not only be a good sci-fi story, but with some liberties and artistic licenses could it really have happened somewhere in 'The Darkest Africa' for example? At least for a fantasy wargame scenario?? Just "What-if"???

Records show that soldiers have been attacked by wild animals during conflicts in the past. One of the most famous attacks was from World War II when reports claim that hundreds of Japanese soldiers were attacked and eaten by crocodiles during the Battle of Ramree Island in 1945. Could such a thing have happened if soldiers encountered a group of enemy chimpanzees armed with spears in "Darkest Africa" ​​defending their territory ? It's probably not very likely, but it makes an interesting scenario for a skirmish wargame; one side with ranged weapons vs. the other side that doesn't, but that is faster and far more superior in close combat.

Creating an Ape Army

Since I wasn't going to buy the POTA figures from ElastoWitt, or from any other manufacturers either, I had to look elsewhere to build my 'budget ape army'. On Thingiverse I found some free Planet of the Apes files (#2 and #3) that I decided to resize, repositioning and print on my new (and upgraded) 3D printer, a FlashForge Adventurer 3. -It's still an FDM printer though (with all it's limitations creating miniatures...). Some step-by-step photos of creating the ape army can be seen in the 'March Workbench updates'.

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The human army is simply made up of regular army men I've painted and used in previous wargames.

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The Rules

For this little skirmish game I wanted to use Thor Sheil's OMOG - One Man, One Gun rules in combination with OMOK - One Man, One Knight rules. They are very 'similar' (just for different periods) so I use OMOG for the 'human army' due to their ranged weapons and OMOK for the ape army because of their pole arms.

To keep it simple, I used the quick reference sheets created by Steve Snark, which can be downloaded from the OMOG Facebook group's files section.

However, some house rules seemed necessary; Since Chimanzees are very fast, I let them move twice as fast as a "human move". They have brutal strength, a strong bite and deadlier teeth, so I think they will be far superior to humans in hand-to-hand combat, so they get an additional +1 in melee for their physical strength.

The Scenario

To keep this related to the Planet of the Apes, I have placed this scenario to the same period as the original POTA book La Plaète des singes was written by Pierre Boulle in 1963. Wild chimpanzees are only found in West and Central Africa. Fortunately, I already have miniatures covering that region and period. During the Congo Crisis, troops from the newly independent Republic of the Congo, the Armèe Nationale Congolaise (ANC), were sent into the South Kasai region to fight the rebels there due to a rebellion and insurgency there in the period of 1960-63.

Some time during this campaign, a lightly armed squad (among several) of 8 soldiers from the ANC was on a search and destroy patrol at outskirts of the jungle in a very remote area of ​​the South Kasai region in 1962 to look for Kasai rebels there. To be able to move quickly, they were lightly armed, only with rifles and a submachine gun. The squad fights as 2 fire teams with 4 members in each.

The ANC squad is totally unaware that they are moving into territory claimed by a group of 15 hostile chimpanzees armed with simple thrusting spears. Unlike the human army, they have no ranged weapons, but are superior in hand-to-hand combat. The 'ape army' is not 'organized' but fights as 3 groups of 5 each.

The Game

The ANC search and destroy patrol...

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...are totally unaware that they are about to enter territory claimed by a pack of hostile Chimpanzees and that they are being watched doing so.

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Suddenly groups of Chimpanzees armed with spears came rushing out of the bush, screaming, towards the ANC squad...

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...the soldiers are taken by surprise but some of them managed to open fire (before it became too late), and kill some of the raging Chimpanzees...

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-But the Chimpanzees didn't care if they lost some fellow members of their group, and just kept storming into the ANC squad and entered hand-to-hand combat... 

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...and clashed into a brutal fight...

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...even if some of the soldiers managed to kill a couple of Chimpanzees in this nasty close combat...

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...they just didn't have a chance against the Chimpanzees. The rearmost soldiers tried to retreat when the rest of their squad was wiped out...

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...but the raging Chimpanzees were faster and kept following the retreating soldiers...

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...until the last man standing were surrendered and killed.

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Even if they lost about half their members, this was a victory for the apes as they managed to take out all the intruders of their territory. 

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When the remains of 'the lost patrol' was later found by others, it was clear that the casualties had injuries matching both Chimpanzee-attacks and spear injuries. The apes was gone for now, and so was some of the rifles from the eliminated ANC squad..... (did the Apes take them?)

When these observations was later reported perhaps that inspired Pierre Boulle to write 'La Plaète des singes', the book which the later films of 'Plante of the Apes' was based upon...

Conclusion

This scenario took just about 10 turns and 20-30 minutes to play, so I actually had time to play it 3 times. In a fight between someone with firearms and those without but having better close combat weapons, it's clear that those with firearms are only effective if they manage to keep their opponent at a distance for a time. In such a scenario the side with ranged weapons does not have a lot of time to use them and their advantages, before being in close combat, where other weapons are more effective.

Some updates on Thor Sheil's OMOG and OMOK rules

At the time it looks like the late Thor Sheil's  salvaged army men website are 'down' again, and so are the links to his free wargaing rules. I'm not sure if his website will be online again this time, so I'd thought I'd share some links where you can still find several of his free wargaming rules:

• At the Facebook-group 'Wargaming with Toy Soldiers and Army men - Everything Free Wargame-rules' I've uploaded a lot of free online wargame rules in the file section, including some of the rules earlier found on Thor Sheil's website.
• The Facebook-group 'Shambattle and OMOG Toysoldiers Games' are created by Thor Sheil himself and dedicated to his games. In the groups filesection many of his wargame rules are uploaded. This is an open Facebook group with few members, so in courtesy feel free to sign up as a member when using the rules.

If Thor Sheil's website doesn't return, I must consider to update this blog's link sections and replace inactive links to his rules with my own downloads. Updated: Already done thru Waybackmachine with those few URLs which were saved there. Too bad not all of them were.

A leaked battle report of a classified skirmish occurred during "Operation Highjump"

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Earlier this year I bought a lot of minitures, most of them being Airfix copies. As 'knock offs' they are smaller than their originals, but in this lot there was even some smaller figures closer to 40mm or 0-scale in model railway terms. These are notably smaller than the figures I usually use for (war-) gaming, and they were not so numerous in the lot I bought, so I decided to use these smaller figures for 'other small projects' not requiring a whole army.

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It has snowed heavily in Norway this winter and I've been running some military garden railways in the snow, so I'd thought I would try to do some casual wargaming in the garden in the snow too. There has been a lot of snow and very cold this winter so I thought I had plenty of time to arrange this game, but the last couple of weeks have been 'warmer' and rainy so the snow started to melt rapidly. So I had to speed up giving this priority over some other projects, and 3D-print the bits and pieces needed for this game as quick as possible in low resolution and without preferred finishing touches for a smoother surface on them except for some paint. I didn't know at the time that the winter returned with heavy snowfall and cold weather again. 

The 40mm-ish figures from the lot I'll use for this game are German and American infantry, and was given a simple paintjob.

I 3D-printed a couple of vehicles (so my miniatures can travel on snow) and a Bunker entrance to go along with the figures for this wargame.

The USMC reconnaissance team
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The Gebirgsjäger squad and their bunkers
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I've always had a soft spot for 1 BC (One Brain Cell) Toy Soldier Rules by Pete Kautz and it's been a while since I played them, so I decided to use them with the advanced options for a small skirmish only needing a few miniatures for a game that could be located in a cold, icey and snowy terrain. They are obvious popular rules and my blogpost on them are the second most viewed on this blog.

These are great rules, but some 'house rules' seemed necessary for this game. I know 1 BC Toy Soldier Rules doesn't include vehicles,  so I just treated mine as a 'unit' according to the rules, but with 3 times the move of a trooper. The vehicles act as a transport, cover and a 'stationary HMG'. These rules have no rules for SMGs so I gave them a firing-range between pistol and rifle, 16'', and letting them roll 2 dice.

The Scenario

I've placed this scenario to 1946 and "Operation Highjump", which was a major American exercise in (Ant-) Arctic warfare and establishment of the Antarctic research base 'Little America'. Conspiracy theories claims that it was an offensive operation to fight secret nazi bases established in the Antarctic at the very end of WW2.

During the operation a maritime reconnaissance plane observed some odd shapes on the ground deep inland Antarctica, but couldn't get a clear view of it. To further examine this strange observation, a Marine reconnaissance-patrol of 8 members are sent in with 2 M29 Weasels (one of them with a HMG) for closer observation and further investigation. They'll fight as 2 fireteams of 4 each (as a Weasel can only carry 4 persons).

The aerial photo which demands a cliser look
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When approaching their object, the Marine reconnaissance-patrol are unaware that they also enters the line of sight and fire-range from a hidden and dug-in German Gebirgsjäger squad from the Neuschwabenland Division, guarding the entrance to an underground facility. The German squad fight as 2 fireteams; a Rifleteam of 6 and LMG-team of 3. The German squad was based upon graphics from Battle Order (which is a good website for references when building your army squad by squad).

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The Game

The engine noise of the approaching M29 Weasels with the Marines gives away their position and alerted the German sentry in the else so quiet Antarctica, so the rest of the Gebirgsjäger squad on guard was scrambled into their fortified positions made by ice.

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When approaching the coordinates for their objective, the sergeant leading the reconnaissance patrol gets careful and orders the HMG armed Weasel to drive up and secure an ice pass in front of them...

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...When entering the ice pass the HMG armed Weasel are met by intense fire, and get pinned there as some Marines go down...

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...Luckily their HMG is still operative, so it starts to return fire and secure the second fireteam's advance into the ice pass.

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Even if they are under heavy fire, the Gebirgsjäger rifle team holds their battle stance, and even takes down a couple of more Marines. But they don't manage to take out the American HMG...

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...- Which starts to take a toll on the Gebirgsjägers. Fortifications made by (hard) ice can be effective, but the 12,7mm HMG effectively starts 'chewing up' the ice-cover piece by piece, taking out Gebirgsjägers...

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...- after Gebirgsjägers...

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The Gebirgsjäger rifle team has no support of their LMG team as the Marines are too far away for it to be effective. Soon the German rifle team has lost so many members that their morale finally fails. I know the the rules says that remaining miniatures should be removed from the game, but we're in middle of Antarctica and there are no places to escape. So I just make them retreat to their Bunker entrance, which would be a 'safe zone' for them. The other Marine team exploits the German retreat and pursues the retreating forces. This was not a tactical success for the Marines...

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...The German Feldwebel is the last one of his rifle team, and he just empty his magazine against those following Americans, killing one and dazed another.

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When the American corporal recovers again, he finish off the Feldwebel, But now he comes under fire from the German LMG team. The American HMG returns fire, but doesn't hit very well as the Germans are in a heavily fortified position.

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The USMC reconnaissance patrol are so reduced by this time, and their HMG has problem hitting the LMG team in the fortified position, so they decides to pull out...

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... - and report their observations to HQ, so they can send in 'the cavalry' next time. They had to leave one fully functional M29 Weasel behind to the Germans though.

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Conclusion 

I guess it was a partial victory for the Germans as they managed to defend their bunker entrance, and partially an American victory as they managed to return to their own lines and report about their observarions and small skirmish to their HQ. -Their report was never known to the public tough, and probably classified as a lot of other things about this operation. Probably the Americans returned with a larger force. Operation Highjump lasted for 6 mounths which is pretty long time for an exercise...

This little game was a quickie, just taking 45 minutes to play 10 turns. Keep in mind if you want to game outside in the snow, that it's wet and cold so:

• Seal your miniatures before bringing them out in such conditions.
• Have some sort of dice tray.
• Laminate your rules.
• Let your miniatures dry thoroughly before putting them back in storage.
• Remember warm clothing...
• ...and something hot in your cup (!)

Enjoy!

2023 - A brief sumary - 2024 Quo Vadis?

Well it's soon the end of the year and probably time to look back on the past year, and share some thoughts for following one.

This is not a big blog with a lot of blogposts or having a very large number of followers, but 2023 has been the most active year on this blog so far. Most of the readers are located in United States of America, followed by Singapore (!), followed by United kingdom. I'm not sure if there are so many actual readers from Singapore, or if it's some sort of web crawlers or search spiders located there??
Anyway, I appreciate all of you who are following it, reading it, and contributes with your comments. Especially thanks to all of you that have been promoting this blog and linking to it through your own blogs, Facebook pages or other websites. Even if my settings are set to be searchable by Google and search description added, I actually got few hits from Google (only 115 through whole 2023), and when I do it's usually just right after posting a new post. So, you're all responsible for this years growth of members and blogposts, which motivates me to follow up with more. - Thank you!!

2023 - Status

In 2023 I continued to review free downloadable wargame rules that can be played with ordinary Army Men, which I started to in 2022. It seems like 'Old school gaming' from for instance Donald Featherstone are more popular than other free rules reviewed in 2023. I've been playing a lot of the free rules I found and was personally keen to try out, and there are still some few free wargame rules I want to try out though.

During the year I developed my own 'home brewed wargame rules', Rules of Engagement, based on experience from these other free rules I've played so far. Even if I think they turned out to be playable and pretty good as I achieved a lot of my goals for it, I still thinks they need some further development. I also used a periodic version of these home brewed rules in combination with free paper miniatures for a prehistoric game.

This year I also reviewed a commercial wargame rule, Bolt Action, as I found a way to play it for free. I recognize a lot of game mechanics that can already be found in many of those free wargame rules already mentioned, but I liked the way Warlord Games have combined them in Bolt Action.

2023 was also the year I tried out to use AI for wargaming either to develop rules or using it as an AI-opponent. During the process I experienced that the use of AI in general is controversial, and there was obvious no exception among wargamers.

Some of the Free Wargame Rules I played in 2023

Summers in Norway are usually short with mostly nice weather, so during that time of year it's more tempting doing 'hobby stuff'outside. Since I'm into model railways as well, I finally got around to convert a LGB-starter set I've had for some while into a Narrow Gauge Military German Railway. Since it was a starter set there wasn't so many wagons to form a larger train, so I started up converting even more LGB-wagons I got cheap. Converting them and making credible loads for them took longer time that I've expected, and it kept me busy through the autumn and winter, and it looks like it will still keep me busy for a while. 

During a running-session in a friend's garden early this winter I had a derailment which sent my German military LGB-locomotive into the ground, smashing the front of it. Luckily I wasn't running my Live Steam Locomotive at the time. Anyhow, this made me use more of my precious modelling- and gaming time to re-construct and getting it back in running condition again. Now I probably got a feeling what it's like to be into RC planes...

I added some more details like building plates, a hatch and grille to it while it was in the workshop. 

This left me in a situation where I had less time for wargaming and writing battle reports of my games than I expected, and therefore less activity on my blog from late autumn. Until now recently when I've been doing some quick projects on winter and Christmas related modelling.

2024 - What to expect?

Because my military garden modelling and locomotive mishap seized most of my modelling time at the end of the year, it meant that there were a lot of my planned activity I didn't have time to do during 2023. So this gives a good starting point for 2024 though. I hope I'll manage to cover them all this time:

• I plan to play and review at least one more new free wargame rules which you can find online and play with ordinary Army Men. If you have any suggestions, please post them in the comment section below.
• Finish a G-scale rake of cars for my LGB Heeresfeldbahn.
• Last year I played one of the first conflicts in history, so in 2024  I plan to prepare some figures and play one of the most recents conflicts in history. 
• I plan to prepare some miniatures and play at least one game of 'Fantasy Scenario' or probably also a 'Wild West Scenario' or both.
• I plan to do another 'Print and Play for Free', but with another period and scenario this time.
• If I can find a budget way to do it, I'll play another commercial wargame.
• As summers are short and intense in Norway, I'll do some outdoor military modelling in 2024 as well. Perhaps make an UK-military rake for my Live Steam locomotive, or make my RC-boat look more 'Norwegian'.
• Complete another indoor model railway layout.

-Time will show! 

I hope all of you will keep following for updates through 2024 as well, and comment and share the blog's contents. I'm certainly looking forward to follow your activities in the coming year!

I wish you all the very best for 2024!!

Bolt Action

After posting the GhatGPT generated Tiny Troops; Fast and Furious Wargame Rules and the battle report after playing them, several have commented that the rules have similarities and references to the 'Bolt Action' rules. As I haven't played Bolt Action before I couldn't tell, but it made me curious about the Bolt Action rules. These are actually not another free wargame rules you can just download and play for free, and therefore actually not within my scope of this blog focusing on 'Budget Wargaming'. -But, can you make Bolt Action a budget Wargame and play 'Bolt Action' without having to buy the 'Bolt Action' rules? -Not by illegal copying or anything, but just by using information found in open and public sources?? 

I've found the rules summary for free online on several sites and combined with so many different 'how to play Bolt Action' videos found on YouTube I've decided to have a try to see if it provides enough information to play the commercial Bolt Action game by Warlord Games for free, and within my scope of 'budget wargaming'. The reference and rules summary can be found on Warlord's own site, and on the blog Jay's Wargaming Madness for even further details. For YouTube reference there are tons of 'how to videos' out there when it comes to BA. - I don't know if BA is considered to be a particularly difficult game to play since there are so many different 'how to play it videos' on YouTube? For this game I used the Bolt Action Basics playlist.

Since I don't have any Bolt Action items such as order dice or pin-markers, some kind improvisation was necessary. For pin-markers I used some 'fire markers' I initially made for 'Wargame in a Bag'. For order dice I considered just using ordinary D6 in 2 different colors in a bag, but decided to go fancy here and 3D-print some order-bullets I found for free at Thingiverse simply colored as 'Team Blue' and 'Team Red' (just like the oposing teams were marked during my own service). They're good for 3D-printing as they don't need to be balanced or anything (like throwing-dice). The bag to draw the order 'dice' from is actually the just the bag which came with my army men (never throw anything away!). For miniatures I just used regular 54mm army men.

As I was going to play this game SOLO I was curious if 'Bolt Action' had some Solo-mechanics. After searching Google I didn't find that Bolt Action had such, but there are others that has made mechanics to play it solo, so I chose some Bolt Action Solo Play Cards by Martin Otten. 

I had pretty high expectations to this game as there seems like a lot of gamers considers this as a kind of leading game and reference for easy and realistic tabletop wargame rulesets for miniatures and was eager to try them out. Perhaps it would be fair to play it with my earlier 'Battle of Lumbaya'-scenario, but a normal game of Bolt Action seems to be about only 6 to 7 turns, and that is too few for my previous 'Lumbaya-scenario', as it would almost just take that number of turns just to get all the units into positions. Besides, after about 16 games with the same scenario and setup I'm (more than) ready to play some new scenarios and setups. To have something to compare them with, I'll attempt to play the Bolt Action rules with the same scenario and setup as I did with 'The One Page Rules' and the ChatGPTs 'Tiny Troops: Fast and Furious Wargame rules':

The scenario

Bolt Action is a WWII game, but I've placed this skirmish some few years later than that, as most of the equipment used in my scenario were WWII-style anyway. I've placed this skirmish to the United Nations largest mission in both scale and operational scope during the Congo Crisis 1960-65, when UN troops 'peacekeeping' was actually more offensive 'peace enforcement'. I decided to play the UN and 'Team Blue' as I have a soft spot for the UN-troops as almost 1200 Norwegians participated in this mission. The Card-generated opponent played Katangese Gendarmerie and 'Team Red'.  

Situation:

Two UN vehicles from the UN base at Kamina were performing a reconnaissance mission on the roads  between Kamina and the city of Kolwezi. Outside Kambezi they came under heavy mortar shelling from Katangese forces and they were probably both hit as the UN HQ at Kamina cannot reach them by radio anymore. 

The UN HQ sends out search and rescue patrols to find the missing reconnaissance-unit, and it's expected that the roads in the area have taken damage and are impassable for other vehicles, and it's only reachable at foot.

The Katangese forces in the area are aware of the possible UN-wrecks and sends out patrols to find them, and to seize anything of value such as documents like the UN SOPs and codes for radio-communications.

Some houserules to this scenario seems to be required though; It takes 1 man 1 turn to search a vehicle, and it takes 1 man 1 turn to examine  a casualty. To check a casualty's condition, roll a D6, and if the roll is the same value or higher than the turn number for that turn, the casualty is alive and can be medivaced. Casualties can be medivaced at half speed. 

Forces:

• Katangese:
• 1 regular rifle-squad with 8 members, armed with 1 smg, 6 rifles (Mauser 98k) and 1 LMG (FN MAG)
• 1 inexperienced rifle-squad with 8 members, armed with 1 smg, 6 rifles (Mauser 98k) and 1 LMG (FN MAG)
• 1 regular rifle-squad with 8 members, armed with 1 smg, 5 rifles (Mauser 98k), 1 sniper rifle and 1 LMG (FN MAG)

• UN:
• 1 regular rifle-squad with 8 members, armed with 1 smg, 6 rifles (M1 Garand) and 1 LMG ( MG3)
• 1 regular rifle-squad with 8 members, armed with 1 smg, 6 rifles (M1 Garand) and 1 LMG (MG3)
• 1 regular rifle-squad with 8 members, armed with 1 smg, 5 rifles (M1 Garand), 1 bazooka and 1 LMG (MG3)

Regarding troop quality and morale Bolt Action differs between with inexperienced, regular and veterans. M1 rifles do not give a -1 penalty when fire on the move. The MG3 is a MG42 equivalent, and gains an extra dice for firing.

Mission:

• Katangese: To find the immobilized UN vehicles and search them for valuable things such as secret UN documents, orders, maps, SOPs and radio-codes 
• UN: To find the missing reconnaissance-patrol and save the members of the unit, and make sure no graded documents in the vehicles fall into the hands of the enemy.

AAR

Time:    1 hour and 50 minutes

Turns:   7

Result:  UN victory by eliminating 2 Katangese squads and capturing their order-dice, and successfully searched one vehicle and started a search into the second vehicle. None of the casualties could be saved unfortunately. 

As time was an important factor to save their comrades, the UN issued run orders to quickly get to their supporting positions and to the scene itself.

The Katangese Gendarmerie approached from the other side, but somewhat slower and safer as 'advance-card' was drawn for them

This made the UN the first to approach one of the vehicles, and they could also start to examine the casualties from it.

Trying to avoid the UN forces to succeed with searching the vehicle, an inexperienced katangese squad run for it and entered close quarter combat, killing a first responder and a casualty. Not very heroic.  They didn't know they were running right into a kill-zone, and a UN squad eliminated the whole Katangese squad.

After searching the rearmost vehicle where none of the casualties could be saved, the UN advanced towards the first vehicle and the casualties there, but were met by Katangese fire as they also had approached the first vehicle and started to search it.

The UN forces had to halt and exchange fire...

And perhaps the UN had better weapons, equipment and training, as the fire-fight was starting to take a toll on the Katangese Gendarmerie, which was downed due to several failed order-tests. Soon they lost another squad.

The UN squads exploited the Katangese passivity and approached the first vehicle and started to search it. It was obvious that the Katangese understood that they were now fighting for their lives so they opened fire again.

One of the UN squads failed an necessary order test and..... -FUBAR!

... -even if it looked like the UN had the upper hand in the battle, the squad panicked and start fleeing the battle...

As the end of turn 6, a roll was made for a turn 7 (on a 4+). Now the few remaining Katangese Gendarmes was outnumbered and outgunned, and it seemed like the fleeing UN-squad also was going to return to the battle again. None of the casualties by the first vehicle could be saved by this time, but the UN manged to search both the vehicles and seize the classified material there. 

Pros

• Easy to learn wargame rules on platoon level.
• I really like how units being fired at or charged immediately can react on the action taken against them by going down, or fire back at the charging unit unless they have already activated that turn. 
• Intentionally for 28mm figures, but works well for 54mm figures too. I've even read about people using these rules with 1:72 scale figures.

Cons

• Difficult to build armies with different qualities without the rule-book regarding their options and points. I just made 2 armies of the same size and quality, so they were balanced.
• I suppose veteran units have higher motivation than inexperienced ones, and therefore would be easier to activate first or earlier in a game. When activating in Bolt Action,  you don't get any benefits for trying to activate a higher leveled unit as far as I can see, as you just pull order-dice from the bag and activates randomly. Perhaps players with veteran units shoul be able to pull two dice from the bag, choose the best one of them and put the other back into the bag again?
• This con is not on the Bolt Action rules themselves, but on the Solo Play Cards. They don't include 'AMBUSH' action as an option on their cards. This makes the AI-player more likely to push his troops faster and deeper into combat, than perhaps would be in reasonable. In my game this resulted that a card-driven team did a very stupid move and just ran into the kill-zone. These solo cards will perhaps not work so well for scenarios where the card driven opponent are supposed to be defending.

Conclusion

Bolt Action by Warlord Games is not only the rules them self, but includes own dice, templates, miniatures and vehicle as well. In my local shop the order-dice is like $20 (!). As I have a 'budget-scope' on this blog towards wargaming, I thought I was going to conclude that I was not willing to start using $$ for a specific wargame system as there are so many free and really good wargame rules online. Famous last words. - After playing a game of Bolt Action by Warlord, I really liked these rules, and will probably play them again. The Bolt Action rules have much in common with and many of the same mechanics as with a lot a lot of the free wargame rules I have reviewed so far on this blog, but I liked the way the 'Bolt Action' have combined the different mechanics into their ruleset. Even if I plan to game it with other miniatures in other scales and perhaps 3D-print the necessary templates and so on, I do actually consider to buy a rulebook now...

If my 'budget approach' to Bolt Action are fair to the rules you buy in a rule-book, I let others who have actually played Bolt Action with licensed products to decide. I just wanted to see if it was possible to play Bolt Action without having to get the rule-book (or any other official Bolt Action items), and I have a feeling that with all information provided online about how to play Bolt Action it is actually possible to play a basic game of Bolt Action. If you want a more complex and detailed game with even more options, I think it would be easier to get a rule-book to find all the information in one place. If you're in a wargaming community and BA is one of their games, you'll probably going to need all the other official items as well. 

Feedbacks from gamers who have played Bolt Action is welcome.

Disclaimer: While working on this blogplost it's come to my knowledge that the Bolt Action rulebook are copied and uploaded and available for free online. I belive to upload a licensed product and download it again when you know it's copyrighted is probably illegal even if it's for your own use. Anyway it's highly unethical to do so. For this blogpost I've only used as initially stated the reference sheets by Warlord Games them self, supported by some of the endless videos on YouTube on how to play this game. Therefor I still considers to buy a copy of the rules when I can find a good offer for it.