Bolt Action 15mm vs Chain of Command.

A few weeks at the club we had been chatting through the idea of using Bolt Action in 15mm, we were fortunate enough to have play tested the first edition years ago but found the ranges to be rather limiting and then along came Chain of Command and Bolt Action passed us by, however the recent games of Warlords of Erehwon and the dice mechanism gave us the nudge to try again.

Apologies if you already played these but I thought I would share a couple of observations.

My own collection of Late War Germans and Russians is a scratch force of heavy armour and regular infantry, perhaps slightly to much for Chain of Command game to put everything on the tablein an evening, which makes Bolt Action a better bet, although the force composition felt a little gamey, ok if you were in tournament play (although I am not a fan of blue on blue games). In club games I would want a little more armour so will probably scrape the force composition to give players a wider choice of units... That should be fine as most club members are definitely not fans of wall to wall Tigers.... or super units designed to sweep all before them.

I liked the fact that you can bring Artillery observers etc on to the table it gave the feeling of a bigger scale and the expanded rules for officers to activate more than one subordinate unit in a coordinated fashion was good although it makes them a target for snipers which felt pretty good as well.

My sniper received a lot of attention after pinning a rifle section, the ranging shot for the arty was enough for me to think about bugging out. The pin markers can be a real nusicence when you fail your command rules.

The mix of arms and armour worked well together, the JS2 should have performed better but got caught in the flank by a dug in AT gun. Not the beast I thought it was and proof that the curse of unpainted armour does not fade with time, I painted this 5 years ago and this was it's first outing.

I liked to the hand to hand combat and assault on buildings the defenders get to fire trying to stop the attack and the loser of the assault is simply taken off the table, it looked better in 15mm where we hand more bodies on the table, it would have felt a little cluttered in 28mm for me. Another plus for switching to 15mm.

I may well invest in a couple of the campaign booklets to give me some expanded late war options the Maus has still yet to get on the table. The scenario's in the book were quite generic, some of the CoC booklets would be an easy conversion.

In summery Bolt Action felt pretty good in 15mm with the ranges unaltered, MMG's kept the Russians at bay until their force of numbers finally overwhelmed the defneders.

A lighter experience than Chain of Command, which still gives a very good historical feel, but you can lose the game before you have started with the deployment phase and CoC dice. Whilst I am sure historically accurate it can make veteran players beat novices very easily due to a deeper understanding of the rules. 

For club nights I shall definitely be trying these again.