I'm sure this is a common question. But is there or has the been issues with people let's say getting too into their armies? Particularly worried about Nazi armies as neo Nazis pop up in other non historical wargames pretty frequently already and I'm really not comfortable brushing shoulders with that type of person

Howdy, everyone 👋

I'm a new wargamer. I've played all kinds of war games on computer for years, and in the last year have gotten into Age of Sigmar.

I spotted K47 online, and loving the look and seeing a "new release", I bought the starter set.

I then went online to find resources, and found the official forum locked, the dedicated subreddit dead, and virtually zero online discussion about the game.

Did I just buy a game that's DOA?

EDIT: Thanks you all! This is awesome to hear!

One last question. Why this new re-release and push? Has the game done well the last 10 years?

Am I the only person thinking this way?

A Churchill tank is 10 ft 8 inches (128 inches) wide. The tank is 2 inches wide exactly, making it 1/64, despite literally saying on the box it’s 1/56

I got the bolt action starter set awhile ago and i still dont have a rule book so i cant play yet i was gonna get the US handbook that shows points and all for them but idk what to do with the germans but i was wondering if i could use them as americans

A Russian Tram by Warbases

I just have an issue with a couple of tanks. Sure they were "made" but some of them were never deployed or were only deployed in very small numbers. I don't even have a problem with that. What I have a problem with are the Dakka tanks. The reason they weren't adopted was because most of them were failures. They are just a gimmick in the game to get extra MG shots.

Then you have the older infantry tanks like the Matilda. It is a pathetic infantry support tank. The main reason is the nerfing of the tank mounted machine guns.

Why don't they just fix turret mounted machine guns? Give them some extra shots, keep the hull and pintle mounted machine guns the same, and just abolish those stupid Dakka tanks?

(Yes I know this is fantasy WW2, but sometimes the lack of historical accuracy drives me crazy). 🤣

Hi! I am a Warhammer Fantasy player who is interested in trying out bolt action. I like the rules and the fact that it doesn't cost a fortune to start with. I just always had a bad feeling about playing in a WW2 setting. In WHFB everything is fictional, lore is sometimes very brutal but happens in an fictional universe. With bolt action I would play a setting in where my ancestors died or got traumatized a long time ago, somehow it feels wrong. Also I can't imagine having troops of the Waffen SS displayed in my showcase. I know this is strange thinking as its just a game with plastic soldiers but how did you get past these feelings or is bolt action not for me? Thanks!

So the one thing I HATE about this game is that some vehicles are IN THE GAME, that weren't actually used That feels like playing War Thunder to me, another "fantasy" historical game. To me the Grant/Lee is one of the best tanks in its era, better than the Sherman "IN GAME", but in reality the Sherman was better because it was easier to hide and could take advantage of hull down positions.

In reality and in some online games, the Grant/Lee is awful. I would say that they should not benefit from certain kinds of cover due to their HUGE size. Any place where there were enemy tanks they were a failure and for good reason.

Just like there was a reason why there was no "Dakka" Stuart. You needed the drive the tank to not get you killed, versus trying to aim some stupid machine guns.

Open for some commission slots, if anyone has anything they want painted up in time for Christmas feel free to send me DM or

Email - [email protected]

Happy to paint all types of miniatures, mainly 28mm, but I have done some 15mm and also 32mm

Rough prices for painting below:

28mm infantry £8/£9

Cavalry £14

Bolt action scale vehicles - £30/£35

Prices may vary depending on selected paint scheme.

Based in UK if you need to send models back and forth.

Best place to see previous work is on my Facebook page and going to photos -

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100090652894162

I've found a lot of issues with the quality of the models, to the point of where I wonder if Warlord Games even cares about us as PAYING customers...

From torn mould undercuts which has fed far too much material into the detail which ruins the models, to ridiculously bad mould slips, to resin that hasn't been fully mixed, to so much plastic flashing which has led me to pretty much resculpt parts of the models myself.

The only models that I've found good aren't even made by them, which are the tanks by Italeri.

Are you guys as disappointed as I am?

The new bikes, which are supposedly for Early War, with a Feldmütze 43 and a Panzerfaust. And the Panzer 2, where the barrel looks like it belongs on a 15mm tank.

And then there are the prices? Why didn't they make a bike squad with ten soldiers?
Maybe you guys see it differently. Let me know what you think.

I found this website that has done a summary of the new changes to bolt action and while a lot of it seems cool it also seems like they have made a lot of the rules really similar and in general more boring such as:

Germans getting +1 shot with mgs, the US gets +1 shot with groups of rifles in all scenarios, British get +1 shot with rifles in some scenarios with groups of rifles.

or Russians getting to do a bonus morale test if an enemy is within 12in and on a +4 losing a pin marker for inexperienced and British getting to do a bonus morale test if an enemy is within 12in and on a +4 losing a pin marker but only for vets and reg

or British and Japanese getting to " If the unit is ordered to assault and fails its Order Test to Run, measure the range to the target, if the unit is in range, you can re-roll the failed Order Test to assault."

I don't know if this is just because I haven't played other nations but Germany, Finland and the USA in 2nd edition but this seems really lame and dull. I'm not sure if I'm just bitter they have massacred my precious fire and maneuver and nerfed BARs or if all the national traits are just way less interesting in an attempt to balance the game in which case I'm not sure how good a job they did as they ruined pistols, made panzerfausts way way to expensive to use and make flamethrowers, an already risky and clunky choice, to a still clunky but now almost useless choice.

Again I might just be bitter about fire and maneuver and they have fixed some things like buffing heavy machine guns and making snipers less broken but the game seems to have sacrificed a lot of character in an attempt at balance and making the game more like rock paper scissors. Here is the website I used if you want to read yourself: https://chicagodice.org/2024/08/23/bolt-action-third-edition-changes/

Hello! I recently purchased a bunch of Bolt Action minis to convert them to 40k imperial guard. The German Veterans and the Winter American Infantry.

I was very pleasantly surprised to see how amazing the minis are and that it's the painters from warlord games that make them look mediocre. So i decided I'll be trying to make a ww2 skirmish force (don't know yet the ruleset I'll be using).

My wife is not very interested in the hobby unless she's playing/painting with me and she's only playing female models so I'm here asking if anybody knows of any plastic female models to get (either soldiers or partisans). I love building and converting so that's why I want plastic, but if I can't find I can get some stls to 3d print or resin.

Thanks a lot.

Hi guys. Seeing how Warlord decided to double down on the literal Nazi propaganda with the faction rules for the Soviets, I am not sure what to do with building a list.

What should I focus on to avoid playing the horde of inexperienced infantry led by commissars and still win games?

Most tabletop wargames take place in fantastical settings, like the far future of the 41st Millenium, the battlefields outside Altdorf, the winding mountain passes of Mordor and the unique fruits of millions of people and their imaginations. Some take place in historical scenarios so far removed from our own time that they are, effectively, another world - who today could even draw a connection to the battles of Crecy and Manzikert? Can any of us point to the battle at the Horns of Hattin and claim 'ah-hah, this is an injustice today!' These scenarios are fun to play in, and relatively guilt-free, whether we're interested in seriously exploring their historical basis, or simply rolling dice and charging tiny soldiers around miniature battlefields.

More recent conflicts do not have this luxury. World war two was a Hollywood staple for decades, telling simple stories of make-do-and-mend British heroism on a shoestring budget, or good ol' American GIs killing nazzies and getting home in time for medals and a bright future. When we restrict ourselves to these narratives, we can disengage our brains, and have good fun, but there is one problem - the other side. To tell these stories, someone has to portray the bad guys, and while there are grades within these factions - the Italian army has gotten off relatively lightly in the court of pop-history - we are, ultimately, likely to play some deeply evil roles in our games.

The melodrama of the moustache-twirling Nazis harkens back to the 1970s campy action films Bolt Action pays homage to - it is not a serious wargame, but a beer and pretzels, derring-do, can our brave heroes overcome this week's villain? Tune in to find out! sort of game, where at the end of the evening we can put our action men back into their box and not give it any further thought. This is fun, and plays into the sort of spirit Rick Priestly and Alessio Cavatore wanted to inject into the game. It's not really the second world war, and none of the game is real, so why worry about it?

The problem is threefold.

1. These conflicts did happen. Many millions of men, women and children died as a result of Axis victories and, even though it's uncomfortable to think about it, Allied victories as well. It's comforting to think of Cliff Robertson in 633 Squadron pulling off a heroic mission against the odds to blow up a Nazi dam, but the actual bombing missions which helped to end the war early did so by vaporising, burning, and otherwise killing thousands of people who were not to blame for the events leading up to their demise. The Aegean islands are replete with graves and crosses to mark some of the most brutal occupation of a conquered land in history. Eastern Europe, today, has still not recovered from the awful nature of the conflict, and we live in the shadow of the way the war ended. Does reducing it to a game of dice and figures risk cheapening these historical facts?

2. Wargaming has a small, but notorious problem with people who either lack the emotional intelligence to understand the weight of their actions, or people who simply don't care - the person who includes a swastika in their Imperial Guard uniform, who unironically parrots Stalinist slogans, and wears the affectations of these awful regimes as a convenient mask, which can be easily picked up and put back down. While some of these may just be crass jokes that miss the mark, does allowing this kind of behaviour give the rare, genuine fascist, racist and so on a pass?

3. Someone has to play the bad guys - in a war with as much patent evil on display as that which Bolt Action depicts, this is inevitable. As a hobbyist, I like to dig into the history of my miniatures as much as I can - what colours did the Knights of Antioch wear in battle? What was the composition of the Ordonnance armies of the 15th century? What hats did the 515th Infanterie-Division wear? I certainly wouldn't begrudge anyone fostering an interest in history, but when we're using that interest to create a physical representation of the people involved, is there a question to be asked? Is it possible to go too far in presenting a facsimile of an organisation which, at the very edges of living memory, was engaged in industrial mass-murder? Five years ago I know I would have said this was a ridiculous argument, and perhaps it is, but the older I get the more I understand this perspective, even if I may not totally agree with it.

All of this came to me while I was scrolling through the Wikipedia history of the 13.Waffen SS Handschar division, a division of Muslim Croats raised by the Waffen-SS as a way to, in the warped worldview of the Nazi leadership, weaponise Islam. To quote Himmler, “I must say, I don’t have anything against Islam because it educates men in this division for me and promises them paradise when they have fought and been killed in battle. A practical and attractive religion for soldiers!” Apart from being a fatally narrow view both of Islam and of the adherents he was recruiting into his army, this makes me uncomfortable for another reason. I originally thought the unit might be fun as a way to have Waffen SS-soldiers in fezzes, which was to me a fun, silly image of such cartoonish evil that surely nobody could take it seriously.

Except, of course, they did. The Nazi war machine deliberately recruited anyone they thought would fight their enemies, with surprisingly little objection late in the war as to which peoples were 'right' in their racial worldview. By choosing a project based on a very surface-level 'isn't this quirky' attitude, am I unintentionally crossing a line? I'm certainly not planning on sending tiny plastic men 28mm in height to burn down villages in the Balkans, but where does the line between historical curiosity and glorification sit? Absolutely nobody in their right mind would describe the men in the Handschar as nice - but is creating their miniature avatars really too much? A younger me would have laughed at the prospect of being concerned by this - how can a little plastic man hurt anyone's feelings? The more I mature (or so I hope), the more the real crimes these figures represent hit home. In some ways, the catastrophic Yugoslav wars were a continuation of the same kind of racial-ethic-religious violence that these quaint Nazis in Fezzes committed. When the time between historical atrocity and the present day is less than half a human lifespan, suddenly there's a new colour to the whole picture.

I don't usually spend this much time thinking about what is, in the end, a game of toy soldiers. Wargames would be very dull if we all agreed to play peaceful, non-controversial hippies in every army, but I think it's worth occasionally thinking about the deeper aspects of these games we play. I will probably still build this Handschar force, and enjoy playing with them, and I'm sure most of the people I play with won't think anything of them beyond 'these are my dudes, and those are your dudes, and I must triumph over them', but having written this little essay and given the question proper thought, I think I'll appreciate the game in a different light. I hope to win on the tabletop - but for all our sakes, I'm thoroughly glad they lost.

Thank you for reading this. I hope you'll take the time to comment, if this has stirred any thoughts of your own.

Both T-34/ 76 and 85 should get the fast rule, as they have a top speed of 55km. Also the 76mm version should get the 2inch template upgrade (same as the KV-1) as the 76mm is the F-34 which is basically the tank version of the ZIS-3 used on SU-76. At the least both guns used the same ammunition.

I’m thinking of painting my Germans a non traditional color scheme. What’s the general feeling on this? Would people get weird about it or do you think it’s no big deal?

I play several war games and my wife wants me to paint up a pink themed army. I’ve been putting it off but Pink Grenadiers seemed fun.

I have borrowed my friend's Americans and I REALLY struggle with them. Some of it is lack of selection of models since they are not my own, but I really see nothing special about Americans. The new book seems like just more of the same.

However, if it is possible I feel the British are worse than Americans! Their only really cool rule is the Forward Observer rule. I am building a British list because someone gave me the models and I have a 3D printer to supplement them for more choices. Hopefully the new book will help, but I'm guessing it will be more of the same, like the American book.

Discuss

Coming from 40k, played some test games with my friends and decided I like the game, so I was deciding between the Americans (I usually play them in everything) and the Russians (been getting in to them more recently)

but this stater pack was just too good so I went with them (image 2),

(had to also pay $26.29 shipping, total $162.67) but still the absolute cheapest I've seen it, even compered to amazon

also what are your thoughts on this old Tank stater kit I found on amazon, 3 T-34/85s and 3 IS-2s (only problem is its in French) but looks like an amazing deal (image 3)

Anyone who has played the Soviets, please do tell,

is this the makings of a fun and relatively good army?

includes

• 42 Infantry (have no idea what the options are for teams e,g. rifleman, anti-tank gun, sniper, SMG, LMG)

• Two Medium Machine Gun Teams

• One Medium Mortar Team

• One Platoon Commander

• One plastic T34/85 Medium Tank (or the flamethrower variant)

• One plastic Katyusha Multiple Rocket Launcher

• One metal ZiS-3 76mm Divisional Gun

• Includes plastic bases, decals, and vehicle damage markers

I know what weapons roughly do what from a history perspective but Not really sure what options I should be picking gameplay wise as I don't have any of the main rulebooks yet (just a quick start tutorial PDF)

any help from experienced players would be appreciated

anyway I'm sure Mother Russia will be proud! (Image 4 is just a joke don't come after me lol)