Bolt Action 3rd Edition is the newest version of Warlord Games flagship wargame. For those who don’t know, Bolt Action is a 28mm platoon/company-sized World War II wargame. From the early days of the blitzkrieg, to the final days of war, practically every army and campaign imaginable is gameable with this ruleset. Warlord Games offers a fairly comprehensive line of official miniatures for most of the major players in the war – or players can opt to use miniatures from any other 28mm WW2 manufacturer.
In terms of realism, Bolt Action is firmly in the Hollywood action camp, rather than attempting to provide a serious historical simulation. This makes Bolt Action (BA) a solid beer-and-pretzels type game that one can easily finish in three hours or so.
Since it’s release in September 2024, I’ve been playing 3rd Edition incessantly, not just for the sake of this review, but because Bolt Action is one of my favorite wargames. I’ve been playing it since 1st Edition, which is about a decade at this point. With a respectable number of 3rd edition games under my belt, I now feel qualified to state my opinion on it.
Now, for my review – I’ve divided things into three main categories (Balance, Fun, and Support) where I’ll address how well Bolt Action 3rd Edition fares in each aspect. For more coverage of BA, please check out our ratings of every change: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.
Balance
In the runup to 3rd Edition, Goonhammer predicted a relatively conservative slate of changes, focused on addressing balance issues in 2nd Edition. Instead, Warlord Games delivered a far more ambitious overhaul of the game – completely redesigning the army building system, scenarios, shooting, and assault phases – along with a sweeping pass for clarity and simplification.
The end result, in terms of balance, is definitely two steps forward, one step back. Some of the most obvious balance issues have been dealt with (snipers can no longer destroy entire weapon teams with a single shot, for instance) however other imbalances have gone unaddressed in the enthusiasm to revamp game systems. Smoke continues to be totally unusable. Except for panzerfausts or bazooka-armed troops, infantry remain largely unable to deal with tanks, even at close range. Nebelwerfers are still annoying.
On top of that, some of the changes in 3rd edition eliminate one balance issue, but introduce another. In 2nd edition, tanks laden with machine guns were ahistorically dangerous, gunning down infantry by the score. Now they can be frustratingly ineffective, leading to bizarre situations at times where neither infantry or tanks can really damage the other. At one point I had a Matilda tank tailgating a bunch of Japanese infantry, pathetically plinking away at them while the Japanese infantry went about their business, barely inconvenienced by the tank on their heels.
However, in some ways, the change of focus from a platoon to company-based game ameliorates some of these balance issues. When a certain unit is underpowered, it’s less impactful when it’s one of twenty units in your list, rather than one of ten. Furthermore, the increased freedom in list building provided by the new army building system allows both more options for countering strong enemy units and finding a use for suboptimal choices in your list. Previously, using your one and only artillery slot on a light anti-tank gun, for example, might have been a game-losing decision. In 3rd Edition, however, it can just be one of a whole battery of artillery pieces.
Of course, in competitive play we’re likely to see players spamming ridiculous amounts of the most effective units, but luckily most casual players are unlikely to face many opponents determined to field a half dozen nebelwerfers. All this isn’t to say, though, that Bolt Action is a wildly unbalanced ruleset. There are certainly some issues, but for casual players, most of these may go unnoticed or provide, at worst, a minor distraction from the game.
Fun
Of course, the main reasons we engage in this hobby is to have fun. Bolt Action has long been my favorite ruleset because I have more fun playing it than any others. Well, I’m happy to report that BA 3rd Edition remains a blast to play, and in some respects, is even more entertaining than ever.
List building, in particular, has taken a real step up – with the new platoon system unlocking a lot of interesting pre-game decision-making. In previous editions, list-building was much more restrictive. You took the required infantry platoon and could generally only select a very limited amount of artillery, machine guns, and tanks. 3rd Edition really unlocks a ton of new options by letting players select from six different platoons for their force (infantry, engineers, heavy weapons, artillery, recce, and tank). A typical 1000pt list will have around three platoons, which opens up a ton of possibilities.
In a recent game, I went heavy on infantry, while my opponent loaded up on tanks and artillery. These kinds of matchups wouldn’t have been possible in the previous edition outside of a few special scenarios. Overall, players have much more freedom to take their favorite toys and experiment with new list combos rather than the prescriptive approach of 2nd Edition where every list was a reinforced infantry platoon with a limited selection of add-ons.
3rd Edition has also seen a general tightening of the ruleset. Warlord has done a comprehensive editing pass of the core rules (which we reviewed in detail in a three-part article: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3). Here they’ve mostly succeeded in replacing, rewording, or removing a number of clunky, unclear, and odd rules.
Of course, Bolt Action’s signature mechanic – the Order Dice system – remains front and center in 3rd edition. In BA, each unit receives an order dice colored to your nation, which goes into a bag at the beginning of each turn. During the turn, dice are pulled from the bag one at a time, with the color indicating which player can activate a unit, using one of six actions (helpfully engraved on the side of the order dice). This simple, but powerful mechanic adds a whole new layer of strategy to the game as the odds change with each dice pull and players must make hard decisions about which order to activate their units – not knowing when exactly they’ll receive their next order dice.
For wargamers accustomed to IGOUGO systems, experiencing BA’s semi-random order dice activation system can be an absolute revelation. Oh, you mean wargames don’t HAVE to involve one player sitting idle for long stretches while their opponent activates their entire force? Instead we can use a system where at any moment you can get a dice for your faction and activate a unit – reacting to your opponents moves and temporarily taking the initiative?
Honestly, it’s hard to go back to other activation systems after playing BA. There is a reason that a large number of fan-made supplements importing BA rules to other historical eras are floating around out there.
Overall, BA is just a plain ol’ good time. It’s a ruleset that carefully balances history and enjoyment, is quick to learn, and mostly stays out of it’s own way – with a limited amount of charts and other rules that need to be checked during play. This leaves room for the more important stuff: going pew pew with toy soldiers.
Support
Bolt Action is Warlord’s flagship game, and it really shows in the level of support it receives. 2nd Edition received over a dozen expansions and hundreds of plastic, metal, and resin kits. For 3rd Edition, Warlord is promising an army book release every quarter along with new kits – starting with Germany in Q1 2025. This does mean that anyone investing in Bolt Action can rest assured that there will be ample support in terms of kits and rulebooks for years to come. On the other hand, it does mean quite a long wait for some armies to get an official rulebook for their nation.
As of December 2024, all that major nations (and most of the minors) have temporary army lists, either in the rule book, or on a free downloadable PDF from Warlord’s website. These lists and rules are rather limited, although they are generally complete enough to play in the meantime. It does mean, however, that as the official army books release over the next two years that there will be a definite divide in terms of support between armies with full official rules, and those that only have the temporary free rules.
For players of minor nations like Italy, France, and Hungary, this means being stuck with “get you by” rules for 18 months while everyone else gets all their toys to play with. In some ways the situation reminds me of when a long-awaited sequel to a video game with a ton of DLC comes out. Checking out all the new features and technical improvements is nice, but the amount of content is just not as robust as the previous game, understandably, since it hasn’t had years of updates tacked onto it yet.
In time, of course, this will be less of an issue. In two years, every nation should have rules, and who knows what other supplements and add-ons will be in the pipeline.
Conclusion
To wrap things up, should you buy Bolt Action 3rd Edition? Unequivocally, yes. For new players, there has never been a better time to jump into the game. Instead of facing an entire pantheon of supplements, add-ons, and army books there is only one thing you need for 3rd Edition – the core rulebook. The game is easier to learn than ever, and a ton of fun. In particular, if you are a Warhammer 40k player who has any interest in WW2 – I highly recommend you check this game out. It’s close enough in mechanics that it wouldn’t feel totally unfamiliar, but really offers an improvement in so many ways (not the least of which is that Warlord Games is nowhere near as comically nefarious as Games Workshop).
For veteran BA players, 3rd Edition is a little more of a mixed bag. Some of the old bugbears didn’t get addressed, a few new ones have popped up, and the total amount of content isn’t quite as great as 2nd edition – but in time I think this ruleset is shaping up to be better than ever. It’s still just as much fun to play, and adds some very welcome variety to army building, and, as a result, the gameplay experience.
Really though, if you have any interest in WW2 at all, you should check out Bolt Action. The new edition has brought a ton of interest and I’m seeing demo games, new players, and increased activity all over the place. While it’s not perfect, I still think it’s the best WW2 wargame out there – and yes, that includes Chain of Command.
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