Now that 3d edition is out, the local BA Group is quite energized and has started a month long ladder tournament using the new rules.
Personally, I prefer thematic play to competitive as I like to explore recreations of historical events to the sweaty "gotta win! Follow the meta" vibe present in competitive play. Having said that, I decided to participate because I figured, with a brand new ruleset, there'd be no meta yet. (Turns out I was wrong. Partisans are already the flavour of the month and 1/3rd of our 36 players are running them).
I haven't bought the 3rd ed rules yet, so I went in relying on others to walk me through them.
Gotta say, so far, I'm not a fan of most of the changes. Some of the new armour rules add a bit more chrome, but it doesn't solve the problem of heavy tanks feeling very underwhelming. Each match only lasts 6 rounds. Heavy tanks are slow, only fire once per turn and only get a single d6 for the main gun as opposed to the bucket of dice that MGs and 20mm ACs get so in most matches, they'll likely get 3-4 shots off max. With only a single d6, hits are far too swing and luck based.
Anyway, I'm really not a fan of the weaker pinning rules, the faster rallies, and the switch to the roll-for-save system for infantry now. This feels like a clone of 40K now (1940K?) and I find all the extra dice rolling now required actually slows play down, not speeds it up. Roll a bucket of dice to hit. Roll a second bucket for effect. Wait for rhe other player to roll a bucket of dice for saves. It feels like a lot of pointless busy work that slows down the pace.
Speaking of pace the new force building system uses 1250 pts instead of 1000 as the standard and we're finding the average number of activation dice is about 14-16 per side now. That really makes the turn times kinda drag, imo. Our first 3 matches all took about 3-4 hours each.
I think I'll avoid 3rd ed and stick with 2nd or just do Chain of Command instead
Topic: Bolt Action (Read 10541 times)