Bolt Action

Now, in the last episode of Cast Dice, we talked with our good friend Scott over at Tired, Tired World Studio, uh, about the fantastic, uh, terrain he was doing for Trench Crusade.

And at the beginning of that episode, I mentioned not only were we talking to one of my favorite digital designers, Scott, but in an upcoming episode, this one, we would be talking to an old friend, uh, one that, uh, Bolt Action players would be well familiar with, uh, to talk about a local game design, um, that will be available for you now.

Um, now, if you are a Bolt Action player and you know Tough Gut or the Soft Underbelly books, those were written by, uh, an Aussie game writer for Warlord named, named Rob Villa, and he has been a mainstay in the Aussie Bolt Action community on and off for years.

And he is here today to talk about his new, totally his game system, uh, the Going the Distance: Boxing in the Golden Age.

Now, it is a time period and a sport that I am not unbelievably familiar with, but the man has a knowledge of this subject, and the game is absolutely phenomenal.

Mm-hmm

... similar ideas.

And I thought, "You know, you know what? Why don't I just go with this idea? Have a, uh, use this combat system to create a new game." Uh, like I wa- I was also h- thinking about designing another game, a war game, which is more along the lines of, you know, Bolt Action, what I've done in the past, uh, set in the Mediterranean-

You've done a lot of campaign books for board games for, uh, Wartell games, I believe.

The, the, the bolt action series.

Yeah.

With that in mind, well, I guess tell the listener a bit about you and how you got into the industry and what was the catalyst for you to start designing board games and everything.

I applied for it.

I wrote a few articles for them to show what I could do.

And I grabbed it and I wrote my first book, Bolt Action Campaign, D-Day Overlord, about the D-Day landings.

So it was a big 200-page book about D-Day landings, about one day.

It has.

The bolt action scene in Perth's been hopping, as they say, the cool kids say.

Yeah, it's been nuts.

Okay, so, yeah, thank you very much, everyone.

that is fair that is more than fair and that kind of brings us for our kind of you know news new rules minis hobby stuff section we really should work out some official names for these hey so the main topic of our discussion now this was raised with us way back in i don't know when was when was first skulls i think april

April, I'm pretty sure, yeah.

Right back with us in April by a friend of the show, Gilly, who is one of our, I'll say local in that he's a WA bolt action player, but he plays mostly down there.

in albany which is four hours south of us and uh he's a great friend of the show and he said to me and to you separately i think that we should yeah yeah on terrain and tables and building and designing tables now gilly has arguably the best selection of the best bolt action tables known to man uh yes

Yeah, I think I messaged you saying that I'd seen a Warlord Games community post, I think, where they'd highlighted an army and at the end of it it said, by Richard Gunson, and immediately twigged, and this was before I was working on the video, and I presume that was you.

yeah yeah i've done um i'm playing a lot of bolt action at the moment uh love painting the figures and i've had actually three three armies featured uh in the warlord socials i've got another one coming up actually that's i'll send that out for photography or pop it up for photography at some point um russian russian naval brigade very nice and very beardy

So

yeah, I do a bit of stuff and put it out through Warlord.

Well, I don't stand on ceremony, you know that.

No, I don't play anymore.

I got a little bit into doing a bit of bolt action a while back.

I struggle now with painting, to be honest.

X-Wing was a big one for you.

X-Wing, Infinity, Star Wars Living Card Game, Bolt Action, you name it.

I've been there, played it, done pretty well at it.

Yeah, I reckon there's a PhD in the transferable skills of tabletop gaming, right? Because yours is not an uncommon story of once you get good at a particular tabletop game, those skills and those thought processes are quite transferable.

Yeah.

I guess bolt action is a little bit.

Yeah.

Cause I haven't played bolt action, but I mean, wouldn't the, he said it and that's what I assumed is like, Oh, it's like bolt action.

Yeah.

You have like a vehicle and some dudes.

Historical gaming has always been like deep nerd.

Yeah, Skull is as big of an ever.

Now I would like to point out that often.

Uh, anti-tank grenades are considered to be maybe not always worth their cost in most in bolt action in general, but also in conflict 47 in general.

However, what if your entire army gets behind things?

Yeah.

I can hear some people saying, yeah, but if they rally, you know, so what? But then they rallied.

That's it.

As a forever long bolt action player, I am always, always happy when I make an enemy unit rally.

That means you're doing it right.

As with everything, it just depends on how you've written your list.

So similar to how we talk in Bolt Action about troops being inexperienced regular veteran, the Baron's War has a kind of similar thing.

But it adds in another status as well, which is green.

So it kind of goes green, irregular, regular veteran.