George

hopefully soon!

Nothing in the rules say that they are forced to dismount, unlike say motorcycles, if in combat.

So they would stay on horseback, and therefore keep tough fighters (as that is part of cavalry being mounted)

You can balance them without any rules changes at all:

Reduce their cost by 10 points.

No reduction for those mounted on vehicles (who really shouldn’t be so effective firing through slits or on the move

I would use them as a marker for when your mounted infantry are on foot.

I *think* theres more detailed rules in the ‘glory, hallelujah’ book…. but as I dont have it cant say for certain.

So … a spotter costs 10 points reg or 13 points vet irrespective of the weapon they are purchased with.

For a model that cant take objectives, cant man a weapon on a transport, cant shoot, cant initiate an assault … all it can do is stop the weapon team firing or moving to move themselves & give line of sight to a specific weapon team while…[Read more]

Ok a couple of other points (its hard to follow a wall of text)

Theres no rules stopping you from targeting the spotter … except most of the time they are at a -3 mod… which is understandable as its one guy trying very hard not to be seen :p
Nor is there any rules saying you cant charge the spotter (but there is the otherway round).. I’ve…[Read more]

please dont take this the wrong way…. but you are falling in to a common pit-fall… (took me a couple of years, and playing around with house rules /interpretations for VaS to realise it )

Bolt Action is not a historical simulation game but a beer & pretzel game based on the Hollywood vision of ww2.  What this means is that some things make…[Read more]

nope… spotters are their own unit with the following exceptions

they dont generate a order die – they have to BORROW the weapon teams order die to act… this is why they are removed when the weapon team is..
they always count has being down, unless they have the borrowed order die next to them
the weapon team with which they are purchased can…[Read more]

As far as I can tell, the cost of a M/C + sidecar is covered in the cost of upgrading to motorbikes

IE you can put 10 guys on 5 motorbikes or 5 with 5 sidecars or 10 motorbikes… its all the same cost.

So … when you form square you are limited to 1 dice of shooting per face as a standard rule
first fire – the first time this unit fires it adds one extra die.  If it can split fire, either by being in a building or in a square then it adds that 1 dice to 1 of those attacks

So even if the British player doesnt want to use 2 dice from a square…[Read more]

vets get pinned when hit by small arms out side of vehicles… pinning also means troops keeping their head down which your’d do even in a half track…. I see no reason why the experiance of troops should alter if they get pins

tweak #1 – by soft targets you mean softskins, infantry & artillery?
tweak #2 – hmm…. would that count as a different ammo type for when going in to ambush?  or is it mandatory?

LMGs – as you say… appear a lot… so wouldnt touch at this time

Vehicle MGs – is this a blanket all none pintel LMGs, MMGs & HMGs apply an extra -1 mod on all…[Read more]

… hmm…. keep the automatic pins for any transported unit, but the vehicles themselves give them a roll to immediately rally (shrug off) the pin.  vets 3+, regular 4+, inexperienced 5+

This keeps it roughly the same but you wont see all the transports suddenly become vets to protect the guys inside…..

The main problem is that the gamer has a composition option at all. So the math wizards are building unhistorical monster units.

In German army the LMG was the last weapon to drop. Every soldier was trained to serve it and most units collected more in battle. Not just the German ones but also British or Soviet. Esp. in the defensive fights of…[Read more]

Yes, it is a very open to interpretation when they do not provided a list of option. Taking it to silly extremes, you could model a Russian sniper team with captured Panzerfausts or Assault Rifles, which might win you games but no friend :p

Not for infantry… to be honest I thought they were the company insignia for the turn backs on the tunics…. <shrugs>

As the rules say – being dug in gives no intrinsic benefit to assaults,  what you are talking about with sandbag walls is all ready covered by the core rules of obstacles soft /hard cover.

There is nothing stopping you putting the initial foxholes immediately behind a brick wall (hard cover obstacle).

1st question is – which campaign book are you reading?

However my read of the Dig In rules from ‘Duel in the Sun’:

Where Scenarios allow it units can begin a game Dug in.  Units deploy as normal but must be marked as locations can be re-occupied by other units later in game.

Use – Units count as being DOWN when shot at unless they have an AD…[Read more]

You have a truck + 3 teams = 4 dice in the bag for units waiting to be deployed.

When you pull a die to deploy you can choose what unit to deploy – until this point the unit is NOT in the truck, it is separate deployment… So yes, you can deploy a team into the truck when the truck is still waiting to be deployed….

You may see that you dont…[Read more]

Transport units are a unit and therefore ALL the normal deployment rules apply.

– So yes they can be deployed either on the table or in Reserve as you see fit.
-They provide an order die… the only die NOT placed in the bag for deploying are those that have forward deployment so they must be placed in the bag….

when you say they cant do…[Read more]