During each turn, order dice are drawn ‘blind’ from the dice bag one at a time. When a player’s order die is drawn he must use it to activate a unit. Once all the dice have been drawn, or once all the units capable of acting on orders have done so, the turn ends. At the end of each turn the dice are returned to the dice bag ready for the next turn, except for Ambush and Down orders which can alternatively be retained from turn to turn as explained below.
Before the game begins the players must each place an appropriate number of order dice in the dice bag. This is one die for every unit in their force, including for units that begin the game in reserve as described later. For example, if a force of 12 German (blue) units is facing a force of 16 American (green) units, then the bag starts off with 12 blue order dice and 16 green order dice. Should you be using some other tokens rather than order dice then you would have 12 blue tiddlywinks and 16 green tiddlywinks, or blue and green card chits, or whatever.
Bolt Action is played in turns. A battle normally lasts for a set number of turns as discussed later. In each turn the players follow the sequence as shown below. For the sake of explanation, from this point we shall assume that players are using order dice rather than chits or other tokens, but the process is basically the same whichever method is employed.
1. Draw an order die from the dice bag and hand it to the appropriate player.
2. The player chooses one of his units and gives it an order. Place the order die next to the unit to show that it has received an order. Once a unit has been given an order it cannot be given another order that turn.
3. If necessary, the player takes an order test to determine if the unit follows the order.
4. The player executes the unit’s resulting action.
5. Back to 1. Once all eligible units have received an order, the orders phase ends – move to the turn end phase.
Return all order dice to the bag, except for those units wishing to retain an Ambush or Down order as noted later.
Units that are destroyed during the turn lose their order dice. If a destroyed unit has already taken its action remove the order die placed next to it. If a destroyed unit has not already taken its action remove a die from the dice bag. Order dice lost as a result of units being destroyed are removed from play and placed aside where both players can see them. When units are lost this therefore reduces the number of dice available for the following turn.
Avanti! Mussolini’s soldiers advance in North Africa
