The Bolt out of the Blue 10.0 Beta

[Green]

You may want to add to the Bolt 10.0 Changelog what the recommended Optional Rules are for Bolt 10.0.  It can be confusing knowing whether the recommended optional rules are still Bolt 5.3, vanilla HPS D85, vanilla WDS D85 or what is in the scenario description for Bolt 10.0.  For example, helicopter blocking is still checked for 10.0, even though helicopters are now abstracted.  And it is not that clear - at least to me - whether one should use alt assault, artillery set-up and artillery/airstrikes by map in Bolt 10.0.

Yes, I can see why it is confusing. The changes to the recommended optional rules should be added to the change log. But those given in the scenario description for Bolt 10.0 are the rules that are now recommended for this scenario.

Here are the issues, I think:

- Neither version of D85 (HPS or WDS) got the "Gold" treatment as yet, so while Bolt 10.0 beta scenario calls to use alt assault, the alt rules are not available (optional fire and assault are).  I am not sure if/when D85 (I assume this being D85 4.0, the WDS version) will get the "Gold" treatment and add the four alt rules but would be great if development of Bolt 10.0 took that into account.
- the Bolt 5.3 handbook calls for enabling indirect fire by map, artillery set-up and higher fatigue recovery, while Bolt 10.0 beta scenario does not.  These are fairly impactful rules, so would be great to check this wasn't an oversight and, if not, what was the design rationale for not recommending them.
- the WDS version D85 4.0 has some new features like decimal use in replacement/digging-in rates, new amphibious assault rules, flagging units as Mountain, irregular unit flagging, etc.  As Bolt 10.0 beta is finalized, would be great if it incorporated the capabilities of D85 4.0 (and Gold, as noted above).

Hope this helps.

James

James,

Yes, that does help! Alternative Assault Resolution was clearly an error. Just ignore that. But the removal of Indirect Fire and Air Strikes By The Map and the addition of Artillery Set Up was deliberate. Higher Fatigue Recovery is a recommended rule for this scenario so that has not changed.

I have had no involvement with this so I cannot provide the rationale. David is not currently available but he did explain to me that the recommended rules for this scenario had changed from the previous Bolt version.

I would imagine your comments will be taken on board in terms of changes to take into account Version 4.0 features. This is an issue for the designer to consider as this is a mod rather than an official WDS scenario. But the reason this is classified as Beta is to get player feedback prior to a final version.

John