THIRD EDITION MMGs - BIG CHANGES

Consider, if you will, the medium machine gun team, better known to us Bolt Action fans as the ‘MMG’. An absolute icon of World War II, whether MG42, Browning .30cal, or .303 Vickers. The mainstay of most armies’ direct anti-infantry firepower, and… seldom seen on Bolt Action: Second Edition tables! There are a few reasons for this, and we were incredibly keen to address them in Third Edition – so we did! This article will touch on a number of changes, not just to these teams, but also to some other units and rules, so get ready for some big news!

First up, we can see that an MMG has the following stats, per the Small Arms table:

So what’s changed from Second Edition? Well, first off you get an extra shot! With MMGs now laying down six shots, they’re able to do just that little bit more damage for their cost, particularly to units caught in the open, which is as it should be – they were absolutely devastating in real life in these situations! This makes them that much better value-for-points, as well as making them feel appropriately more dangerous. That extra shot, however, doesn’t necessarily address one of the key concerns with MMG teams in Second Edition – vulnerability!

However…

One of the things you’ll notice as you flick through your new Third Edition rulebook at the end of September, is that the old Exceptional Damage and Small Teams rules no longer exist! This means that the three-man MMG teams common to virtually every army are far more resilient than previously – they can no longer be taken out with a single shot from a sniper, which was for so many years their absolute bane! In addition, the removal of Small Teams means that MMG teams (and other three-man teams) are now comparably more durable than their two-man counterparts, particularly when emplaced in good cover!

So, more shots, more survivability, and (with the new Platoon Selectors system) more opportunities to take them – things are looking good for the mighty MMG in Bolt Action: Third Edition… but what about their other use? What about MMGs on vehicles?

For a long time, vehicles packing as many MMGs as possible have been an incredibly powerful force in Bolt Action (looking at you, ‘Dakka’ Stuarts!), capable of sweeping entire squads from the table in a single devastating hail of bullets. This isn’t particularly realistic, and was also a point of the game that we were very keen to improve going into Third Edition! With MMGs (and their heavier counterparts, as keen-eyed fans of the M8/M20 armoured car may have noticed!) getting more shots, those vehicles were in danger of becoming seriously overpowered in a way that was neither historically accurate nor, most crucially, fun.

Historically, most machine guns mounted on armoured vehicles had a very limited amount of movement, and fairly crude (if any) sights – they were designed for suppression rather than accurate fire, or in the case of co-axial machine guns, to help with leading the main gun onto a target. This meant that their fire was often not particularly effective compared to the same weapon mounted on a tripod and served by a full crew. The same is also frequently true of pintle-mounted machine guns which would appear on all manner of armoured and unarmoured vehicles, mostly for anti-aircraft work – while more effective, they were still by no means precision weapons, and the gunners were often more concerned with staying alive than delivering accurate fire!

To reflect this, we tried a wide variety of modifications to vehicle machine gun rules while designing Bolt Action: Third Edition. In the end, the simplest solution turned out to be the best – all vehicle-mounted machine guns halve the number of shots they fire! For example, while an infantry MMG team fires six shots, a hull-mounted MMG on tank fires only three.

This reflects the lower amount of effective fire that these weapons could put out, and means that the machine-gun-toting light tank will still have a role to play, but will no longer be the absolute death machine than it is in Second Edition – far more realistic, far more fair, far more fun! There is one exception to this – pintle-mounted machine guns using their Flak special rule against aircraft still fire the full number of shots, representing the crew utilising the anti-aircraft sights to their full effect and letting fly with everything they’ve got! This also of course applies to any AA vehicles which mount machine guns and have the Flak special rule.

There have also been some more changes to other types of machine gun in Bolt Action: Third Edition… but you’ll have to wait and see what those are! For now, whether you’re a Bolt Action veteran or joining us for the first time, it’s time to get painting some MMG teams – you’ll find them a very useful tool come late September!