It’s that time again! Armies of France is nearing its release, and we’re beginning our Intelligence Report series, taking you inside the covers of the newest Bolt Action book. As is traditional, we’re starting with the National Special Rules, which inform the army’s overall character and determine how it plays on the tabletop. En avant!
We’ll begin where we usually do, with the overarching rules which apply to your entire army, but this book is, like Armies of Italy, a little bit different. Armies of France includes not only rules for fielding French forces of 1939-40, but also the collaborationist Vichy ‘Armistice Army’, and the Free French forces who would continue to fight alongside the Allies for the liberation of their homeland. These latter two will be shown off in their own article, but for now we’re focussing on the core of the book!
As we can see, while Battaille Conduite rewards getting your troops to take up defensive positions in cover, a French force need not be a purely static entity! Colmater allows you to turn a single unit per platoon into an Outflanking machine, letting you build a small but incredibly flexible strike force within your army that can arrive exactly when and where it’s needed to wreak havoc on the enemy’s plans late in the game. Supporting this is Le Feu Tue, because while one artillery strike is nice, two is significantly nicer – unless you’re the enemy! Finally, Lack of Radios is a blessing in disguise for armour aficionados, letting you save a few points on your Command vehicles.
French forces with these rules naturally tend towards a ‘hold-and-counter’ style of play, blunting enemy thrusts on their defensive positions before launching a deadly counterattack (although of course as with any Bolt Action army you can build your list to play in an endless variety of ways!), and they aren’t doing it with just the basic troops in the army list. As with all our other Armies of… books, you can theme many of your units to represent the elite formations of the French army. Let’s meet Honneur et Patrie!
Whether you want the last word in defensive grit with the French Foreign Legion (and their snazzy new plastics!), an elite force of Chasseurs Alpins moving swiftly through cover courtesy of Fieldcraft, or fast-moving Dragons Portés driving headlong into the fray, you can do it with Armies of France. While these are some of the most important rules in the books, we’ve not even scratched the surface when it comes to the new and updated unit roster or the two new ways to field French forces – we’ve got plenty more to come!
Ready to take up arms in defence of France?
