Bolt Action is a popular Second World War platoon-scale wargame, using squads of infantry, guns and vehicles. Its rules are famous for one thing above all: the order-dice bag, which turns activation into a nerve-wracking lottery. The system has been revised across editions, so treat the specifics below as the durable core rather than exact current wording.
What dice Bolt Action uses
Combat runs on the six-sided die. To hit, you roll a d6 per shot and need to reach a target number — typically hitting on a base of around 3+, then heavily modified by circumstances. That modifier layer is the heart of Bolt Action’s shooting: long range, the target being in cover, the target being down, the firer having moved, and small or hard-to-see targets all worsen your roll. Get a unit into good cover and your enemy’s hit chance can drop dramatically.
The game’s other, non-numbered dice are the order dice — coloured dice, one per unit per side, drawn from a bag to decide who activates. They are the signature of the system and the reason no plan in Bolt Action survives contact with the bag.
The shooting sequence
An attack resolves through a short, readable chain:
| Step | What you roll |
|---|---|
| 1. To hit | Roll a d6 per shot against the base to-hit number, then apply modifiers for range, cover, the target being down, the firer having moved, and so on. Meet or beat the adjusted number to hit. |
| 2. To damage / penetrate | Each hit rolls a d6 against the target’s toughness — infantry against their resilience, vehicles against armour with a penetration value — to see if the hit tells. |
| 3. Casualties & pins | Successful hits remove models, and crucially each hit also inflicts a pin marker on the target unit, degrading it even when nobody is hurt. |
Because every hit pins as well as potentially kills, even ineffective fire has a purpose: it suppresses. A unit under heavy fire soon struggles to do anything useful.
Order dice: the activation engine
Instead of one side moving then the other, Bolt Action draws order dice from a bag one at a time. When your colour comes out, you pick one of your units and give it an order — advance, fire, run, ambush, and so on. You never know whether you or your opponent will act next, so a carefully positioned unit might get to shoot first, or might be caught before it can react. This single mechanic creates the game’s constant tension and rewards players who plan for either outcome rather than assuming they will move when they want.
Pinning and morale
Pin markers accumulate on a unit as it takes fire, worsening its order tests and, past a point, forcing it to go Down or fail to act at all. A veteran unit shrugs pins off more easily than a green one, so troop quality matters as much as numbers. Pinning is the lever that lets a weaker force neutralise a stronger one without destroying it — a heavily pinned unit is effectively out of the fight until it recovers.
Winning and effective strategy
- Fire to pin, not just to kill. Every hit adds a pin. Concentrate fire to pile pins on a key enemy unit and shut it down, even if you can’t wipe it out.
- Live in cover. The cover modifier can gut an enemy’s hit chance. Move from one piece of cover to the next rather than crossing open ground.
- Use the Ambush order. Setting a unit to ambush lets it react to enemy movement — a powerful answer to the uncertainty of the dice bag.
- Plan for a bad draw. Because activation order is random, never position a unit so that it only works if it activates first. Assume the worst order and you will rarely be caught out.
- Play the mission. Bolt Action scenarios are won on objectives and army morale, not body count alone. Keep units alive and on task.
Beginner tips and common mistakes
- Stack every modifier. Range, cover, down and movement all adjust the to-hit roll. Forgetting one gives you the wrong odds — often badly wrong.
- Don’t assume you’ll go first. The dice bag decides. A unit left exposed “because I’ll shoot next turn” often gets shot instead.
- Manage your own pins. Rally pinned units when you can; a pile of pin markers turns a good squad into a passenger.
- Respect veterans. Higher-quality troops resist pinning and pass order tests more reliably — worth the points in tight games.
- Editions differ. Bolt Action has evolving rules and army lists; confirm the current edition’s modifiers and orders before a match.
Rolling squads’ worth of d6s and tracking pins by hand adds up fast. A physics roller lets you throw a whole handful at once and read the total instantly — handy for big volleys and vehicle salvos.
Need buckets of dice? Dice Drop throws up to twenty physics dice at once in your browser — free, no app.
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