We now have further details on Armies of Germany – the first supplement for Bolt Action: Third Edition – and oh boy are they spicy. The book goes up for pre-order on Friday, Oct. 25 with a Jan. 28, 2025 release date. We are on track to hit our first Third Edition Roadmap milestone. From Warlord Games:

Your comprehensive guide for fielding the might of the Wehrmacht in Bolt Action: Third Edition, Armies of Germany is 128 pages of full-color wargaming goodness, giving you everything you need to turn a collection of German miniatures into a powerful force on the tabletop!

Armies of Germany: Third Edition includes:

• New Army Special Rules
• New units
• Hobby inspiration
• New Special Figure

New Army Special Rules

We need to immediately address something. From the Warlord Games Press Release:

The new national special rules expand on and replace those found in the Bolt Action Rulebook, giving you a force full of character, and enabling you to theme your force to a greater degree than ever before!

The new Army Special Rules are replacing the ones in the Third Edition Rulebook. This. Is. Massive. News! There has been a fair amount of criticism leveled at the Army Special Rules included in the Rulebook and Minor Nation PDFs. Most of the concern is specifically calling out the sameness of the Army Special Rules, especially for the Minor Nations. For example British Rapid Fire is the same as US Fire & Maneuver (but worse) and Soviet For the Motherland! is the same as British Vengeance (but worse).

The phrase “expand and replace” has my mind going wild with possibilities. This statement also seems to imply that different German armies may have different special rules. Theater Selectors in Second Edition often had similar effects and it would be great to see an expansion of that idea. Perhaps a Gebirgsjäger army will different rules than a Fallschirmjäger army, for example. As excited as I am for Armies of Germany I am far more excited for what this means for the other nations.

And please don’t let this be the return of Tiger Fear.

New units

We’ve collected many of your favorite German units from the many books across the previous two editions, and collected them in one volume – alongside the well-known classics are some new faces, and plenty of weird and wonderful variety, allowing you to create the army you want, just the way you want it!

Exciting to hear! As Second Edition matured we had the luxury of being able to pull units from two dozen different Theater and Campaign books. When compared to such a library, the Army Lists in the Rulebook are bit thin. The new and improved Armies of Germany will address that directly. Warlord also has the chance to combine those unit profiles spread across the Campaign books into one volume. Gone are the days of eighteen different versions of Grenadiers.

Hobby inspiration

Packed with stunning artwork, informative historical background, and of course loads of pictures of gorgeous miniatures, Armies of Germany serves as both reference and inspiration for your next army.

Now this is something I am really looking forward to. As much as I love the old Armies of books they never contained any dedicated hobby content. Maybe I’m setting my expectations too high but Warlord has the chance to include some pages in the style of the Games Workshop Army Books that include some paint schemes, modeling ideas, general army inspiration, etc.

New Special Figure

The perfect model to represent a Sniper, Allerberger is packed with character, from his distinctive Gebirgsjäger uniform to the camouflage-draped umbrella…

It wouldn’t be a Warlord Games book release without a special figure. This German sniper is one of the more characterful minis we’ve seen and will certainly give your Sniper Team a very unique look. Props to Warlord for thinking outside the box on this one. Unclear if the figure is limited to just pre-orders, is a Warlord exclusive or if you’ll be able to get the model no matter when/where you order from.

Concerns

• No Theater Selectors? – While we cannot trust the Osprey and Amazon product pages as sources of truth, they mention that Armies of Germany contains “Detailed unit options and theatre selectors allow players to build armies for any of Germany’s campaigns”. I was a massive fan of Theater Selectors in Second Edition (many of the events I TO’d required their use) and I was sad to see them gone at the start of Third Edition. The press release for Armies of Germany makes no mention of Theater Selectors so they may well and truly be a thing of the past.
• Codex Creep – To borrow the old phrase from Warhammer, Codex Creep is when each new book has a significant and notable power advantage over the previous books. We never really saw this in Bolt Action but with Germany getting who knows how many new units and, more importantly, new Army Special Rules, anyone playing with Armies of Germany is going to have a major advantage over a player using the Rulebook or Minor Power Army Lists. I expect that it will all even out once the rest of the Armies of books are released but it’s going to be a long year for IJA players…

Hype

• “Individual” Unit Entries – One of my only issues with Third Edition was the combination unit entries. Instead of Commandos, SAS, and Airborne all having their own unique unit entry in the army list, they are combined into one. It’s all a tad bland and flavorless. But no longer! Just get a look at this preview page – the StuG is back to four separate entries! Not one combined one! Thrilled to see this update.
• New Minis – Although we don’t know the specifics, Warlord is putting out new plastic infantry and new Starter Armies to go along with the Armies of Germany: Third Edition release. A new multi-part plastic WWII infantry release is always something to celebrate.