Back in 2016 after spending the previous year obsessed with 40k I bought 2 bolt action sets just because I thought they looked cool. The first was the Fallshirmjeager starter army, then the Band of Brothers starter. Without a clue of how the game worked I took a small plunge essentially for the models. The boxes sat for months and it wasn't until I picked up another box of Soviet infantry while working a gig in New York where I had some time to kill at a place called The War Store which has since closed. I never been to the brick and mortar store but had good times browsing the massive isles of their distribution warehouse which was open to customers.
As for actually getting started, the Band of Brothers kit has the best value for $80-$100 depending on where you buy. It has a small rule book, order dice, 2 small armies, templates, a cardboard ruler, cardboard quick reference rule guide, and some very small D6 dice that I never use. You also get a ruined farmhouse that can be built in a few different ways. After browsing through the rulebook which has the core rules, and also core rules with unit selections for the 5 major powers: USA, Germany, UK, Japan, Soviet Union. Its important to note that the army books for each power contain lots more unit selections as do the campaign books. For the sake of simplicity and learning the game stick with what's in this box.
The two armies included are the US Airborne and German Grenadiers.
* How I built the US Airborne:
6 troops with SMGs, 1 LMG team, 2 Bars and the rest riflemen. In order to separate the squad leaders from the squad in any army, I tend to model the squad leaders with hand gestures, such as pointing for example. Without getting to rules intensive for this first post, keep in mind that the US fire and maneuver army rule allows US units with rifles and BARs to advance and fire without suffering a -1 penalty to hit.
* How I built the Grenadiers:
5 troops with SMGs, 4 with Assault Rifles, 1 MG 34 team, and the rest with rifles. In my case the hanomag was built with the MG34 that came with the Fallshirmjeager starter kit, as its more useful against infantry.
* The first game:
I was hanging with a friend who likes to game and we decided to give it a try. I had a small 36x36 table, we placed a couple pieces of terrain, in this example it was some old sandbag barriers I had from my old toy collection. As well as the ruined farmhouse included in the kit.
Our only goal here was to learn some mechanics, all we did was set up where along our edge and began pulling order dice and shooting at each other. Little by little we learned how to move, game types, etc. While this took a few games with a few different friends, the game is simple but has many in depth rules for all kinds of unique situations. We were all new but we had experience with 40k and other similar games so we had little difficulty in grasping the core rules.
* Historical setting
The band of brothers kit is set in France during the late war period, just after the Normandy Landings. In this context the Airborne had dropped in to take out German defenses beyond the beaches. Some players enjoy the historical nuances, others just enjoy the mechanics, this is important to understand because some people stress historical accuracy down to every last rivet, in my experience though, most players have not cared the shade of green grey on the German uniforms, or the weapon distribution over the varying fronts.
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