Cold war gone hot: getting started

[Redshank]

Hi everyone, first post!

I'm getting back into wargames after a long period. I have monkeybrain over where to start, partly because I keep discovering really nice looking miniatures ranges! But one option I find intriguing is "cold war gone hot" 1980s Warsaw Pact vs NATO.

I'm thinking of going for divisional level in 6mm or 10mm.

I was looking for tips on rules in particular. A lot of the sets I see (e.g. on wargamesvault) seem to be more pitched at skirmish or company level.

Any other tips gratefully received.

Hoping to get involved with my local club once face to face meetings start back up and I can annoy them with my questions instead!

[Easy E]

Here are some Suggestions, but it is NOT my area of expertise.

-Cold War Commander- Based on the Warlord/Warmaster command and control system. 
-Team Yankee- Based on Flames of War game designs.  Tanks are critical in this game
-Fistful of TOWs- Never played, but it has been around for ages.  Seems popular with some gamers.
-Battlegroup NorthHag- based on the popular Battlegroup series of rules.
-Microarmor by GHQ- The classic that has been around for ages. 

Hopefully, this gives you a start to dig into. 

I think my preferred is the Battlegroup model from the choices above.  However, what I like is not what you like, so think about what makes a game "fun" for you.

[SJWi]

Redshank, I've played Fistful of TOWs . Some nice bits but I found them a hard slog and IMHO not well written.  I actually tried to re-write them for my own use.  We came to the conclusion that they are for very big games so may suit you.  I have Battlegroup NORTHAG which is specifically aimed at 6 or 10mm. PSC's own tanks/figures are 10mm. We haven't managed to play them yet due to lockdown but plan to soon.  We also play "Seven Days to the River Rhine" in 15mm. Not Divisional.....more Compnay level but play very well.
     

[carlos marighela]

Old school there’s Command Decision. Frank Chadwick rules and very playable. If you look at the Test of Battle website there are updates.

[Ultravanillasmurf]

I second Carlos' suggestion.


There was a higher level version of Challenger also by Bruce Rea Taylor (I cannot remember the name but I remember the cover being a dark reddish colour. I will see if I can find it).

https://ultravanillasmurf.blogspot.com/2019/01/twilight-2000-reference-material-2.html

[SJWi]

Ultravanillasmurf, I think the rule set you are trying to recall was called “Operational Manoeuvre Group”. I may still have them somewhere but never played them. I do recall Challenger. From memory managed 2 turns in about 3 hours of gaming!

[Paul @ Empress Miniatures]

Must confess that I have played lots of rules and have lots of rules that bought, read, put on the shelf. Never found one that I really liked. Challenger were interesting  Felt I needed a PhD to understand them and once played someone who knew them by heart which was impressively scary  

Probably sacrilege but in the end I converted Rapid Fire WW2 rules to work for my 6mm Arab / Israeli forces. 

[carlos marighela]

Oh well, at least you didn’t need a programmable calculator for old Bruce Rhea-Taylor’s rules, like you did for Harpoon, or a 10-20 year stretch at Her Majesty’s pleasure to complete the turn sequence of Empire.

Our gaming group started doing what was then really modern with Challenger and then gave it away when we discovered the Command Decision series of games. The problem with Challenger was that it nominally had you commanding a battalion group or even a brigade minus while simultaneously requiring or at least expecting you to give a shit as to whether the Milan team attached to C company had penetrated the frontal armour of a T-64 advancing somewhere to it’s front. That and those fucking awful line drawings penned either by Bruce or perhaps a bored 13 year old sitting at the back of the maths class, doodling to pass the time.

I remember the Rhea-Taylor rules that had a representational scale of a stand to a platoon, they were just as clunky and because the mad sod required you to mark off individual vehicle losses within that platoon stand defeated much of the purpose. CD was a breath of fresh air after all that. The v.4 iteration that did away with the graduated loss chits and overly complex spotting rules really made it move along nicely. Not sure I’ve seen much since that handles thing quicker or better at that scale of game.

[SJWi]

By the way as well as Battlegroup Northag there is an “unofficial” set of Cold War mods to the WW2 Battlegroup ruleset. It can be found on the “Cold War Hot Hot Hot” website. A real labour of love with extensive army lists for most NATO and Warpac forces. We played them in 6mm using the stated movement distances in centimetres but gunnery in inches. Worked well.

[frank xerox]

I would give a shout out for Tankwreck from magister militum - 1 vehicle/stand equals a platoon and just enough crunch to differentiate things without bogging down in detail, you can easily get brigade sized actions on a normal sized table. Only thing we changed was to make movement more flexible to allow shoot and scoot but it makes no difference to the game.

[Ultravanillasmurf]

Ultravanillasmurf, I think the rule set you are trying to recall was called “Operational Manoeuvre Group”. I may still have them somewhere but never played them.

Here they are in their red brown glory with cover art to warm Carlos' heart

I do recall Challenger. From memory managed 2 turns in about 3 hours of gaming!

Wow! Speedy.
I remember playing Challenger (I or II - I cannot remember) on gaming weekends.
I would set up the board (a 6'x4' piece of chipboard, with paperback books to build the hills then covered with a felt sheet and the contents of a bumper bag of lichen from Beatties) first thing Saturday morning. We would start about 1000 and play on to 2000+.

The first round after Contact would take about two plus hours. This would reduce drastically as units were destroyed.

We did play the first contact scenario from the GDW Team Yankee game using Challenger one weekend.

A following session we continued the campaign, with the surviving forces entering the second line defence line. First on to the table was one T72 that had made it through Team Yankee's defence line - hotly pursued by the surviving US forces, then the second Soviet wave.

[Redshank]

Thanks for all the suggestions. Plenty of stuff to check out.

I'll have a look at Fistful of TOWs free sample.

How does Command Decision play?