Recently on the Pendraken Forum, Richard of The Land of Counterpane Blog joined up and put up some useful links to posts on how to get going with Cold War Commander. One of these mentioned the ever excellent Micromark lists by Mark Bevis. I had completely forgotten that I had ordered some for the Cold War way back when and so promptly dug them out of the folder in which they've lain for seom 10 years or more. Just what I needed to get my OOB sorted!
Having looked through the lists again, it tipped me down the route of 'classic' 1985 Cold War forces, of British versus the Warsaw Pact, but most likely Soviet given that I have the lists. I'm sure with a slight tweak of MBT's and AFV's, the force could easily become Polish or East German Warsaw Pact.
The above has also cemented in my mind that I will go down the 6mm route for my games. Why?: a couple of reasons really. Namely:
- Availability of equipment in 6mm pure and simple. From my brief perusing of the H&R website they have pretty much everything I need, which cannot be said for 10mm.
- Cost. Looking at what I would want to field for a game, in 10mm it would be prohibitively expensive compared to 6mm. For the cost of just the MBT's in 10mm I can pretty much field a Mechanised and Armoured Brigade in 6mm.
- The look of the game. Modern tanks are big and when you want to field a squadron or two, they look too big when on the table compared to their 6mm equivalents. Just imagine 6 Tiger II's and you get my drift.
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| My British lists. |
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| The equivalent Soviets lists. |
The postman delivered my recently ordered copy of CWCII. A brief flick through today and all I can say is that I'm very happy that I did take the plunge. A lot more refined and developed thanks to all the work done since BKCII & IV and visually very nice to look at too. The binding seems to be a lot more robust than of late, which is good of course. There are only 3 lists in the book: US, British and Soviet with everything else being freely available online. The lists are a lot more detailed than before, so I'm looking forward to getting my head around these. Ditto the rule changes and tweaks which again from a first look through look to be good and well thought out.
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| A rulebook that is well worth getting if you fancy some 'Moderns' gaming. |
Also landing on the door mat was Hackett's book. Again a quick flick through this morning and all I can say is that I'm really, really looking forward to reading this. It looks packed full of info, narrative and ideas and you can see why 1985 has become the default timeframe for Cold War Gone Hot Games.
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| An original copy that I picked up for an absolute bargain price! |
So enough of the 1985 Cold War mindset, time to travel back to 1815 and the prospect of facing Old Boney!
Nice stuff Steve....I had a few eighties AFV's, back in the eighties as it happens...they were GHQ 1/485 I think...lovely little models...nothing ever happened with them though! I read Hacketts book too....it didn't really convince me at the time...seemed a bit like wishful thinking, but who knows?
ReplyDeleteThanks Keith. I've read the Hackett's book was a way of trying to get more government spend on the armed forces. Not sure if this is true or not. Will of course have a better idea once I've finished the book!
DeleteMy goodness, you’re a busy chap today Steve - with 2 posts. 👏👏
ReplyDeleteI agree the MicroMark lists are an excellent resource, and such a wide variety too.
Here’s another book recommendation - The Alternative Third World War 1985-2035 by William Jackson (published by Brasseys 1987). I originally read it new, but from what I recall the premise for this book was that the third world war was not one “big” war but a slow gradual process, involving numerous local wars spread across the entire globe and over a period of 50 years. I really enjoyed it.
Cheers,
Geoff
Somehow Blogger deleted your post, you I had to cut and paste here Geoff. Confused? You bet!
DeleteNot having to do any 'stuff' related to being a perent/carer has meant that for the first time in many, many months, I finally have the mental and emotional energy to do some wargaming, hence the 'flurry' of posts! Thanks for the book recommendation, which I've not hear of and will keep an eye out for it.
The premise of this book Geoff mentions looks quite interesting - maybe the Russian invasion of the Ukraine is part one of the fifty-year war - or maybe that was actually the first Iraq war of the early 90's, and we are already at the midway point??
DeleteIt is interesting, isn't it. There are always nasty little conflicts going on around the World that we rarely hear about, until such point that they affect the West directly, then on occasion we take action. Much to ponder for sure on this point.
DeleteLooking very interesting Steve. You've certainly done your research. The smaller scales are the way to go with this if fielding battle groups.
ReplyDeleteThanks Richard. In a sense the research was done some 10 years ago, so this is more of a refresher, but just as fun as before. I do like the bigger games these days so Battlegroups tick all the boxes for me.
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