Cold War Commander

This weekend, we finally arranged an actual game of Cold War Commander at Joe's place with Bob, Ian, and myself. Joe's been trying to assemble some kind of late 20th century or modern combined arms battle using Micro Armor minis. There was some significant discussion about which rules to use which lastest several weeks prior. Ultimately, the group settled with the Cold War Commander rules and I think it was the right decision.

We decided to start with a modest sized battle; Ian and I took a group of Soviets including a group of T-64s, one battalion of troops carried by some BMP-3s, some artillery pieces with forward observers, a Hind attack helicopter, HQ and extra CO. Joe and Bob were the Americans with a bunch of M-1 Abrams and Bradley tanks.

Most of the afternoon was spent reviewing the rules, but once we got started the game moved fairly quickly. I advanced my T-64s and BMPs toward the center of the board. We tried to activate the Hind and the artillery but missed several command rolls. In retrospect, Ian and I were convinced we needed some extra CO's just to simply make up for low command ratings of the Soviets. On the other side, the Americans had an even worse time with command rolls. Most rolls in this game involve two D6, and any snake eyes will result in a 'fumble'. The Americans started the game with a fumbled command roll. The result was a couple of Bradley crews got itchy trigger fingers and suppressed one of the other Bradleys. No harm was done as the crews recovered the next turn and started firing TOWs at my T-64.

The Soviets finally activated the Hind and launched a barrage at the advancing Americans. Due to time constraints, I had to leave the battle and let Ian finish the game. My impression was that Cold War Commander was a worthy game and I hope to play more.

I tried to photograph the battlefield but I've got a lot to learn about filming 6mm minis. The lighting was bad in Joe's game room and that's another challenge I'll have to master.


Americans advancing through the valley, blasting their... rock-n-roll music...

....Meanwhile..., the Soviet HQ is calling in an artillery strike and air support.


Some Bradleys driving through the rough, M-1 on the road.


Hind makes its move against the tanks

Comments

The Blog is going on a Permanent Vacation

Ok, I haven't had any comments on this blog on an post for many, many months. The only post that seems to get any traffic is my 2015 post about Star Fleet Battles. I don't fully understand why that post has generated so much interest, while the rest of my content has been mostly ignored. Clearly, this has not been an successful blog. I get much more traffic with my Facebook content and the YouTube channel is showing promise. Perhaps the subjects of my posts have been too random. I may need to focus on a specific game or subject. Maybe I didn't generate enough posts to keep the audience connected. Whatever the case, I am ending this blog with this final post. I'm calling it a 'permanent vacation' because the blog and posts will still be here, though I will not be adding any new content. I might continue to comment on the SFB post since that is still generating traffic 3 years after it was published. To anyone who might still be reading, I say 'Thank

ReaperCon - Live Vlogging

Hey all! This year, I made the trip to ReaperCon in Denton, Texas. This is new for me because I have never been to this convention and I am more focused on the gaming rather than the painting segment of the hobby. But I do want to improve my painting skills and learning from better painters is a way to improve. Another new challenge was that I decided to do a video blog of my experience at ReaperCon. aka a 'VLOG'. This is a new way to share content with friends and hobbyists and it was exciting to try. And I was able to take the trip with my brother who lives out of state, that made it fun as well. We took classes, painted figs, took the factory tour, and entered the painting competition all in just three days! Below is the link to the VLOG playlist. Most the videos are less than 10 minutes long. All the videos together comes out to 56 minutes if you play them all in order. Enjoy!

Team Yankee Night

Our local Team Yankee community has a regular game night called 'Cold War Thursdays'. I was able to make it out to the store about a month ago. Chris had enough USMC figs to make a 75 point list for me to use. He took an equivalent West German force. We played out a NATO-v-NATO version of the Hasty Attack scenario. I am currently building a list that is heavy on Cobras and Hueys. Chris had plenty of air units to choose from. So, I grabbed all the Hueys and deployed them with a platoon of Marines loaded inside. The Leopards were absolutely deadly! The majority of my force was wiped out by three of them. My Humvees were the only unit that could even put a scratch on them. The Hueys were useful at moving troops forward quickly. I was able to drop the Marines nearby an objective. There was a squad of grenadiers inside a house close enough to still hold the objective. Except for the Leopards, most of the Germans were wiped out quickly. The Marines cleared the hou

The Painted Thumb

Search This Blog