Friday, August 19, 2022

Cold War Commander 2 a playtest

Stephen I tried out the latest edition of Cold War Commander with his excellent 10mm US and Soviet forces set in early 80s.

Core systems remain largely unchanged (lots of dice) but by yimmy we struggled with a lot of the other stuff which was poorly explained or indeed contradictory in places.

Built Up Areas/Buildings in particular had us head scratching as one rule says AFVs can enter (and are vulnerable to Infantry) but another says that only Inf and support weapons can set up in Hard Buildings, almost seemed like BUA and Hard Buildings are different beasts despite being described as same (ie stone or brick).

Also appears indirect HE cannot damage BUA (I sort of recall this issue from WW2 version) but direct fire by AT types can which is rather different.

Helicopter deployment took us a while to get sorted as well as initially described as only 2 ways to deploy then low and behold a 3rd way is given.

All very confusing for what is essentially a 4th edition of system not helped for me by only having rules as Pdf on iPad so the flicking back and forth to find stuff was tedious, I like Pdfs for reading rule sets but detest trying to use them in a game situation.

Whilst we expected a bit of a learning curve re modern weapon systems like the helos and ATGW we seemed to spend a lot of time trying to discern what should be simple stuff around BUA and cover types.

Both agreed we would need to house rule a lot of stuff but unsure if we can be bothered, pity as a lot to like in the system and the points and scenario systems seemed fine, new Ambushes and Recce are nice additions.

All kit is Stephens 10mm scale and mix of Pendraken and several 3d printed suppliers



US M60A3s in wood supporting Mech Inf in town






Soviet T64s and Mech Inf deploy in wood as more approach in support





The town (3 x BUA) was the nominal objective






M60 Company (the Bradley is a Command element)







US Inf are concealed in town (even though models on board)






Soviet armour has been suppressed by opportunity fire as infantry dismount in cover





Soviet certainly had the numbers 







Soviet Mech Inf deploying behind hill






The BUAs which caused us no end of rules pain trying to decipher 







Very nice cammo 






ATGWs engaged my M60s who were able to evade the missiles






Overview of battlefield



4 comments:

  1. Ahhh no no no no. I bought this crap thinking it would be a step 'up' from Black Powder, with mechanisms brought forward. Never again...

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    1. Anonymous9:00 pm

      There is the core of a decent game but the inconsistencies and resultant confusion dragged it down when trying to play it. The Command system worked fine and the combat system is pretty simple with minimal modifiers.

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  2. The thing that breaks it for me is when a powerful unit goes on a lucky streak with command activations and decimates every enemy within 24 inches. Usually it's a large group of T-64s (cold war), Panthers (ww2) or M48s (arab-israeli) and in the span of ten minutes things went from looking like a fairly well-balanced typical wargame to Custer's Last Stand.

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    Replies
    1. Not seen that happen but can see the potential especially once any Opp Fire survived by the 'mega' unit

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