Reply To: Sitrep Podcast: Historical Gaming (and Register for Upcoming Gaming Event)!

[rastamannParticipant 2735xp 1]

@oriskany, sorry about the delayed reply, but I’ve been AFK for a few days.

I haven’t really played FFoT yet, though I’m going over the rules now with a bit more attention – with the Brexit thing coming, and me being in Portugal, stuff will become much more expensive (about 30%), so I’ve been going over what I need and stocking up.

What I’ve bought and with what I’ve already painted, I’m able to field about a Cat I Soviet Tank Regiment (T72’s) plus an extra BMP Motor rifle battalion. Then, on the NATO side, I’ll have a German Panzer Battalion (Leo 2A1) plus a Pz Gren Battalion (Marder 1A1) and a Pz Aufklarungs Btn (Fuchs and Leo 1A4), an American Mech Infantry Btn (M113) and a Tank Btn (M1’s) and finally an understrength British Armoured Rgt (Chieftains) and Armoured Infantry Btn (FV432). Naturally, I can’t pit the Russians against all this NATO, but I can increase the Soviet strength with an independent T80 Battalion.

I’ve also tried Cold War Commander rules, but ultramodern, with British Challenger equipped forces against Russian T80U equipped units and the Russians are badly outclassed unless they can fling the tank’s missiles, where they outrange the British.

Now with the first edition of World at War (Eisenbach Gap) a full battalion of 10 platoons of T72’s against Team Yankee (which there is about 2 platoons of M1’s plus a couple of M113 infantry platoons and a M901 ITV) was a sight to see, particularly if the Russians managed to get to close range, even with the Americans on overwatch, but skillfull defense on the American player’s side did make the job very difficult for the Soviet player. The Soviet player would punch through, but with 50%+ losses.

I really liked Panzer Leader but the current Nations at War and World at War system mean every single piece of information you need is on the counters and that means no tables, which makes it basically a miniatures game using hex and coounter and that has truly made it my favourite system both for WWII and cold war combat.

In the meantime, in my Brexit panic buy spree, I’ve also bought a few cold war era (ca. 1985) warships to try out Rory Crabb’s Naval Command and will be buying some oddzial osmy’s air units to try out Missile Threat. My wallet cries in pain.