Cold War Commander

A couple days ago, I posted photos of my Cold War Gone Hot French and Czech armies. I have been building these two forces to use in a hypothetical campaign set in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) in 1985. The rules that I’m trying for this campaign are Cold War Commander (CWC) which is a version of the Blitzkrieg Commander (BC) rules system.  BC is based on Rick Priestley’s Warmaster rules and have a solid game system using stands of infantry and individual vehicles to represent platoons  controlling eight to ten such units, a player fills the role of a Battalion or “Task Force” commander during a game. 

I have been on a search for many years for a set of Modern rules which would be the right combination of realism and simplicity for our club’s use. WWII gamers seemed really sold on Blitzkrieg Commander so I decided to give Cold War Commander a go.  The CWC rules seem to be a good balance of realism and play-ability after our first play test. I don’t have a full-blown game report of this game as my friend Ed and I were trying to work our way through the rules as we played. I did take some photos as we played and here they are:

I am using these individual buildings as villages in the rules.

We set up a simple battlefield to try out the rules.  The Czechs attacked from the left and the French defended along the village/hill line to the right of the road moving away from the camera.

French armor platoons defend a village against Czech Recon units

French units, including a Forward Observer, control a kill zone in front of this hill.

Our club does tend to modify rules to meet when we think there are problems and CWC is no exceptions.  I have tried to simplify the rules a little bit so we can fit games into our typical 3-4 hour play time during monthly game nights.

As I said, this rules set seems to have possibilities and we plan to play more games during 2025, including a debut game night game in the summer.  I hope to add to the painted armies in the coming months and will try to give everyone a look at them as they are finished right here on the blog.