A Game of Blitzkrieg Commander

 This past Friday night I had an opportunity to play in a Blitzkrieg Commander game at our club game night.  One of our club mates, John, has made some great simplifications of the rules and has really brought out the foundations that make it a great game. I like playing in John’s BKC games because it gives me great inspirations for my Cold War Commander games. 

We played a medium large game set during Operation Bagration in mid-1944 Germans defending against a small section of the huge Russian Offensive. There were four Russian commands against three German commands. 

The Germans had an infantry battalion with a couple of Panzer MkIV’s and an artillery FOO. They also had a Panzergrenadier battalion with Sdkfz 251 PG infantry and three Panthers. The final unit was three Tigers and command stand.  These troops were veterans and combined with the heavy armor of the Tigers, they were a real challenge for the Russians. 

The Russians had two units of T-34’s with Tank desant riders, a foot infantry battalion and two special units - an ISU-152 unit of four vehicles and a JS-2  unit of three tanks. These heavy armor vehicles are really intimidating when they show up on the table. 

The Russians entered from the left attacking to secure tactical points on the hill and in the town upper center of the photo.  My Tigers held the German left flank at the bottom of the photo.

My opponent, Dick, had never played these rules before but by turn three he was driving his infantry forward and used the small hamlet to screen his T-34’s from the long range fire of my Tigers. Dick played a great game and if we had played a few more turns, those Russian infantry units would have been a big problem for me. 

Gamemaster, John (r), contemplates the PzGr unit and Panthers with the other three Russian players (l-r) Kevin, Greg and Rob.  No one could solve the puzzle and the Panthers stopped the Russian left flank cold. 

AJ, the Panther and PzGr commander, sits innocently as his dice wipe out the Russian left flank.

My Tigers have taken some hits, but they don’t have to worry about flank shots so they maneuver to get fire lanes on the T-34’s. 

This sort of sums up the game. A Tiger sitting on one of the tactical objectives without a Russian in sight!

The Russians suffered losses from the long-range fire from the Tigers and Panthers and the center German player, John, called in some devastating artillery fire. Ultimately, the Russians did secure one of the tactical goals and killed several German stands.  We agreed at the end of the night that it was a German victory although probably only a marginal one. 

All-in-all it was a great game and I learned a lot of lessons that I am sure will help me improve my CWC games in the future. Many thanks to John for a great evening.  

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.

World War III What If

 During 2024 I worked quite a bit on my armies for the Cold War Commander (CWC) rules system. In these rules each vehicle/infantry stand is a platoon. I was a cavalry officer in 1st Squadron, 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment in the FRG 1983-1986. Part of our mission was to patrol along the FRG/DDR/CSR border.

Because of that US Army experience and my interest in just about everything French Militare, I have focused my WWIII interests to the southern area of operations. Hence my first units have included French and Czech armor and infantry units. Here are some pictures of the French units first:

Gazelle with HOT ATGM’s

AMX-30B2 Company HQ tank

A Company of AMX-30B2’s on line

AMX-10RC heavy recon company. 

VBL light recon vehicle. 

VAB light APC. 

French infantry platoon stand. 

Battalion command stand. 

VBL light recon vehicle with Milan ATGM. 

I really like the French paint scheme and I found an excellent set of decals from Peddinghaus 1/100 scale decal range for these vehicles. There are tanks, APC’s, Artillery, and soft skins on the sheet. The really tiny door decals on each of the wheeled vehicles are a pain, but they add a lot to the end product!  I am using a mix of Team Yankee plastics and resin vehicles as well as 3d printed vehicles. 

To face off with my French forces, I have Czech tanks, APC’s, SP Artillery, and command stands. Here are a few examples: 

OT-64C APC and BRDM command vehicle

An OT-64C Battalion ready for action!

A divisional reconnaissance battalion with BRDM-2 command and recon versions and BMP-1R’s including one with ‘Small Fred’ radar. Note the BMP-1R’s do not carry the Sagger ATGM. 

T-55AM Tank Battalion. 

Czech Battlegroup ready to invade the FRG!

I plan to expand my collection of 15mm moderns with Germans and Americans over the next few months. Just need to get another project done and I can get back into these.