Armchair Dragoons Forums

Wargaming => The Modern World => Topic started by: bayonetbrant on November 29, 2018, 01:20:33 PM

Title: Cold-War-Goes-Hot gets fashionable again
Post by: bayonetbrant on November 29, 2018, 01:20:33 PM
So what do you guys think is driving the revival in the cold-war-goes-hot-in-the-80s games?


It can't just be "the Russians are getting frisky again" can it? 
I mean, if that were the case then things like NW:Poland and Putin's War would be taking off more Under an Iron Sky or the upcoming Compass WW3 reboots.


I think it's more than just cyclical nostalgia, but I can't really figure it out.  It would be one thing if if was just that publication rights were all expiring about the same time and those games were all simultaneously coming up for reprints.  That wouldn't explain new designs like W@W'85 and Iron Sky and Brezhnev's War now rolling out alongside the reboots (yes, I know W@W is 10 years old at this point).


Thoughts?

*edited title becasue Brant can't spell Hot
Title: Re: Cold-War-Goes-Got gets fashionable again
Post by: bob48 on November 29, 2018, 01:24:05 PM
Scares the crap outta me.
Title: Re: Cold-War-Goes-Got gets fashionable again
Post by: bayonetbrant on November 29, 2018, 01:39:12 PM
Scares the crap outta me.

that they're back in fashion?  or that the balloon could go up again?
Title: Re: Cold-War-Goes-Got gets fashionable again
Post by: mirth on November 29, 2018, 01:58:57 PM
I've always found the hypotheticals interesting. At what point does the quality of NATO start overtaking the quality of the Sovs? Could Soviet battlefield doctrine actually work? That sort of stuff is fun to game out.


Plus you get lots of cool toys to push around!
Title: Re: Cold-War-Goes-Got gets fashionable again
Post by: bob48 on November 29, 2018, 02:22:57 PM
Scares the crap outta me.

that they're back in fashion?  or that the balloon could go up again?

Yes.
Title: Re: Cold-War-Goes-Hot gets fashionable again
Post by: bbmike on November 29, 2018, 03:17:48 PM
...
It can't just be "the Russians are getting frisky again" can it? 
...

I believe that is exactly the case.
Title: Re: Cold-War-Goes-Hot gets fashionable again
Post by: Capn Darwin on November 29, 2018, 05:45:09 PM
I'd like to think it was our Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm game, but my guess, there are a lot of folks who served in the 80s at the height of the Cold War and are now wargamers and want to lift the lid on that box and take a peek. W@W is also a good bet as well. 8)
Title: Re: Cold-War-Goes-Hot gets fashionable again
Post by: bbmike on November 29, 2018, 06:28:52 PM
Red Storm, huh? I'll have to look that one up. I don't think I'm familiar with it.  :whistle:
Title: Re: Cold-War-Goes-Hot gets fashionable again
Post by: Pinetree on November 30, 2018, 03:17:54 AM
My guess is that it's partly the guys who served in the 80's are now hitting retirement age and want to play around with their old units; and partly those kids of the 80's who want to wargame the war they grew up with now have some disposable income. It's also a fairly modern situation  with reasonable equality of forces.
Title: Re: Cold-War-Goes-Hot gets fashionable again
Post by: Pinetree on November 30, 2018, 03:20:08 AM
Oh, and Nena:

Title: Re: Cold-War-Goes-Hot gets fashionable again
Post by: ojsdad on December 01, 2018, 01:46:49 PM
Russian delusions of granduer and nostalgia I think are two reasons. I also think its the last time we could have seen a war involving millions of troops on both sides, thousands of tanks and aircraft, but no one knows how it would have played out, unlike refighting WWII battles.

Today, it Russia and NATO got hot, it would be a lot smaller, both militaries are a shadow of their Cold War selves. It's hard to image large scale warfare with China. Korea gets some attention, but think people either don't believe it will ever happen or the Norks wont last more than a couple of weeks.

So that leaves Cold War going hot for your large scale semi modern gaming with no real world results to compare with.

Oh, and many of the weapon systems in use at the end of the Cold War are still in use today.
Title: Re: Cold-War-Goes-Hot gets fashionable again
Post by: bayonetbrant on December 10, 2018, 09:33:38 AM
https://defence-blog.com/army/janes-can-russia-defeat-nato-with-soviet-era-armour.html
Title: Re: Cold-War-Goes-Hot gets fashionable again
Post by: Boyerwulf on December 21, 2018, 03:11:23 PM
Excellent podcast, till it quit on me at the 24minute mark. James was right on the money with the nostalgia factor. Lets also not forget that it is a great scenario for gaming. The lesser trained Soviet hordes, against the well trained, better equipped (most of the time after 1984) units of NATO.  It's a great scenario, and games like GDWs Third World War really did an outstanding job of handling quantity vs quality, as well as the differences in command structure (the sequence of play gave NATO much better maneuver flexibility) .  Stopping the Soviets in Northern Norway using just  a few British commandos and US Marines, trouncing the Iranian or Iraqi Army(depending on who joined who) using the RDF in the Persian Gulf.  The game was very well done and it definitely deserves a reprint. 
  I'm not going to name names, but a lot of the more recent games I have seen that simulate NATO VS Warsaw Pact are just plain lazy. With weapon systems, troop quality, training, and command structure hardly even taken into account. Hell a game was released recently that had the Fulda Gap in the wrong location.   So I think that the fact that GDWs Third World War and Victory Games NATO are both being republished is partly because of the nostalgia factor, but also because of just how great a games that they actually were.
Title: Re: Cold-War-Goes-Hot gets fashionable again
Post by: besilarius on December 24, 2018, 08:53:05 AM
One of the Avalon Hill people back in the 70s was a fellow named Tom Shaw.
He was their do it all guy, and did a lot of marketing for them.
He was personally most interested in Sports games and didn;'t really care much about the wargames.
At that time, he thought the interest in the World War II games was partly driven by television shows like Combat, The Gallant Men, Twelve O'clock High, Silent Service, et al. 
Title: Re: Cold-War-Goes-Hot gets fashionable again
Post by: bayonetbrant on January 08, 2020, 01:59:17 PM
Counter samples released for Compass Games' upcoming Doomsday game

(https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/s960x960/81740147_2651698694866604_5461344920260313088_o.jpg?_nc_cat=111&_nc_ohc=g2sirTWRKpUAX_dEfBx&_nc_ht=scontent-iad3-1.xx&_nc_tp=1&oh=f6e3184bbbbfc41f749e4e5bc45e453d&oe=5EAEB5B4)
Title: Re: Cold-War-Goes-Hot gets fashionable again
Post by: mirth on January 08, 2020, 02:02:19 PM
Hawt
Title: Re: Cold-War-Goes-Hot gets fashionable again
Post by: ojsdad on January 08, 2020, 02:53:12 PM
So, what is the big differences between Doomsday and WW3.  Scale?  Scope? 
Title: Re: Cold-War-Goes-Hot gets fashionable again
Post by: bayonetbrant on January 08, 2020, 03:03:24 PM
Doomsday started out as a reboot of Third World War: Battle for Germany and then became its own thing once they decided to just update / reprint that one instead
Title: Re: Cold-War-Goes-Hot gets fashionable again
Post by: mirth on January 08, 2020, 03:04:49 PM
If you mean The Third World War, that's going to be a reprint/update of the entire series in a single game. The Doomsday Project will be a series of individual games with the first one covering German (which is pretty much how TWW was done originally).

The scale is roughly the same, but I think TWW is more of a "monster" game than the Doomsday Project games will be. The Doomsday Project is part of their OSS series which are meant to be of moderate complexity and playable in fairly short amount of time.
Title: Re: Cold-War-Goes-Hot gets fashionable again
Post by: BanzaiCat on January 08, 2020, 03:05:15 PM
They're also doing a reboot of NATO: The Next War in Europe (renamed "NATO: Designer Signature Edition").
Title: Re: Cold-War-Goes-Hot gets fashionable again
Post by: mirth on January 08, 2020, 03:08:52 PM
Yep. I saw Bruce Maxwell play testing NATO at Compass Con. The guy had hand drawn all the counters  :D
Title: Re: Cold-War-Goes-Hot gets fashionable again
Post by: ojsdad on January 08, 2020, 03:33:22 PM
From the description, sounds like it could be more than the Third World War series.

Quote

The Doomsday Project is a subseries of the Operational Scale System featuring wars that never happened.  There will be games on the Persian Gulf, the Balkans, the far north, the Far East, the strategic naval war, and of course, a game of total nuclear war.  All the games will feature rules that allow you to play some, part or all of the great war that never happened. The first game in the series will feature the fight that could have happened in Germany. Chemical weapons, tactical nuclear attacks and politics will be present – as well as all the forces that were stationed in the region in 1985.