Go West! - A Cold War Batrep

This is a short summary of the events that transpired during one of our two playtests today on a local convention.

We played a Cold War-Scenario pitting East German Forces against British Army of the Rhine.

The East Germans fielded a platoon of Motor Rifles with BMP-2 and some support assets:

• 3x Mot. Rifle Group  +  BMP-2
• 1x T55
• 1x Platoon Lead + Forward Observer
• Heavy Mortar Battery on call

The British had a force of two veteran sections with good morale:

• 2x Infantry Section (Veteran) including a Carl Gustav in each time as usual
• 1x Platoon Lead + Forward Observer
• Light Howitzer Fire Support on call 

The disparity in forces was balanced out by the higher training level of the Brits and their easier Objective of delaying the East Germans and/or destroying their T55 to prevent an exploit into the flank of the company.

The East Germans had to achieve breakthrough to threaten the defensive line of the company and lead the way for the next wave. To do this, they had to bring at least 3 teams towards the enemy table edge.


The game started with aggressive action of the BMPs, which unleashed their 30mm Cannons on Section 1 Riflegroup entrenched in their field fortifications. Unfortunately, the fire was less devastating than the East Germans had hoped...

The answer was relatively swift and within two turns, both BMPs exploded in balls of flames as the MAWs hit their target and pierced the APCs.  The explosion of one of the BMPs also affected the dismounted infantry group next to them by killing their leader and causing some confusion in the worst possible moment.

Reduced to the infantry dismounts in the centre, the firefight quickly evolved into British target practise as the veteran troops slowly, turn by turn, chewed through the infantry groups.

Meanwhile the East germans started a last attempt on the right flank and managed to advance their tanks and a Motor Rifle group with the last BMP along the right side.
Due to a bad decision by the NVA platoon leadership (i.e. players) the infantry group was ordered into the British flank but ultimately failed to develop enough momentum to do any damage. The British just regrouped a few meters back, held them at a distance, pinned them down and slowly chewed through the group.

So while the BMP and the T55 had broken through, the three infantry groups were stuck in the firefight, pinned down and taking heavy casualties, unable to recover from the constant fire without further heavy support.

We thus surrendered and awarded victory to the capitalist defenders ;)


The reason for our failure was to commit the third infantry group into the attack on the flank while the center was already losing the firefight. If we had just pushed on to the table edge, we might have been able to draw away more British troops, disperse their units more and move the infantry off table under the cover of our vehicles.

Bad call  - but a very nice game, showing that the system works in other settings just like intended, although with quite a different feeling to it. Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures for this battle. At least I remembered to take pics of the second scenario which will be covered another time!