"Need Help Choosing a Ruleset" Topic

A buddy of mine and I are enthusiastically contemplating purchasing some 1/285 NATO/Warsaw Pact tanks and armored vehicles. We would like a set of rules that allow for fun, fast tabletop action at company and battalion level gaming. We are hoping to find rules that are 1:1 (one miniature equals one tank on the table).

The specific period we are interested in is the early 80's, before everyone had M1's.

What advice can you give me?

A lot of micro-armour games are not 1-to-1 scale.

Fistful of TOW's can be played that way though (and arguably I think it's actually better played that way) and a battalion shouldn't work great.

It's also ridiculously thorough with it's stat lines (you can get stats in there for almost any variation of any tank anywhere in the world)

You can also download the old WRG rules for free from their website.
They are quite usable but definitely on the older end of course, with a lot of clunky explanations.
You do get a points system with them though and a pretty good selection of guns and gear.

If you are okay at the Company level, I can hook you right up

link

1 stand is a squad or single tank, with optional individual specialists attaching to the squads.
They are on the more abstract side but play very quickly.

A company level fight in about an hour to an hour and a half. Just Jack used them for a row of WW2 games and is a pretty vocal advocate.
blackhawkhet.blogspot.com
Check his blog and look for the "Klink" games.

How about Mein Panzer? I believe that's 1-1.

Try out the free WRG rules, since you can't really beat the price.

Then, you can compare that to the others.

I Ain't Been Nuked Mum, and SabreSquadron are other company level rules sets due out later this year. The latter has a free, basic copy that you can try out now, if you e-mail the guy. His website is the company name, with .com added to the end.

FFT3 gets a lot of good press, too.

FFT3

Cold War Commander can be played at 1:1. Fast, fun, easy to learn.

Another +1 for FFT3. Really nice system.

Cold War Commander and FFT3.

Speaking of Cold War Commander, where are those rules available for purchase as PDF, now that Pendraken bought the series? I haven't seen them available through the Pendraken website.

Neither CWC nor FFT3 are designed for a 1-1 vehicle representation. Check out Avalon Hill's MBT boardgame; it's very easy to use with miniatures. GMT Games is releasing a streamlined version later this year.

There s reprint of MBT on preorder from GMT iirc. It is the modern version of the Panzer rules and would work well with minis. I have played Panzer with micro armor a few times. Good fun. The MBT reprint should be followed by expansions for the BAOR and the Bundeswehr.

The BKC/CWC rules are still available from lulu.com. Leon at Pendraken said they will be trying to re-publish the hard copies, including the long-stalled CWCII rules, in the near future.

FFT3 can be played at 1:1. Either way, it's the way our group goes.

I've seen a conversion for Flames of War v1 (explicitly 1:1 model:real, and if you run it with 6mm minis you're close to 1:1 groundscale).

There's also some modern conversions for Battlegroup (in addition to an official project I call Battlegroup Fulda). The Battlegroup rules have a limited number of orders to give to individual tanks/infantry squads, but will happily handle a full battalion per player.

I think what the poster meant was that FFT3 is not 1:1 by default but it certainly works fine that way and it's an official option in hte book.

Here's the link to the unofficial, Cold War, FOW rules and army lists:

stoppingtheredtide.blogspot.com

See them in the right margin.

Sasquatch,

Here's a link to a 5Core Company Command game I played, USMC vs Soviets in Norway, circa 1985:

link

V/R,
Jack

Here's another one for you:
link

V/R,
Jack