"Brigade to Division level rules for 1985?" Topic

Hello all,
What rules do you recommend for a brigade to division level game covering a Soviet invasion of FRG? I have copies of FFT 3, Modern Spearhead, Cold War Commander and Combined Arms. Before I invest my time…money already spent on tons of Pico Armor…I thought I would seek out the community's sage advice. Thank you in advance,

Seems like you already have the big players. Other than Cold War Commander, what are you looking for that these rules don't do?

Take a look at 5Core Brigade Commander. Each stand is a company. Though it will be hard to fit more than a Brigade/Regiment on a table

As above, you've got all the main ones and they all use similar basing schemes, so time to start painting.

Personally I'd go with MSH.

You can use stuff based for MSH/CWC/FFT with 5Core Brigade Commander, just put two or three bases together.

OPFOR from link
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OPFOR units are battalions composed of company stands
I have used all the rules you mentioned and 5core also.
Recommend 1 cm = 100 meters for both 5core and OPFOR. A 4 foot by 6 foot table could fit a division level attack at that scale.

My own preferences are OPFOR over 5Core for the higher level. The club found 5cores activation system and some of the game mechanics awkward. For lower level platoon units either FFT3 or CWC.

In a month or two, there'll be a few tweaks to 5core (and brigade commander in particular) to fit the activation mechanic a bit tighter to the large-scale level of play, so look forward to that.

THe system works well as it does now but its not very friendly to multi-player games and it can feel a little forced at times, but I think I've sorted out how to fix that.

Cold War Commander…easy to learn and play. A bit abstract in the way hits are done, since they come off at the end of the turn which means you have to focus fire to get kills. OTOH, using suppression helps slow down formations and increase the friction of command and control.

I think this is what the game does well…if you use suppression correctly, or even as a by product of a kill, you increase the friction related to command and control, causing formations to spread out and become more difficult to control.

Thank you all. I will have to break down and read them all. Do any of these better supported than the others?

Depends on what "support" means to you.

FFT doesn't have expansions that I know of, but it includes stats for an estimated 9 billion tanks. I'd be surprised if you could dig up a 20th century vehicle (or variant) that wasn't covered by the rules.
It also has points formulas to calculate your own units.
If you like pick up games, the points system will help a lot there as well. Big plus as games on this scale tend not to include points at all.

Modern Spearhead includes a good range of stats and organisational details though its focused on actual conflicts and the NATO/WARPAC setup.
You get full TO&Es as well, and easy to read ones too.

The profiles are rather simple so adding your own vehicles isn't hard at all.

I can't speak to CWC or Command Decision.

FiveCore BC has some suggested cold war ratings in the download and the assets/attachment system lets you do a lot of neat things that other systems don't cover, like commando raids and tactical doctrines.
I also happen to think it has the best system for recon troops and you get campaign rules.

On the downside, it's not stat-driven so it doesn't include any unit profiles as such. It's on you to evaluate whether a given tank is superior or inferior to a given target (its a three step ladder).
I don't include TO&E's either.

Viper Guy:
An oldie but to my mind goodie is Operational Maneuver Group by Table Top Games. I have no idea whether it's still available but it was a pretty interesting game to play.
Cheers.
Rod Robertson.