"The best Modern minis and boardgames?" Topic

With many current Hot Spots flaring around the world, what are the top miniatures rules and boardgames you use to play out recent past (Cold War), current (Ukraine) and potential future conflicts (Taiwan)?

Modern & Cold War Miniatures Rules (Skirmish to Brigade):

*Spectre Operations

*Force on Force

*Team Yankee

*No End in Sight

*Seven Days to the River Rhine

*A Fistful of TOWs

*Combined Arms

*Tacforce

*WRG Modern Rules (1950–1985)

*Boots and Saddles

Modern & Cold War Board Wargames (Operational to Strategic)
Next War: Taiwan

*Next War: Korea

*Flashpoint: South China Sea

*Twilight Struggle

*Third World War (GDW Series)

*Gulf Strike

*Air & Armor

*Red Storm: The Air War Over Central Germany

*NATO: The Cold War Goes Hot

*The Korean War: June 1950–May 1951 (GMT)

*Next War: Taiwan

Like every other period, there are rules for 1 to 1 all the way up to divisional sized elements. You have combat on land, sea and air, and starting to get into space. Also you have detail, how far into the weeds do you want you game to be played at.

Nice list of rules and games.

Here are some more from my collection.
Armoured Corps
Armour Battles
Conn-Sonar
Fields of Fire
FireFight and City Fight
Future War Commander
FOW Modern
Harpoon
Hell by Daylight
Naval Command
Naval Warfare in the Age of Missiles
NORTHTAG and CENTAG
Northern Fleet 1983
Red Fleet at Dawn
Saber Squadron
Surface Battle Group
Shipwreck
Thunder Bolt

WRG 1950-1985.

Despite the title they work well for contemporary and near future games as well, just need to think about how current vehicles are represented

Air War C21 – Ok, I'm biased, I wrote them :)

My new Fleet Command game for naval, although its only available for edcational and professional naval analysis work just now

I used to play Cold War era a lot, and used Fistful of Tows and WRG Moderns, and a buddy of mine recalled we also played Challenger 2000 and AK-47 (Peter Pig).

We did a campaign using the Challenger rules where we used house rules with the Junta boardgame to set up engagements.

I've also played Force on Force, they were decent rules. Anyone played Spectre: Operation rules?

I prefer a tactical scale game. I.e Fire Tm, single vehicle/model, etc. Of course, GHQ is perfect for that. But I never played their rules …

I found the Armageddon game intriguing.
Of those listed: NATO, Third World War was the go to game for us old gamers. In the 1980s the RPG Twilight 2000 had a strong following.

I still have both of those timeportal. Spectre was played a few years ago, haven't tried latest version or similar games yet but I do own a bunch. I like the small fig games but looking for one that is maybe 2 squads each. At close quarters is so far one i keep coming back to.

Oh geesh, now I remember we also tried "Phoenix Command" modern tactical skirmish – it had an insane level of detail that made the game very slow to play. E.g., you fire your M-16 and you roll for each bullet, and each and every hit on a detailed location table for different target aspects.

Force on force for skirmish. Battlefront ww II has a modern variant on their website for larger actions .
Phantoms for aerial stuff.
Really never played modern naval except an old spi game task force.

Cheers
Joe

Fistful of Tows didn't make the cut?

Ooops. I missed it in the initial list. Sorry.

For Vietnam, Charlie Don't Surf by TooFat Lardies is an excellent set of rules that captures the feel of the period.

Modern Spearhead and WRG for me.

Boardgames, Victory Games NATO, although I still lay SPIs Next War once. Otherwise the various SPI Central Front games, particularly BAOR and Fulda Gap.

For tactical stuff I really enjoyed Assault by GDW.

For near future conflicts there's really only one answer and that is GMT's Next War series. The standard games are pretty much a hex and counter affair, but the advanced game with air defense tracks, cruise missiles, air ops, naval warfare, etc., is not for the meek and will take some time.

In terms of air warfare (both miniatures and board games) there's really nothing that would be an accurate representation for engagements such as several F-22s and F-35s taking on a like number of Russian and Chinese adversaries. The engagement ranges would require multiple game boards, we really don't know much about today's defensive measures, and simulating the data streams between aircraft, AWACs, satellites, etc., would add a huge level of complexity.

For ground warfare I would have thought that Fistful of TOWs is pretty up to date.

The no longer modern at all Cold War:

Charlie Company
Cold War Commander

I prefer quick play and simple. For more company level infantry based games I tend to use FiveCore Company Command by Nordic Weasel in 10mm.

I've gamed some 6mm modern armor with Pz.28s quick-play modern set.

Both sets give me good times and results. I was thinking of doing larger scope games in 3mm with TankWreck.