Suggested new range… “Cold Warriors”


  • 1945 to 1995

     

    I know it is a big time frame, perhaps too big.

     

    At first I was mostly thinking 1980’s for the Twilight 2000, Red Dawn, Operation Flashpoint possibilities but then I thought maybe open it up a bit. The edges blur into the 60’s and 70’s pretty easily. Vietnam era troops become 80’s American National Guard easy enough. 

    Going beyond the typical 80’s East Germans, Cubans, French, Soviets, British and American militaries you could think about civilians, gang cartels, generic “rebels/guerillas” (think Predator), bikers (I know Warlord Games does a sprue but they say theirs will be a limited Edition), Police (a simple head swap and uniform color can easily change country or jurisdiction, so local police or State Trooper), Firefighters/Paramedics/Scientists.

     

    Think about what Warlord Games could have covered with their Wargames Factory sculpts but have chosen not to. There is a clearly demonstrated interest in the sculpts given how well they sell on eBay. And consider the current pricing from Warlord Games.

     

    These are all kits of things that folks play but other companies are not making available as plastic kits. And each has multi-genre, multi-era potential. 



  • I think a "Cold Warriors" line would be intriguing - there are all sorts of real conflicts that era covers, and there are alt-history type conflicts that would work such as a "Red Dawn" or "The Day After" scenario, and then there are sci-fi possibilities, such as Cold Warriors vs. Zombies (Aliens, Pod People, etc.)

    That's a great point about '60s/'70s era military uniforms, gear, and weapons doing double-duty as '80s era National Guard - and it also works as civilian miltias, guerilla armies, and so on from the '80s to present (I'd venture to say there are lots of American survivalist/patriot types who have all sorts of Cold War military surplus stuff... even I've got a Vietnam-era AR-15, SKS, and AK-style rifle in my gun cabinet, and guns from those eras are popular with lots of American civilians.)

    Similar to Twilight 2000, I've said before - and I'm more than half-serious - that Cold War-era armies can be souped up into a "G.I. Joe vs. C.O.B.R.A." style imaginary/alt-history/quasi-cyberpunk conflict:  kitbashing Cold Warriors with, say, the Cannon Fodder, WWII Germans, and Death Fields accessories would give the mix of retro-'80s and quasi-scifi elements that would fit right into this sort of thing... just add some souped up 1/48 scale model Cold War military vehicles (which, I believe, are still pretty easy to find, and are "close enough" to 28mm scale to work!)  Really, I'm surprised the IP holder (Hasbro, I believe?) hasn't published a wargaming rules set for this sort of thing - its time has come, and maybe they would be willing to consider licensing actual Joe vs. COBRA wargaming miniature kits for use with such a thing, though I'm just fine with more generic homebrew stuff - I've not seen the "0200 Hours: Night Raids in WWII" rules yet, but something tells me those would work great for this sort of thing as-is, or at least with minor tweaking to update to '80s quasi-cyberpunk :)

    With all ofthe above in mind, a "Cold Warriors" line probably should include local "civilian" militias from around the world, for post-apocalyptic gaming, zombie survivors, "asymmetrical warfare" conflicts, "Red Dawn" scenarios, and so on.  (Restrained, generic '80s era civilian costumes, carefully selected, can cover a great deal of 20th and 21st century history:  variations on a basic jeans-and-Tshirt outfit covers the '60s to present, for example.)

    In any case, some of the obvious (and many not-so-obvious) armies for this era (in no particular order) could include:

    • Cold War USA
    • Cold War Soviets
    • United Kingdom
    • generic NATO forces / UN "blue-hats" Peacekeepers
    • generic Warsaw Pact "Ruritanian" forces
    • North Vietnamese Army / Viet-Cong (at a glance, I think the same kit might work for both, given options for their different weapons and other gear?)
    • generic Middle-Eastern, and/or a weapons sprue to update the WA Afghans for this era
    • NATO and Soviet-Bloc soldiers in "NBC" suits (Nuclear, Biologoical, Chemical protective suits)
    • generic American/European Cold War "civilians" with weapons (shotguns, hunting rifles, handguns, molotovs, baseball bats, etc.)
    • Accessory Sprue of popular Cold War small arms (mostly M-16s, FN-FALs, and AKs, plus SKS, M14s, Uzis and Skorpions and other SMGs, M-1911s, RPGs; plus gear like radios, binoculars, night-vision, geiger counters, etc.)
    • the living dead
    • Thugs and Hooligans (post-apocalyptic biker gangs and the like - see "Dawn of the Dead", "Mad Max", etc.)
    • SWAT / Special Forces set

     

    Kitbashery:

    • "Death Fields" accessory sprues and other bits can update many of these sets ino vaguely cyberpunk territory, in addition to converting them to "Death Fields" factions.
    • Yesterday's cutting-edge military gear and uniforms become today's mil-surp leftovers for the National Guard and/or civilian militias, rebel forces, etc. - these "Cold Warriors" can be used as such in wargames set in the 21st Century and beyond.
    • Spare WWII weaponry and gear would probably fit right in on at least some of these factions for early Cold War armies, mercenaries, special forces, reserve and auxilliary forces, etc.

     


  • I honestly can not understand how I never considered an officially licensed GI Joe versus COBRA wargame. That is a money maker waiting to happen considering how well nostalgia sells. Look at the recent He-Man gaming kickstarters from CMON. But now I know, and knowing is half the battle.


  • @Grumpy Gnome

    Well you don't actually need GI Joe and Cobra to do an imagination game setting armies like them. In fact the US government has thoughtfully used your grandparents tax dollars to write background fluff complete with paint guides for  the Circle of Trigonists (or Cobra before Cobra).  Update the guns and modify the uniforms a bit and boom 1980's Saturday morning cartoon baddies.


  • @Brian Van De Walker That is quite the resource you have linked there.


  • @Brian Van De Walker  - Perfect!   That's just the sort of public-domain sort of thing I was imagining, and all along my crazy Uncle Sam already did much of the ground work decades ago! 

    And the Aggressors/Circle Trigonists even have some distinctively otherworldly helmets and uniforms, and everything: not quite like anyting else on earth, but almost plausible, given some of the strange helmets and uniforms to appear in Europe historically!

    Of course, Hasbro(?) is still missing out on an official licensing opportunity here, while the nostalgia factor would attract a lot of new people into tabletop wargaming that might never have considered it otherwise....


  • I'd love to see more emphasis placed on other countries if there was going to be a Cold War range - steering clear of the USA and USSR. There's plenty of regional conflicts across Africa and Asia that'd make for interesting focuses.

     

    The Algerian War, the Congo Crisis, the Portuguese Colonial War, the Six-Day War, the Yom Kippur War and the Iran-Iraq War all come to mind.


  • @Yronimos Whateley

    Well it gets better, the Circle of Trigonists is just one Aggressor forces Uncle Sam cooked up (though admittedly probably one of the more colorful ones), there are also fake "friendly" nations that were made for military exercises.

    One could even do what Namco Bandai did with the Ace Combat franchise and make a whole "strangereal verse" setting just by using the fake countries the USA has made and even simply do it all as head swaps to real world forces people keep asking for. The Trigonists for example could easily be done up as alternate head swaps for the US, NATO, Soviet Union, current RF, UK or any other European troops form from the 1950’s to last week news headlines easy.


  • It absolutely makes sense to practice even against assumed allies - you never know what the future holds!  I've never looked it up before, but I noticed from the link you posted that Cicle Trigonists were just part of a larger Aggressor campaign, and knew that the US government had even done some "fantasy" wargaming with civilian stand-ins (I finally had to break the news to an angry co-worker after the third or fourth time I'd heard him complaining about a news report a couple years ago about the US government "wasting" money on zombie-apocalypse themed wargaming, because he thought it was stupid to fight imaginary zombies as if they're something real:  "Buddy, they're not practicing this to fiight actual zombies, they're practicing to 'pacify' you and me!"  It makes even more sense in that context, as curren events move forward: tracking and controlling the spread of "zombie-ism" is a handy metaphor for the spread of diseases, crowd/mob psychology, information, supplies, or ideology.....)  I'm sure they've practiced lots of other colourful and imaginative stuff before, too, for these "just in case" scenarios...  I really ought to check into it more to see what they've come up with!


  • @Yronimos Whateley  Actually, if I recall right the "official statement" on the zombie exercises was that it was to combat/deal with drones (probably the death swarmers), not that it matters one way or the other.


  • @Yronimos Whateley Hi mate was this the exercise that troops refered to as "zombie" as in a possible drug that makes the person harder to kill. and not dead and back to life. "Ragers"  as oppossed to undead.  


  • Actually quite fascinating. My love for post-apoc fiction is grounded in my own experiences dealing with various real world incidents including natural disasters in the US military and British police. I am fascinated with disaster psychology, the break down of society and rebuilding.

    Here is some information I dug up just now looking into this thread again.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CONOP_8888

    And from the actual CONOP8888 document.... I strongly recommend you read the disclaimer on pages 2 and 3 to better undertand the exercise.

    http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2014/images/05/16/dod.zombie.apocalypse.plan.pdf

     

     


  • Oh, great catch, Grumpy! :)  I think I could get hooked on these fictional training scenarios.

    "Planners... also realized that training examples for plans must accommodate the political fallout that occurs if the general public mistakenly believes that a fictional training scenario is actually a real plan...."

    Translation:  "Planners realized that not clearly labeling certain training scenarios as a disarmingly ridiculous-sounding 'Zombie Outbreak Scenario' could accidentally START a 'Zombie Outbreak' in the general public!"  :D 

    The "Zombie Threat Summary" (pages 6-7) is fascinating reading - that PDF is a triumph of indirect language, it's a thing of beauty :)

    In all seriousness, it's a fascinating subject, and a fascinating glimpse into military, psychological, and political warfare planning and training, as well as a lens into the very origins of tabletop wargaming itself!


  • @Grumpy Gnome you sir are a super star, thats a great read, and the PDF`s brilliant, nice bit of realism. You know, if ever a virus made us like 28 days, I really wonder how many gun toteing people could stay calm enough to head shot? there goes the neighbore hood. 


  • I would enjoy a Cold War line.

    West Germans versus East Germans seems particularly fascinating.  

     I truly hope Warlord does an official Cold War expansion for Bolt Action at some point.  

    In the mean time there's a Mustelidus Martens who has been doing some amazing work:

     https://www.reddit.com/r/boltaction/comments/r2qaji/bolt_action_cold_war_new_nations_polandeast/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

    1945 to 1995 IS a large swathe of time.  Suggest picking 1984 as time frame for the miniatures lines as we all know that's when the Cold War goes hot.  (As shown in the documentary Red Dawn).


  • Would love to see Cold War NVA:

    Cold War Bundeswehr:

    As well as the Poles, Soviets, Americans, and UK.

     

     

     

     


  • If these trailers don't get you juiced for Cold War gaming I don't know what will:

    https://youtu.be/AdzZBx2eUcQ

    https://youtu.be/h5Vmf3u0D1A

     


  • Having lived in Seattle, and done some security work at the Port, that Seattle video certainly made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.


  • @Grumpy Gnome Were are you now then my friend, funny I Thought England with us. J Tam loved the vids, like, the Bolt action pictures, Twilight 2000 as just been re-released,  its now set  in a fictional earth were the cold war and the Berlin Wall never came down . Looks top notch, but I wanted "today" with China, Korea, and the remnants of Russia kicking off. I think the original, which I still have, was to good, not to do a 2022 total new product. 


  • I am living in Germany these days, although I have also lived in North Wales and various parts of the US. I have been a real rolling stone, although I seem to have finally settled down. I was serving in Berlin when the Wall came down so any references toothed Wall always catch my attention.

    The new Twilight 2000 did not capture my imagination as much as the original. Nostalgia may have clouded my vision though. After Berlin I was assigned to 5th Mech, which is referenced in the original Twilight 2000 but I found it a poor unit to serve in compared to the Berlin Brigade.

    The nice thing about alternate 80’s history is that it can avoid some politically sensitive issues compared to contemporary conflicts. 


  • @Grumpy Gnome Ah the penny drops and I see, yep, seems we both think the same of the New Twilight 2000. I bet the original gave you hairs on the back of your neck at times, plus a real sense of ultra realism.  I  agree that the alternate 80's history would be nice so as to avoid some aspects of political sensitivity,I just felt that the original game and all the work that went into it that this new one should have the same quality and so, therefore, involve China. All the best, cheers mate.


  • @Grumpy Gnome 

    My first squad leader was a Berlin BDE guy.  This was when I was in 2nd BN, 502nd Infantry.  


  • @JTam  Air Assault out of Fort Campbell? I was 4th BN, 502nd in Berlin. 


  • @Grumpy Gnome 

    Yes, this was at Campbell.  He would always talk about how the Berlin BDE was the real 502nd.  In between talking about Reforger, "Wild Chicken," and frauleins of course.  

    I would go from Campbell to four years in Germany myself (1st AR, Baumholder).  But the Reforgers were over and Wild Chicken was closed.  It was just a lot of Graf and Hohenfels.

    Here's a Reforger story he would tell (to make this more relevant to the thread):  

    They stop their tracks in a small German town.  Taking a halt from pushing to the gap.  Couple Joes jump off the track to get snackie cakes from a cafe.  Old German male comes out of nowhere and starts hugging on them while crying and going on in German.  The Joes are nonplussed but gentle.  Eventually his daughter (might have been hot granddaughter in the story) comes out and explains that "He thinks it's 1945 and that you are German troops fighting for them."

    When you think about it, the American Soldier of 1985 looked a lot more like a 1945 German Soldier than a 1945 American Soldier.  Camouflaged uniforms, "assault rifles," PASGT/"Fritz" helmets, camouflaged vehicles.  


  • Yeah, it was the helmets in particular.

    I recall meeting an elderly German gentleman on a bus in Berlin who guessed I was an American soldier despite my civilian clothes. Apparently he was a tank driver back in the day and liked Americans but hated the Russians. It was a bit surreal to my 19 year old self. 

    Although I never got to Fort Campbell I spent plenty of time at Fort Benning, Fort Polk and Fort Lewis (and Yakima!). Service in Germany was considerably better. 

    I will admit that I wish I had had a chance to serve in an Air Assault unit.


  • @Grumpy Gnome 

    You didn't miss that much Brother.

    The birds still land miles from the OBJ so you still walk all night.  

    They take the seats out the bird and the doors are open and your smashed in there like sardines getting blasted by the rotor wash (at least the back right hand guys).  

    Finally they never played Wagner even one lousy time.


  • @JTam Hi mate loved the vidios link worked fine but can`t get the "Coldwar" to work. Could you retry?. Cheers.


  • @Geoff Maybury 

    Great!  Yeah, I thought they were neat vids.

    Which link doesn't work?  The first or the second?  The third thing "Seattle 1989" is just a teaser picture.


  • @JTam Sorry for the confusion its the "Coldwar Bolt action " by that chap I can`t get acess too. Cheers  


  • @Geoff Maybury 

    https://www.reddit.com/r/boltaction/comments/r2qaji/bolt_action_cold_war_new_nations_polandeast/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

    This might work better.  If it doesn't you might have to manually cut and paste the address into a tab.


  • @JTam  The Army has a way of removing the fun from all kinds of things, like camping, hiking and target shooting... so no surprise that it sucks the joy out of helicopter rides as well. 


  • @Grumpy Gnome 

    Don't forget parachuting.  Trussed up like a turkey for hours, 10 seconds of enjoyable floating, and then hitting the ground like a bag of sh**.


  • @JTam   Swift Strike! Hoo-ah!


  • It is just as well WGA does not make plastic Cuban Advisors....I would be be tempted to wargame Grenada and/or Angola. I did not go to Grenada but I had a Sergeant in my Platoon and First Sergeant in my Company who had fought there when I was stationed in Berlin.

    Arma 3 is coming out... looks like it is going to be set in the 80’s, going back to the original Operation Flashpoint setting? The name Reforger certainly seems nostalgic for me!

     



  • To be honest I'd rather see WA continue working on the ranges they currently have before bringing out any more, especially those with only one or two sets like First Empires, Blood Oaths and Renaissance. Those ranges have so much potential but WA seem intent on wasting it.

    Hell, the 'Moderns' range they're already planning on starting could provide the home for Cold War stuff, it all belongs to that same dull arena of 'history' post-1945 that secondary schools insist on making the core focus of History GCSEs for no real reason other than 'ModERN So iT's coOl'.


  • @Caratacus Putting Cold War sets into the Modern category works for me.

    As I mix sets across era as well as across manufacturers (if I can get them to fit) I am not all that fussed personally about WGA making both sides of a conflict but I do see value in WGA prioritizing adding special figures (command, cavalry and heavy weapons/artillery) to faction sets they have already released.


  • @Grumpy Gnomeil   I would really love a set of Cold War figures,  of some description they would be ideal. Wargames Atlantic are exactly that, a Wargame company. So lets have some Russian, British, American, and German, for that mater why not Arab, Russian. and Israel /Arab conflicts


  • WGA have to follow the rulebooks, at least until they move to publishing their own. If Bolt Action goes Vietnam or Cold War, WGA has to seriously consider it. Likewise for the Landsknecht look in Fantasy if Warhammer revives it (which they are). Third Party opportunities like 02 Hundred and Iron Core generally need to be taken up, since a great deal of the commercial risk is likely covered by the third party employing WGA.


  • Picked up this model kit at a local militaria show:

    Pleased as punch.  Represents the start of a Cold War Bundeswehr army. 

    Always thought this was a cool vehicle.  Last of the classic Panzerjagers.

    https://tanks-encyclopedia.com/coldwar/West_Germany/Kanonenjagdpanzer-90.php

    Just need some of these guys:

    And some OPFOR:

     


  • I am defntely loving this idea as a "child of the L1A1 (actually more the L4 for me as the big lad in the section 😆)"... I'd most definitely love to see some "Red Dawn" style partisans as athough there are a few companies that now do NATO and WARPAC figures the "citizens militia" are definitely scarce... Empress do a few, but the scales are REALLY weird 😜


  • You humped around an L4?  What a classic.  What were your thoughts, impressions, experiences of it?


  • @JTam yup, I did, and a Gimpy in the OTC; I was never "regular" although my love of firearms and shooting both real and replica stays with me to this day... I actually perferred the L4 as I trained with proper BREN guns when in my school cadet force (along with the Lee Enfield!) as a lad 😊 Although magazine fed (the magazine of which contrary to popular opinion you could pop into an SLR although the weaker spring meant problems with feeding, and you WOULD get in the sh1t if you were caught doing it... another story entirely 😆) I found it a sturdy and accurate weapon that was easy to maintain, and once you had your drills down, with sufficient magazines you could keep up an impressive ROF 😍 


  • @Bill Thomas 

    Very cool. I would love to shoot a Bren and/or L4.  

    Would the regular FAL magazines work in the L4?  

    Your supposed to be able to feed a M249 with M16/M4 mags from the squad if needed.... But it's not very reliable in practice.

    I assume the Gimpy is the GPMG aka the MAG 58?  We still use those.  Infantry gets the newer M240L with titanium receivers.  Makes it slightly less a pig.  It's still heavy, really long, and still awkward.  But it runs.  You can't fault its reliability.


  • Yup, sorry@JTam, GPMG L7A1 that was fondly known by all and sundry as the "Gimpy" and was basically the same MAG58 base with a few small design feature changes 😍

    To the best of my knowledge FN FAL magazines wouldn't work in the L4 as they're metric rather than imperial.. I never had the opportunity to try this in practice though, although I have shot both independantly... I did once meet a FAL collector when I lived in Florida who had a double-car garage as his gun room (bolstered and fully-alarmed of course) with just about every FAL variant known to man... I bought a lovely set of original Lithgow furniture from him for my "Aussie Spec" display L1A1 but I never thought to ask about magazine compatibility 😜 


  • 100% awesome:

    I 100% don't need these.  But also I 100% do.


  • @JTam WOLVERINES

    Awesome looking figures 


  • @Andreas Mayrhofer 

    Best documentary ever made.


  • @JTam I don't need them either, but will I have them... oh YES 😂


  • @JTam 

    It is a bit weird to reply to such an old post, but i am still working on this project and stumbled upon this, because i actually wanted to propose Cold War minis here.


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