‘Modern’ wargaming is a funny little niche. It covers a 70-year timespan which saw monumental change throughout, but when it comes to the Cold War is almost entirely speculative. We’re historical wargamers, gaming a war that never happened. Modern games have been one of the periods that seems to have never really ‘taken off’ too. You can find plenty of rulesets for modern games but there is nothing that approaches the popularity of the Second World War or Napoleonic era. It’s a super-niche, and because of this it feels a good 20 years behind other parts of the hobby. And yes, there’s Team Yankee, but the less said about that the better.
I was very interested, then, to see Pendraken release the second edition of Cold War Commander (CWC2) recently, and for a very affordable price at that, with the PDF version of the rules a little over a tenner as part of a launch sale. Having a healthy amount of British and Soviet minis from the 80s as part of my Battlegroup NORTHAG collection, and a dose of curiosity as to how CWC2 would frame things differently I could see no reason not to take the plunge and give it a go.
This was particularly enticing because while I am a fan of NORTHAG I’m also frustrated at its narrow focus – it currently only has lists and rules for a Soviet-British ‘meeting engagement’ battle circa 1985. Though I don’t have proof of it I suspect the author based his game around the fantastic video ‘Soviet Encounter’ and while this is a very cool idea it’s also quite inflexible. Further army lists and scenarios have been promised in a Battlegroup CENTAG book but this is yet to materialise two years later.
CWC2, on the other hand, covers huge swathes of time – 1946 to 1992 – and comes with 15 scenarios in the rulebook. It also runs on a higher level of command, with each mini representing a group of men or vehicles, claiming to support games at company right up to brigade and divisional level. It’s potentially satisfying a lot of needs in one go, so much so that I felt it deserved a review.
As always I’ll be using the categories and weighting designed by the chaps at at Little Wars TV for my review. The weightings are listed on my other reviews and are easily found on Little Wars TV’s own works.
Presentation
There’s a clear ‘no nonsense’ attitude with the way CWC2 has been laid out. The design is spartan and the text is dense, but this is a positive with a PDF as it cuts down on file size and makes the document easier to navigate. The word count is gigantic for this book, so I imagine keeping the page count low was well-received by Pendraken when printing hard copies, too. It’s a very simple approach compared to other games these days but it’s not too dated at the same time.
Though graphically everything is clean and modern, the text-heavy presentation does give the book quite an old school appearance that some may find intimidating at first, particularly folks with dyslexia or similar difficulties. The PDF is searchable which is really appreciated, though it would be nice in a future update to see links added to speed up navigation. An index would be nice in the print version but doesn’t seem to be present.
Considering Pendraken are the publishers of this book and they’re likely using it to promote various lines of minis it feels very light on pictures of their stuff. You’ll see the odd tank here and there but other than one or two big images it’s rather modest. I’d have thought this would be the time to really showcase what they bring to the table, especially considering the quality of their minis.
The diagrams are one area that really fails on presentation. Photos of minis are used when illustrated diagrams would be clearer, and at times the angles in the photos aren’t helpful. There are a few typos here and there, incomplete page references and the like, but these generally don’t hinder reading, especially when the PDFs are due to see free updates in time. Understanding is a different matter though and something I’ll come to in the next section.
Score: 6
Playability
There are two core themes to playability: how easy it is to comprehend the rules, and how much work is going to be required to get a game on the table. These need to be viewed very separately for CWC2.
If you look at the contents page for CWC2 you’ll see just how comprehensive it is, there aren’t many topics it doesn’t cover. What you’ll also notice viewing the contents is how there doesn’t seem to be a great deal of logic as to how these rules are ordered for you to read. This adds a degree of challenge to learning the rules without the aid of an experienced player or YouTube videos, as you’re unsure what rules need to be prioritised or will only pop up once in a blue moon.
Reading CWC2 feels a lot like playing a demo game with someone who has played the game a lot but doesn’t know how to teach it. You’re bombarded with information that hasn’t been prioritised for the learner, rife with exceptions and references to rules in a section of the book you won’t reach for another 30 pages, such as the first page of the book explaining why a certain unit has specific combat stats, only to not explain what those stats represent for several chapters. You’ll also find references to optional rules that aren’t in the book but are instead online. This happens repeatedly, and you find yourself regularly questioning whether you’ve missed something or if the rules just haven’t explained things yet. The writing style also feels rather old school and quite intricate, adding to the challenge; on more than one occasion I had to read a page three times to make sure I fully understood a rule. For some context, I was able to learn how to play NORTHAG in two days, whereas CWC2 took me more than a week.
A great example of this clunkiness is the orders system. As it’s a core concept of the game a visual example with accompanying text is provided. This should be straightforward – here’s a successful order, here is a failed order, here’s a blunder – but instead of 3 simple diagrams no fewer 4 pages of text and photos are used. The examples also include shooting and artillery mechanisms, the artillery system being particularly frustrating as it goes into detail into a mechanism you haven’t yet been instructed on how to use. The icing on this cake, though, is the ‘blunder’ example, where the end result is described as ‘slim to non-existant’ in its likelihood of happening, leaving the author to create a rationale as to what this could represent seeing as the actual result is so unrealistic. All this does is muddy comprehension and make life more challenging for the newcomer; all of this won’t be an issue to the veteran who’s coming from 1st edition, or the guy who has friends already playing, but I’d suspect bringing in new players was quite a significant goal of CWC2 and it doesn’t make it easy for us newbies.
What this ruleset desperately needed was a ‘basic rules’ that gets new players putting minis on the table as quick as possible, and an ‘advanced rules’ section that they can gradually add to their game. Instead, you get everything at once, and do your best to come out at the other end. This may sound like I’m being harsh, but I think in this day and age a lot more should be expected from a modern ruleset in terms of making it easy to comprehend and accessible – I had no such difficulties reading the rules to a game nearly 20 years CWC2’s senior – and the more I re-read the rules and apply them to games, and the more I take to them, the more I’m left thinking how big of an open goal this ruleset has missed.
In terms of the level of materiel required to get CWC2 up and running, however, the game is fantastically accessible. This is due to the 1 base = 1 platoon ration of minis on the table: 9 bases of infantry is therefore equivalent to a battalion, which costs next to nothing in smaller scales when you’ve got maybe 3-5 minis on a base. My Cold War collection for NORTHAG produces a relatively small game for that, but with a few tweaks (mainly picking up minis to represent command units and a few niche elements) I can already play a hefty game of CWC2. This low level of demand minis-wise already has me very curious about Blitzkrieg Commander, the WW2 equivalent of CWC2.
The game is scale agnostic, and the rules include instructions how to run it at different scales. One thing I would recommend is using buildings and terrain a scale lower than the scale you use for minis, so 6mm buildings for 10mm minis, etc. Buildings aren’t represented individually in CWC2, so making a ‘block’ of buildings that represents an area looks a bit better by using a smaller scale. CWC2 is a game that benefits from plenty of terrain on the table, but seeing as even buildings are representative of larger settlements you can always proxy things. The ground scale is 1CM=20M, so I’ll likely build some little roads and things that are a suitable size, too.
There are a number of modifiers and effects in CWC2 – units can become suppressed for example, or suffer a command penalty for taking opportunity fire – and you may want to create tokens or markers for these. There’s nothing complicated that needs to be made, and Pendraken are looking to make some tokens and counters in the near future, so really there’s no more challenge here than for most historical wargames. The most awkward things to pick up is probably a directional dice, but there are plenty of smartphone ‘dice roller’ apps now that will do that for you for free these days. There’s also a ‘toolbox’ attitude to this ruleset that is very similar to Black Powder that I think makes accessibility much less of a concern it may be otherwise, but the difficulties in reading are difficult to overcome.
Score: 5
Mechanics
It pains me to give such a critical score of the playability of this game, because once you battle through the early stages of understanding the mechanisms at work are fantastic. It’s clear the focus of the ruleset is abstracting enough to streamline a large-scale experience while at the same time having enough ‘grit’ to create tactical conundrums and command decisions.
The roots of the game are in the old ‘Warmaster’ rules, as is Black Powder, and you can see their shared lineage in the command and control systems of the game, along with a ‘here are the tools, do what you’d like with them’ approach when covering so many different eras and conflicts. If you’ve ever played either of the other games you’ll have a head start to learning CWC2 – your commanding units have a command value and you roll 2D6, scoring under the command value means your units complete their orders. Where CWC2 varies from Black Powder is you can issue another order to a unit if they complete their first order, only this time with a penalty to your command value, and you can continue to give orders with the penalties accumulating. If you fail a command role you cannot issue any more orders to any units under that HQ’s command, meaning there’s a building degree of risk if you attempt more complicated sets of manoeuvres in your turn.
Turns are ‘I go, you go’ with a twist – your opponent will have chances to lay down opportunity fire if you leave your units exposed. This means that any time you fire at your opponent you may find they’re capable of firing back! This promotes good, historical play, as weapon ranges vary hugely based on unit type, meaning tanks can dominate good ‘tank country’ where they can take on an overwatch role.
Recon is a really valuable tool in this game, and one of my favourite mechanisms. Recce units can boost your command ability, spot for artillery, reveal units to fire at, or reduce movement penalties in difficult terrain. They feel valuable and can make or break your plans when used well. It’s really good to see recce play a meaningful purpose that distinguishes it from just being ‘crap at combat light units’.
One minor gripe that may not be a problem is there are no rules for unit formations or cohesion. This looks like an opportunity to end up with the ‘car park’ effect found in games like Flames of War which is a real pet peeve of mine. I’m not part of the community enough to see how big of a problem this is yet, though.
Arguably more so than Black Powder, CWC2 covers practically any eventuality and probability you can think of. I really am struggling to think of a scenario or situation in a 80s Cold War game that this ruleset couldn’t handle. If you commit to this ruleset you’re not going to run out of campaigns or eras for a long, long time; I’m already thinking about buying some Afghans to play some Sovitet-Afghan war games (I’ve already got the Soviets after all) and, surprise surprise, CWC2 has a ton of rules for guerrilla units and asymmetrical warfare that will support this.
There are 3 army lists in the book: British, Soviet, and USA, and all three are covered from 1946 right up to 1992. The rest of the army lists are to be published for free on the Pendraken site: there are already 25(!) published, covering 5 specific conflicts and a general ‘Cold War’ conflict. On top of the rules in the book, there is a list of ‘optional rules’ that are also to be found on the Pendraken site, but these are yet to be published.
Score: 9
Historical Flavour
When a ruleset covers as many theatres and periods as CWC2 does its difficult to really give it a strong historical identity because it would have to do so at the neglect of something else. That said, the games I’ve played of CWC2 have felt authentic enough for my liking, both in mechanics and unit stats.
The units in my learning games are my NORTHAG collection, so I could compare that historical feel directly between the two games by using similar forces. When playing as the Soviets I found myself with a poorer command rating and troops that would show little initiative, forcing me to give orders to groups of units to minimise orders failing. I had more tanks but they didn’t have the range to challenge enemy armour, forcing me to fight aggressively and keep advancing. When playing as the British my focus instead was on position and dominating open ground with my Chieftains, simultaneously trying to shield it from sagger attacks by screening with other units and using their flexible doctrine to cause havoc. Both sides felt right, and I could enjoy a game by applying historic doctrine, which is a big positive in my books.
Ultimately though the onus is on you to create the flavour. The toolbox approach means it’s down to the players to interpret what will create a historical feel and apply accordingly. This could certainly be exploited by power gamers, so your enjoyment is going to depend a great deal on who you’re playing with.
Score: 7
Support
This is where CWC2 really shines. As I’ve mentioned there are already 25 additional army lists released online for free, with three times as many in the pipeline. There is also an upcoming online list of optional rules for your games. The author is active on the Pendraken forums, answering rules questions and talking about what is coming up next for the game. Community-wise I’ve found CWC2 to be active and welcoming, with no signs of a hostile or power-gaming community. Finally it would appear that all the PDF versions of the rules are living documents and will be updated for free when corrections are made to the rules. Combine this with the online community being welcoming and knowledgeable and you have the gold standard for support.
Score: 10
Total score: 75
Cold War Commander 2 is a brilliant game, but it’s hamstrung by the challenges of learning it. As I’ve already mentioned this ruleset would really benefit from a ‘basics’ and ‘advanced’ separation, but really it could do with much more work in making it a modern, accessible game, and as a result it’s hard to recommend without a handful of caveats. If you have a friend that already plays CWC and wants to pick up CWC2 then I wouldn’t hesitate to tell you to get this game as soon as you can, but if you and your friends are new to the series or you find deciphering wargaming rules a challenge then you should be prepared to put some graft in to get this game to the table.
That said, once I battled my way through comprehending the rules I loved CWC2. Gameplay is speedy and tense, and the sheer amount of options at your fingertips has me excited about the variety of things I can use this for in the future, especially considering how affordable this game can be in 6mm. On coming home from work tonight I found myself thinking ‘I wonder if I’ve got time to run a little solo game?’ when typically I find solo wargaming a bit too much work for the amount of enjoyment I get from it. I want to show it to my friends and get more people playing – I just want to make sure their introduction is a smoother ride than mine.
The Text Dump 
Thanks for this comprehensive review of cwc2! I love a well written rules review.
I got BKC4, but haven’t managed to give it a go so far, but the recce stuff alone makes it a must-try in my book.
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