Operational/Strategic WWIII Game

I've been reading up here and over on BGG about Eisenbach Gap and it looks sweet. I've just about got myself convinced to pick it up instead of Confict of Heroes which I was going to get. (This decision is made easier by I just met a guy locally who already has CoH- so I can try it before buying).

Anyways, reading up on Eisenbach Gap has me all fired up about 80's style WWIII. I'm reading Red Storm Rising again for the first time in a decade+ and loving it. In general I prefer my wargames to cover a little bit more of the big picture, so what's a good operational or strategic level game of a Warsaw Pact invasion? I've played TSR's Red Storm Rising a few times. It's fun but not a whole lot of decisions to make- you have limited deployment options at the start and then every turn you attack with any unit in contact with the enemy. The air rules looked pretty cool but never got to try them out.

The other 2 games that have jumped out at me searching bgg are:

The Third World War (GDW)

NATO: The Next War in Europe (Victory Games)

Anybody played these? What did you think? Any other games that you'd recommend to cover the topic?

Never played any of these. But I'm interested in a more modern game on this subject...

Here's a famous one:

www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/8719

But what I'm *really* looking for is this game, which hopefully will go on MMP prepublication list at some point early in the next year. I know I'll order it.

talk.consimworld.com/WebX?13@186.I83CeRRnCCe.166@.1dd181cf/539

I have the NATO game but I haven't played it yet. It is by the same folks that brought the "Fleet" series of WWIII games. The rules don't look all that complicated and it looks like a good macro level view of a WWIII ground war.

If you don't mind the Naval Aspect, you should give a look see to the "Fleet" series by Victory Games. They are pretty fun and not too bogging. The monster scenario takes all day to play but the game moves along fast enough that you don't realize that you've been playing a game for 10 hours. The ship level is pretty abstracted but it's not abstracted so much that they shouldn't be there.

Gary Sax wrote:

Never played any of these. But I'm interested in a more modern game on this subject...

Here's a famous one:

www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/8719

But what I'm *really* looking for is this game, which hopefully will go on MMP prepublication list at some point early in the next year. I know I'll order it.

talk.consimworld.com/WebX?13@186.I83CeRRnCCe.166@.1dd181cf/539

Damn you Gary. That game sounds promising. Yet more money I'll have to spend.

As for the OP. I haven't played any of the big operational WW3 games. However I can vouch for Eisenbach Gap. It's a good time.

-Will

If you EBay hard you might be able to find yourself a copy of Air & Armour (the actual title doesn't have the "u" in it, but there's no fucking way I'm going to use an American spelling if I don't have to).

It's old but was pretty decent for it's time and featured a vaguely novel hidden strength system where you couldn't be entirely sure of the strength of an enemy unit until you attacked it.

I have half a set in the attic somewhere. So if you get one and it's missing counters, let me know

I loved WWIII gaming back when it was a real fear, not a theoretical exercise. Our thing was mostly miniatures [C&C had the *best* soviet armor], but I played a fair number of hex-n-chit games too.

NATO: NWiE is classic Victory Games--somewhat overwrought rules though not at all bad once you sit down to play; with some important elements that have been abstracted mightily to reduce complexity but take some of the realism/fun away with it. In this case, the air and sea support elements are really abstract and somehow seem to detract a bit [or perhaps "distract" is the better term] from play. I haven't played it in a long time but it still has a place on my shelf. Digging way back into my memory, I recall the hardest bit about the game is to keep it from devolving into a massive WMD/nuke-fest at the end. The Sovs have little incentive to not melt the world in the later turns. You can also generally pick it up on the cheap (>$15 on ebay).

The SPI "detergent box" Next War will likely set you back a fortune. I passed on a used copy at my LGS for $50 a while back and have been kicking myself ever since if only for the trade-bait prospects. I played a few sessions of it (at GenCon I think) but it was just too much for me back then. In reading the BGG description now, I realize that I never played just the "fast game" rules--I think without the massive chrome added in, it would probably have been a fun armor division smash-up. The strange part for me is, I'm not generally a big fan of operational-level gaming but NATO: NWiE worked better for me than The Next War.

However, I liked the GDW "The Third World War" series of games the best, although, again, they can set you back a small pile too these days [I gave up my copies of the first 2 games in the series many years ago as I thought I had "outgrown" wargaming--yea, I'm an idiot--and I just put the Pesian Gulf game [4th in the series] up on ebay as I've settled in on Eisenbach Gap and its brethren as my series of choice for this topic. The GDW games are medium complexity with moderate counter-density [though it does suffer from GDW's classic mid-80s ugly design]. The whole series is well designed and offers you a chance to game about every possible WWIII scenario.

If you're going to pick one old system to invest in, I think NATO: NWiE would probably yield best bang for your buck but the GDW series is tops. (But do avoid GDW's Team Yankee and the other "First Battle" games. They're really not worth it IMO unless you can find 'em for bottom-dollar cheap.)

Thanks for the info. Yeah Next War and Third World War are both very expensive on ebay as I've found out. NATO:NWiE is pretty plentiful and cheap. So I think I'll get Eisenbach, and then if I'm still hankering something on a larger scale grab NATO:NWiE.

NATO is quite nice, actually. It looks a bit dated, but it plays out things the way most army people thought things would play out in the 80s. The only thing the game avoids is the planning on both sides that the other alliance would disintigrate, but you can't have it all.