Flashpoint Campaigns: Cold War

It's all fun and games until the crappiest Warsaw Pact helicopter flies over and deletes your mechanized infantry while dodging everything you throw at it Matrix style. And even if you manage to score a hit, don't you worry there are 5 more on the way while you desperately try to find new surface-to-air missiles before they arrive. Anyway, this is a seriously good wargame for anyone who's interested in the genre, even if you're not exactly a Cold War era fanatic. I know I'm not. Pretty much all the bells and whistles you'd expect to find - are found - and it plays out great. The combat is actually surprisingly satisfying despite being abstracted to square counters with silhouettes and NATO symbols on top.

Flashpoint Campaigns: Cold War has quickly become one of my favourite wargames. What I like most is that it actually makes you feel like you're commanding a formation rather than moving counters around one by one. You give your orders, set up your plan then you have to watch it play out. You can't instantly react to everything that happens. Sometimes your reconnaissance misses something, artillery doesn't arrive exactly when you need it or an enemy force suddenly appears somewhere you weren't expecting. That uncertainty is what makes the game so good. The WEGO system works extremely well here because you really have to think ahead. Instead of constantly adjusting every unit you need to decide what you want to achieve over the next period of the battle then trust your units to carry it out. When a plan works it is very satisfying. When it goes wrong you usually understand why it went wrong too. There is also a lot more going on under the surface than it might initially appear. Reconnaissance, command delays, SOPs, artillery, electronic warfare, air support and unit quality all have a real impact. You gradually start thinking less about individual units and more about things like where to concentrate your forces, where the enemy might be weak, what needs to be suppressed and when to commit your reserves. I have also been impressed with the AI. This is very important to me because I mostly enjoy these kinds of games against the computer. The AI is capable of putting you in genuinely difficult situations and battles don't simply feel like memorising where the enemy is going to appear. The game does take some time to learn. There is a lot of information on screen and at first the interface can feel a bit overwhelming. After spending some time with it though most of it starts to make sense. I actually appreciate how much information the game gives you once you know what you're looking at. There is plenty of content as well with a large selection of Cold War scenarios, different NATO and Warsaw Pact forces plus campaigns that can keep you busy for a long time. It definitely won't be for everyone. If you want fast action or direct control over every little thing your units do then it might feel slow. But if you enjoy planning an operation then watching it develop while dealing with incomplete information and command friction it is fantastic. For me the best way to describe Flashpoint Campaigns is that you make a plan then you have to live with it. Sometimes everything comes together beautifully. Other times your carefully prepared attack turns into a complete mess. Both are fun. Highly recommended.

Cold War is the 3rd iteration of the Flashpoint Campaign series. It's a turn-based, hex-based wargame with a few innovative twists. It uses a WeGo system, which means you plan out your turn and the AI plans out theirs, and all the units move/fight at the same time. That road is clear, and you decide to use the quick-but-weak road formation move your units to a spot well inside your visual range. As the turn progresses, the AI has also moved units down the road but in a more protected manner. Your units are destroyed on what used to be a clear and safe road. The other innovation is command delay. Your orders take time to process through the units, and the time is based on a myriad of factors. For example, if your unit is heavily dug in, ordering them to move will take longer than another unit that is screening and not dug in at all. Each scenario also has an Electronic Warfare metric that can increase or decrease the time it takes to process orders. On top of all that, the length of your turn is based on multiple factors, and can be different compared to the enemy. At the start of the scenario each turn might last for 20 minutes of run time before you can issue new orders. But if you start losing HQ units, the time can increase to 30 minutes, or even longer. In addition, each sides' turns are asynchronous. That means destroying enemy HQs allows you more opportunities to issue orders compared to the enemy (or vice versa if your HQ units are destroyed). You might get to issue orders every 20 minutes while the enemy has to wait 35 minutes of game time. I recently bought and played the original (2015-ish) version and thoroughly enjoyed it. Picked up Cold War and was genuinely impressed by the amount of improvements, especially the UI. It's still a lot of clicking to get things just the way you want them, but the process is so much smoother. Information is easily accessible, and windows are scalable and can be moved to wherever you want them. The maps are great at displaying information, and there are plenty of overlays so that you can see the exact metric you want (elevation, movement speed, etc.). I never played the 2nd iteration of the game, so I can't say if it's worth upgrading from Southern Storm to Cold War. But if this is your first time playing this series, and you like wargames in general, this game is well worth the purchase.

FC: Cold War is one of those games where you sit ... relax and just enjoy the process of thinking and planning your next turn until you hit the play button and everything can go horribly wrong(sometimes ;-) ). When I first started with the WEGO-Game-System I was just confused by the game - but one's you start to understand the mechanics that work behind it - it becomes so much fun. The game offers so much detail in terms of information and background to the scenarios and campaign. Look to all overlays and tutorials the game offers. Take your time and look through the manual - their is always something new to encounter. Bottom line ... on the surface this game looks simple and easy but one's you start a game you realize that this game offers so much more! Enjoy every minute since I startet the FC-Series.

This is the best hex and counter game I've ever played. Super clean and polished with everything accessible and easy to read. I've been glued to the computer screen all Christmas thanks to this game.

A very sober and serious wargame. Compared to the previous titles in the series, the AI seems to be much better. The UI might look overwhelming at first, but if you can work with other traditional Windows apps then you will get the hang of it after a few hours. Tutorial scenarios and guides/manuals are provided to ensure an enjoyable learning experience. It might look dry, but the game is full of meaningful tactical decisions, tense moments and lots of data on all the Cold War weapons, systems and sensors.

Flashpoint Campaigns: Cold War is a limited time frame game ( as of this review ) of a period of time in 1989 for Germany. The game reflects a lot of the tactical knowledge that was planned for use during that time. I would recommend searching for some tutorial videos for even the grognards out there. There is a somewhat steep learning curve of the game UI mechanics, HOWEVER, once you learn them, things get pretty good and interesting afterwards. Getting victories in FCCW can be a challenge and "marginal" may become your new watch word. Definitely play the Tutorial missions more than once. OPFOR can change up on yo a bit so nothing is set in stone and the AI for OPFRO can throw a few curves when you are not looking. I would advise getting the companion game Flashpoint Campaigns: Southern Storm as well. FCSS covers more of the German " underbelly" territory of a possible Cold War gone hot, that includes some NBC tactics to be on the look out for. Overall the games are pretty well developed. heir Discord channel is lively with developers reading and taking notes of what and how players post up in the various channels.

I had over 70 vehicles get destroyed by 8 abrams because the weather deteriorated and visibility went down to 500 meters. Grognard game confirmed. 10/10