[Consim-l] Third Wolrd War - Recommendations

[Markus Stumptner]

On Fri, 6 Mar 2009, Stefan Pielhau wrote:
> which games covering a hypthetical 3rd World War Europe can you recommend? 
> I'm looking for alternatives (e.g. comparable level) to "The Next War", 
> "NATO", and the "The Third World War"-series by GDW. What other game worth 
> playing are out there? And can you also recommend some books about this 
> topic?

It's not quite at the same level, but I'd recommend looking for Bruce 
Costello's Warplan: Dropshot, published by Schutze Games.  Schutze 
normally publishes DTP games but this is a professionally printed product 
with mounted and diecut counters.

I'm saying "not quite at the same level", because it comes with two maps - 
one, A3-sized, with about 150-200km/hex, shows Europe from Minsk to 
Britain, the other one, A4-sized, shows the whole northern hemisphere. 
Essentially you play out the ground war on the European map and the 
strategic nuclear exchange on the global map.  Of course it's all done 
with a very broad brush, but it's done very effectively.  I just played 
through the 1957 scenario. A great design.

There are two games in the series, the original Warplan Dropshot has 
scenarios set in the 1950s (plus one in 1948).  They generally favour the 
US, so this is more of a study than a competitive game, but boy, what a 
study.

The second game, Warplan Dropshot II/III covers the 1960s to 1980s.  (II 
and III are sold together... not sure why they kept the designations 
separate.)  They should be more of a challenge for both sides. I haven't 
played those yet but am looking forward to it.  I recall someone's comment 
that the only other game that has similar scope is GDW's series (because, 
unlike Next War or VG's NATO it covers all of Europe), and this does it 
with a fraction of the effort. (Of course also with a fraction of the 
detail.:-)

Markus

Last 3 games played: Warplan Dropshot, A Tremendous Battle, Grav Armor
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