Cold War Commander BAOR v Warsaw Pact Polish

Tim kindly agreed to give me an introduction to Cold War Commander with some of my newly painted BAOR taking on his Warsaw Pact Polish. We didn't use points values or play any particular scenario as it was very much a learning experience for me (having read the rules I still didn't have much of an idea how it played!).

The British prepare to halt the Polish onslaught somewhere in Germany:

Chieftains and British infantry hold the line:

Large numbers of Polish tanks appear in the distance. Two of them are knocked out as is one Chieftain:

Hordes of Polish tanks attack!

On the left due to poor command rolls the Polish infantry have made little progress:

More Polish tanks are destroyed or suppressed:

An airstrike by the Harriers! It has little effect though:

The Polish finally call up their own air support in the form of a scary looking helicopter:

Having failed with the Harriers two Jaguars try their luck:

With the Polish infantry still refusing to move the British redeploy three more Chieftains to support the lone one on the right:

It's a Polish air strike this time:

Polish tanks attempt to rush the British, the situation looks bad for the British, but they do at least have Harrier support:

Recovering from being suppressed the Chieftains are back in action:

Ten Polish tanks are burning wrecks leaving only two in action against four Chieftains. The Polish infantry have finally advanced a little but with no real armour support the Poles withdraw and the British hold the line:

After a few moves I picked up how to play (and realised how much I was doing wrong!) and we used most of the various troop types (armour, air support, artillery and AA fire) though the infantry didn't get into action really.

With the Poles being second-rate troops, the British have a considerable advantage in command and control allowing them to do more while the Poles struggle to activate regularly. The British also have better kit with the Chieftain being much superior to the Polish tanks which is balanced to some extent by their superior numbers.

As a learning game it was great, I enjoyed playing and would like to play again. The aircraft and artillery didn't seem very effective but then I suspect you have to combine attacks much better than I did. I might even invest in a Warsaw Pact army to give me a choice of sides and also to play solo games, rather like TMOCB Vietnam rules I think CWC would suit solo play.