Somewhere in Germany, 1989

This game began twenty five years ago.  I walked into my FLGS, Starbase Alpha, and came across a group of guys playing Frank Chadwick's Combined Arms rules.  They were running a game featuring a full Soviet Division attacking a NATO Brigade in prepared positions.  It was done on a 10-12' table fully covered with Geohex.  I was fifteen at the time and that game made a real impression.  My dad and I bought our first packs of GHQ microarmor that day.  Not long after, we started gaming with those same guys.  Sadly, as gaming groups do, they had moved on from Combined Arms, and modern micro armor in general.  The fall of the iron curtain, took most of the tension out of it.  Despite a brief resurgence with the first Gulf War, moderns in our area seemed dead.  I however, had already accumulated a large soviet force, and dad had a thriving force of Americans.

Now fast forward twenty five years.  My interest has never waned.  In the intervening years I completed my Soviet Division, and twenty years after his passing, my dad's Americans fight on.  Thankfully, I have found gamers willing to indulge my interest.  Combined Arms, though, seems a little dated now, and didn't allow for the size game I wanted to run in the time I had to run it.  I began work on my own home brew rules, drawing mechanics from several different games.  Thus was born Armageddon '89.  Last weekend we tried our fourth playtest.  The scenario is a Soviet attack on a NATO position attempting to force a river crossing.  The Soviet forces consisted of a tank regiment and a motor rifle regiment.  They were supported by a BM-21 battery and a couple batteries of SAU-152s in addition to their integral artillery.  Air support consisted of a flight of MiG-27s, a flight of MiG-21s, and a flight of SU-25s as well as two Hind and two Hip flights.  A bridging battalion was made available to cross the river.