Forward Defense '85 — Company Command in WW3

In print Tabletop Solitaire 1985 · WW3

It is 1985, and the Cold War has gone hot. You command a company-sized NATO element of the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division, pushed forward to reinforce NORTHAG and blunt a Soviet thrust toward Hanover. You are outnumbered and you know it. What you have is better crews, better kit, and the ground you choose to fight on.

Forward Defense '85 is a solo tactical campaign game built around the opening days of a war that, thankfully, never came. The opposition isn't a scripted gauntlet — the system plays the Soviet side using real Soviet doctrine: echeloned attacks, weight of numbers, and a willingness to spend units to find your weak point. Your job is to hold the gap, or fall back in good order, and keep enough of your company alive to fight the next mission.

Players

1solo

Mission

~60min

Setup

<12min

Difficulty

3levels

Buy on Wargame Vault → Strategist's Den store BoardGameGeek

Why it plays the way it does

A campaign in a footprint.

Three ideas hold the whole game together: an enemy that fights by the book, a campaign that remembers what you did, and a footprint small enough to leave set up between sessions.

01 — The opposition

Doctrine, not dice alone

The Soviet side is driven by its own playbook rather than a random table. It pushes in echelons, concentrates where you're thin, and trades units to keep momentum. Beating it means reading the attack, not just out-rolling it.

02 — The campaign

Momentum & attrition

Battles are generated from where the campaign stands — your momentum and the losses on both sides. Win and the enemy comes in degraded; bleed and your replacements arrive green. Supply dice, earned by performance, buy reinforcements, air support, or an extra platoon.

03 — The footprint

An hour, on a desk

Setup is under twelve minutes and a mission runs about an hour. Bookkeeping between battles is roughly five minutes on a single sheet of paper — small enough to leave out and pick back up.

How a mission resolves

Forward Defense '85 fights at the platoon level, but tracks losses vehicle by vehicle. Combat is built on the d20: attacks roll to hit, and hits roll again to destroy — so a glancing contact is not the same as a kill, and armor that should shrug off a near miss usually does.

Unit quality — a blend of experience, training, and morale — sits underneath everything, handing out the bonuses that let a smaller, sharper NATO force trade with a much larger one. Each mission is either an attack or a defense, drawn from the campaign's state, and how you finish it feeds straight back into the next.

In the box

Format

Solitaire tactical wargame · boxed edition and print-and-play

Scale

Company command · platoon-level units with per-vehicle loss tracking

System

d20 combat — roll to hit, then roll to destroy

Components

Platoon & deployment cards, counters, campaign tracking sheets, and the rulebook

Dice

4 × d20

Designer

Ethan Redrup · Strategist's Den Games

Take the war to new fronts

Two expansions.

Both expand the same engine to new ground, new armies, and new national flavor — fresh campaigns to drop straight into the base game.

Expansion #1

Simrishamn — cover

Expansion #1 Sweden Poland

Simrishamn

A new front: Southern Sweden

Warsaw Pact forces, spearheaded by Polish airborne and marine troops, come ashore in southern Sweden. Adds a new campaign, Swedish units — including the famous Strv 103 "S-Tank" — new Polish units, and new unit traits that give them distinct roles.

Buy → BGG

Expansion #2

Kliplev — cover

Expansion #2 Denmark NATO coalition

Kliplev

A fighting retreat in Denmark

As the landings hit Sweden, East German and Soviet forces drive into Denmark to cut off NATO support and isolate the Baltic. With the 3rd Jutland Brigade you hold the line near Kliplev until reinforcements arrive — from the ACE Mobile Force, the U.S. 2nd MAF, or the British 1st Infantry Division. Adds the UK, Denmark, U.S. Marines, light infantry from several NATO countries, two new traits, and new East German units.

Buy →

Also available

Helmstedt — a mini expansion adding a short scenario at the inner-German border. A compact way to extend a campaign without leaving West Germany. More on BoardGameGeek →