AIR SUPPORT - Russian Naval Mig-23s & Tu-95 Bear

Some more air support added to the collection. First up, a pair of fictional Soviet Naval Mig-23s which after a bit of research appear to have only ever reached the testing phase but I did like the look of them in the blue scheme so I decided to add a couple. 

Next up a Tu-95 Bear. Thanks to my good friend and fellow Cold War Commander Andy T for this as due to ill health I was unable to attend this years Joy of Six show organised by Baccus up in Sheffield and he very kindly kept an eye out for anything he thought I might want. He spotted this on the Heroics & Ros stand and immediately messaged me to see if I wanted it? Which of course I did! So fast forward a few months to our annual Cold War Commander get together in mid October and Andy brought along the Tu-95. So immediately after the weekend I began work on it. Unfortunately I was out of soviet star decals so I had to wait until Pendraken had some more in stock which wasn't too long. 

Apologies for the photo quality I shall have to experiment with a better set up. As always thanks or looking and keep rolling those snake eyes!

DRAGONSTRIKE - Beach Front Scatter Terrain

With next years CWC Weekend being 'Dragonstrike' and set in and around the South China Sea I have been busy looking at lots of images of Taiwanese coastline, Vietnamese villages and many other areas in that region looking for ideas and inspiration for terrain. Now as many of you have seen in our previous games a lot of my terrain is focused on Central and Northern Europe so I have been looking through the collection to see what can be used and ideas for adding to the collection. I don't want to add too many buildings as I'm not sure how often they will be used, but I will be adding a few Far-Eastern looking buildings. I have quite a lot of plastic palm trees bought years ago when I first started thinking about this project after a discussion at one of our previous CWC Weekends. More on those later.

One idea I have had is adding pieces of scatter terrain to terrain that is already in the collection and to that end I have made a few test pieces inspired by photos of the areas involved. So first up are some concrete barriers with some of the palm trees mentioned earlier and also some streetlights. These will eventually line a beach front road along the Taiwanese coast. 

I plan to document the terrain process as I am keen to show that with a bit of effort and inspiration you can make interesting scatter terrains pieces in 6mm just as effectively as people do in the bigger scales.

 

AIR SUPPORT - Polish Mig-23's

One of the highlights of our big CWC Weekend games is seeing the array of aircraft and helicopters players use for air support during the game. As is always the way after one of our weekend games enthusiasm for adding to the collection is always high and after a delve into the lead stash I found four old Mig-23's in need of a bit of attention. 

After a bit of a google it seems that the Polish version was mainly performed the fighter role as it was not equipped with the target systems for ground attack however they could be tasked with bombing missions if needed. So that's good enough for me so two of them were painted up and added to my Polish Air Force in a bomber role.

Next up for Air Support will be two Mig-23's for my Soviet Naval forces. After a bit of research it turns out they were trialled but never actually saw service but there are a few images of Mig-23's in the distinctive blue scheme so I thought they would make an interesting addition to the collection. 

CWC WEEKEND 2026 - Photos

So after an eventful year the Cold War Commanders finally managed to gather at The Unit in Stone, Staffordshire for this years weekend game. Originally I had planned for a large Norway game but after a few players couldn't make it I had to do a quick rearrange with the players and forces we had available. So the table had elements of what was originally planned but not everything, hence some snow based troops looking a bit out of place. Maybe something to revisit at a future event.

Anyway as usual I was mad busy all weekend sorting food and umpiring the game and sorting air support so I wasn't able to take as many photos as I would have liked and it's always difficult to keep track of events across a 20' x 6' table. So here are a few photos from the game. Good friends, good game, good food and good beer!

Please check out Neil M's great blog for more photos and information on the weekend especially from his perspective as the commander of Soviet Naval forces. Link in the sidebar.

Thanks to everyone who came and planning is underway for next years "Dragonstrike" weekend.