First Impressions of World at War ’85 Blood and Fury

Marc M, 17 April 2025

World at War ’85: Blood and Fury is a big game. Designer Keith Tracton’s second volume in the World at War 85 series from Lock ‘n Load publishing came to me in an impressively heavy box. There’s a lot in that box and it’s been enjoyable to see how it all comes together in this Cold War era game.

A potential conflict between NATO and the Warsaw Pact has long been of interest to me, and I’ve enjoyed my experience with Storming the Gap, the first volume in the World at War ‘85 series. So, I was eager to take a look at the review copy that Lock ‘n Load recently provided.

The Basics

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Blood and Fury is a platoon-level game that models a Warsaw Pact offensive into West Germany and the efforts of NATO to turn back the attack. Where Storming the Gap, Volume 1 in the series focused on Soviet action against United States and West German forces, Blood and Fury shifts focus to Soviet engagements with British forces in the northern regions of West Germany. The conflict plays out over a series of 16 scenarios, ranging from engagements with a handful of platoon-scale units on a single 13-inch by 19-inch map to larger four-map battles with 50-plus units. In addition to the scenarios, you can play out a campaign or create your own scenarios with a Battle Generator.

Although British forces take the lead for NATO in Blood and Fury, US and West Germany forces make appearances, facing off against the Soviets.

Scenarios

Within the 16 standalone scenarios are four learning scenarios that give you an introduction to the rules and gradually ramp up the complexity of the forces, while forgoing the need for learning about leaders, electronic warfare, air support, helicopters etc. It’s been a while since I’ve played the World at War 85 system, so I began with these learning games.

The turn sequence in Blood and Fury looks complex on the players aid card, but it’s pretty easy to learn, so don’t let all the small print discourage you. Particularly in these smaller scenarios, the turns are very fast – too fast in some cases.

Each scenario gives the two sides a set of formations, for example, D Squadron of the 4^th Royal Tank Regiment. A formation might consist of a headquarters unit, several platoons of infantry, transports and tanks, as well as attached forces like recon and anti-tank units. Larger scenarios add engineers, paradrops, bridge-laying equipment, anti-aircraft units, helicopters, and close air support units. There’s a lot of unit variety.

Gameplay

Turns in the World at War 85 system play out through activation of these formations, by means of the Formation Deck. This deck includes one or (often for NATO, two) cards for each of the player formations, as well as a Battlefield Friction/Event card and two or three End Operations cards. You play through each turn by drawing cards. Once you draw a Formation Card, that formation activates, allowing movement, direct fire, move-and-fire, indirect fire, and assault actions by units in that formation. Once the formation actions are complete, you draw another card. This continues until the second End Operations card appears, ending the turn. Turns can be really fast depending on when that final End Operations card appears…and really frustrating if your Formation Card is sill in the deck and you’re able to do nothing that turn. But the system makes for fast, tense game play.

In playing through Scenario 4: Bridge Assault, The Soviets had whittled away most of the British Units and there seemed to be no chance of preventing them from taking Bodenwerder, West Germany and claiming victory. But a series of unlucky turns for the Soviets with few activations stalled the attackers and handed the win to NATO.

While the two player game works pretty well for solitaire, each scenario includes Solo Assistant setup instructions. I tried out the solo system in one of the smaller scenarios. Rather than a single flow chart, you build a deck of cards for each game. The deck includes AEO (Automatic Enemy Opponent) Order cards that function like randomized miniature flow charts, where the AEO performs actions based on factors like proximity of Player units, what the AEO units can legally do, available cover, etc. There are also Action Event cards that introduce more uncertainty into the turn and Reload cards that randomly reshuffle the AEO deck. It’s taking a bit to get familiar with the system, but there are plenty of opportunities for different gameplay.

The Components

While not critical to gameplay, it’s worth noting the components are really nicely done. I received the Kickstarter edition so there are extras, but all of the components are well made.

The 600+ counters are ¾-inch square. They’re thick, have a matte finish and pop out of the sheets cleanly (for the most part) with rounded corners. The illustrations are detailed, and the combat and movement factors are easy to read. One nice upgrade from Storming the Gap is the marker counters (Disrupted, Ops Complete, Missiles Loading, Out of Command, etc.). In Blood and Fury, they’re circular, so they don’t completely hide the square unit counter below them. A small touch but a nice one. The manual and playbook are full color, printed on relatively thick stock and contain plenty of cross-references and illustrated examples. The four maps feature warm-weather and cold-weather sides.

And then there are the Player Aids. They too are printed nicely and packed with information. Including the campaign game and solitaire aids, there are a total of 15 Player Aid cards. Honestly, even though you don’t need all of them during any given game, it’s a lot to shuffle through them to find the one you want, but you get familiar with them and learn where to look. And they do help keep you out of the rule book. If shuffling through the cards gets unwieldy, you can page through copies of them in the rule book.

One thing you won’t find is a Combat Results Table. The rules in the World at War 85 combat system don’t use calculations, odds or charts. Instead, a couple of handfuls of dice determine combat results, hits versus saves. For me this makes combat more enjoyable and fluid. I also think it makes the game newcomer-friendly.

Summing It Up

It’s nice to get the focus on British forces in Blood and Fury and I’m continuing to enjoy the variety in how the turns play out in the game system. There are several factors built into the rules that can change things up, slow an advance, or turn the tables entirely. In addition to the activation sequence that might give a side no activation at all, missile reload troubles might cost you use of an ATGM unit for a turn or for the rest of the game, making a huge difference. The Battlefield Event/Friction card might give you an extra activation, cost you an activation, call down friendly fire, or bring in bad weather.

The diversity of scenario size is nice, not just for variety but from a practical perspective. I don’t have a lot of game space, and I really appreciate being able to play multiple scenarios with only one or two maps on a 2-foot by 3-foot table.

And here’s where I struggle just a bit, though it’s temporary. Even with the smaller footprint scenarios, you still need space for the Player Aid cards when learning the game. Most you can stack and just shuffle through as needed, but you use the Turn Track and Holding Boxes for each game and you need the artillery tracks for some. There are workarounds, however, and after a while you won’t need to refer to many of the cards. Plus, as I mentioned, you can find them in the rulebook. But it’s worth mentioning that you probably need to plan for some extra space while you learn the game.

For me, Blood and Fury continues the fast gameplay that I remember from Storming the Gap, and this is probably what I like most about it. There’s no predicting how a turn will play out, so it keeps me engaged. I have a plan, but my formation didn’t get to do anything this turn except absorb enemy fire. So now what? I’m adjusting and anticipating the next turn.

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