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This is Wargame 4 essentially, same guys who did Wargame Red Dragon. Except instead of Cold War, the well trod ground of WW2 and the Battle of Normandy.

Far as I'm concerned this game is the mutts nuts. I put in >1000 hours on the various Wargame games, think this matches up in awesome to the others.

So, where to begin. It's an RTS, but a very slow paced one, even more slow paced than Wargame I think. It has the same deck building thing as Wargame too, ie you have a number of 'cards' of units, so maybe 3 Shermans is a card, or 4 Bren LMG teams are a card. The cards become your order of battle. You get an income of points over time while playing, and it costs points to deploy a unit from your OOB onto the field, so a Bren LMG team is 35 points, a Sherman is 130, etc. No base building, only war. Same as Wargame. There's an added refinement, cards are split into A, B and C cards. Phase A cards are available at the beginning of the game. After a while, Phase B cards become available, and then some time after that, Phase C. Phase A cards tend to be stuff like light tanks, recon units, etc. Phase C is your Konigstigers and Sherman Jumbos.

When playing you pick which division you want to play, and the cards available depend on that. Also divisions have a different income in each phase, for example US 3rd Armoured Division has an income of only 60 points in phase A, but 150 points in phase C, so they are more powerful at the end of the game, while something lighter, like the 101st Airborne has maybe 100 in phase A, but only 110 in Phase C.

Some very hard counters, units behave as you might expect. Antitank guns ambushing tanks = dead tanks. Antitank guns under fire from infantry = dead antitank guns. Units behave as you'd expect them to behave, so it's 'realistic' in that sense. Also, refreshing - no Axis fanboyism. ATM the Allies have the edge IMO. The Sherman is very far from crap. The Sherman Jumbo and Churchill AVRE are complete beasts.

ATM it's early access beta so there's only 6 divisions to play in it, but ultimately they'll have 18.

US 3rd Armoured "Spearhead"
US 101st Airborne "Screaming Eagles"
US 2nd ID "Indianhead"
Free French 2e Blindee
British Guards Armoured Division
British 6th Airborne "Red Devils"
British 15th Scottish ID
3rd Canadian Division
Polish 1st Pancerna "Black Division"

and for the Axis,
Panzer-Lehr
12th SS Panzer Hitlerjugend
21st Panzer
116th Panzer "Windhund"
17th Panzergrenadier
3rd Fallschirmjager
91st Luftlande
352nd Infanterie "Pegasus"
716th Infanterie "Eichenlaube"

Been playing it quite a bit. I'm not a natural RTS player, this is more wargamey than an RTS IMO. Get it, it's da bomb.

Nuthin?

I'm sad. This game is the balls! you guys have no taste at all.

Wargame: AirLand Battle, and Wargame: Red Dragon are awesome.

Shitloads of hardware, loosely based on the real thing from late/post-cold war era. Explody variety in an RTS package!

Only complaint being that the RTS part can be kinda hectic. But having up to 10v10 multi-player teams can be fun. Creating your own CCG-style "deck" of units to take into battle with you, thus providing a strong force customization factor, adds another level of enjoyment.



The new Normandy version?

Having been oversaturated with WW2 wargames for decades, on the tabletop and then on the PC, has left me very BLAH with such prospects. It happens so often.

The Normandy version is a step back IMO. Where before we had various helos, warships, missiles, and generally a huge variety in weapons to choose from, now we step back into an earlier period when there was less of that variety. Meh.

It was an obvious go-to for another sequel, since a lot of old folks with expendable income will buy anything with WW2 as a topic. Always a safe sales bet. Hell, I still see lists of tabletop wargames filled with the same WW2 land battles/fronts being constantly released; far higher rate than anything else. Digital gaming isn't as bad, but it seems like the default go-to.

So, yeah.. I've been crushed under the weight of WW2 land warfare games, since childhood, so much that my initial reaction to yet another one is apathy, at the least. But more likely some nose-wrinkling derision on top. At least the Wargame series is a little different than the usual heaps of Same 'ole same 'ole, so I'll try not to complain about them doing it up in WW2 garb.

Although, I'm beginning to plot the assassination of some game forum posters who seem to think the WW2 setting should be plugged into every goddamn game engine possible. "You guys should make a WW2 version of this Ancient Line Warfare game!", or "This Space 4X game would be WAY better with WW2!", or "Ermagawd they need to make Scourge Of War WWII!"; I want to stab these people in the carotid artery and watch as their simple aspirations slowly drain out of them.

I hear you on the WW2 oversaturation thing, but it doesn't seem like a step back to me. On the contrary, really.

You have towed guns now so a whole bunch of new classes of unit (antitank guns are very key), the air game is totally different (smoke bombers!), the vehicle combat is a lot nicer than Wargame, there's a greater variety of infantry functions compared to wargame (Wargame just had flame troops and everything else, really, when it came to infantry combat. This has HMG teams, LMG teams, pioneers, Sturmpioneers, leaders, all sorts, with quite different functions. ). I really like the divisional system too and how they try and give each division some sort of quasi-historical 'theme' so they actually play quite differently. It's also even slower paced than Wargame was, which I like.

It is definitely Wargame 4. But I think it's an all around improvement as a game really, possibly Cold War is a more unique setting but aside from that I think SD is definitely a better game. I find it quite hard to play Red Dragon now.

Balance needs a bit of work... mdiehl probably would say it's perfect.

The Tiger fan tears are just amazing.

Allies do not suck in this game. Kitties are roughly handled.

... also. Who is Nef on WRD? I play that still.

We should play. :p

I've not played any of the Wargame series in quite awhile.

Actually haven't played anything except some World of Warships in the past 5 or 6 months. My digital gaming drove off a cliff recently.

When my gaming habits pick up again, perhaps we could organize something.






Axis fanboy tears are like sweet sweet nectar.

I'm tempted to check their forums just for a big sugar high.

Glorious.

Sounds good.



Yeah... especially as in that video above those king tigers were being stupidly handled, aside from the lucky rocket strike. Every single one a side shot. People expect to spawn one and then have it indestructibly roam around... no. No more than an M1A2 in WRD.

But wehraboos have so much emotional attachment to their kitties so it's a bit different from WRD...

Hahah! "wehraboos".