This is a great mid-budget title that came out of nowhere for me and really shocked me by how competent it is. Slitherine tends to publish a lot of hidden gems and this one is no exception.

As a game, this is somewhat like a mix between Company of Heroes by Relic, and Eugene systems games like Wargame and WARNO. You maintain your army between missions, customize soldiers, upgrade your tanks with new armor and mods, and then you lead them in battle. Like in CoH, units can take cover in buildings, have special abilities that can be activated (like smoke grenades, AT mines, or EMP grenades), and you control your squads and vehicles fairly close up; tank guns have ranges of around 100-150 meters, rather than 1-2 kilometers like in Eugene systems games.

Like those Eugene systems games, however, units have limited ammo, vehicles have fuel and repair supplies, and these things need to be resupplied in the field. Supply trucks can bring in lots of supplies, while smaller vehicles like Hummves and Strykers carry spare ammunition for individual squads. Most missions will have you start with a limited part of your force, and then slowly ramp up the intensity as you call in the reserves.

Unit variety is somewhat lacking in one sense, but actually quite good in another. While you only get one true tank, for example (the M1 Abrams), the tank has two weapon slots. You can have a tank with a plasma main gun and a minigun, or a tank with a 30mm vulcan cannon and a TOW launcher, for example. Looting vehicles off the battlefield is a large part of this game: you can sell the looted vehicles for credits between missions, and you can strip them off any mounted weapons to transfer to the other parts of your force.

The gameplay stresses combined arms warfare in pretty interesting ways. Obviously, different squads are good at different things (snipers are good for scouting and picking off unsupported units at long range, AT squads carry two RPGs), but light vehicles such as hummvees can both transport squads around the map and provide decent fire support at range. This can be suprisingly deep and engaging in practice: one way to deal with low force limit missions is to have good anti-infantry squads like Rangers or Mercenaries move around the battlefield in TOW hummvees: if armor appears, the mounted weapon can take them out, while the squad can dismount for anti-infantry work.

All in all, the gameplay is very, very solid. There's a few smaller issues (AI for moving around buildings is pretty annoying, losing weapons on squad member deaths and picking them up again can be quite annoying as well), but none of them really mar the final picture.

The game is VERY difficult to start, because unsupported infantry will die very quickly, and it takes a while to understand when and how to take engagements properly. The amount of units you'll have to manage in bigger missions can also be overwhelming at first. Once you get the hang of the game and the matchups, and learn to pair infantry with vehicles for support and transport - whether APCs, Strykers, Hummvees or Bradleys - it gets easier, and the end result is really fun to play.

Voice acting is very good for a game like this, both for units and characters. It's not on the level of Company of Heroes, but it is solidly above the genre average when it comes to contextual voice lines. As more than half of infantry units can drive light vehicles (anything less heavy than a Bradley), they will change their voice lines depending on what vehicle they're driving. The female sniper team thus has specific voicelines for when you place them in a mobile artillery platform, a tractor, an ammo carrier, and so on. There are also several "hero" units with unique voice lines, and these are mostly really fun and with lots of personality ("Big Bob ready to blow ♥♥♥♥ up!").

All in all, this game is a solid 8.5 out of 10, at least. If you enjoy games like Company of Heroes or Warno and want something in the middle between those games, this is a strong recommend. It's quite hard at first - you *definitely* want to start on Normal until you're more comfortable with the systems - but it is a rewarding game to master. Blowing up terminators with HIMARS rockets never gets old, and watching as your tiny recon force slowly grows into this massive juggernaut is very rewarding as well.

This is a great mid-budget title that came out of nowhere for me and really shocked me by how competent it is. Slitherine tends to publish a lot of hidden gems and this one is no exception. As a game, this is somewhat like a mix between Company of Heroes by Relic, and Eugene systems games like Wargame and WARNO. You maintain your army between missions, customize soldiers, upgrade your tanks with new armor and mods, and then you lead them in battle. Like in CoH, units can take cover in buildings, have special abilities that can be activated (like smoke grenades, AT mines, or EMP grenades), and you control your squads and vehicles fairly close up; tank guns have ranges of around 100-150 meters, rather than 1-2 kilometers like in Eugene systems games. Like those Eugene systems games, however, units have limited ammo, vehicles have fuel and repair supplies, and these things need to be resupplied in the field. Supply trucks can bring in lots of supplies, while smaller vehicles like Hummves and Strykers carry spare ammunition for individual squads. Most missions will have you start with a limited part of your force, and then slowly ramp up the intensity as you call in the reserves. Unit variety is somewhat lacking in one sense, but actually quite good in another. While you only get one true tank, for example (the M1 Abrams), the tank has two weapon slots. You can have a tank with a plasma main gun and a minigun, or a tank with a 30mm vulcan cannon and a TOW launcher, for example. Looting vehicles off the battlefield is a large part of this game: you can sell the looted vehicles for credits between missions, and you can strip them off any mounted weapons to transfer to the other parts of your force. The gameplay stresses combined arms warfare in pretty interesting ways. Obviously, different squads are good at different things (snipers are good for scouting and picking off unsupported units at long range, AT squads carry two RPGs), but light vehicles such as hummvees can both transport squads around the map and provide decent fire support at range. This can be suprisingly deep and engaging in practice: one way to deal with low force limit missions is to have good anti-infantry squads like Rangers or Mercenaries move around the battlefield in TOW hummvees: if armor appears, the mounted weapon can take them out, while the squad can dismount for anti-infantry work. All in all, the gameplay is very, very solid. There's a few smaller issues (AI for moving around buildings is pretty annoying, losing weapons on squad member deaths and picking them up again can be quite annoying as well), but none of them really mar the final picture. The game is VERY difficult to start, because unsupported infantry will die very quickly, and it takes a while to understand when and how to take engagements properly. The amount of units you'll have to manage in bigger missions can also be overwhelming at first. Once you get the hang of the game and the matchups, and learn to pair infantry with vehicles for support and transport - whether APCs, Strykers, Hummvees or Bradleys - it gets easier, and the end result is really fun to play. Voice acting is very good for a game like this, both for units and characters. It's not on the level of Company of Heroes, but it is solidly above the genre average when it comes to contextual voice lines. As more than half of infantry units can drive light vehicles (anything less heavy than a Bradley), they will change their voice lines depending on what vehicle they're driving. The female sniper team thus has specific voicelines for when you place them in a mobile artillery platform, a tractor, an ammo carrier, and so on. There are also several "hero" units with unique voice lines, and these are mostly really fun and with lots of personality ("Big Bob ready to blow shit up!"). All in all, this game is a solid 8.5 out of 10, at least. If you enjoy games like Company of Heroes or Warno and want something in the middle between those games, this is a strong recommend. It's quite hard at first - you *definitely* want to start on Normal until you're more comfortable with the systems - but it is a rewarding game to master. Blowing up terminators with HIMARS rockets never gets old, and watching as your tiny recon force slowly grows into this massive juggernaut is very rewarding as well.