Ok, my review says not recommended. Please read what I have to say, and make your own minds up. TLDR: this is an expensive game considering that it does not adequately feature some important aspects of warfare in this era: elevation, visibility, morale, artillery.

My background is tabletop war gamer since about 1981, plus I have a massive interest in the OVERLORD campaign, in particular the Commonwealth sector of the battle. Oh and ex TA bod too, so I have a rough idea of how things should go. I have almost exclusively played the Commonwealth campaign (which does feature Polish troops later on in the campaign, so forgive me for labelling it Commonwealth).

This game has several plus points:

- the developers communicate extremely well with their player base, especially on Discord. You can have one to one chats with them, and they do listen to the player base, even if they can't work miracles at short notice. This bodes well for the game's future.

- the size of the game is just big enough to give you control of up to a Company of infantry, plus some armoured and transport assets. This was quite often the size of game I played in 1/300 so feels good. It's based on hexes, about 25 metres to a hex, and the turns are probably about 15 seconds long. I could be wrong here, it's just a quick guess.

- the importance of infantry is spot on in this game; it's the bulk of your fighting force a lot of the time, and needs to be used correctly, with fire and movement once contact is made.

- the research into the units and their weapons seems pretty accurate; the lowest level of unit is either something like a 2 or 3 man weapons team, or a rifle section, or a gun group. I haven't spotted any tanks or weapons that I know didn't feature in this campaign. The models themselves are ok, you know what you're looking at, and the colours are all correct too.

- the basic play mechanism is YOUGOIGO, or turn based as we used to call it. It's very simple to pick up, and the interface is very good at helping you move your units cautiously, at full dash, or setting overwatch positions for ambushes or to cover vital ground. The mechanism does very well with the effect of movement on your firing, plus also accomodates issues such as turret turning speeds, and the relative immobility of casemated vehicles such as the StuG III. There is also an excellent suppression mechanism if fire is successful, where a unit can have its effectiveness reduced in 10% increments all the way from just 10% to a full 100% where a unit cannot then move or fire in the next turn.

- line of sight is very important in this game; there is a tool to let you check this artificially on the board. As I'll discuss in the negative sides to the game, I am not sure this is a good thing, and it can become a God eye tool, and lets you check things out that you would not have been able to do in real life. Maybe restricting it to hexes where you have your own units could be an option.

- I found it (at first) compelling to play, and with options set to maximum difficulty, it was a good test. You can ease off on the options to allow yourself an easier but less realistic game if you wish. There's no penalty for doing this, the main aim of the game is to enjoy the game.


So, having said all that, what do I think is missing or could be done better?

- there are minor quibbles with things like the PIAT appearing on the GUI as an AT Rocket. Rifle sections aren't a 3 man gun group and a 7 man rifle squad but are split 5 and 5 in the Commonwealth forces, and I think it's the same in the German side too.

- the maps and line of sight. There is no elevation in this game, nor will there be with this game engine. Obstructions to LOS come purely from buildings, walls, hedgerows, and orchards. The maps start to feel very formulaic, with spread out villages, and penny packeted German defenders dotted here and there.

- the missions; you can play as either side. But each mission is the same: capture the flags by having removed the Germans from each zone around a given flag. As Commonwealth, you're most usually attacking. I have played some scenarios as Germany to see how the game goes, and it's a lot easier, the AI does not deal well with organising an attack; more of the AI shortly.

- spotting; yes the game allows you to use some stealth and try and remain unseen, but I am not convinced by the mechanics of this. It seems if you remain still, you are virtually invisible until the enemy walks into your sights, but once you fire you will remain visible to everyone, albeit the game notes say you can revert to unseen eventually. The lack of terrain elevation makes the game somewhat stale.

- the AI (and morale). As noted above, the AI is poor in the attack. In defence, it is quite good, basically as it sits in ambush, automatically checks all possible lines of sight, and once it detects you, will run through every permutation of fire and movement to get its troops to maybe move a hex and fire at you. It's also fallible; you can sucker it into moving to fire at one of your units but at a very low % as it has turned/moved, then on your next turn, pull that unit back into cover, and expose a different unit on another part of the map, to be fired at again at a low %, and then the enemy tank will spend its time sat still while you manoeuvre your other units into a killing solution.

- morale. There isn't really any. You get a ration or morale points at the start of the game; infantry squads are usually 1 point, a tank and its crew are 3. Once you lose a number of units and you have no morale points left, you lose the game. You could be wiping the floor with the enemy, and about to capture your last flag, but the computer says no, and the game ends. It takes no account of any other factors. There is no individual unit morale; a rifle squad may get reduced to one man, but they will continue to function even if they are alone in a field facing 2 Panthers 50 metres away. On this basis, we also then miss out on various qualities of troops from do or die Waffen SS soldiers through to not very keen Osttruppen who would just love to surrender.

- off board assets. The Commonwealth armies of 1944 had massive artillery support on call. If we ignore air support and naval gunfire support, and just look at a typical Battalion in the attack, it would have 6 x 3" mortars organically, plus 25 Pdrs aplenty. This was a great equaliser in the real campaign, and if your infantry company is on point and leading an attack, it would be well supported by artillery.

- force matching and balance; the scenarios in the campaign are preset, but when I flicked over to play the German side, it was interesting to see that I might have 18 units to the Commonwealth's 22 or 24, 2 Marder 1s and a PaK40 to face 5 Shermans. An old tabletop wargame wouldn't make a defender so strong, and that's a good place to leave this review.

Yes, I am an old school wargamer; I am used to complex spotting, using the lie of the land, and morale rules. The shame is that PC gaming makes these so easy to implement in microseconds, compared to the old pencil and paper, tape measures, and dice rolling I was used to. Many of these aspects are absent or undermodelled. I end up gaming the game, sending out a scouting jeep on a YOLO dash to spot enemy units, and battling house by house through yet another village.

Ok, my review says not recommended. Please read what I have to say, and make your own minds up. TLDR: this is an expensive game considering that it does not adequately feature some important aspects of warfare in this era: elevation, visibility, morale, artillery. My background is tabletop war gamer since about 1981, plus I have a massive interest in the OVERLORD campaign, in particular the Commonwealth sector of the battle. Oh and ex TA bod too, so I have a rough idea of how things should go. I have almost exclusively played the Commonwealth campaign (which does feature Polish troops later on in the campaign, so forgive me for labelling it Commonwealth). This game has several plus points: - the developers communicate extremely well with their player base, especially on Discord. You can have one to one chats with them, and they do listen to the player base, even if they can't work miracles at short notice. This bodes well for the game's future. - the size of the game is just big enough to give you control of up to a Company of infantry, plus some armoured and transport assets. This was quite often the size of game I played in 1/300 so feels good. It's based on hexes, about 25 metres to a hex, and the turns are probably about 15 seconds long. I could be wrong here, it's just a quick guess. - the importance of infantry is spot on in this game; it's the bulk of your fighting force a lot of the time, and needs to be used correctly, with fire and movement once contact is made. - the research into the units and their weapons seems pretty accurate; the lowest level of unit is either something like a 2 or 3 man weapons team, or a rifle section, or a gun group. I haven't spotted any tanks or weapons that I know didn't feature in this campaign. The models themselves are ok, you know what you're looking at, and the colours are all correct too. - the basic play mechanism is YOUGOIGO, or turn based as we used to call it. It's very simple to pick up, and the interface is very good at helping you move your units cautiously, at full dash, or setting overwatch positions for ambushes or to cover vital ground. The mechanism does very well with the effect of movement on your firing, plus also accomodates issues such as turret turning speeds, and the relative immobility of casemated vehicles such as the StuG III. There is also an excellent suppression mechanism if fire is successful, where a unit can have its effectiveness reduced in 10% increments all the way from just 10% to a full 100% where a unit cannot then move or fire in the next turn. - line of sight is very important in this game; there is a tool to let you check this artificially on the board. As I'll discuss in the negative sides to the game, I am not sure this is a good thing, and it can become a God eye tool, and lets you check things out that you would not have been able to do in real life. Maybe restricting it to hexes where you have your own units could be an option. - I found it (at first) compelling to play, and with options set to maximum difficulty, it was a good test. You can ease off on the options to allow yourself an easier but less realistic game if you wish. There's no penalty for doing this, the main aim of the game is to enjoy the game. So, having said all that, what do I think is missing or could be done better? - there are minor quibbles with things like the PIAT appearing on the GUI as an AT Rocket. Rifle sections aren't a 3 man gun group and a 7 man rifle squad but are split 5 and 5 in the Commonwealth forces, and I think it's the same in the German side too. - the maps and line of sight. There is no elevation in this game, nor will there be with this game engine. Obstructions to LOS come purely from buildings, walls, hedgerows, and orchards. The maps start to feel very formulaic, with spread out villages, and penny packeted German defenders dotted here and there. - the missions; you can play as either side. But each mission is the same: capture the flags by having removed the Germans from each zone around a given flag. As Commonwealth, you're most usually attacking. I have played some scenarios as Germany to see how the game goes, and it's a lot easier, the AI does not deal well with organising an attack; more of the AI shortly. - spotting; yes the game allows you to use some stealth and try and remain unseen, but I am not convinced by the mechanics of this. It seems if you remain still, you are virtually invisible until the enemy walks into your sights, but once you fire you will remain visible to everyone, albeit the game notes say you can revert to unseen eventually. The lack of terrain elevation makes the game somewhat stale. - the AI (and morale). As noted above, the AI is poor in the attack. In defence, it is quite good, basically as it sits in ambush, automatically checks all possible lines of sight, and once it detects you, will run through every permutation of fire and movement to get its troops to maybe move a hex and fire at you. It's also fallible; you can sucker it into moving to fire at one of your units but at a very low % as it has turned/moved, then on your next turn, pull that unit back into cover, and expose a different unit on another part of the map, to be fired at again at a low %, and then the enemy tank will spend its time sat still while you manoeuvre your other units into a killing solution. - morale. There isn't really any. You get a ration or morale points at the start of the game; infantry squads are usually 1 point, a tank and its crew are 3. Once you lose a number of units and you have no morale points left, you lose the game. You could be wiping the floor with the enemy, and about to capture your last flag, but the computer says no, and the game ends. It takes no account of any other factors. There is no individual unit morale; a rifle squad may get reduced to one man, but they will continue to function even if they are alone in a field facing 2 Panthers 50 metres away. On this basis, we also then miss out on various qualities of troops from do or die Waffen SS soldiers through to not very keen Osttruppen who would just love to surrender. - off board assets. The Commonwealth armies of 1944 had massive artillery support on call. If we ignore air support and naval gunfire support, and just look at a typical Battalion in the attack, it would have 6 x 3" mortars organically, plus 25 Pdrs aplenty. This was a great equaliser in the real campaign, and if your infantry company is on point and leading an attack, it would be well supported by artillery. - force matching and balance; the scenarios in the campaign are preset, but when I flicked over to play the German side, it was interesting to see that I might have 18 units to the Commonwealth's 22 or 24, 2 Marder 1s and a PaK40 to face 5 Shermans. An old tabletop wargame wouldn't make a defender so strong, and that's a good place to leave this review. Yes, I am an old school wargamer; I am used to complex spotting, using the lie of the land, and morale rules. The shame is that PC gaming makes these so easy to implement in microseconds, compared to the old pencil and paper, tape measures, and dice rolling I was used to. Many of these aspects are absent or undermodelled. I end up gaming the game, sending out a scouting jeep on a YOLO dash to spot enemy units, and battling house by house through yet another village.