Preview: Squad Leader

The game had a real charm to it and it was cool to move those MMC (multi-man counters) and Leaders across a nicely painted board.

The thing that always struck me about the board game was that EVERYTHING was abstracted but it all came together to give you the feel of WWII infantry combat.

The role that chance plays in the game was crucial - roll snake eyes and get a critical hit w/ a 37mm main gun on a Staurt against a Pkw V Panther or your 6-5-8 SS squad rolls boxcars and jams that Heavy MG that was the key to holding that stone building against 3 squads of 7-4-7 American paratroopers.

Morale was indeed huge and you had to plan carefully to allow safe route havens and have leaders placed for rallying.

Finally, it took real effort to play this game - the rules are 60-70 pages long. But it was sooo cool.

I seriously doubt that a PC game is going to successfully capture that feel.

It's funny but, in my experience, board games do an awful job of recreating air combat - Flight Sims are SO MUCH more satisfying in this regard. But the reverse seems to be true of land combat. ASL is far superior to the Close Combat Series. And another board game I own, "Devil's Den", captures the feel of Civil War combat far better than Sid Meir's Gettysburg ever did.

My prediction is this thang ain't gonna do it for nobody.

I hear ya, buddy, but hope springs eternal.

I'll stick with my copies of Steel Panthers 1, 2 and 3. It is a shame, because I like this kind of game, but for me its a matter of principle. To those who posted above (I can't see your names, sorry) I honestly hope you enjoy it. It seems to have potential!

Werner Molders

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Originally posted by Barkhorn1x:
My prediction is this thang ain't gonna do it for nobody.

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Maybe. But, remember there is a far bigger strategy fan base than a wargame one so this
"thang" may do it for them.

Like someone said earlier, when I saw Hasbro I had a knee jerk reaction to never even look at reviews of this game, however, common sense won out.

To be honest the game looks EXACTLY like a World War II XCOM mod that someone put out on the web. I mean look at the screen shots, that IS XCOM. I guess maybe we now know another reason Hasbro bought Microprose!

I agree with Viceroy. Combat Mission is the way to go, it looks just like the table top WWII games I played with 1:300 lead figures and ARMOR44 rules.

If I buy this game its because I miss X-Com and the older XCOM games just run to fast on my spiffy new computer.

you can find info + demo at www.battlefront.com

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Originally posted by Viceroy:
You guys talk as if you haven't tried Combat Mission ...... the most significant PC wargame in a long time. THAT game IS what Squad Leader was supposed to BE.

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