The Case

The Cold War saw roughly 50 years of enormous military build-up that resulted in pretty much nothing. And while I'm grateful for not being a handful of irradiated ash floating somewhere over Poland or Hungary, it's still a shame that we didn't see NATO tanks tested against Warsaw Pact armor back when it was still modern and crewed by decently trained crews. Apparently, some French guys thought the same when they made Wargame: European Escalation , which focused on some plausible NATO vs. Pact confrontations in Central Europe. The sequel, Wargame: Airland Battle ups the ante and brings the battles to Scandinavia.

The Trial

Wargame – probably named after the Kriegspiele, favourite past time recreational activity of Prussian officers and the precursor to table top wargames, basically has no plot (“AirLand Battle” was an American military doctrine during the late Cold War). Airland Battle happens alongside the unspecified NATO-PACT war and takes place in Scandinavia. No heroes, no characters, no bullshit – only men, tanks, planes and helicopters clashing over forests, mountains and probably fjords of the capitalist socialist states. And then they throw multiplayer in the mix, oh God!

But before you go and get bested by people who spent hundreds of hours on European Escalation and never slept once since the multiplayer beta came out, try the single player component first. It has the tutorial - I can’t stress that enough, stop asking about it in the chat - and four (two for each side) campaigns of increasing difficulty. You get a battle map, some troop formations, a pittance of political points and some attack powers. Orders are set and carried out concurrently, with turns lasting a day each. Special attacks are carried out, units move, special events happen (“We’re sending 82nd Airborne to sort out Koreans, m’kay?”) and political point trickle in. Tame stuff, right? The trouble is that the early combat groups you’re given are pretty lame - the 1st British infantry division has almost no AA capability, and any French unit is cursed by having French tanks. Couple that with an enemy AI that doesn’t give a damn about irreplaceable casualties on the battle map, and you have one hell of a fight on your hands. Even more so, if two occupied sectors share a border on the battle map - guess where the enemy AI arrays most of its forces?

Have this is mind - Wargame is a hardcore game. While the availability of unit commands looks sparse compared to some of the more mainstream games, there are still plenty of ways to suffer a terrible defeat. Every unit type has its own strengths, and there are situations where they should be used, so you best start mastering them. For example, infantry is dead if caught out of cover. Recon is king, but is a sparsely available, lightly armored asset that has to constantly move towards the enemy lines in order to be effective. Tanks have variable armor values (yes, even top) and their kinetic guns lose effectiveness over range. Armor loses to infantry in close quarters – unless you have a flamethrower tank - and can easily be demoralised by artillery. Radar AA is (supposedly) deadly, but SEAD planes have rockets that target it from far far away. This goes on for some length.

Now, apply this to over 800 unique units, each with their own book of stats. The light Sheridan tank might be as feeble as any other lightly armed tin can, but it has the Shileagh ATGM missile that makes it a danger to probably all other tanks. The Spetsnaz have a napalm launcher instead of the usual RPG or LAW – which is perfect against infantry, yet not so much against armor. There are more T-55 and T-72 variants than you can shake a hammer and sickle at. And French tanks are so lame, it's heart breaking.

We can't forget the airplanes, either. While European Escalation had helicopters, it had no fixed wing aircraft – which is silly, considering the part they play in modern conflicts. And while you won't field AWACS or FACs, you'll be able to call jets from off-map. There's more than 100 of them and their roles go from deploying smoke screens to mass napalm bombardment and interception of other planes. How you deal with them is very important because an unmolested raid by, say, four ground attack planes will stop any attack literally dead in its tracks. Then again, your expensive and rare planes can be shredded by AA in hiding. Yeah, come on and check yo’ self before you wreck yo’ self - ‘cause sneaky Tunguskas are bad for your health. Now take these units, build yourself a deck and try not to lose too hard.

Aye, deck building, the most intriguing and involving part of the game. It's like The Sims – where you would build a house and abandon a family in it because building is more fun than taking care of them. So you'll spend an irrational amount of time going „ooh, aah“ in the Armoury over the highly detailed vehicles, plane models and not so pretty infantrymen. Oodles of armor values, weapon ranges, accuracy rates and so forth. Some of them, you can even order around in the garage to see how they move, like how tanks sway when stopping rapidly. And when time comes to build a deck... Well, there are unit categories and they have slots, each of which is worth a certain amount of allocation points.

Don't like the costs of slots or how they're spread in categories? Then specialize. The first tier is making national decks. It's a given that you won't be making NATO/PACT mixed decks anyway – and now you're limited to one nation. Not an issue with USA or the USSR, but, say, the newly added Scandinavian countries don't have that many units to choose from anyways. On the other hand, national decks give you more activation point and access to prototype units – they were never mass used in the period depicted in the game, probably due to being new, but they still kick ass. Like the BMPT, that kicks more ass than it should. Army type comes next, bearing various limitations to unit allowances as well as random bonuses. An armored battalion will feature more tanks, but only three slots for infantry. An airborne battalion will mostly be made up of motorized infantry and so on. Not all tanks and helos are fit for a mechanized force, you know? The last and the most challenging specialization is year. There's a lot of differences between the usual selection and what was available pre-1973, for example. On the upside, this might grant you up 80% more unit availability. Which means you can simply flood the enemy in cheap tanks. It's harder to do than in usual RTS games, though.

Wargame doesn't have base building and, unlike World in Conflict, you don't have infinite reinforcements. Depending on held map zones, points trickle in during a battle and you use those points to order units. A cheap old T-55 might be worth 15, a prototype T-80U – whole 180 points. This, you consider when building a deck and later on when you risk your units. Since one of the most popular victory condition in Multiplayer (and the only condition in Singleplayer) is reaching a points risk. You better see if it's worth risking an expensive jet to take down a band of 4 infantry squads who might, in the end, be cheaper. Decisions, decisions.

It’s especially important to keep in mind, considering that if your unit levels up and then dies, it's lost forever. This is especially poignant in the campaign, where battlegroups start with a fixed unit count and don't really get more after battles. In Multiplayer however, you have to consider your air defense and air attack needs, since these categories are usually niggardly with units. Or, in protracted battles, you start running out of supplies. Oh yes, you must never forget the fuel and ammo needs of units – especially of the ammo hungry, miss-prone ATGM launchers, who are a bane of tanks...if they hit.

All of this looks very pretty up close, but, as I've said time and again (and actually started to piss myself off), you don't have time to marvel it. You have too many units spread over too much ground to zoom in on your Challenger I's assaulting an enemy position. You must watch for enemy helos, jets and maybe ATGM launchers who reveal their position as they start to lock on. Hell, you might even spot where the artillery shots are coming from and blind fire some of your own. It's probably why infantry fights are so boring – two circles of men shoot at each other until one circle runs out of man-pegs, or routs. There's no changing position, taking cover and shouting various things in the heat of battle like what made watching fights in Company of Heroes so fun. Even the shots fired look pretty colorful and simplistic – so we could see them way up there, in the sky where we direct the course of battle. Of course, if you get the chance, do watch your Blackhawks fire their miniguns or Su-25s dive towards enemy tanks. It's a joy to behold.

Not so joyous is the „your unit is being fire upon“ claxon. It's ugly enough to quickly gain your attention, but, due to the hardcore nature of WAB, most of the units are already destroyed by the time it sounds. Unit quotes are nothing interesting either – artillerymen have some funny quotes, and even Russian helo pilots hum the „Ride of the Valkyries“, but most of the time it's only acknowledgements that are no more interesting when they're made in the units native language. And, as far as I understand, they're just translated versions of the English ones. Menu sounds and music is passable, though, the sound that signifies the beginning of the battle is marvellous.

The Verdict

Wargame: Airland Battle is awesome and whoever says otherwise is a Chicom mutant traitor. I've played about 30 hours and I still suck, yet I still pine for more. More ground attack planes taking down helicopters. More bombers plucked from the sky by AA missiles. More T-80s blown apart by Super Etendard's missiles. More screens that show how many Canadians did my Mi-24 send to a very polite hell. More Wargame.

Case Review