



Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines. We have here in our hot little hands the wave of the future (try not to say it like Howard Hughes, its a bit creepy). Wargame design Studio, with the backing of John Tiller Games , presents their new demo and shows what directions their ' Panzer Battles ' games will be heading. Following on the heels of their ' Panzer Battles Normandy ', and ' Panzer Battles Kursk the Southern Flank ', they plan to branch out and take the game engine world wide. One of the areas of WWII that is highly under-gamed in the computer world is the land war in the Pacific. Specifically, we have a scenario about the American defense of the Tenaru river from the Japanese on Guadalcanal. Rather than rewrite it I will quote from their website:





"The Panzer Battles Demo will be a free product to introduce the game system to players both new and old.

The initial release of the demo will include battles from both the Eastern and Western Front, as well as the Mediterranean and Pacific theatres.

It is hoped that the there will be four to eight unique scenarios with the initial release of the Demo.

We already have additional actions under construction that are planned to be released as Downloadable Content (DLC) when ready.

Our aim is to turn this into a complete, free title with a range of interesting situations. We will be testing new theatres, nations and game systems before considering them for a full release title.

Here is an example of the French from 1940 who will join the Panzer Battles fray for the first time"

Here are some American and Japanese troops.

Along with the Pacific land war, wargamers are always griping about the lack of games about the Med theater. Of course we as a subset of the population are often seen to be griping or grumbling about something, hence our nickname grognards. With the release of the demo and their future plans for it, we will now have two less things to complain about. There are eighteen scenarios in the demo, including two 'getting started' ones.

The Battle of Hannut zoomed all the way out

This one is zoomed in all the way





Yes, this is a hex wargame with counters, and yes it is 2017. The internal combustion engine was around before Henry Ford, and last I looked it was still in use. Not because it is the only game in town, but because it works. If you put lipstick on a pig, all you have is a very pretty pig (cue the Deliverance music). 'Panzer Battles' has a great pedigree coming from John Tiller's many games. The scale fits snugly between the 'Campaign series', and the many 'Squad Battles' games. Hopefully the wargaming community will back the demo, and we will get flooded with games about the more obscure areas of WWII combat. There are plenty that I can think of that computer games have not touched, or not in a long time.

Japanese attacking the Americans at another zoom level

The four battles is the demo are as follows:

The getting Started Scenario is Prokhorovka in Russia 1943

Hannut in Belgium 1940





Mersa El Brega in Libya 1941

Tenaru on Guadalcanal 1942

Bogodukov in the Ukraine 1943





Robert





Note from Editor: This looks more like a full game release than a Demo! I'm praying that WDS get their hands on the Squad Battles source code. That series is about two features away from perfection!



