by Vance Strickland, 14 June 2021
I first came across Valor & Victory as a print and play board game around 2009. It was designed Barry Doyle as an easy to play wargame with few rules but interesting situations set in WWII, and free to boot. I built a copy and began playing. Very easy to learn and fun to play. It’s still in my collection of many, many squad level WWII games.
So when I heard that there was to be a digital version of the game I was very interested and started to follow the development. When I received this chance to preview the digital game I jumped on it. Here’s what I found in the pre-release version of the game sent to us from Matrix games.
The game’s scenarios are based on actions in the American and British sections of the European front just after the D-Day landings.
click images to enlarge
Each scenario lets you see the forces involved before you play.
Then you jump right into the action. My screen has a resolution of 3840×2160, hence the large pictures. The scenario map is displayed as being part of a larger battlefield, which is a nice touch.
Each turn is broken down into 5 phases. The 1st phase is called the Command phase. In this phase you can review the setup of your, and the enemies, troops.
Check out Lines of Sight, LoS.
You can also transfer support weapons and even split full squads into half squads or recombine back into full squads with the buttons at the bottom of the screen.
Next phase is the Fire phase where you get to use some of you troops to fire at the enemy in an attempt kill, reduce, or pin them. You select your target, roll the dice and see the results.
Then comes the Move phase where you get to move your troops, hoping that some of your previous fire put down some cover for them.
Then comes the dreaded enemy Defensive Fire phase where any enemy troops that did opportunity at you moving men get to fire at any one they can see.
After that your troops get an Advance and Assault phase where they can move one hex without the enemy being able to shoot at them or they can attempt to enter and enemy occupied hex and fight to the death for it.
Then the other side gets it’s turn at the phases.
The scenarios come in various sizes from the small map shown above to large maps where there’s more room to maneuver before contact.
There is also a very easy to use scenario editor to make your own scenarios to play against the AI, no scripting needed, or other players using PBEM. You choose from several different maps
Choose the forces to fight
Set the victory conditions
And the set the final details like weather, number of turns, and a description.
Well, there’s a quick preview of what’s coming in the Valor&Victory computer game. The game is due to be released on Steam and at Matrix on June 17, 2021.
I’ll put together a full review when I get some more time with the full release version.
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