Thursday, January 5, 2012

Steel Armor Blaze of War Features Both Sim and Wargame Traits

This entry is about something I forgot to mention before: in Steel Armor there is a turn-based interface where you can maneuver your tanks and troops pretty much in the way that we have seen in the beloved Achtung Panzer war games.


If as the result of your (or your enemies') maneuvers there is a contact there will be a tactical combat which is automatically resolved by the computer (tactical combat not involving your own tanks) or is fought by you in the 3D-tank-sim mode.

In the following screen shots, an Angolan Civil War scenario that I started playing last night.


Scenario selection interface in Steel Armor. In each theater of operations you will fight more than one tactical battle, off course.

This is the turn based interface. Own forces can be moved by the player in this square-based map. Urgent memo: Alegre is going to get it ...

This is a map view of an ongoing, 3D-battle. Note the interface in the right of the screen shot: you can command any of the forces and give them orders (move, defend, assault, modify formation).

Outside view of my T-62 rushing to support the troops in the far background. Note the red icons, exactly like in Achtung Panzer.
The only thing missing is a free roaming camera during the 3D battles ... Or good documentation to find the key combo for that camera ... :)

Cheers,

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

check out http://www.graviteam.com/Manuals/tactics_manual_eng.pdf
though not sure if there is anything re camera in there

Anonymous said...

No such camera is present.

It's an interesting idea. Fog of war becomes really thick when you have to stick your own head out of tank to get an overall picture of situation. That could be really HARDCORE.
Alas, we still have magical map that shows all contacts and all friendlies.

Mike said...

Is there a mission editor for custom battles?

Unknown said...

There is a sandbox mission creator. But it is just a matter of choosing a map and the forces involved. Nothing really deep.

I have an AAR in my blog.
http://jomnisgames.blogspot.com/#!/2011/12/steel-armor-cold-war-tank-showdown.html