"Sorry I Played Your Game Without Paying Attention" - Armored Task Force - Post 1

I bought Armored Task Force back in the day. Played it, but didn't actually "get it". The whole concept looked so detached from the other war games I was playing. Then time passes, you spend some time on virtual tracks and command posts and all of the sudden you remember "that" game. And you realize that it was actually great. So you go and dust-off that ages old CD, play it again and realize that you have neglected a lot of quality war gaming. Does it happen to you too?

Armored Task Force, from the now defunct ProSim Games (founder Pat Proctor has moved onto other things military), now looks to me like "Armor" magazine comes alive." 

It's not pretty, and some times the maps can look really bad. But nonetheless this war game will punish the inadvertent counter pusher with a vengeance. Seriously, is almost mandatory to practice at least a minimum of real life tactical decorum.

The game play is real time (you can accelerate time, pause and give orders, etc) and it doesn't use hexes. Think of something having the tactical fun in Command Ops, the forces and missions in Steel Beasts, and the thoroughness of authentic US Army operations.

There are filters to show companies, platoons and single vehicles. In this case I'm use NATO counters.

In this screenshot, I'm generating a path for one of my companies. Note how the way points are represented in legit US Army style. Also the symbols are up or down so you can control movement when the unit reaches the waypoint.

And yes, artillery missions are quite detailed. Just remember that Pat Proctor was an artillery officer.

This is a great opportunity to practice the "move and shoot" skills I showed so poorly in a previous post.

This filter option showing individual vehicles.

There are also SOPs and tactical missions, as shown in this menu.

Plotting a screen line, just for kicks.

And also you can control the tactical mission's execution.

So, yeah. I'm eyeballing my games' stash right now for more neglected games of the past. But certainly I'm going to pick up a lot of time playing this one.

Cheers,