First World War Released

[Compass Rose]

Who's interested in some WWI action, Squad Battles style?

In a big and surprising move, JTS just released the 15th title in their very popular Squad Battles Series and the first of its kind, titled First World War.











Campaigns & Scenarios:

• 67 scenarios covering actions from 1914 to 1918, in such battles as Gallipoli, Somme, Verdun, Cambrai, Vimy Ridge, Argonne, Belleau Wood, Cantigny, and more.
  
• Scenarios range in length from 10 to 132 turns and cover actions from small firefights between a hundred men to huge battles of tens of thousands of men battling it out for trench networks and objectives on a variety of battlefields across all four fronts of the war.
  
• Close quarters trench clearing fighting, as well as longer ranged battles in the open during the more mobile campaigns of the war, and battles with the world's first tanks.
  
• A staggering 7 linked scenario campaigns covering most major battles in the conflict, including a 17 scenario German campaign that spans the entire war from 1914 to 1918, which puts you directly in a position to experience the drastic change of warfare from early rifle battalions to stosstruppen at the end of the war, and a British campaign which puts you in the role of a World War One tank commander to experience the birth of modern day armor.
  

Features:

• Early in the war players control large half platoons and companies of men squads or fire teams of men and individual leaders, and by late war players will control more modernized sections and squads of men, as well as a variety of early war tanks.
  
• Experience chemical warfare on a grand scale as both sides struggle to break the deadlock of the Western Front.
  
• Experience the development in tactics, weaponry, and the birth of small unit warfare as units change drastically from horde like formations of men in 1914 to modern day assault type infantry of 1918.
  
• Based on a tried and true turn-based platform using 40 meter hexes and an intuitive interface allowing players to use a combination of mouse clicks, menu commands and hot keys to control their units.
  
• Views are in two levels of 2D and 3D.
  

Changes:
Changes to the Squad Battles Series in this game include:

• Added ability to define Rolling Barrages (see Scenario Editor and Users Manual).
  
• Changes that reduces protection and movement cost between adjacent Trench hexes (see Users Manual under Movement and Firing).
  
• Added Inspirational Weapons in addition to Motivational Weapons (such as regimental colors/banners).
  

Full information about the game can be found on the JTS website here:
http://www.johntillersoftware.com/SquadBattles/FirstWorldWar.html

[gabeeg]

This is great news! ....bye bye money...
Doh! ...it is not yet available in the store...going to have to try again tomorrow.

[kolc]

very cool...looks like I am getting an early Christmas present

[Compass Rose]

The store is open for business!

[TheBigRedOne]

Gents,

This game has been a labor of love for the guys involved on the team, and especially for Volcano Man, the guy who put a ton of himself into this title. I wasn't involved on the testing of this game, but I'm going to see if I can get VM to pop in over here to field questions/thoughts about the game.

What I do know is that it will have a very different feel than the other SB titles. The unit density is greatly increased and you'll be taking a lot more casualties than you are used to in most SB titles. Everything you learned about SB tactics will be different this time around. It should be a very fun game for the community to sink their teeth into.

I will ask that we hold off from entering scenarios into the database just yet, as I need to look at the files to see relative sizes. I'm concerned that all of them will end up having an SM of 5 when maybe some shouldn't. I will have time before I leave for Thanksgiving to see what's what...

[Richie61]

Interesting. Anybody know how they handle "gas" attacks?

[Bushido]

Fantastic! What a nice Christmas present :)

[Landser34]

If anybody want a game pick one out and send it.

[daisy]

Do the Austrian-Hungarians, Italians or Russia feature or is this mainly a Western Front title?

[Volcano Man]

Do the Austrian-Hungarians, Italians or Russia feature or is this mainly a Western Front title?

They are all present (you can see Italians, Austro-Hungarians and Russians in the same images), but the scenarios that feature them are less in number than other fronts. All have OOB templates present of course, so user created scenarios or campaigns should be a relatively simple matter of piecing the OOB templates together and picking a map (which there are large number of maps present as a bonus that are not used).