Steel Panthers is a classic turn-based strategy game that recreates intense WWII armor battles on the DOS platform. Released by SSI (Strategic Simulations Inc.), it employs a board game model for game-play. It lets you play important WWII battles, be it the Pacific battles or the Battles in Europe. Players can take the advantage of playing American, Russian, Polish or German forces. This can be quite intriguing as the missions will be completely different depending on which nation you choose.
The game offers a variety of game-play options including long campaigns, random battles and scenarios. The game uses a board game paradigm with a hexagonal tile map for deploying units and moving them to specific positions. The approach is turn-based. Players take turns positioning their units and firing at enemy units.
Before playing the campaign missions or scenarios, players must refer to the manual to get acquainted with the game basics. The game is simple and easy to play, but you will have to spend time understanding each unit and its function. This can be a bit disappointing for players who are not well-versed with WWII units. But, once you understand the functions of each unit, the game will become relatively simpler than initially imagined.
Prior to the beginning of each mission, gamer have to purchase units with a set number of available points. The units range from a wide variety of armored tanks to mounted cavalry, foot infantry, snipers, engineers, armored trucks, naval bombard units and support aircraft (for some scenarios). Each unit has its own pros and cons against a particular enemy unit. For example, attacking an armored tank attacked with mounted cavalry will be ineffective, but bombarding it using 80 mm mortar units will do the trick.
One of the best aspects of the game is the ability to plan an attack well in advance. You will have to place strike elements of mortars and battleships and wait for couple of turns to let the strike elements trigger. So, predicting the enemy’s next move and placing the strike elements require some tactics.