Eagles Strike

 

After Vietnam and the WWII Pacific, John Tiller turns to Northwest Europe for another Squad Battles title. Eagles Strike sports over 50 scenarios, including three campaigns, covering the GI’s battles from Normandy to the end of the Reich. Unlike earlier games in this series, this one serves up lots of armor, from halftracks to heavy tanks, and an equally mind-boggling array of anti-tank weaponry. The focus is still on the ground pounders, but you’ll have to be able to handle the iron monsters on offense and defense if you want to succeed. Play the Allies or the Germans, and fight against the savvy computer or friends via email or the Internet. If that’s not enough, you can use the included maps and expanded maps for your own scenarios too.

 

 

Description

Eagles Strike is a Squad Battles game, with units representing individual leaders, weapons teams, and squads of up to a dozen men. Each weapon is accounted for, and squads can pick up and drop items as a result of combat or your decisions. An elegant and sophisticated mechanism simulates both wear and tear and ammunition depletion, and the game accounts for range, visibility, armor protection, and terrain effects in a way that is historically accurate and which encourages historical tactics. The turn-based system with opportunity fire and optional full fog of war balances realism with playability and preserves play by email utility.

 

 

Unlike some simulations, you won’t need to devote a good chunk of your life to mastering the game mechanics. Nearly everything is mouse driven, with an extensive system of hotkeys and menus for all game commands. You can customize your experience with four different map views, including a new 3D mode that shows the tactical relief of the battlefield for more effective planning. You won’t need a monster machine to run the game, either. Its attractive 2D graphics and superb maps run well even on laptops and older machines, as long as you can run Windows 98 or later; Windows 95 is not supported due to DirectX concerns.

 

 

What makes Eagles Strikes so compelling is the way it neatly captures the ebb and flow of a WWII tactical battle, without overwhelming you with minutia. Armored vehicles are easier to kill from the sides and rear, assault guns have to pivot to bring their guns to bear, and infantry needs to pass morale checks before assaulting tanks, so you get the full spectrum of essential detail. Your enemy is not the game system; the mechanics are simple (not simplistic), and easy to learn. It’s the effective employment of those mechanics that is the challenge. There’s plenty of chrome, too, though. You get all the different small arms, heavy weapons, indirect fire support, air strikes, naval gunfire support, and armor you could hope for, plus parachute and glider landings, several types of mines and obstacles, smoke, illumination, and radios. It’s all easy to employ, too, thanks to the ultra-clear maps and visually striking “counter” style unit markers.

 

Central to the Squad Battles game system is the idea of leadership. Your NCOs and junior officers are critical parts of your force. The most heavily armed squads are useless without someone to rally and inspire them. You’ll learn the true value of individual heroism as you watch your sergeants and lieutenants rally a pinned squad and assault the last enemy pillbox, or inspire a machine gun team to hold off an enemy attack. Leaders also are necessary to call in support; learning when and how to use artillery and air strikes that can easily smash your own forces as well as the enemy is key to success. Few games teach the value of leadership as well as Eagles Strike; if you ever wanted to see how useless a bunch of leaderless troops are, just lose all your platoon leaders early in a battle!

 

 

In addition to the stand-alone scenarios, you can also play three campaigns, tracing the course of a particular leader through a series of battles. As long as your alter ego survives, you can proceed to the next encounter. The more you use your leader, the more points he gets, but the more chances you have of losing him to a stray bullet or shell, thus ending the campaign. The campaign battles can also be played separately, for even more gameplay value. The scenario editor allows you to build your own battles and campaigns, using the wide variety of included maps and subsets of maps.

 

Scenarios:

(From the game documentation)

 

No.   Scenario                             Author            Date           Location            Size            Time

        

01      A Ranger Challenge(Easy)    WBW            6/6/44         Omaha              Small          30 Minutes

02      A Ranger Challenge             WBW            6/6/44         Omaha              Small          30 Minutes

03      Pointe du Hoe-Landings        WBW            6/6/44         Pointe du Hoe    Small          1 Hour

04      Stuck!                                 WBW            6/6/44         Les Droueries    Medium       1 Hour

05      Tanks in Trouble-Easy          WBW            6/6/44         Dog Green         Huge           4 Hours

06      Busy Bosses                       WBW            6/6/44         Pouppeville        Medium       45 Minutes

07      So This is Hell                     NS                 6/6/44         Omaha              Medium       2 Hours

08      Good Soldiers, All                NS                 6/6/44         La Fiere            Small          45 Minutes

09      Hell to Pay                          BM                6/6/44         Cauquigny         Small          30 Minutes

10      Hitting Utah                         LM                 6/6/44         Utah                 Medium       1 Hour

11      Bullets for Breakfast             WBW            7/5/44         Poterie Ridge    Small          30 Minutes       

12      Towards St. Lo                    NS                 7/13/44       Le Carillion        Large          2 Hours

13      Barkmann’s War                  BM                7/27/44       Le Lorey            Small          30 Minutes

14      Stopping the Panzers 1        NS                 8/7/44         Mortain             Medium       1 ½ Hours

15      Stopping the Panzers 2        NS                 8/7/44         Mortain             Medium       1 ½ Hours

16      Midnight Express                 NS                 8/25/44       Montelimar        Medium       2 Hours

17      Merli the Man                      WBW            9/3/44         Bruyeres           Small          1 Hour

18      A Deadly Squeeze Play        WBW            9/7/44         Ger-Mortain Rd Large           1 ½ Hours

19      Fire on the Flank                  WBW            9/10/44       Arry, France      Medium       1 Hour

20      King Sugar to Anybody!      WBW              9/16/44        Siegfried Line    Small          45 Minutes

21      Hot Action at Groessbeek     JR                 9/17/44       Groessbeek       Small          30 Minutes

22      2nd Omaha                           JR                 9/20/44       Nijmegen           Large          3 Hours

23      Bloody Black Forest             NS                11/16/44      Hamich             Small          45 Minutes

24      Ham Sandwich                    NS                11/18/44      Hamich             Small          45 Minutes

25      100 Men                              WBW            11/30/44      Lindern, Ger      Large          45 Minutes

26      A Race to the River              WBW            12/1/44       Linnich              Medium       1 Hour

27      King of the Castle                NS                 12/7/44       Burburg             Medium       2 Hours

28      The Quarry                          NS                 12/15/44      Bilstein             Medium       1 ½ Hours

29      Bouck’s Brave Little Band     JR                 12/16/44      Lanzerath, Be    Medium       45 Minutes

30      Those Green Devils              JR                 12/16/44      Malmedy, Be     Small          45 Minutes

31      Kampfgruppe-Tactics            JR                 12/19/44      Stoumont          Large          3 Hours

32      One Bloody Night                 BM                12/20/44      Cheneux           Medium       45 Minutes

33      Hassamount Farm               BM                12/20/44      La Gleize          Medium       30 Minutes

34      Fear in the Fog                    WBW            12/21/44      Foy, Belgium     Small          30 Minutes

35      Glider Goodies                     WBW            12/27/44      Bastogne          Small          45 Minutes

36      Trapped!                              WBW            01/20/45      Vosges, Alsace Small          1 Hour  

 

CAMPAIGNS

 

Grawolf (5 battles)                         NS                                  

Long Hot Summer (5 Battles)      WBW

Company Commander                   NS

 

Article by Robert Mayer