Comrades and Barons: Gates of Freedom

As Latvian and military history reader I always wanted a game about Latvian war of independence from 1918 to 1919 and finally here it is! This is a wargame, in that it looks and the structure resembles Unity of Command, but it's not a puzzle. Instead its like all other wargames, where the main objective is to capture all the objective points before the turn limit. And that means if just one goal has not been captured before turns runs out, mission is lost regardless if the enemies losses exceed yours. That leads to rushing to those points at expense of often overstretching or oveflanking. Other than that as a wargame it's very simple, more simpler than the more advanced war games like Panzer General ect. Each unit is part of combat group/battalion, and its actions are limited to it. There is air and artillery support that is also limited to that battlegroup. Which is realistic. Visually the game is simple, a large very precise topographic map of Latvia and its neighboring areas. Units resemble board game figures. All of it is very simple and understandable. Sound design is nothing bad, nothing great. Simple battle sounds. Soundtrack is fitting, for those who think bagpipe song does not fit - 1)bagpipes did not came from Scotland and were known instrument in Baltic region since 17th century, 2)since the British Navy also took part in this war, surely there some of those Scottish bagpipes on the board of the ships and they were heard during the war. Finally, as a historian by education I like to commend the game author for a high degree of historical accuracy, when it comes to all the unit names and their placements, a very accurate depiction of the frontline events. Maybe in future there could be addon with Strategic Command like campaigns from 1918-1920 where players could make alternative history and play from Baltic Freikorps and Soviet side, as well as Estonian side. Ofc that would be a whole lot of work to be done. Currently, this game is a must buy for all military history lovers and wargame players, because for its attention to detail and lesser known events it deserves more attention.