Second Front

I've played a decent amount of this game since hex-based WW2 games are something I play quite a bit....but this is, sadly, a deeply frustrating game the more you play it. The array of units and individual maps is great (especially with the workshop), but the lack of many decent campaigns is a tad frustrating. It sort of feels like you're just trying to beat a puzzle rather than managing some grand campaign. What is the most frustrating to me however, is the seemingly unpredictable results of your fire, and enemy fire. Sometimes your MG will pin down enemies who are in the open, sometimes it will rout them, but sometimes your entire company will fire at units in a perfectly open hex and have absolutely zero effect. Turn after turn. And shooting units in buildings seems to be almost impossible no matter how many tank shells and HE shells you put in the windows. And random events like "out of ammo" or "gun broken" mean that sometimes a scenario becomes impossible through no fault of your own. No indirect fire is also particularly silly. And no air power (that I have found) which is also silly. Essentially this game is frustrating, has too much randomness, and will at times leave you banging your head on the table at the dice rolls it produces.

Given the option, I'd rate Second Front with a sideways thumb in its present state. With the addition of one important mechanic (Fire Groups) described to follow, my review would change to Positive. Second Front wears its inspiration on its sleeve: Advanced Squad Leader. As a fan of ASL, I genuinely like so much about this game, but there's one massive deal-breaker for me that neutralises my enthusiasm for playing it. In my opinion, it goes one abstraction too far in the removal of multi-location Fire Groups. Fire Groups, as the name suggests, are formed when you combine the fire of multiple friendly units together in order to project more firepower at a common enemy target (often those protected by strong cover). Units already in the same location, firing at the same target, automatically form a Fire Group - and this is also true in Second Front. Conversely, stacking your units in the same location presents a big, juicy target to the enemy. Like in ASL, Second Front is likely to punish you for stacking your units - big rewards come with big risks. Unlike in ASL, consolidation of infantry firepower in Second Front leaves the player little option except stacking your units. Coercing you to do something you know is dodgy in ASL (and which reinforces poor gameplay practises), and then kicking you for doing it anyhow is poor design IMO. In ASL, there is often a third option: position your units in adjacent locations and then Fire Group them in that configuration. Sure - there are plenty times this isn't the solution to your tactical predicament, and that's when you can decide whether-or-not to risk stacking. I feel this is a basic, core mechanic of ASL and it, or some appropriate variant, needs to be implemented in Second Front. My review will be updated to "Positive" if/when that occurs, but I've waited for more than 2 years since release for that to happen and there's no sign of it on the horizon. Otherwise, I can more-or-less live with the ASL mechanics abstractions in Second Front. I think the visuals of Second Front are clean and attractive. I think the Orders of Battle available here cover a lot of ground. Clearly, a lot of work has gone into the scenarios, the editor, and much more. This is definitely a labour of passion. If you don't already understand ASL mechanics, maybe you won't find yourself as frustrated by some of the simplified elements present here?

I am going to write this in two portions, one for those who have played Advanced Squad Leader (ASL) and one for those who have not. TLDR, If you have a played ASL, or are still playing ASL like I have continued to do, then this is simply the best way to play ASL against a computer opponent. Don’t let the presentation of the game fool you - this is ASL on your computer. That means the game rules under the hood is based on the most detailed and robust tactical rules available, period. The rules for this game is not something that the develop cooked up - the rules are ASL, but modified to allow for better playability against the AI, and within the limits of the game engine being used. The rules are not an exact copy. There are many elements of the original SL in this game, such as the sniper counter being onmap, and PF markers being onmap. There are elements from the ASLSK rules, such as you are always eliminated for failure to rout (ie. there are no prisoners). And not all elements of the full ASL rules are here either - there are no fire lanes, there is no residual fire, there is no penalty for rotating your turret to fire, and so on. There are also some differences to the flow of the phases - when you are the attacker, the prep fire/advancing fire/movement phases are all presented as a single phase for you as the attacker - which means that infantry can move *and* fire in the same phase. But don’t let this put you off - it works for playing against an AI opponent. It works really well. I have seen a lot of games try to capture the magic of ASL on the computer, and none did the trick for me. This one does. I would never say that I am going to stop playing tabletop/VASL ASL - that system in its purity can not be beat. But I would say that if I want to play against the AI, Second Front is where I am going to do so. As far as content, there is a ton. In about 40 hours I have played all of the USA official scenarios, and a portion of the other nations as well. Right now there are scenarios for GER vs SOV, GER vs USA, GER vs ENG, SOV vs GER, USA vs GER, and ENG vs GER. While some scenarios are very quick, others are huge and require hours to play - including American seaborne invasion scenarios on D-Day. Further, there are hundreds of community made scenarios that you can access ingame. Many (most?) of these are ASL scenarios right off of your scenario card. So the amount of content here is immense. The developer is also working on adding multiplayer - which will significantly enhance the game. The roadmap shows the PTO being added as well - so if that happens, the game will once again jump by leaps and bounds as far as the amount of content available. As for the AI, it does a good job of putting up a challenge. Sure, sometimes it does things that make no sense and moves off of an objective, or out of a building giving up building control, but that’s AI. And lets be honest, if you have played ASL face to face, your opponents never do something unexpected? Just today I broke a crew on an AT gun and they routed away. In later turns they rallied, and immediately in their movement moved back to the AT guns and manned it. That’s good enough for me and the AI does a good job of punishing your mistakes. The game is not perfect, and no game will be. Some of the rules don’t quite work as intended, but the developer works hard to implement them. Just last month the community identified that final fire wasn’t working correctly. Developer listened, and squashed the bug. So again, if you play ASL – simply put, this is a game for you. If you have not played ASL in years, this is a good way to get back into it – it has tutorials and the early scenarios are very easy. Support the developer and hop in. Now, for those who have never played ASL, this is great way to learn the system and try it out. There is tremendous value for the cost of the game – just playing the official scenarios would take about 100 hours, let alone the community ones. And with multiplayer forthcoming, there is even more content. For those tying to learn the system, I would strongly recommend going on the official ASL website and downloading the free PDF of the ASLSK (Starter Kit) rules, in addition to the rules for Second Front. This will help you understand what is under the hood. Again, TLDR is that whether you have played SL/ASL or not, this is a solid tactical turn based game that will introduce you to the best squad level tactical game out there. But even without that introduction, Second Front is a great game all on its own and worth the buy.

The problem with the scenarios is they have few units on a small map, and are designed to be as balanced as possible. The result is something like feels more like a puzzle than a wargame. The lack of skirmish mode means there's no other way to play. The graphics are nice but I just don't enjoy the gameplay.

Old ASL player here. Can see many elements of that game in this game. Good to see we have a software version of a near version of ASL. I think it does a good job and captures a lot of ASL. I admit have not played ASL in a while and probably would get smoked when it comes to a FTF opponent or an online opponent with VASL. Second Front is where rules like in ASL become neutral. A lot of ASL is knowing the rules. Sometimes to your advantage. Would recommend this game to any ASL player that probably already knows about it. What would I like to see in the future? An operational/campaign layer. I don't think that was really possible with ASL because there would involve too many cardboard counters to be moving around. You just move around your counters on the operation layer and their composition and when they come into contact with enemy units you go down to the tactical level to fight the battle. Just like in any other software game seen. The other would be types of units. Not just a simple breakdown of conscript, regular, veteran and elite. That would be Heer or Wehrmacht, Waffen SS, US Marines, US paratroopers, British commandos, Soviet Guards and Soviet naval infantry, etc. and maybe getting a little too detailed with the way the units look and their uniforms for that time period and also with the vehicles and armor with putting some camo on them.

This is one of the , or better said : THE best hex based wargame out there. The AI is very good, it has a solid backround (one of the best boardgames out there clearly inspired it) , the historical accuracy is fantastic. Good workshop content to expand on the original content. Do not let the somewhat cartoon like graphics fool you, this is a very solid historical warsim. The developer is very responsive (fixed my reported bug in steam fix in 14 hrs..) and works non stop to improve the game, regular updated are released and free content is added at times. Recommend.

Sorry, but there are better tactical games out there. Too much luck and I always have the sense that there's only one right way to win a given scenario. If you look at the game's "roadmap," there were a lot of promises made that haven't been delivered on as of the date of this review. Some of them are pretty major such as artillery, aircraft, and the Pacific theater. Maybe we'll see some of this in the future; maybe not. I've played Combat Mission, Close Combat, Graviteam Tactics, and a number of other titles and really enjoyed them. I'm sorry to say that I just didn't enjoy this one enough to recommend it.

Advanced Squad Leader player here. This is pretty good. But I don't think I"d be able to figure out what's going on under the hood if I didn't already know ASL. Also, a 2p mode would be awesome.

This is quite literally ASL for the computer and as one of the three guys at MMP who produce the board game I can unequivocally say he because this is a ONE MAN JOB, nailed it. Clearly a passion project, but IMO done as well as it could be done. I've LOVE for updates adding OBA and what not to get done, but I get it. It deserves recognition and if you are a WWII gamer, boardgamer, this is a must for your collection.

I bought this game because I mainline stuff like D&D, MTG, Warhammer TTG, catan, and a ton of other wargames and general roll-based games. I know plenty about deckbuilding, odds, tactics, and creating strategies to minimize randomness and ensure victory. I've crafted black-white rez decks that bend the odds so hard it had a %80+ WR. Clutched rounds against tyranid players with 3x the army size I had. None of those skills were at all useful for this game. Since those skills do in fact work for real life dice roll games, I'm forced to assume the die rolls in this game are fudged, just in the opposite direction of PC games like Xcom. I should like this game. It's why I bought it and put 40 hours into it. But I can conclusively state that something is wrong with this game. Tho unless I decompile the game and go pecking thru its code, I'm doing the Doakes meme. If you want a game like this that seems to actually respect the player, try something like the Close Combat series, Gary Grigsby's War in the East 2, the Flashpoint series, or John Tiller's Panzer Battles.