Conflict of Heroes: Awakening the Bear!

Today I will be reviewing the demo for the tactical turn based wargame Conflict of Heroes from Western Civilization Software in conjunction with the creator of the original board game, Uwe Eickert. This is one of the few games that have a playable demo offered on the Matrix Games website and came highly recommended by my good friend, Javelin so I had to give it a try to see what it is all about. I never played the original board game so I am coming into this with a fresh perspective of not drawing natural comparisons to that product.

That board game was first released (from my limited research) in 2008 by Academy Games and a second edition followed in 2012. There were a number of expansions released for the game and the total product won a number of awards upon release. The PC iteration currently sports two expansion packs, Ghost Divisions and Storms of Steel (standalone), also available through Matrix Games. The base game is currently running for $39.99 USD. The Ghost Division expansion is $14.99 USD and Storms of Steel is $39.99 USD (all price points are for the digital download versions).

Germany at War Barbarossa 1941

Southern Russia, 24 June 1941: Today I will be covering a short mission from the demo version of the game which is titled “Dubno-Brody”. The 1st Panzer Group of Army Group South is advancing into the Ukraine and is the spearhead of the invasion in the south. After crossing the borders it now faces stiffening resistance near the towns of Dubno and Brody.

The objectives are layered into three tiers: a brilliant mechanized warfare victory can be achieved by the destruction of 60 combat strength points as represented by the Soviet 149th Tank Regiment. A high speed victory can be obtained by securing the four specified objectives within seven turns, and an occupational victory can be obtained if it drags into turn eight.