SGS Winter War Reviews

This reminds me of the old days when I played board games from Avalon Hill Gaming Company, this is a nice change to video shooter games.

Winter War a solid wargame offering from Avalon Digital. It seems (to me, at least) that a lot of these digital wargames (like this, Battle of the Bulge, Drive on Moscow) can have a game engine that takes some figuring out, but once you do they offer a great, deep game on the conflict. Winter War does a wonderful job creating two distinct opposing armies with different, and accurate, strengths and weaknesses. The Finns don't have the Red Army numbers, but their ambushing can turn the tide of battle almost before it even really begins. The Red Army has vastly superior numbers at times, but they may not be able to move those pesky Finns. I still feel like it'll take me hours to feel competent at all playing this game, and that's exactly how I want my wargames!

Just finished grand campaign with expert difficulty. There is a two main problems, air force is too weak and mostly useless for tactic use because of second main problem what is difficulty. You cant loose if you just keep troops standing on front. Also restriction for advancing over border is stupid. Developer can easily add more space on soviet side for better troop maneuver. I killed 9 soviet generals and countless divisions on counter attacks when i let them come deeper in my soil. This war was slaughter but not like this, it was desperate survival against all odds. My final scores are: Finland 66VP, SOVIET: 5VP 153% (They got Petsamo and Salla because i let them have it, i got 2 divisions, artillery and three battalion against one soviet marine bat. One round more and they will be gone permanently) Conclusion: More difficulty, more space to move in enemy territory (compensate it with supply or something) and make air force to real threat. Good game, fixing bugs and more balancing makes it excellent! For developers note: There is a constant problem on reinforcements and cards, it halts whole game and only way to pass through is load again via main menu.

Great game on the Finland-Soviet conflict. Game mechanics are good and the card system adds to the game without complicating it needlessly. Rules are straight forward and kept to a playable but realistic minimum. Very enjoyable effort here 10/10 without reservations. Vodka is optional.

I do not like to leave negative reviews. But if you intend to play single player stay far away from this and other SGS titles. The ai is the worst I’ve ever seen. There are games decades old with better Ai. What’s more for a seemingly simple game it would make sense the ai could be much better. If an Ai can play War in the East 2 semi-competently, then what’s the excuse here? However a big reason I leave a negative review is how I was promised better Ai. They said to me they’d improve it. But after months of retuning and reading through patch notes that mention no Ai improvements, I’ve given up. I even brought the second game Afrika Corps because they claimed it would help to steadily improve the ai and patch it back into this one. Nothing. This game is compared by some to Ageod. This is very wrong for a few reasons. But the main one being the Ageod Ai was actually competent. So yes, stay far away if you hope to play single player. It’s a incredible shame, as the potential is there.

A very nice re-enactement of the (very rarely depicted) Russian-Finnish war of 1939! I appreciate particularly the attention to details given to the order of battle, with historical unit names and specific of each order of battle. You definitively won't play the Russians as you play the Finns. For an early access game, I would say it feels almost finished, barring a few UI details that can be improved, but nothing really hampering the enjoyment of the game. The game has a clear routine, from getting new cards, to launching air missions and then moving and fighting. The battles are quite nice too, and have some epicness and tension, when you face a strong enemy. Randomness plays a role, but that's your planning that will do most of the work. You'll have as the Finnish to know where to yield ground and where to stand. It does not mean you can't launch counter attacks against the flank of the nasty bear. The game comes with several scenarios and a campaign and that's already a lot of hours of enjoyement. I really like how it is shapping up and is already super stable (had no crash or even did not saw a bug!), some studios can take example on this independant developer. Looking forward to extra polish and then to others games from this studio, it bodes well for the future. Now excuse me, I have some BT-7 to ambush in the wood!

Another good title from SGS. Quite quick campaign, not much to think about. As Russia, throw bodies at the problem, as Finland, just managing where your people are. Would recommend both Afrika titles before this, but it's still quite good. AI is still a bit on the poor side, as like the other titles. Either not aggressive enough or poor at keeping important places occupied. Multiplayer exists through an E-mail method, you conduct your turn, email it to your opponent, they do theirs and repeat. I cannot say anything for the effectiveness of the method yet, but if i run into any game breaking issues using it, i will update my review. (very excited to try multiplayer with this title, each turn will be crucial) For the veterans: Some minor differences - The fights are much more deadly. Each unit will land hits far more often than in other titles, to the point where it's more uncommon to have a round of combat where nobody lands a hit, sometimes reaching ten plus hits on each side in a single round of combat. Be ready for a bloody, fast paste war.

Why would a wargamer with little or no interest in the WW2 Russo Finnish War purchase this game? That's a question I had asked myself and hope to answer here. First for players who do not own the somewhat related Wars Across the World Series (WaW) or have or are considering Avalon Digital's new "Libertad o Muerte (LoD)." This game offers an improved UI that helps the player click-through menus and move the scenarios forward. Even for first-time players of the WaW-like interface, the UI should not hold them back. The counters are indeed beautiful to those wargamers who appreciate such things. The interface in general is rather elegant: should one hold one's mouse over a counter, a second, larger and more detailed counter appears that is even more attractive. Mouse over aspects of the counter, and tool-tips pop up. This feature and level of detail counter-wise is lacking in WaW and LoD. In these, you need to check the manual for such specifics. One gets the feeling that perhaps someone on the development team lost a relative in the war - and at the least is intimately familiar with it - because the level of historical detail is also high. The music is appropriately sad and haunting to the soul, for the most part, and the period newspaper clips, while not that numerous, are excellent. I for one welcomed the opportunity to "bone up" on the history of this war and Finland's geography. The map is detailed and well-presented. The event cards are fairly numerous and educational as well as useful in the game. The battles are very well represented, but not overly complex, and moves things along nicely. If one explores the interface a bit, one finds nice little touches that allows the player to get more detail about where a battle is taking place and a summary screen for further review. The introductory scenarios are obviously short affairs, but I felt able to review the game before getting to the meatiest part - the 16-turn campaign game. It is likely I haven't seen (almost) anything yet! For those who are not considering WaW or its many DLCs, or the newer LoD, the $15 I spent on this game seems well worth it already. Based on its looks, its historicity, and its smooth gameplay, it's a game to savor for a time, like fine wine, or in my case, good beer. In addition, like the WaW series and LoD, the json files are easily text-moddable. Oh yes, and there are no bugs I could find. Oh, and the AI is certainly good enough, and you can play both sides, which is a real bonus for this campaign. Now for those looking to buy WaW or its DLCs, or LoD, there is a small caveat, especially for those on a limited budget. The playing time for Winter War is not exceptionally long. For the same price, one can get a lesser UI but far more game time and diversity from WaW series and the modules it comes with, plus a few DLCs. Same goes for LoD. I'm not ready to review that one yet, but the game map is super-sized and the scenarios quite involved. Albeit, I did get the game on sale for $20, with regular price at $25, which is $10 more expensive than Winter War. Take a look at the screen shots (obviously) and maybe a video, but what you see is what you'll get, and for most wargamers it will be a nice helping of traditional "chit" wargame play.

Not my favorite SGS game. It's realistic, I guess. If you like pain, this is the game for you LOL. As Soviet, you throw your units into a meat grinder. As Finns, you watch your army bleed to death. Maybe I'm missing the nuances of this campaign... Technically, graphically, it's a great game. I'm just not as fond of the campaign as I thought I would be.

A game about an almost forgotten "side show" where at the start of the World War two, when the world watched in despair what the next move in German Nazi expansion will be, another superpower also got the idea to "correct" its borders. But surprisingly a small, but stubborn northern country would have none of it and said NIET. Thus, it began, THE WINTER WAR between the USSR and Finnland. This game covers the whole conflict from November 1939 to March 1940 with a Grand campaign and 4 smaller introductory scenarios. There are no tutorial scenarios per se, but the smaller scenarios fill this role quite nicely. The gameplay at a first sight looks like a digitalized boardgame with cards and dices that offer a good replayability and (theoretically) also a different outcome of the battles each playthrough. However, the engine is the upgraded one from Wars Across the World to better suit this conflict. Both sides in conflict are represented true to history and gameplay with the Finns will be a much different affair from the Soviet one. As the Finnish side you will have quality, but numerically small pool of troops, trying to delay and survive the huge Soviet onslaught. The world will be sympathetic to your cause, but time and events are not on your side. On the other hand, the Soviet side has a huge numerical advantage, but are poorly led and they can (and will) suffer horrendous casualties when trying to break the finnish defenses. Not to mention the impatient comrade Stalin that demands results… NOW! Gameplay is fun, relatively easy to learn (read scenario description), but hard to master. The game is still in Early Access, so basically in testing phase, but it is already well polished, fully working with no crashes or game breaking bugs. Something that nowadays you rarely see in most of “early access” games on Steam. My personal wish would be to add the number of soldiers and tank/planes as I like statistic at the end of scenario. Something that I simply loved in (older) AGEOD games. Continuation War (1941-1944) campaign and Lapland War scenario would be more or less an instant buy for me 😊 And a little tip for all players of this great game - I can’t recommend enough a fantastic Finnish war movie about this conflict called Talvisota – Winter war Have fun and thanks for reading