Graviteam Tactics: Bird Grove DLC

I am a 52 year old father, probably one of the oldest people playing this game. I am a single father to my son, who is now 18. My son recently downloaded Graviteam Tactics: Bird Grove and in less than a week, he had already played for over 20 hours. This was terrible for me, as it was already hard enough for me to spend time with my son, as he is always out with his friends or just watching videos on Tiktok. So I decided to make a Steam account and get this game to see if I could maybe play alongside him. I loaded into the game, did the tutorial but I was stuck on what you where supposed to do. I asked my Son for help and he hosted a game for me to join. I loved it as it was the best time I had spent with my Son since my wife had died. This game has ever since brought my son and I closer again and now we actually spend time together outside the house as well. This game reminded me that there's fun to be had in everything, and it has brought both me and my Son many happy memories.

Pretty typical Soviets attack in overwhelming numbers while the Germans hold on for dear life, hoping for some chance to counter attack. What's cool about this operation is the map which has the potential for interesting fights.

Worth it just for the accompanying documentation that comes with it.Division war diaries from both sides of battle.Translations of HQ messages and orders,with explanations where needed.

Another excellent campaign. Well they're all excellent but this one was fantastic. A Soviet offensive on the "German knee" and try to roll their flank up. Both sides are fairly balanced. The Red army isn't yet the unstoppable leviathan it is in other campaigns in late 1943, nor are the Germans are shadow of their former selves yet. The Germans are heavily dug in. Trenches, pillboxes, mine fields. The Soviets come with a lot of infantry, t-34s and the wonderful (if you're playing as the Soviets) KV-1 heavy tank. Nothing in the German arsenal can reliably destroy these (unless you order one into a minefield like i did) and on the back of your KV-1s you'll advance about 3 kilometers. Easy campaign right? No. You hit a line of a hospital, Olkhovatka and the bird grove. KV-1s won't save you here. Turn after turn of both sides going back and forth over the same couple of hundred meters. From a strategic perspective, this town and patch of trees are vitally important and it makes logical sense to control them. On the ground, it just seems insane to feed thousands of lives into the same patch of trees hour after hour. Lastly this campaign comes with a book of over 100 pages that the devs wrote/translated. All the primary source documents they used are there. Contemporary maps, diary entries, briefings, after action reports. It shows the lengths the devs go to ensure their campaigns are historically accurate.

Played turn 1 small battle to start. The landscape is excellent. This is also my favorite DLC so far. I dont know how long 16 turns takes depending on size of battles. I've already started reading extra manual with the DLC. Excellent info. The Devs hit a homerun with this one. Thanks for your work.

It breaks my heart to say this because I love the game so much, but it's just unplayable as Germany in a lot of these 1942 DLCs. The amount of armor the Soviets have is crazy to begin with, but it wouldn't be so impossible if the vehicles were not made of utter stalinium. I swear to god, I have seen t34s take 15+ shots from flak 88s at ranges under 1,000 meters. Being hit from multiple angles-- front, side, rear, all three at once. And it's not just some glitch, this happens regularly. I can see this happening with a 3.5cm pak, but this also happens with 4.5 cm, 5 cm, and even 7.5 cm paks, not to mention the flak 88s. I've even seen this happen with light armor, those little t40s. Or something. It's more rare, but I've seen them take up to 5 flak shots to the side. Plus, the stug III can't penetrate any piece of kv1s although stugs have the same cannon as a pzIV, which apparently can in the lore of this game. Because of this, I've lost an entire stug unit-- something like 8 vehicles-- to a single kv1. It's utterly ridiculous. Grenades are pretty much useless because of how few of them the infantry possess and how difficult it is to get infantry that close to a tank, even if it is alone, and even if i have my troops act cautiously. These factors translate to operational failure every time. It doesn't matter the placement of my equipment, if i have overlapping fields of fire, or how much firepower I bring to bear. Every time, I end up falling behind the historical frontline with heavier casualties than in reality simply because the enemy tanks are so resilient to every type of equipment I have at my disposal. At first, it was fun. I thought I could learn how things worked and adjust accordingly, but this seems to be an insurmountable barrier. Therefore, I cannot say in good faith that I would recommend this or the Borki dlc to anyone unless they have a serious russiaboo boner.

Amazing! 16 turns is huge. As ever, almost absurdly low pricing for this much content.

i couldn't help it. I have many added battles that I have not yet played. I have not yet mastered the interface. Yet, I could not avoid this purchase. Am I Ukrainian in a past life? Forgive me, that assumes too much. By the way I am older than 52. Much older.

One of the best DLCs so far. A wide variety of units, a long 16 turn campaign taken place on a very well known front under Case Blue. Well worth the money for any history buffs!

Already after a few turns I can say this DLC is awesome. Large battles straight from turn one with tanks, arty and flamethrowers (?). The maps are also pretty cool and the battles flow at a pretty nice pace. Graviteam DLCs are always high quality, but can be mixed bag when it comes to fun factor, if you're not one of those meticulous tacticians. I'm happy to say this is very fun even for someone who plays the game at a more casual pace, if you can call it that with regards to Graviteam games.