Leaders are critical to the success of the mission. Leaders:

• in the attacking hex increase the chance of a damage check
  
• in the defending hex decrease the chance of damage check negative results
  
• help the stack move farther
  
• call in artillery/mortar ordnance fire
  
• have better chance to spot
  
• rally other units
  
• can "activate" units in hexes around the Leader's hex

Using a Leader to activate surrounding units is tricky. You have to be very careful NOT to select "End Impulse" until you've used all your activations. Even though "End Impulse" lights up as an option, click around your other activated hexes, conduct your unit actions, repeat until there are no more activated units left, and only then press "End Impulse".

Be very careful/deliberate about Leader unit selection. If the Leader uses his impulse on an attack he can't call-in an available artillery strike that turn.

Study the map, especially LOS looking for open lines, blocking terrain, objectives.

Hero units have special capabilities that can help your mission, watch carefully for their creation.

To successfully assault a bunker, house or other fortified positions you will almost always have to send a single squad forward to trigger the enemy fire and expose their previously unspotted units to your fire. Use assault move for units capable of that.

At the beginning of a scenario study your force composition and placement on the map. Make sure to scroll around the entire map as sometimes you'll have two separate groups of units on different sides of the map.

At the beginning of each Rally phase click on each Leader unit to review any special rally options they might provide. (ex. the Nurse can attempt a heal a wounded unit or the WW2 Soviets often have a "For the Motherland" option to improve rally results)

Deciding which units in a hex to select for a direct fire attack is a bit tricky due to the 1/2 IFP and rounding up calculation. (ex. 3 infantry units each with IFP of 1, 1st unit fires with 100% of IFP or 1, 2nd unit fires with 1/2 of IFP or .5. If you stop here the total FP is 2 due to the rounding up of the .5. But, if you add the 3rd unit to the attack, 1/2 of IFP or .5 gets added to the total as such: 1 + .5 + .5 = 2, same FP as with just the 2 units, you get no additional firepower from the 3rd unit, better to save it for another impulse on its own.

Move Shaken infantry & Leader units into nearby woods or buildings for the +2 benefit to Rallying.

If you End Impulse a unit using Assault Move "without" firing, perhaps because no enemy units have been spotted, you can return to that unit later in the turn to have it fire on recently spotted enemy units.

Be careful with your "Passes". When you have "Pass #1" you'll get another chance to use impulses after you Pass. But if you have "Pass #2" and select it you opponent will be able to "Pass & End" and you won't be able to use any remaining units with impulses left.

On defense it is often best to "Pass" early in the turn hoping the attackers will reveal themselves by moving.

Key Point: Even though this is a turn-based game, the rules are based on a turn representing 2-4 minutes of combat with all of the action (movement, direct fire, ordnance fire, etc.) taking place at the same time. Ex. Your opponent, on one of his impulses, conducts an artillery strike. The target hex and the six surrounding hexes will attack your units with ordnance fire. Afterwards, each hex will be marked "Fired For Effect". If, later in the turn, you move one of your units into a "Fired For Effect" hex, an ordnance attack will hit them.

Tanks with forward-facing machine guns can only fire on units in their firing arc (see the manual for details). The unit display window always shows the tank facing north-west. Check the unit counter on the map to see the red triangle that shows the unit's facing.

If you're clicking around the map and nothing seems to be working correctly, you've probably forgotten to click "End Impulse".

Before firing with your stationary tank, make sure the movement stance is set to "Move", not "Assault Move", to avoid the +2 penalty of assault move. If you used assault move the previous turn the tank's stance may still be set to that.


During the Rally phase before clicking Auto-Rally or Continues, look for the green-outlined hexes indicating you have units with assembled/unassembled status. Confirm they are set for the mode you want them in for the next turn. Click on the weapon to change it's status. Zooming in on the hex will help to confirm the weapon is in the correct status.

Shaken units carrying SWs that are assembled/dissembled can't change the SW status. If the unit successfully rallies during the AUTO-RALLY you can then change the SW deployed status. It is easy to get in the habit of clicking CONTINUE as soon as the AUTO-RALLY finishes and miss your opportunity to change the SW deployed status on recently rallied units.

Always check the button/unbuttoned status on your tanks before firing. You can zoom in on the tank counter or I find it easier to click the button/unbutton option to make sure the button status is set the way I I want.

It is often best to move your units one hex at a time, rather than selecting the end hex and having the program determine the line of movement. Otherwise the program's path may move the unit into a hex that give the opponent opportunity fire or joins a Melee or some other negative result that you'd avoid by moving along a different path.

When selecting targets for your direct or ordnance fire, generally look to go after Good Order enemy units that haven't moved or fired yet this turn. You want to prevent them from firing at you in a later impulse by getting a shaken or other result that effectively disables that unit for the rest of the turn. And with a shaken unit potentially for the rest of the game if the unit needs a leader to rally and no leader is available. Later in the turn, if you have impulses yet to use and the opponent doesn't, target flipped over counters (shaken or casualty or wounded) where a successful fire attack while eliminate that unit for the rest of the scenario.

In any Igo-Ugo type of tactical game it is usually best to reduce the number of attacks your opponent gets as soon as possible each turn. This means leading with your high firepower units, attempting to "shake/casualty" the largest stack of enemy units before they get a chance to attack you.

Following the above tactic, if the scenario gives me artillery/mortar/plane attacks, I use those as my first/early impulses. 2nd choice is my high firepower stacks; MGs stacked with a Leader for example.

On defense it is often a good idea to pass, waiting for attacking units to reveal themselves.

Be careful with opportunity fire, the computer AI will often retreat shaken/casualty units and they will pop-up as opportunity fire. Don't waste your firepower on them, save it for the still capable enemy units. Conversely, if it appears the enemy has completed all their impulses and you have attack impulses left, go ahead and target those retreating units if you don't have any other targets. No reason to waste the chance to eliminate and unit that might recover later.