Slitherine

 Conflict of Heroes: Awakening the Bear! Now Available!
Faithful adaptation of award winning  boardgame comes to the PC!
 
We are excited to announce, along with Western Civilization Software (www.west-civ.com) and Uwe Eickert (www.academy-games.com), the release of the tactical turn-based World War II game Conflict of Heroes: Awakening the Bear!, which has had its roots in the award-winning current boardgame series. No effort has been spared to bring the outstanding Conflict of Heroes gameplay to the PC, Conflict of Heroes: Awakening the Bear! aims to capture the tactical wargamer’s heart!
 
Set on the Eastern Front during Operation Barbarossa, Conflict of Heroes: Awakening the Bear! tasks players with commanding German or Russian forces between 1941-1942, complete with a historical roster of infantry, armor and artillery units. Players will be able to command the board while using either traditional chit-style graphics or 3D units, as well as either a flexible 3D camera view or top-down 2D view.
 
Wargamers will have to rely on realistic military tactics to win not only against the AI but also against human players using the in-game multiplayer server complete with a forum for matchmaking and a real-time chat lobby. Conflict of Heroes: Awakening the Bear! is loaded with scenarios, ten from original board game in “Awakening the Bear Firefights”, as well as 16 new scenarios along with a very flexible “point-buy” scenario on “Partisan Road”. Players will have a multitude of firefight to keep themselves busy, as well as a scenario and map editor to create more!
 
The full feature list of Conflict of Heroes: Awakening the Bear! include:
 

Official adaptation of the multiple award-winning board game Conflict of Heroes: Awakening the Bear!
Full 3D Graphics as well as board game-style Chit graphics. Supports a flexible 3D camera view or top down 2D camera view.
Fun: Quick-paced simultaneous play allows both players to interact with no waiting.
Fast: Scenarios vary in length from only 1/2 hour to 2-3 hours.
Easy: Teach a new player how to play in ten minutes! Full in-game tutorials included as well as a full color printed manual.
Historically Accurate: Learn the unique tactics and logistics used by each historical faction.
Challenging: Realistic military tactics are required to win.
Full AI: Play any scenario against the computer when a human opponent is unavailable
Multi-player: TCP/IP Multiplayer support with game lobby and forum for internet play (requires one open port) as well as LAN play support
Awakening the Bear Firefights: Ten Scenarios faithfully adapted from the original board game
Commanding Heights Firefights: Five new scenarios set in the Kerch Peninsula in 1942
Frontier Firefights: Eleven new scenarios set across the Eastern Front in 1941-1942
Point Buy Firefight: "Partisan Road", a flexible and replayable point-buy scenario
Full Scenario Editor: Create and share new scenarios using any of the "Awakening the Bear!" units

 
 
Get more information on Conflict of Heroes: Awakening the Bear! from its official product page on both the Matrix Games and Slitherine website.

This looks really cool,...but is there a demo version?
That's what sold me on Battle Academy,..I tried the demo and brought BA within an hour. AND, also brought all the expansions at the same time.

I jumped and brought Team Assault, but have not been able to play a complete game yet. I've reported an issue where it crashes on me.
Wished there was a demo for Team Assault!

I brought War in the East, played it once or twice, and then wasn't even able to complete a full game.
Just doesn't seem to be my cup-of-tea. Not to mention that you'll get berated on that forum if you offer a constructive critique of War in the East, and you'll be called a "beer-and-pretzel" game lover.
Wished there was a demo for War in the East!

Demo?

Post any and all comments, to help an addicted war-gamer know if this is a purchase that would be worth his time and money.

@gortwillsaveus

I have BOTH War in the Pacific and War in the East. I think I also have a sickness, wargameritis hehe. Can't seem to prevent myself from buying obvious monstrosities.

They are both superb games in so many ways, and yet, they are also so clearly all that is often wrong with wargaming.

I recall a time when Squad Leader was considered a 'serious' wargame and rated high on the complexity scale of 1to10 (10 being considered very complex). But today, it would rate no higher than Battle Academy essentially speaking. It was after all a game where you were playing after reading 7 fairly brief easy to read pages that were half filled with illustrations too.

I am fairly sure most of the WitP and the WitE fan club would consider Squad Leader 'too basic' and too 'beer and pretzels' if it were to be released today.
And yet, MOST wargames of the 70s were games no more complicated than the more basic of computer wargames, and they were never called 'lite' that's for sure.

I think too many of our hobby have either never played 'real wargames' or they have simply forgotten and consider too much clutter, too much density and too much tedium to be quality.

I'm here to say War in the East is no better a wargame than Panzer Corps and differs in only one way. I can play a full sitting of Panzer Corps today, while it will take me all day just to move all of the units of the opening turn for WitE. That doesn't make WitE better, it just makes WitE better at getting carporal tunnel in your mouse hand wrist. It takes me 6 solid hours to set up my board game The Longest Day (a truly stunning game). It has a 5'x5.5' map and is 2k to the hex for map scale. The manual though is best described as light reading, because the game isn't a complicated design, it is just massively detailed what with having more than 10 thousand counters all unique it seems.

There will always be a cadre of wargamers though, that want to simulate the war down to the last bloody soldier even if they mean every soldier on the entire front.
And some wargamers will latch on to some wargames and shun the rest of the industry just to play one game fanatically and do nothing but spend all day long doing nothing but nit pick that one only game to the exclusion of anything else. Including infesting the game's forums and basically going no where else

I am an ASLer in that I own Advanced Squad Leader. You can likely safely say, that more than half of the fans of that game, when asked what other games they play, will respond with a confused look as if to say 'what other games?'.

I DO wish I could go back in time, and NOT buy War in the Pacific and War in the East. Not because they are bad games, but because they were bad ideas. It was 200 bucks, which could have bought me 200 bucks worth of something else I'd actually use, actually finish, and actually likely enjoy more. Because those 2 games, they are like Ferraris that you simply can't get any real use out of regardless of how cool you insist they look

My only complaint with Conflict of Heroes: Awakening the Bear!, is the day is too short, and you can only play so many games.

Wow, DSWargamer,.....all I can say is,..well spoken and I strongly concur on the Ferrari analogy!

DSWargamer wrote: My only complaint with Conflict of Heroes: Awakening the Bear!, is the day is too short, and you can only play so many games.

You may have just sold me on buying: Conflict of Heroes: Awakening the Bear
Looks like I have to sell my copy of War in the East. Any takers. $39.99 (and yes, I'm dead serious)

Conflict Of Heroes, good game, quick enjoyable battles, so far.

I too have wargameritis

Does it play under Parallels or VirtualPC, I wonder?