Legends of Eisenwald Preview

Games.on.net is offering a brief preview for Legends of Eisenwald, a strategy/RPG from Aterdux Entertainment you might remember due to its successful Kickstarter campaign.

Here’s a snip:

From what I’ve seen so far the world map is rather lovely to look at, if somewhat old-school, but the real point of difference between Eisenwald and anything else in the game space is how the combat system works. It’s at once more restrictive and more action-oriented than pretty much anything else I’ve seen from similarly themed games. Instead of focussing on troops moving around the field of battle to gain strategic advantage, the combat engine in Eisenwald revolves around the idea of each unit being able to do something every turn.

Melee units are considered to be in combat any time they are next to an enemy unit and cannot leave combat until all adjacent units are incapacitated. Ranged units act similar to artillery, taking up position and raining down fire on any unit in their line of sight. The combat system feels simple at first, but even in my all-too-brief time with the game some rather deep tactics have begun to emerge. Placing melee troops in such a way as to create an effective shield wall whilst leaving enough lines of sight for archers to fire through seems to be of utmost importance. Flanking, angle of attack and range all feature into combat calculation as well.