I must point out there is a neat little thing you can use here to make your job a bit more manageable called Auto-Walk. Using this you can pick a spot on the map you want your man to walk to and once he finishes his move hit F9 instead of end turn. This will continue his walk until he reaches the spot you’ve designated, simplifying the micromanagement of movement. This will be interrupted if he spots an enemy, is fired upon or sees an equipment bag lying on the ground. 

You’ll also need to note each individual soldiers differences through his stats screen when you’ve clicked on him. Not all soldiers are equal and each has not only different characteristics but unique attributes and encumbrance abilities as well. Health, hunger and morale are all noted here and you need to watch them as they all effect the individual soldiers morale.

Morale is checked through many different thing such as line of sight of friendly troops, presence of enemy troops, the death of squad members while in a soldier's line of sight, etc. Morale is based upon these factors as well as an individuals leadership rating, so each soldier is definitely unique.

When you decide to step off on foot to move out, your movement radius is shown through colored dots, each depending on the type of movement selected. You can go further by running than you can walking or crawling but depending on the situation you face you’ll need to decide which is more appropriate. Bear in mind that for every action you take there is an Action Point cost and if you suspect enemy to be lurking around the corner you’ll want to keep some action points saved for actions you may need to take if contact with the enemy is made during that turn. 

If you are seen by the enemy the colored dots will be replaced by eye icons of varying colors depicting the action points you’ll have left once you reach each point. As with the regular colored dots showing your movement radius, the colors are blue, yellow and red. Blue tells you how far you can move your troop and still have enough AP’s left for an aimed shot. Yellow shows how far he can travel and still let off a snap shot from the hip. Red means he can basically do very little once he reaches his destination. 

Once you’ve made contact with the enemy, it’s standard turn based fare. You fire… he fires, etc. You also have the options of close combat and searching an enemy after you’ve taken him down.

Things can get pretty interesting once you’ve gotten yourself in a firefight and you must think each move through, as by choosing one course of action you can leave yourself open to an attack from another position. This is where the game becomes much like a chess match, a deadly one at that!

Line of sight is something you’ll need to learn as you go, since there is no LOS fan shown onscreen to let you fully see your troopers facing. It would have been a great help for something like this in a turn based game so you could better set up overlapping fields of fire for patrolling, ambushing etc.

Click to continue . . .

But overall, the use of LOS is managed well once you get familiar with it. It’s one of those situations where you develop a feel for it after playing a few times, and you learn how buildings and terrain work in LOS. 

My biggest complaint by far was the movement speed. While using the auto-walk feature I mentioned previously, moving from one point to another was agonizingly slow. And going through 6, 8 or even all 18 troopers (if they all survive the landing) was a long and boring affair. Animation speeds were like molasses , so slow that at times I set auto-walk on and left the room to come back 5 minutes later - and they were still walking!

There is no need for this slowdown, especially since the graphics are not very high end. Thankfully the patch has arrived and I am currently testing it.

There are some nifty features in 101st that may discourage some players initially. The first combat engagement I was in I became dumbfounded by a lone German soldier who knocked off two of my men without me being able to see him. This was due both to my needing to learn the feel of the LOS in the game, as well as the reality that in war you don’t always see who’s shooting at you!

I think we’ve become accustomed as gamers to always seeing our enemies, leaving out the chaos that combat is fraught with. This is something 10st does well. It adds to both challenge and realism. Once I searched house to house I narrowed his hiding spot to a single building, I gathered my remaining men to seek vengeance. Leading in with pineapples I fragged the place good and followed up with a couple of troopers carrying Garands. I was met inside by the crumpled figure of our German sniper, so I did the proper thing and searched his body for intel and goodies and moved on.

You’ll need to move all of your men and cover sectors of fire as you would on a real life patrol, and here’s where the LOS fan could have been helpful. Always try to keep your movements to the blue dots, allowing your men enough action points to return fire with aimed shots (especially your machine gunners when contact looks imminent.) 

Maintaining an allocation for action points available is critical in a danger area, because when you or the enemy moves you will be afforded the chance for opportunity fire. You’ll need at least 2 action points to take opportunity fire on a newly seen enemy. If you don’t have it he can get the drop on you and there may not be a second chance for your trooper.

Initiative is also taken into account in 101st. Based on each soldiers initiative ratings at the beginning of each turn, all moves will be made in the order from highest to lowest. Your troops and the enemy troops initiatives change with each turn in combat, depending on the factors they are faced with on their turn.

Let me explain this by taking an example from the manual. If one of your men hears a German soldier scream from a wound inflicted, your soldiers initiative will go up, while a German soldier who is next to the wounded German takes a drop in his initiative. He’s seen or heard his buddy take a piece of lead in the leg and is starting to worry that the next round may have his name on it. Meanwhile the shooter is more than happy to hear the enemy scream so he gets motivated. Now you get an idea of how this works.

Go to Part III