14 DAY TRIAL // I spent about one hour with the Deck Builder in the new Wargame Red Dragon after first firing up the game, just to get myself acquainted with the new units that the development team at Eugen Systems added and the various ships that were available for use.
I was baffled by some of the additions and then played single-player only for some time before thinking about the Deck Builder again and about testing a custom one in multiplayer.
I then chose to use the ANZAC and build a deck around them, focusing on their motorized infantry and trying out the power of some of the ships that NATO can bring into the game.
I kept second guessing myself over some of the choices I was making when choosing units, but I kept to the old strategy I used in AirLand Battle: plenty of recon because warfare cannot be conducted without information, a lot of anti-air infantry and vehicles because they can have a huge impact, and only a limited number of the most powerful tanks available, because they tend to cost more than they are worth.
I played a number of matches using that deck, which turned out to be pretty balanced, and a similar one built around the Chinese Marine branch, and I am happy to report that Wargame is still tense and that the sitzkrieg that sometimes happened in the previous titles seems mostly gone.
The maps and the rules are designed to encourage players to move forward, even if they do so cautiously, in order to secure ground and resources, and the new units open up more tactical opportunities.
I won more Red Dragon matches than I lost, but most of the time the games were well balanced and only a few mistakes on either side decided the final result.
The only problem is that naval units tend to lack the impact I was looking for on maps that feature both water and land and it seems that most players tend to use them defensively or for light bombardment duties.
Some gamers complain that certain units and decks are overpowered, and that’s probably the case given how sprawling Wargame Red Dragon is, but most of the matches will be interesting and entertaining.
At the same time, the development team at Eugen Systems has a solid reputation for delivering patches and DLC in order to constantly improve the multiplayer of its titles.