Enemy positions are hidden by fog — advance to scout them. Select a blue unit, then click a tile to move, a marked enemy to fire, or right-click a tile to turn in place (free).
Seize the objective ◈ or destroy the enemy. Units that survive carry to the next mission — the fallen are gone for good.
Select a unit: click it on the map, or click its name in Your Force.
Move: click a highlighted tile. Fire: click a ringed enemy.
Overwatch: with a unit selected, hit Set Overwatch in its panel to hold fire and ambush the first enemy that moves into its line of sight on the enemy's turn — deadly for a dug-in AT gun.
Suppress: fire to pin a target without killing it (an MG pins the whole area) — nail a tank or gun crew so your others can flank. Double-Time: forfeit your shot for +50% movement (but you're easier to spot). A unit that holds — no move, no fire — digs in and recovers a little HP.
Most units get 2 moves, or move + fire. Artillery does move OR fire — never both.
Use the ⟲ ⟳ buttons in the unit panel, or right-click a tile to face it. Turning is free — it costs no moves.
Units see best to the front, poorly to the rear. Keep your front toward the threat.
A tank isn't chipped down like infantry — it's either knocked out or fine. Hitting one is easy; penetrating it is the hard part. Each hit rolls a kill chance: an AT gun ≈25% from the front, a tank's gun a bit less. Side armor is thinner (×2), the rear thinner still (×3), and point-blank shots hit harder — so flank it. Infantry can lob a grenade for a small chance up close, far better from behind. A shot that fails to penetrate still suppresses the crew — soften a tank, then finish it from the side.
Forts are sided, just like units — they protect one way. A pillbox's firing slit and a trench's parapet face the enemy; the art shows which way. Attack a fort from the front and its cover is brutal (a pillbox slashes your to-hit by ~38%); hit it from the flank and it's half that; from the rear it gives almost nothing. So don't charge a bunker head-on — work around to its flank or rear.
Pillbox: a solid concrete bunker — impassable and it blocks sight. Only infantry & gun crews can garrison it (walk onto it to man it, as with a building); armour and cars cannot. A garrisoned crew is nearly untouchable from the front.
Trench: dug-in cover with a facing — anyone can occupy it. Good front cover, decent flank, a little even from behind. Put your AT gun or MG in one and point it at the threat.
Barbed wire: gives no cover — it only shapes movement. It stops vehicles cold (tanks and cars can't cross) and slows infantry to a crawl (costs extra to enter). Use it to channel enemy tanks into your AT guns and to buy time.
Mortar & Priest fire indirect — over walls with no line of sight — but can't shoot point-blank (the red dead-zone).
Click a spotted enemy to fire for effect, or click any tile in range to bombard a guess. Smoke and debris tell you if you hit something you couldn't see.
When enabled in ⚙ Settings, a ✷ Call for Fire button appears on your turn. You radio a target now; the shells arrive 1–2 turns later, marked on the map by a live countdown. The whole trick is that gap — fire where the enemy will BE, not where it is. Pin them with an MG first so they can't reposition, then drop the barrage where they're stuck.
Calling it: tap ✷ Call for Fire → pick an asset → tap a target tile (any tile — fog-blind guesses allowed, like the mortar's speculative bombardment) → Fire mission. Air support also lets you set the pass axis. A pending reticle + footprint + countdown then sits on the map until it lands.
The four assets (delays are the headline):
✷ Artillery — 1-turn delay, tight 3×3, the reliable workhorse.
✈ Close air support (P-47) — 1-turn, a 6-long strafing lane along your chosen axis; devastating vs troops in the open, grounded by bad weather.
⚓ Naval bombardment — 2-turn delay, huge 5×5, big scatter; fire at an area they can't leave.
▦ Bomber carpet (Operation Cobra) — 2-turn delay, a saturating ~7×3 pattern; the widest footprint and worst scatter.
Scatter: the impact drifts from your aim tile — bigger assets scatter more, so naval and carpet hit an area, not a unit. Danger close: if your own troops sit inside the blast envelope the preview turns red and warns you — firing then needs a second confirm, and the shells will happily land on your own line. Charges are limited per mission (some reload over time, some are one-off).
Off-map HE obeys the anti-armour rule: splash only suppresses tanks; a lucky direct centre hit can knock one out. So a barrage's job vs armour is to button it up and pin it so your AT can flank — never a reliable tank-killer. The Germans get their own off-map battery too; incoming enemy fire shows the same marker a turn early.
Enemies stay hidden until scouted — push Recon and the (stealthy) Scout forward. Fire pins units so they shoot worse; a soft target must be pinned before it can be killed — except a rear hit, which punches straight through. Tanks instead roll the kill chance above.