Come and greet the new member of the Combat Mission series. It's called Combat Mission: Fortress Italy and it looks like Battlefront.com has it packed to the brim with reasons to have you visit this embattled region during World War II.
Fortress Italy is a new "family" of Combat Mission games covering the Allied struggle to knock Italy out of the Second World War. This initial release deals explicitly with the battle for Sicily and sets the groundwork for future additions to simulate the hard fighting in the rugged terrain of "Europe's underbelly" up until the war's end in 1945.
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Steve Grammont from Battlefront.com comments, "We always wanted to return to the Mediterranean Theater, though figured it would be several years before we got to it. Simply put, the stars aligned last summer and work started in September. Now it is in final beta testing and it's time to tell you what to expect from it."
This just-announced stand-alone title will have you either fighting for or against the Duce in the game's three campaigns where you'll either take charge of forces from the USA, Germany or Italy, the latter of which promising to be a particular challenge even for experienced wargamers given the specificity of the new units and equipment available therein.
The German and American organizations themselves differ markedly from what players of Combat Mission: Battle for Normandy are accustomed to. Expect, for instance, to come across elite formations such as the German Herman Göring Division, the American Rangers or the Italian Bersaglieri, or nice treats like the Panzer Mk III, the R-35 Light Tank, the Grille, or the Semovente 90/53.
Beyond the campaign there are, of course, also stand alone battles and automatically generated QuickBattles to keep you entertained.
But the good news end not here, as the game already has a tentative release date set for August of this year, and, pre-orders are available right now!
Those of you eager to storm Sicily will find themselves rewarded with a 'Tin Case' Limited Edition, a printed manual of some 100 pages and still saving a tenner in the process.
