Chances are that a hexagon and turn based strategy game from a Russian developer is not exactly what you're looking for in a time where World of Conflict is out and Empire Earth 3 is coming up. But for all those 300 people worldwide who still fondly remember SSI's Fantasy General, this mini-review (meaning: we played the retail version for five hours and give you our opinion) might be of interest.

Fantasy Wars by Nobilis/1C Company, distributed by THQ, is very close to the aforementioned SSI strategy game from 1996. It looks much better, of course: For example, when attacking, you can see your soldiers running into the hexagon of their opponents, fighting them there. But the underlying game mechanics are the same: You have between 10 and 20 units (out of a larger army which you take from battle to battle) that all have a certain movement and attack range. You move all your units, let them fight, and then it's the computer's turn. Well, instead of fighting the same campaign with one of four quite different generals like in Fantasy General, you have three campaigns (with about 10 battles each) with a set hero: Humans, Orcs and, after you've solved both of the other two campaigns, the Elves. Also, the game does not let you choose which battle to fight next, like Fantasy General did, it's a linear storyline.

The strategic map shows your linear progression through the 10 missions of that campaign -- there's no branching of the mission tree, but the missions themselves can be won "fast" our "thorough" (There are three turn limits resulting in a gold, silver or bronze victory, which influence the rewards you get).

But apart from this, Fantasy Wars really feels the same, including little details like flying units sharing the same hex space with a ground unit, or ranged units like archers having one shot of defensive fire when close-by units are attacked. You've got heroes, you've got spells (which can reach nearly any point on the battlefield), you've got morale and you've got a very similar hitpoint system: Units can lose soldiers permanently (killed), these losses only fill up again between battles (at no gold or experience cost).

In a battle, you can buy reinforcements at towns or strongholds, but the unit will lose experience points. Also, you've got wounded soldiers, they will heal by using spells or by pausing for one turn -- but, like in the Panzer General series, you should have no enemies around or you will only get one or two wounded back. And, you can normally either move once and attack once with a given unit or the other way round -- where many similar games force your units to end their movement after attack, even if the have not moved yet. You can even have a similar view of the battlefield as in SSI's veteran game: By pitching and zooming the camera to give you a "nearly 2D" bird's eyes' view. Also, a strategic map will help you to plan your mission.

Every mission starts with a little in-game engine introduction, you always have a clear mission goal like freeing a city, saving a group of knights or killing a certain opponent. These goals might change, though, and there are also bonus goals. Ruins or churches mostly will give you extra gold or experience or an artifact. The latter can be given to all units (and you get them back if the unit should be killed), but you will mostly give them to your heroes, of whom you have around three in every campaign. Each hero can hold up to three artifacts, normal units only one. Artifacts can be special swords increasing the attack strenght, while others might allow the unit to cross rivers without slowing down. Depending on how fast you solve a mission, you'll achieve a Gold, Silver or Bronze victory (or none at all), giving you less and less rewards the longer you take.

By fighting, your heroes and units will earn experience which they use to climb in levels. Everytime a unit advances (levels go from 0 to 5 for units and to 10 for heroes), you chose one of three special, unit-specific abilities for it. For example, you can help your knights (who often attack enemies without you ordering them to) to control their temper. O, you can make the attacks of a scout unit (which may move in several segments and retreat after attacking) more efficient: You might give them poisonous arrows which will always kill, not wound. Or they might get the "fear" attribute which means that opponents they attack will always flee -- very handy for taking fortified towns or castles.

A magic attack just hit this evil Wyfern ryder. "-2" is the hitpoint loss (out of 10).

Fantasy Wars is not easy, even on "normal" difficulty (you may chose the difficulty at the beginning of every battle) you will restart many missions because you floundered with your distribution of forces. But it's also fair: The game is always keeping four autosaved games; one before you buy new units or upgrade old ones, one at the beginning of the mission, and the beginnings of your last two turns. After every battle, you might get new unit types you can buy, which means that you can also upgrade your exisiting ones. For example, you can promote an Eagle to a War Eagle or a Hellebardist to a Royal Guard. Although this is expensive, units will keep their experience level where a new recruit would start at 0.

Our conclusion: For every fan of turn based strategy, Fantasy Wars is worth the money. Even fans of the original Panzer General series might want to take a look: Yes, it's fantasy, but it's nearly exactly the same gaming system. We especially like the upgrading of our units when they reach a new level, and also the constant question "should I attack with these guys or rather let them rest?". The battlefields are big enough to allow for different strategies; you might make the decision to not go for a fast "Gold" victory in order to conquer all ruins and villages, thereby getting more artifacts, for example. We won't give you a rating in a mini-review like this, but rest assured that the number 8 (out of 10) would surely be involved.

There's a demo version which you can download from the usual sources or from the official game site (in several languages); it can be found in the "Bonus" section (no direct link possible). The demo includes a long battle which is from the middle of the Human campaign. To simulate that you would already have a veteran army in this battle, you can immediately upgrade most units several times, which you definitely should do.

Spoiler/Afterword: In the months since this Mini-Preview was published (on November 2nd, 2007), we played through the first, second and a good part of the 3rd campaign, and can share our thoughts on them: While the 2nd campaign (Orcs) is as well designed as the first (Humans), but much, much harder in some missions, the 3rd campaign somewhat dissapointed us: It seems at first that you're playing the Elves (soon to be joined by the Dwarves), who have few, but very powerful unit types. But after a couple of missions, you switch to the Human side and command some heroes from the first campaign. Then, you switch sides again and command an Orcish army. So you do not build up an army from mission 1 to 10, like in the first two campaigns, but constantly begin anew with a new one. After the second switch, we lost interest in continuing playing. Let's see what the addon (which seems to be out in Russia already) will bring...

The Alliance of Elves and Dwarves brings mighty units like this Red Dragon onto the field.

See this screenshot in high resolution: