Panzer Tactics 2

I’ve had a chance to play Panzer Tactics on the Nintendo DS for a while now and although I’m really enjoying it it’s sadly not as good as I was hoping. The AI’s tactics are generally good, but occasionally it’ll do something bizarre and send an AA unit after a tank and such. Not really a problem, but it’s worst failing is that if you get close to a group of enemy units who are all in a good defensive position they’ll come out of cover to try and get you – not a good tactical decision.

It’s also quite odd because they’ve done their research and have pretty much got the units spot on, but there’s some glaring errors. I’ve been playing the German campaign and it starts with the invasion of France, and moves to North Africa and then Russia. The British North Africa units for example are Matilda tanks, Humber ACs, Portee’d 2 pdr guns etc, and then they have Lancaster bombers, which I’m fairly sure were never deployed in the desert. The Germans have Panther tanks, which also didn’t serve in the  North Africa campaign, and weren’t even introduced until 1943, after the scenarios in the game.

As a result of this you have the strange sight of Panzer Vs taking on Matilda 2s and losing! In it’s day the Matilda was a formidably armoured vehicle, but no match for the Panther.

It’s a shame they’ve done this, as otherwise they’ve obviously tried to get the historical detail spot on in the game.