Goonhammer Historicals: Review of The Troop, a WW2 Turn-Based Strategy Game You Need to Play

Computer wargames - especially the turn based or hex types - have a deep bench on Steam, but many of them can be VERY in-depth, requiring manuals or a lot of help file reading to even begin to understand. Luckily for gamers looking for an easier game to get in to, there is The Troop.

What is The Troop?

The Troop is a 3D isometric World War 2 turn-based strategy game. It's set on the platoon level, rather than a huge campaign map with operational level stuff. You don't have to worry about supply lines or logistics - this is a battle simulator game. Each unit is fully 3D modeled, with sweet looking tanks and infantry moving around the map.

The game has some interesting options, including bocage LOS. Credit: Giant Flame

If you're familiar with the old school Close Combat games, it's very similar, although it's turn based instead of real-time. I have played many of those back in the day (they're also very easy to get into) and find this one easier to play. This game is very much a tabletop game on your computer - you select forces, you deploy them, you move them each turn (if you wish), they have action points, etc. It's amazing, to be honest.

The game has:

Three training missions
38 single player scenarios (UK and Canada) (both sides, Germany and Allies)
13 US vs Germany scenarios (both sides, Germany and Allies)
37 Skirmish maps (+ reverse)
Six campaigns
Battlegroup mode - 5-9 mission mini-campaign with a randomized, persistent force

Rather than an overarching story or a grand strategy, you'll mostly play individual scenarios. They're somewhat puzzle-like in a way that a wargame could be - can you take the town that is held by four Panzer IVs with some infantry, halftracks, and one Sherman? Once you've solved that, can you do the opposite as the Germans? The deployments will change-up so you can't just reload and move back to that corner knowing where the enemy was. There is no multiplayer currently. At $39.99 even without multiplayer there will be tons of content to fill your time.

The Mechanics

There are a lot of cool tabletop wargame-like mechanics to the game - not a lot is abstracted here. Your units start on the map - if you're defending, you deploy usually in a town and setup your ambushes. If you're attacking, you usually start on the outside of town and setup to try to move in without being taken down by all the ambushes. Steadiness is a mechanic for each unit.

[video width="1280" height="720" mp4="https://assets.goonhammer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Untitled-video-Made-with-Clipchamp.mp4"][/video]

If your unit moves too fast, or takes too much suppression, you lose steadiness and your unit's turn ends faster. When moving, an exclamation mark on the UI will tell you a unit has done it's final action - like second movements, primary attack, or an action that causes their steadiness to go to zero.

Line of sight is massive - just like in a tabletop game, where you'd get down to the eye level and see where your unit can see, the game gives you this by hitting the LOS Tool button, showing every hex you can see. You can even measure this from a potential movement. Blue hexes are clear LOS and purple hexes are partially obscured (cover).

The fog of war in this game is an important tool and part of the puzzle. If you're attacking, usually you'll start the game moving up with nothing in spotted. The game can be a bit unforgiving in this aspect - it definitely encourages and rewards you as a defender for not firing until the last possible second, and it can be difficult to find ambushing troops. I have played for ~20 hours and haven't really figured out the best way to seek them out yet.

At the end of the game these infantry teams were still waiting in ambush around the objective. Credit: Giant Flame

Since line of sight is so important, smoke can be a great tool. Mortars and artillery observers can drop smoke rounds in important hexes to aid your advance or stave off the attackers as you move troops around. If some infantry is slowing up your attack from a building, place a smoke round in front of it to make it so they can't see you. It's something that is huge in Chain of Command by TFL and it's nice to see the emphasis here.

Winning in the game is done by either capturing / defending objectives or causing your enemy's morale to drop to zero. Morale is lost when units are lost - tanks being more valuable than infantry units, naturally. Just like in TFL games I love this mechanic, because you're not just suicide charging the enemy to try to get them out of positions - your troops have value, and if you waste it, you'll lose.

Infantry

There are a lot of different infantry teams. If you're familiar with Chain of Command or Bolt Action, you'll be familiar with this system. There are machine gun teams, bazooka teams, sniper teams, mortars, HQ teams, and of course regular infantry squads (albeit in half groups - not a full squad, to provide fire and maneuver teams). Infantry move around the field either on foot or in transports, usually halftracks.

Here you can see all my units. Any with a full yellow bar means they can still activate. Credit: Giant Flame

Infantry start the turn prone, as soldiers would always be looking for a better position - but if they move more than two hexes they move up to a kneeling status, making them easier to hit by shooting from the enemy. Infantry generally aren't super deadly - they generally can do one or two hits to an enemy team in the open, and suppression. They're obviously good for occupying buildings and being hard to move out. Infantry teams can usually move two or three hexes a turn while maintaining their cover.

There are also some pretty sweet anti-tank guns in the game. They can traverse their aim and generally are fixed in position, rather than moving during the game. Generally you want to keep them in ambush until they have a really good shot - sometimes they can aim for two turns on a tank before they shoot, having a much better shot. Once they're loud they're pretty easy to take out with tank rounds.

Tanks

Tank combat in this game is some of the best I've ever played. Turreted tanks have turrets to traverse, aim, and fire using gunnery points, instead of overall action points - the two things are separate. If your tank takes damage, your gunner might die, or your driver might die, so you lose certain points of each type.

[video width="1280" height="720" mp4="https://assets.goonhammer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Accurate-Aim-Hits.mp4"][/video]

Tank commanders can un-button their tank - open the hatch - and get better LOS and accuracy, but it may leave them exposed to enemy rifles or grenades. This is extremely important to try to spot infantry and tanks who might be in ambush. Just like the real war, your tank commander won't be driving around blind all the time.

Tanks can stay still and aim at a stationary object (like another tank, or infantry in a building) and each turn they aim they get a better percentage to hit. If you hit once then you can get an accurate hit, where you can choose tracks, turret, or hull as your target. It's possible to traverse your turret and aim at a hex even if nothing is there, just in case - because maybe next turn you won't have the gunnery points to traverse the turret all the way and fire. If you're fighting German up-armored tanks you definitely want to try to hit sides or rear, as front rounds may bounce off, especially at long range.

Gunnery points UI. Credit: Giant Flame

Tanks will take glancing hits, where no damage happens, they might get blown up on the first hit, or they might just take a little bit of damage or suppression. Sometimes crew members get killed, or the main gun might be knocked out. Crew members can repair systems in the tank during the game as well. It's a really nice system that keeps you engaged beyond 'move, shoot, next turn'.

UI and Graphics

The UI is pretty simple and easy. The only confusing part to me are the icons at the top of the screen - they show all kinds of status thingies, and I figured out it is for when you click on a hex. It'll show you if the hex is woods, rough terrain, if wheeled vehicles can traverse it, etc.

The beautiful Easy 8. Credit: Giant Flame

The tutorial missions work great to teach you the game, and there is a short in-game tutorial when you click the help button. I'd love a more in-depth index for all the systems in the game as well as troop types. The only other fault I have with the UI is sometimes it can be difficult to tell where troops are in a house - since it's a hex system, house can be off-kilter and it can be very hard to figure out where you need to be to shoot an enemy in the house.

Graphics are about what you'd expect - the models are rendered very nicely, towns are cool looking but not computer breakers. I think most people with a PC bought in the last ten years should be able to play it easily.

Challenge and Replayability

The AI can be downright punishing, to be honest. I've made it through almost all the main line of missions and while I have to restart missions sometimes, I don't feel it's cheating - I think the hardest part, like I said above, is sometimes detecting ambushing troops is very difficult.

Replayability and value for me are really high here - you can play each mission from both sides, there are a few DLCs out, and then there are the random campaigns and scenario generator where you can just basically build two platoons and play. I already have 20 hours in the game and feel like I haven't touched 50% of what the game offers.

[video width="1280" height="720" mp4="https://assets.goonhammer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/beginning-clip.mp4"][/video]

Overall Verdict

If I were to give this game a number grade, I'd give it 9 Shermans out of 10. That might seem rather high, but I've been searching for easy to play, deep wargames for a long time and this game easily scratches that itch. The main knock against the game can be the difficulty - but I firmly feel that playing it and using real world tactics will get you through to Berlin.

Have any questions or feedback? Drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com. Want articles like this linked in your inbox every Monday morning? Sign up for our newsletter. And don’t forget that you can support us on Patreon for backer rewards like early video content, Administratum access, an ad-free experience on our website and more.

Tags: PC games | ww2 | THE TROOP