Last Tank Standing

I wanted a tank game where the armour mattered. In most strategy games a tank is a health bar. Here every hull has a thick front, thinner sides and a thin rear, every gun has a penetration value, and each shell either gets through or it doesn't. That is Last Tank Standing: real-time tactics with platoons of tanks, infantry and artillery. There is no base building. You buy your army before the battle and fight with what you bought.

Armor
A Lark light tank fires a 90 mm gun. The front of a Bastion heavy tank is 176 mm thick, so the shell bounces, every time. The Bastion's rear is 46 mm. Four hits there and it is finished. Most fights come down to holding the heavy's attention with something sturdy while something fast drives round the side. Hover over an enemy and the game tells you which face you would hit and whether your gun can get through it.

Infantry ride of tanks
A rifle squad can climb onto a friendly tank and ride into the fight: eight soldiers on a heavy, six on a medium, four on a light. Riders are exposed to machine guns and blasts, and if the tank is destroyed they are thrown clear and hurt. It is a fast way across open ground and a poor way to arrive.

Fog of war
Forests and towns hide units, ridges block sight, and a squad that fires gives itself away. The computer plays by the same rules. It is not told where you are.

What there is to play
A story campaign of 35 missions in three parts. It starts with a farmers' rising in the Eastmarch, armed with rifles nobody in the province could have made.

Conquest: one hand-made realm of 120 provinces and ten lords. You march armies across a strategic map, and every clash is fought as a real-time battle.

Skirmish on 30 maps: steppe, river, forest, highland, town, mountain and landmark maps such as an ironworks and a dockside. You pick the weather, the time of day and both armies. Four-army free-for-all works on 23 of the maps.

A daily battle, the same for every player on that date.

The small details
A tank is not destroyed until the shell that killed it has actually arrived.
When a shot goes through, the turret can leave the hull.
A shell that bounces leaves a mark on the hull.
Heavy tanks snap trees. Lighter ones shove them over.
Fences and barrels get flattened.
Machine guns don't waste bullets on armour.
Hull machine guns only cover the front arc.
On a convoy mission, the convoy stops whenever an enemy comes close to the road.
Zoom in and the guns near you are loud. Zoom out and the whole battle sounds distant.

Single-player. Mouse and keyboard.