Headquarters World War 2: Operation Market Garden DLC

Headquarters World War II was an excellent new turn based strategy game released by Slitherine and Starni Games this year with a solid mix of strategic depth, speed, and fun – something that’s hard to nail down so satisfactorily in this genre. The new DLC Operation Market Garden takes you through a new 8 scenario campaign in the Netherlands for the historical action of the same name. You can see our review for the base game here and our other coverage of Slitherine games here.

New Units

The new units in Operation Market Garden are all vehicles, with no new infantry or aircraft to be seen. The British get 5 new units with the rest of their roster such as riflemen, scouts and so on shared with the US. Whether that’s enough for a new faction is hard to say as games like Company of Heroes created unique infantry squads with their own graphics, sounds and statistics for each faction which added a lot of flavour that you don’t get here. Part of why Headquarters works however is that it is fast to play, tightly balanced, and easy to get into so reducing the complexity of units by sharing some can be argued to be an upside for the design of the game. In addition to the new units, Britain comes with 3 new heroes to assign to your units after you unlock them.

Britains 5 new units are:

• AEC Armoured Car Mk. III is an armoured scout car with a coaxial mounted 7.92mm machine gun and a 75mm Mk. V gun. This unit is highly effective both against medium armoured vehicles and enemy infantry. It can also deploy smoke screens.
• A30 Challenger was a cruiser tank armed with the British 17-pdr (76.2mm) gun that was already in service as a formidable anti-tank weapon but less useful against infantry.
• BL 5.5in (140 mm) medium towed howitzer gun has intimidating firepower and is a great addition to the UK artillery support capabilities. As with all artillery pieces, it is capable of indirect fire, but can only be moved via transport vehicle.
• M7 Priest was a a self propelled gun with a 105mm howitzer mounted to the M7 motor carriage, capable of highly mobile long-range artillery support.
• Staghound Tulip was a Staghound armoured vehicle variant armed with a 37 mm M6 gun with an RP-3 rocket launcher capable of indirect fire mounted to it. This unit is suitable for infantry support and fighting lightly armoured enemy vehicles.

US 2 new heavy units:

• Sherman Calliope with its T34 rocket launcher is always a favourite in war games and could be very useful for suppressing enemy infantry units, while also having regular Sherman tank fighting capabilities.
• GMC M12, or Gun Motor Carriage, is a large 155mm M1918 howitzer is capable of long-range artillery support and is a great addition to the US long-range firepower.

Germans gain 3 new units, one light and two heavy units:

• Nashorn is a mobile lightly armored self-propelled 88 mm long-range anti-tank unit with a Pak 43/1 gun. It is extremely effective against enemy armor but less useful against infantry. Due to its weak armor, Nashorn is quite vulnerable, but its mobility could compensate for that.
• Panzer IIL or “Panzerspähwagen II Luchs (Lynx) (Sd.Kfz.123) with its 2 cm Kw.K.38 is a light reconnaissance tank suitable for infantry support and fighting lightly armored enemy vehicles. It is less effective against tanks because of its small caliber gun.
• Hummel is a heavy self propelled gun with the 150mm sFH 18 howitzer making it capable of long-range artillery support. It is a great addition to the artillery units and offers decent protection and mobility for an artillery piece.

Campaign

The new Market Garden campaign is reasonably sized at 8 multi-stage missions. Each missions setting and objectives is voice acted by an amusingly overacted British commander and the series maintains its light hearted presentation from the base game – no dark and gritty “war never changes” here. There are a good number of optional objectives such as rescuing allied troops before they’re killed, after which you gain control of them, or taking a church to get the supplies hidden inside.

Missions are well paced and have a reasonable level of difficulty. You’re rewarded for playing tactically as units can get vaporized pretty easily if you’re not careful. You still get replacement units with no loss of experience in the next mission which isn’t ideal for me but it does make it easier to tightly balance the game which prevents boredom and/or frustration. Some missions have time pressure which keeps things spicy but they’re never unfair.

The Netherlands is well realized from the open and flat farm fields to the cramped and flat cities that can vary from pristine (before you get your hands on it at least) to completely burnt out. In the base game I was fine with a single loadout for all missions (I love mortars!) but it feels like changing them for cities vs open ground is more of a help here – the cities are *really* confined with a lot of small dead ends that are just asking to pop your tanks, while also rewarding the usage of infantry going building to building whilst covered by long range artillery…. and even more mortars!

If you enjoyed the base game, it’s easy to recommend the DLC at a price you think reasonable. The campaign is more refined and the new units are a great addition, providing for more varied gameplay in skirmish and multiplayer. If you feel like shooting a few more Jerries, the new scenarios are well paced and pleasantly difficult, the new units are fun to play with and the Netherlands are fun to destroy so there’s a lot to like here.

This review utilized keys provided by Slitherine. The Headquarters World War 2: Operation Market Garden DLC is available for $AU14.50 ($US9) on Steam, or on Slitherines own website on September 25, 2023.