What do you mean by 'field level'? And why no WWII considering tat wargames are hardly Hollywood and their are a lot of uncovered battles in the setting. I am really having a lot of fun trying to take over Greece as the Italians in Airborne Assault: Conquest of the Agean or trying to make the actual last German Offensive (Operation Konrad) succeed at relieving the Budapest Garrison.
Also why only Modern, since their tons of other non-WWII settings? Like say the American Civil War at the strategic level in Forge of Freedom or Musket & Pike Warfare in HPS The Renaissance?
But Anyways;
The three biggest wargame publishers other than battlefront are;
Matrix Games:
http://www.matrixgames.com/
HPS Simulations:
http://www.hpssims.com/
Shrapnel Games:
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/
In regards to modern settings, I will just list my opinions since you can find the general description on the web sites;
HPS Modern Campaigns
- I find North German Plain '85 one of the funnest wargames I played as you essentially have some of the best Warsaw Pact Formations mixed in with a few weak Polish ones (for kicks) fighting a very diverse NATO Force consisting of US, West German, British, Belgian, Dutch, Canadian, French and I think there are some other nationalities.
-The rule set is simple to learn and has that obvious quality so you never need to go back and check the manual about most topics although in most cases it makes sense and feels less gamey than other turn based games.
-On the down side the larger battles are above 100 turns and with several dozen units to command it can take ages to finish a turn. The AI is rather bad to, good for practice but not much else.
HPS Squad Battles Soviet Afghan-War
-This system covers a wide variety of popular and obscure conflicts with the most modern covering the Soviet-Afghan War
-I would say one big difference in SB than in CM is the importance of leaders, without them your attacks will just stop dead
-There is a huge variety of scenarios including Mujaheeden raids, Soviet Airborne Assaults, Mountain Stronghold Assaults, Convoy Ambushes. For example in one scenario an ad hoc Soviet infantry team ambushes a rebel convoy and then has to escape from the map while they are hunted. In another missions a DAK force backed up by Soviet BMPs had dug in the valley and a Mujaheeden force has been dispatched to eliminated it, although do to superior Soviet firepower it can't do so head on.
- Unlike the more WWII titles you really have to make use of technology as your numerical superiority isn't so huge. So you really have to find situations that allow you to bring your superior firepower to bear. As the Mujaheeden you have to try to find the weak points in the line or conduct hit and run raids.
Air Assault Task Force
-Ugh I just did not enjoy this game that much. The engine feels slow and clumsy (as opposed to HPS engines that just feel old)
-I am also not skilled in reading real terrain maps so I found it difficult to make sense of the terrain, especially the elevation and figuring out the LOS by eye.
-The game is also RTwP and even on the highest setting the infantry engagements feel slow
-I plan to give it another try some day but I find the Airborne Assault series a more fun RTwP game
Flash Point Germany
-I recently purchased this game and I am not exactly sure what to make of it
-On one hand it seems to implement the NATO vs WP differences in an interesting way but so far what is seems to come down to is NATO seeking long field of fire to maximize range while the WP player wants to get in close to eliminate that
-There are some rather neat technological differences Infrared equipped NATO troops can.
-Electronic Warfare is modeled but it just increases order delays and limits how many orders you can issues a turn
-The game uses the WEGO system and it can take a long time for a turn to play out, on the smaller scenarios during busy times you will spend up to 15 minutes watching the actions.
-Engine does not feel as smooth and aspects such as elevation and LoS are not that easy to figure out at first.
-I eventually plan to spend more time playing the game as it gets me thinking and wanting to try new things to achieve the objectives.
