General What’s the Toughest Turn-Based Tactics Game?

[Al]

Some turn-based games don’t just challenge you - they actively hate you. Every bad move sticks, every mistake snowballs, and sometimes even playing perfectly isn't enough. These are the games that don’t care about your feelings.

Which one punished you the most?

• XCOM and its infamous 95% miss that somehow always happens when it matters most. One bad roll, and suddenly your whole squad is in pieces.
• Battle Brothers, where losing a veteran merc isn’t just a setback - it’s a death spiral. Your best fighter gets cut down, and the rest of your campaign slowly falls apart.
• Phantom Brigade, where you can see the future, but that doesn’t mean you can control it. Enemies don’t always do what you expect, and suddenly your grand strategy is a pile of wreckage.
• Invisible, Inc., where stealth is everything, and one mistake means you’re scrambling to recover - until you realize there’s no recovery, just slow, inevitable failure.

Or maybe it was something else - a game so ruthless that every victory felt like surviving a disaster. What’s the hardest turn-based tactical game you’ve ever played, and did you actually beat it? Or did it break you first?