Something just occurred to me. Most of the tactics games that I'm horrible at are WW2-themed.

I consider myself pretty good at strategy and tactics games, and I have finished games that are, by most, considered to be hard. Fantasy Wars, Elven Legacy, Incubation, Chaos Gate (without save abuse), Jagged Alliance 2 (alright, that one is not too hard), MechCommander, Dark Omen to name a few. But WW2 ones? I have not been able to finish a single one.
Panzer General 2, Rush for Berlin, Faces of War, Soliders: Heroes of WW2, Steel Panthers, you name it, I can't beat it. But why am I so bad at WW2 games? Does anyone have a decent theory?

*edit* Come to think of it, I got pretty far into Rites of War before I got bored, and that uses roughly the same system as Panzer General 2, yet I'm good at Rites of War, but horrible at Panzer General.

Well, here are some suggestions: (not necessarily saying that I believe them to be true, just doing a bit of brainstorming here)

- WW2 games model an existing, realistic conflict. This may mean that strategies and paradigms that you're used to from settings which allow more design freedom don't work as well in this setting

- WW2 games may often have a higher level of minute detail, which may be something you're not coping well with.

- WW2 games may be more niche / hardcore / difficult than other strategy games.

- You may simply enjoy the WW2 setting less than others, so your threshold for quitting and abandoning these games may be lower than for others.

I keep getting my ass beaten in Soldier Heroes of WW2 as well. I suck at tactical/strategy games, though. Still everyone i know that played this game agrees with me that it is indeed really hard. So i dont think we are alone there.

Noticing that you haven't mentioned Blitzkrieg. Mind you, that game is hard as (insert random expletive), but very, very good and very rewarding.
Apparently the expansion is even harder. Never played it though.

I have a PS1 game that's hard as hell, Not an RTS... But Tactical-RPG called Hoshigami.

A tidious factor is that if one of your characters dies, he dies for good, and you have to repeat the process of leveling a replacement all over again.

Another game I found relatively hard, but very enjoyable nonless is Valkyria Chronicles on PS3 ... I really liked the game, but never finished it as I didn't have time.
I strongly recommend it to people who like Strategy and RPG games :)

I've been a big fan of complex strategy games along the line of Victoria: An empire under the sun, and I'm also a Battletech player, so I don't know if it is the minute details that causes it. Might be the "style" of details though.
It is possible that WW2 games are harder, but I've heard more about Fantasy war's difficulty than I have heard of Panzer General 2's (and the two games are relatively similar)
And I do find WW2 to be done to death, but I'm still able to enjoy games like Hearts of Iron and Company of Heroes. WW2 strategy games in general don't cause a big issue, its the tactical games that do. That is good to hear at least. I can't even get past the first Soviet level, and I've only been able to get to the 2nd level in the Allies & German campaign, and was feeling rather, well, beaten by the game. I have not played Blitzkrieg, though I have played games using the same engine (World war 1 and Cuban Missile Crisis, the later being incredibly poorly translated) Sounds a bit like Fire Emblem, only with the option of actually replacing dead characters (in Fire Emblem, a dead character is dead, and as the games are strictly linear, you can't go back and level up replacement characters). I am by the way a big fan of the Fire Emblem series, due to how unforgiving they are.
Sadly the only modern console I have is a Wii, so I can't try Valkyria Chronicles.

the only tactical WW2 game I am aware of is Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 and I want it

You missed a lot by not playing Blitzkrieg... it is consider as a amazing game by a lot of folks.

Ah, then I'll see if I can track down a copy. I hope it is better translated than Cuban Missile Crisis, that game was confusing.

Click
Click again
Click one more time

Just don't make the mistake buying the 2nd part....

I thought Brothers in arms was a shooter.

Ah, that is not very expensive at all. Thanks for the links! Due to postage, the anthology looks like the better choice to buy.

Yep the expansions aren't bad too...

Brothers in Arms is a tactical shooter similar to Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, and Arma

Well it's not THAT tactical, but close enough. It's also awesome.

well I have not played it yet but from what I heard firing your own gun in the Road to Hill 30 is inaccurate as shit it was done in order to encourage players to command their squad and use tactics to takedown your enemies and not yourself I could be wrong though