Squad Leader was complicated but it also was incredibly innovative. There wasn't another board game that showed how tanks, artillery, infantry, machine guns and leaders really worked on the battlefield in that era.

SL could show you how a well led and well equipped company of German soldiers could hold a village against a less well equipped and well led battalion of Russians, as often happened. Games before this just abstracted out historical differences in the performance of armies. For example, in Third Reich a Germany Infantry division has a higher attack value than a Russian one. Squad Leader explained the historical differences.