Battlefront Tutorial Lesson #1 Part 3: Arrivals, Strongpoints, and Minefields

Battlefront features the power of battalion-level combat in some of this period's most bloody and intense conflicts: Saipan, Market Garden, Novorossisk, and Gazala. Players will have realistic control over their soldiers, with a tactical scale just large enough to make a telling difference in the strategic picture.

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JSS
Posts: 780
Joined: Wed Oct 15, 2003 3:24 pm

Battlefront Tutorial Lesson #1 Part 3: Arrivals, Strongpoints, and Minefields

Post by JSS »

Lesson #1 Part 3: Arrivals, Strongpoints, and Minefields

To follow along here, start up a game of the tutorial scenario. It will open to turn 1 on the Axis side (player 1 turn).

***********Unit Arrivals ***********

There are three ways units arrive during a game.
1. Arrival Hexes
2. Off Map Area (OMA) Placement (Note: Reborn destroyed units return to game via this method.)
3. Airborne Dropzones This method will be covered in a subsequent lesson.

Arrival Hexes

This are easy to locate. Here’s a quick overview:

1. Use the “u” (units visible) hotkey to remove all units from view (they return to view by pressing “u” hotkey again).

2. Here’s a look at a couple of arrival hex locations.

Right click on Axis hex (21, 62)…

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Move the mouse curser over the arrival hex indicator as shown here:

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This reveals that there is one unit arriving on the next turn (units arrive automatically at the beginning of your turn).

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Note the green highlight around the indicator square. That tells you the hex is due to have arrivals next turn. The only ways that the unit will not arrive next turn is if the enemy gets control of hexes near (or captures!) the arrival hex OR if you leave too many units stacked in the hex… an arriving unit is subject to hex stacking limits… too many units present and arrivals will be delayed until the hex is not stacked to the limit at the beginning of a turn.

You also can (sometimes) see enemy arrival hex schedule. Right click on hex (40, 28). You get similar info to what you saw on the Axis unit above.

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***********OFF MAP AREA (OMA) ***********

The second way units can arrive is via the Off Map Area (OMA) arrival process. Here the player specifies which of several possible arrival locations a unit shows up at.

The Allied player in the tutorial has active OMA arrivals so let’s end the Axis turn and start up Allied turn 1. Note you get a reminder that some actions were still available to the Axis player. Click OK and go to Allied player turn. Make sure you have Redland as the active Allied country (Neutral Red Islands is the other Allied country).

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Along the right hand side of the map you should see nine small green hexagons. These indicate OMA arrival locations (seven of them are shown below).

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Click on the open OMA screen button.

You can see there are three types of OMA arrivals: Alert, standard, & reinforcements. Click on Alert (there are no units listed under standard & reinforcements). OMA boxes 2, 3, & 4 are active for the Allies (box 11 is inactive in this scenario so disregard). Axis has OMA boxes 7, 8, & 9 active (but you cannot gain any info on the enemy side here…besides the location of their OMA arrival hexes).

Click anywhere in box 4… and you see the three possible OMA arrival hexes for this box. All OMA boxes should have three possible OMA arrival hexes associated with them.

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Note how boxes 2 & 3 have the Amphibious Transport Mode symbol in the three hexes next to them. All units arriving in these OMA arrival hexes will be in amphibious transport movement mode. Now click on box 2 or 3. You see the possible locations for arrivals. Note how the possible landing beaches are also highlighted in red!

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No units can be arrived now so let’s end this view and return to the main game screen.

***********STRONGPOINTS AND MINEFIELDS ***********

The final section of lesson one is on strongpoints and minefields.

Strongpoints

These are static, non-unit, items on the battlefield.

- They must always be attacked and cleared before any units in the same hex can be attacked.
- They stop enemy movement into the hex until they are destroyed. This also means they maintain control of the hex in question until destroyed by enemy.
- They do not return when destroyed (permanent destruction).
- They can be worth destroyed unit VPs.
- They do NOT count toward the hex stacking limit.
- They can independently provide supply to units in the hex.
- They always require double dice to clear with indirect fire.
- They are always sited by the enemy (distance away from enemy and terrain they are located in don’t apply for siting of strongpoints).
- When attacked they use their own CRT to resolve combat odds (independent of the terrain they are located in).
- They cannot receive regular replacements to rebuild (although some use auto-timed replacements to rebuild).
- Only one strongpoint can be in a hex. No double & triple stacking these.
- Some are in place at start of game, some can be placed by a player as the game progresses (if they are available to place).
- When available to player to place, they are use-or-lose. No building up a backlog. Must be placed during turn available.

To see some strongpoints, have all units not visible (u hotkey) and all VP Objective indicators turned off (i hotkey).

You should see something like the following (Axis strongpoints are highlighted by red squares):

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Right click on hex (12, 55). Move mouse over the strongpoint icon shown.

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Here you can see a two step strongpoint.

- Defense value of 5 with two steps… defense value drops to 3 when only one of the two steps is present.
- This strongpoint provides supply to the hex. It does not allow regular replacements to be used based on this supply.
- This strongpoint only takes 1 turn to auto-repair the second step.

Minefields

Minefields are conditions imposed on a given hex. They are not units, nor an item that can be attacked like a strongpoint. They are more akin to river hex sides or bridges.

- You can clear enemy minefields by controlling the hex.
- Some are present at the start of a game, some are placed by player. Like strongpoints they are use-or-lose assets when available.
- Minefields inhibit enemy movement and supply distribution.
- They also inhibit attacks (unit attacking out of an enemy minefield loses an important tactical combat shift opportunity.)
- They also making defending in an enemy minefield a very dangerous situation (enemy attack will be more effective).

Here’s the process for placing them:

1. Select available asset. Note how legal placement hexes are clear and illegal placement hexes are shaded.

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2. To place simply move to desired hex and click the minefield into place.

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flintlock
Posts: 358
Joined: Sun Oct 08, 2006 12:33 am

RE: Battlefront Tutorial Lesson #1 Part 3: Arrivals, Strongpoints, and Minefields

Post by flintlock »

JSS,

These tutorials of yours are a wonderful addendum to the manual, and have proved invaluable (especially to someone new to the series, like me). Many thanks for taking the time for creating and sharing these with the community! Much appreciated.

/hats off
JSS
Posts: 780
Joined: Wed Oct 15, 2003 3:24 pm

RE: Battlefront Tutorial Lesson #1 Part 3: Arrivals, Strongpoints, and Minefields

Post by JSS »

Glad to hear these are helpful :)  

Am shooting for having something finished before Origins, that will be very interesting I think [;)].
hank
Posts: 629
Joined: Sun Aug 24, 2003 8:50 am
Location: west tn

RE: Battlefront Tutorial Lesson #1 Part 3: Arrivals, Strongpoints, and Minefields

Post by hank »

Can you shed more light on the use of the Reinforcements and Alert Status buttons?  What are they used for?  ... or are they just for information?
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