sufferin soccatash!

[henri51]

After trying out the demo (see my AAR in the AAR section) I decided to go ahead and bought the game. I tried one of the scenarios where I have to stop the retreating Germans from linking up with their main force to the West.

I am not yet too familiar with the game, so I turned off fog of war so I can see all of the enemy units all the time. In the first battle, I got a defeat, although I had lost no victory locations and captured 2, and had wiped out the enemy except for their artillery in the rear which I made the mistake of trying to capture with infantry who were slaughtered in the attempt. I placed a 5-squad AAR squad at the main point of defense in the middle of my line, but apparently that was a mistake and the Germans just walked over them and as far as I could tell they never fired a shot while they were annihilated.

However the other infantry units clobbered the killers and my other 3 infantry units managed to kill all the enemy mostly when they caught the above enemy in a vice, the others mostly being killed from my defensive positions at a cost of fairly heavy casualties.

Attacking the enemy artillery caused more than half a platoon without denting the enemy, and I lost another half platoon when one of the victorious and intact heroic platoons from the previous fight tried to go grab a victory location in the open about a Km N of the enemy artillery. A couple of shots from the artillery caused heavy casualties to the platoon, which did grab the objective, but in the following strategic phase it still belonged to the Germans.

The loss of the five-squad ATR platoon plus the losses after the battle was won to the enemy artillery changed a victory to a defeat, but at least it was a moral victory.

In the following move, for the first battle (which was also the last as you will see) I had two tank platoons of two tanks each, a machinegun platoon of five squads, a reinforced infantry platoon with 3 squads, and 3 supply squads for a total of about 70 men; The enemy hit me from the West with its main force instead of from the East as expected with their retreating units. This force had about 400 men with tanks, artillery, AT guns, machineguns - and the kitchen sink.

I had tanks on my right and left flanks, and the 3-pronged enemy attack went through them like crap through a goose (as Patton would say), the infantry unit in the South were steamrolled into the ground, and only the machinegun platoon gave a somewhat creditable account of themselves, but they too were severely crippled, having a half-dozen men left when the bloodbath ended.The Germans occupied all of my victory points (about 8 of them) and under the ridiculous assumption that I would continue this campaign, I wonder where I could place my units since I have no more territory.

Although there is probably little I could have done, a few lessons were learned. Placing my tanks in front of my infantry was perhaps not a good idea, but I can't think of any viable srategy when playing the Russians at a 6-1 disadvantage in men when he has artillery and AT guns and I have none.[&:]

Maybe I should try the Germans...[:'(]

Henri

[junk2drive]

How was it to play real time vs the WEGO games that you have played?

[henri51]

I find it a bit difficult to follow what is going on. I see the units moving, I see them go grey when they die, but I have little idea who is firing and who is being hit. I can see the casualties for any squad by clicking on its icon on the top right. Other than that, the biggest difference is that there seems to be a lot more space.

Also as I said elsewhere one can only measure line of sight from the squads (probably center of gravity or something), and it is not possible to check how it would be for other locations, so it is hit and miss to find the best spot for a unit. Quite often I place a bunch of units along a line to face then enemy only to find that few of them have a line of sight to any approaching enemies.

Despite playing for a couple of days, I still have no mastered some of the game. For example, I don't understand why my antitank rifle (ATR) platoon in a defensive position was walked over and wiped out by a German platoon without apparently firing a shot.

It is therefore too early for me to make any definitive judgment on this game.

I presume that your question refers to a comparison with Combat Mission which is the closest in appearance. I haven't played the latter for years, and left the CM forum year ago after being clobbered for criticizing the game's lack of possibilities for maneuver warfare. This game seems to have great possiblities for maneuver warfare due to the chess-like strategic layer and the large tactical maps with a relatively small number of units.

Henri

[Missouri_Rebel]

I knew you'd buy it. Save some money for Conflict of Heroes though. It is getting really close.

[junk2drive]

Yes I was asking to compare it to CM and Panzer Command. Every time I try a real time game I remember why I stopped playing them. I've tried real time with CMSF and CMA then the same battle in WEGO. RT is hard to follow.

[henri51]

Conflict of heroes? Never heard of it, and google finds only a boardgame of that name. Who will publish it?

Henri

[junk2drive]

Here at Matrix in the Coming Soon section of the forum. It is based on the board game and Mo Reb is on the beta team.

[Missouri_Rebel]

^^^^^ That ^^^^^^ I never played the board game before signing up for beta. I was pleasantly surprised because COH is an awesome system. Not even near the complexity of say ASL, but very quick play that both players are involved in throughout the turns. Quite enjoyable. I've been waiting on a squad based tactical boardgame for a long time. There is certainly room for such a title since Squad Battles never really caught my attention.

Henri, are you aware that you can press the 'circle' button on the bottom left of the toolbar to see where your units are firing and their command radius? The biggest let down for me so far is the apparent lack of ability to actually target the units that you want. There is a target button but up to now I still don't know what it does. The cinematics in the game are awesome, but sometimes I feel a little removed, especially during defense.

mo reb