A Few Good Men?

[Yogi the Great]

Just got the game a week ago, only have been able to play a little bit.

Thought I would check out the Forum on It. I was surprised how little activity and numbers on it compared to some other Matrix game threads. Maybe because the game has been out awhile?

Anyway, tried Omaha Beach as my initial induction to the game. Enjoyed it, lost to the AI on my first try, but was just learning the game. Have a question that might help me save a little more trial and error.

Intial Beach Invasion of a hex: Is it best to land one unit on a beach hex, and move it inland the next turn before landing other units? Or is it best to land as many units on the initial turn as youn can on each hex?

I tried the latter (up to four unhits landing on a hex) took a lot of losses and was wondering if I would have faired better clearing the way a bit before I landed everyone. I noted that in subsequent turns, when landing units, they had fewer casualties and were able to move inland on the same turn they landed.

[e_barkmann]

You will find a lot more discussion for the SSG games at http://ssg.com.au/forums

cheers

[Fred98]

Use the navy to destroy enemy strong points and to destropy enemy "steps"

This will reduce your losses upon landing.

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[JSS]

ORIGINAL: Yogi the Great

...Intial Beach Invasion of a hex: Is it best to land one unit on a beach hex, and move it inland the next turn before landing other units? Or is it best to land as many units on the initial turn as youn can on each hex?

In general its best to land as many of the 4 step regiments as possible... Goal is to get at least one unit with 3 or 4 steps remaining in each landing hex. Four units with only one step surviving the landing (in the same landing hex) is a bad thing to have!

I tried the latter (up to four unhits landing on a hex) took a lot of losses and was wondering if I would have faired better clearing the way a bit before I landed everyone. I noted that in subsequent turns, when landing units, they had fewer casualties and were able to move inland on the same turn they landed.

Clearing out enemy strong points near your landing hex (with naval gunfire) is a good thing to do before landing

[Yogi the Great]

Thanks for the replies - and thanks JSS for the specific response to my main question.
 
I figured it was best to land as many as possible, so I did it the first try - it was just because of fairly significant losses that I wondered if it was the best thing to do.
 
I did also bombard the beach until the way was clear enough to land (I learned on my very first moves before starting over that I couldn't get onto the beach at all until it was cleared)  I bombard 4 -5 contiguous beach hexes enough to clear so that I could land on multiple hexes on the same turn.  I also tried to knowck oout some of the big guns.  I didn't bombard adjacent hexes to the landing hexes though.
 
I was also surprised when the game wouldn't let me bombard enemy occupied hexes, which were clearly in range of the guns unless there were guns, or "strong points" in them.  Why aren't you allowed to just bombard any hex within range?

[Fred98]

ORIGINAL: Yogi the Great
Why aren't you allowed to just bombard any hex within range?

In this game naval guns can attack SPs directly but not attack troops directly

Instead naval guns can also be used to place interdiction behind enemy troops - thereby causing them supply problems.

Attack enemy troops that are not in supply and they wil soon run out of "supply bullets" at which point they "go into the red" and are easy to destroy.


Two games later - Battlefront allows artilery to attack units ditrectly and destroy steps.

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[JSS]

ORIGINAL: Yogi the Great

I was also surprised when the game wouldn't let me bombard enemy occupied hexes, which were clearly in range of the guns unless there were guns, or "strong points" in them. Why aren't you allowed to just bombard any hex within range?

As Joe noted, only SPs can be attrited in BiN or BII. A side effect to watch out for (as the German player) is that a missed bombardment causes debris damage in clear, town, and bocage terrain (its free interdiction to the Allied player).

[Yogi the Great]

The below is a thankyou to Carl for emailing me some tips.  I tried to email you the thankyou directly, but kept getting a failure unable to deliver notice.  So hopefully you will see it here on the forum.
 
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Thanks Carl, I appreciate the tips.

I think I will like the game, but my playing time has been quite limited
lately.  On my second try of the Omaha scenario, I managed to squeak out a
draw.  One "technical" feature I have to get the hang of is to remember to
deselect my units.  I keep forgetting, try to select a new unit by
clicking on it and instead the last unit I forgot to deselect moves.  I
have a habit of jumping into the big campaigns right away, but this time
I'm trying to get the feel for the game a little bit first.

[HansBolter]

There is a button in the bottom of the interface for deselecting so you don't have to scroll the map all the way back to the unit you forgot to click on to deselect it.

In addition to the beach strongpoints you should use your longer range bombardment ships to take out as many of the inland coastal gun strongpoints close to the beaches as you can as these will devastate your troops as they land. Essentially, use every last ship in your force every turn until there are no longer any targets in range.