Fetchez la Vache

I was in error - should have been "21st Army Group". My bad. That doesn't sound catchy I agree. :-) Monty's Mongers? Colossal Cracks? (stolen from the book of that title...) Tommies, Canucks and Jam Rolls? Time for Tea?

"21st Army" more accurate than "Commonwealth Forces". Just saying. :-)

WeGo is the chosen path. As Slysniper alludes, you can place orders "from high" and then zoom down to watch your men during the replay (with with all eye-candy 'on'). As many times as you like... I honestly think this is the only way to play the game. RT can't do this game justice.

Blasting bocage should definitely take longer than it does at the moment. I'd be happy to play with 2-3mins delay for engineers to blow a tank-sized hole, I think 5-10mins would take away some enjoyment (albeit more accurate). Wouldn't a person-sized hole be much quicker to blast - couldn't you just throw a satchel charge into the hedgerow and back-off? You'd only need to remove the vegetation since PBI have +2 climbing ability and won't expose their bellies in doing so. :-) For mines, I'm happy to move the engineers up to the minefield myself and then order them to clear mines. However I do find that engineers seem to need to be repeatedly ordered to clear mines if they are interrupted, which can be annoying in WeGo since things start to become ineffecient. I would also like to tell engineers to 'clear' a square I only suspect might harbour mines. They could then search the square and proceed to clear mines if they find any. (At least I am unaware of a way of doing this, please enlighten me if I am wrong!)

No 'mainstream' reviews yet? Strategy- or wargaming-dedicated sites are all well and good (and my preferred lurking grounds) but I'd really like to see some reviews from the likes of PC Gamer, IGN, etc. Spread the word. "I have seenthe light!"

Which is why a "Follow" command would be very cool. Baaaa! :-)

TMS does CMBN? Thanks, gave me a Monday morning chuckle. :-)

I thought "XO Team" stood for "Kisses and Hugs Team". I was under the impression it was some sort of WW2 hearts and minds team. I kept running them straight up to the German lines trying to engage the enemy in a manly embrace and back slap... and every time all they got was a grenade in the teeth. Damn.

Crapgame's been skimming off the top again? ... sorry, I'll get my coat. :-(

Steven Zaloga is a giant amongst men, in my opinion, if only for his contributions to the scale modelling fraternity.

Well since it's Bovi they're in, probably something along the lines of "I wish Ken would learn to stay on the bloody left side and anyway my Sherman goes faster than that thing in first gear, backwards, flipping panzer-noobs". Being squashed by a WW2 tank is probably a everyday job hazard in that place. :-) I love that the TIger sets off a car alarm as it trundles past as well. Which reminds me in turn of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecsEAXNlfv0 I appreciate it's not 100% historically correct mind you. ;-)

Is it raining? :-) Never seen this myself.

Oddly enough, exactly the same countries and frequency as me. :-) I enjoyed the French the most, spending 3 years (iirc) holding of the grey horde before finally grinding them down in a series of limited range offsensives. The Lowlands exchanged hands probably a dozen times. Frankly it was WW1 writ with bigger toys. Anyway, going back to the OP. What people like Bradley D and I do is essentially "role playing". Without silly elf ears. Or bloody hobbits. :-)

Isn't that a bit like going camping during hunting season?

I self-impose a similar rule on myself already. I assume that squads will at least go ahead and complete the 'task' last assigned to them by their HQ (me). So if the Plt HQ told a squad to take a stroll across that little bit of open grass and have a peak through the hedgerow at the other end... then they would do that. But then would effectively sit there waiting for their brave Plt HQ to show with the next mad scheme idea before they did anything significantly new, although I'd allow myself to give them a bit of wriggle room in case of tactical changes. Like hiding behind the aforementioned hedgerow if they took that peak and saw a Stug coming towards them, or high-tailing back to brave Plt HQ if it's a company of Tigers... In any case, I'm not sure hard-coding would work for me. I might simply find it a source of annoyance since the TacAI might do something daft whilst squad is out of command. I have the self-discipline (mostly) to impose this on myself.

If it helps at all, the one squad that I got across with no casualties was the very first one (under cover of darkness) that headed right along the riverbank hidden from view. Slow and it knackered them out. But after a few minutes rest, I could sprint them across to the patch of forest and thence up the right hand side behind the bocage. If was going to do this again I would send a whole platoon this way while the tanks played "bash the foxhole", the MMG's suppressing everything they can and the mortars dropping on everything else left over. And maybe wait for the 105 arty before pushing anything forward too much... This is a perfectly do-able mission in my opinion. But you're probably gonna lose a lot of men if you do it without re-loading saves and prior knowledge. Again, not a problem in itself but I'd appreciate the warning before I start. :-)

I sympathise and advise having a little break before tackling the Razorback Ridge mission then... I don't mind losing battles. But I would have appreciated a Designer Note to the effect that we are to expect a very tricky battle and therefore do your best but no need to get a Victory result. I think the player benefits from a better understanding of the campaign at the Divisional level. Paper Tiger did this for Road to Montbourge to some extent and that helped me.

Okay, involuntary spray of toast and jam over my keyboard. Thanks for that.

I saw this post, something went "pop" in my head and I started bleeding from both ears. Not sure this a good sign. I may have suffered a haemogrogembolism. :-(

Field latrines

Hear, hear. Plus some sort of application which temporarily deletes my entire family for the evening so I actually have time to play with such a mod tool. I mean, I'm already sitting next to half-built Spitfire MkVb and a Sherman MkIII DV that have been sadly neglected for the past month or so. I wonder why? :-)

For attacking, 1 company limit with maybe a couple of valuable AFV assets that need to be protected. Any bigger and I don't 'care' about my men enough. I like artillery, it makes loud bangs and blooms of earth fly into the sky. Map needs room to flank. A clear objective (buildings, crossroad, bridge). For defending, 2 company limit is okay. I quite like fighting against nasty odds, but give me a couple of toys to play with (trps, structures, guns or tanks). Again a map with various flanking options, without the men to defend everything. Waves of attackers rather than one big push, although not necessarily getting bigger and bigger (too predictable).

I'd like an AAR please!

Not really enjoying this one to be honest. Finding myself just trying to get through it to get to the next mission. I'm re-loading and using knowledge to avoid strongpoints. Which I never normally do, which says something. Not sure what I would have need to make this a 'better' mission. I'd start with some decent arty from the go so I could prep-strike the bejezus out of the farm. And maybe a pioneer squad with very limited satchel charges, just to open up a couple of new routes. On the other hand I fully accept that you can't win them all. But I prefer bloody noses to be of the "forlorn hope" variety than the "BANG, you're dead, game over" type. :-)

I subscribe to the idea that if the Allies had aimed more to the right and made Wesel the final objective then they might have succeeded. Apparently Monty's subordinates were keen on Wesel but Monty took the unilateral decision (as oft he did) to go for Arnhem. Wesel meant that one less bridge needed to be crossed (Nijmegen wouldn't have happened) and was more lightly defended... ... and frankly it's looks more "right". It's Germany we were invading, not Friesland. :-) Although to be honest, this is largely through the benefit of hindsight. And don't expect me to back this up with silly amounts of primary evidence, m'okay?