BFCElvis

The logo is Steve's design...I wanna make sure to give credit where it's do. And MikeyD did some nice work getting me a texture to work with....along with the promise of the finished texture soon.

No problem. The textures are still a work in progress, I would expect to see them change as our battle develops. (in case you can't read what the hull says)

I couldn't agree more. The map is plenty big enough to provide elbow room and is laid out with tons of interesting areas (I'm sure this map will be around in the release somewhere...it is difficult to describe how many areas that can cause tactical complications that there are The best way to see it is actually trying to place units on it) and very very pretty to look at. Thanks George!

I put them there for flexibility of movement. I wanted them out of sight from any possible initial contact so that I might be able to determine how/where that contact happens. It is also fairly centrally located and fairly open to make movement of armor easier that a more confined wooded area. That is the idea anyway. We'll see how it works out. Also, LOS out of the Rot area isn't that good. The MG42 team on the second floor of the farmhouse is the only one that can really see beyond the adjacent fields.

I didn't take it that way but rereading my response it sounded like I did. My bad.

It's still there. I wear it like a badge of honor. The last one was a bit weird and I'm not crying our grapes but I was playing a scenario that was designed by my opponent. He had far more working knowledge of the thing than I did. Also, if you remember, (unknown to me but not to Jon) we have different VLs. I thought I had almost all of mine secure....secure the point of spending the last few turns mopping up and doing things because I thought I had it wrapped up. At the time I had assumed that I had won the battle and at worst had a draw. It taght me the lesson to make sure to secure ALL of your victory conditions because your opponent may have different ones. Again, not sour grapes...just giving some insight to how thought I had played the last one.

My concerns are actually the opposite. While it's true that hiding cuts down on your ability to spot, it does not eliminate it completely. There is always someone in a team poking their head up to spot. Those are the ones that can give away a position. From what I understand about Bils scouting skills, the longer I can keep my positions hidden, the better chance I'm going to have to either surprise him or impede is ability to hone in on my defenses.

I have been reading peoples comments here about Bils style of play and offering suggestions on being more aggressive in my defense. Looking over my set up, it seems that it is well suited to do that. I don't know how far back his set up area is, so moving forward now may put me in the same position of having a static defense...just more forward. Right now, I am thinking that I will let my 4 teams continue and then hide until I have spotted him and maybe even engage him. Then pull them back and begin advancing the section to the east that is spread out and one of the sections in OBJ BLAU.

Here is my final set up. In the area to the east of OBJ BLAU I have spread a section across a fairly wide area. My intention is to give the appearance of a larger force and slow any advance. I have split every squad in the section and have most hidden in trees behind hedges. Every unit in the section has been given orders to hide and have a very small covered arc. I want to go as long as possible without being seen. Back toward OBJ GELB, I have set all my mines close together in the thick woods. I have placed one of my sections behind the mines and right now I am considering them to be reserves. They can drop back to defend GELB if necessary or move south or west as needed. Otherwise GELB is defended by a MG42. I went back and forth about my thoughts surrounding ROT and decided to go with my first instinct. One thing I failed to check out before purchasing the MG42s for this area was the 2 story buildings. The upper floors don't have windows!! After playing around with set up locations, I found enough that make me happy and comfortable that no one is coming across the open areas without getting banged up a little. I have parked allthree of my AFVs behind buildings in this area. However, leaving them there to defend that VL is not my real plan. I don't want to commit them until I have some real clickity clacky targets. I OBJ BLAU, I have placed most of two sections. Two squads I have broken off and split and they will recon the woods to the south. The rest are ready to fight or flee. Here are the movement orders for the two squads. They have been issued very short covered arcs and hunt, hide and pause, hunt orders. We have played one turn so far. My recon has moved forward without contact.

I haven't used them yet in CMRT, so I was looking forward to taking them for a spin. Now that I am looking at the units on the map, I'm thinking again about how small this force is on such a large map. Every time I place the units I see big gaps.....This won't be easy.

As akd says.....not everything is ready for Prime Time.

Here is what I have purchased

I appreciate the comments and I don't take any offense. Hopefully you'll feel differently after I've made my purchases and set up. 2500 points will get spread very thin on a map this size. Most of my defense will involve avoiding contact and picking my fights. I'll be walking that line between not placing myself in obvious locations and placing myself in necessary locations.

Thank you guys for all the input. HistoryLover, I love your ideas and will probably use a lot of them. Here are some screen shots of the map (although many of you have probable already seen Bils and are as familiar with it as me). Here's an overview of my set up area. Pretty large area. From Obj Blau I anticipate that the woods in front to the southeast he will aggressively recon. I plan to recon the area myself in short stop and go movements. I'd like to give Bil the impression that I have devoted a fair amount of forces to the area but I don't plan to. In the village area to the east I want to set up a few ambushes for infabtry and armor. During the set up phase I'll go into that more but I'm thinkiong hidden units with VERY small covered arcs. For Obj Rot, I plan to use MG42s to make the cover the open ground to the south and east. If things go as I hope it will draw his armor out to deal with them. Obj Gelb is where I believe he will try t make his way to before trying anything with Rot. I need to make this large patch of heavy trees as unwelcoming as possible. I plan to litter it with mines. Here is an overhead view with some quick notes about my loose plans and ideas. I'll go into more detail, after the force selection, during the set up phase.

I had assembled a list last night and played in the purchase screen and it looked almost exactly like this. I would like some scores and mines. I'll toy with it today and post a purchase screenies before sending it to Bil.

Here are some shots of the purchase screens of the basic formations and some specialist teams and individual vehicles, in no particular order (you'll see part of my technical difficulties in these). If you would like for me to break open some formations so that you can see their point values, let me know. (I am also accepting suggestions for a good free screenshot program. Bandicam and Fraps give me screen shots that look like these.)

I would probably have gotten a Hetzer even if no one had suggested it. At the risk of boring you with my war game history. .....Peng and I started playing AS in the early 80s, the Steel Panthers and through to CM. Whenever he had a Hetzer he DESTROYED me with it. Whenever I had one I would lose it quickly. I'm hoping to redeem myself with CMRT. I made some purchase screen screenshots. I'll post it when I'm back in front of my computer and should have map screenies up tonight. I'd like to pick my forces by tomorrow afternoon .

I don't quite have my screen shots ready (technical difficulties on my end)to post but since I saw that Bil has begun his I should open up mine (damn, he's fast). As I imagine he has already posted we will be playing a Quick Battle game with myself playing the role of defending Germans. One of the reasons we decided on a Quick Battle is that we wanted to involve you guys some. Especially in the beginning. I will be posting screen shots of my set up area and making some comments about what I see as his probable route of advance. Please take a look at the TO&E for the Germans in the game (http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=330&Itemid=567) and feel free to give me suggestions on my force selection. I will have 2500 points to work with and include screen shots of the purchase screens, so that you will have an idea of how much units will cost. I'd like to should you things that you are curious about seeing that are new with CMRT and balance that with my mission.

Maybe you missed this before responding.

What mess? It is clearly marked on the order page. How is that a mess? The info I gave you on the other site was wrong-ish. When you select MG only it says (as ZPBII points out), no printed manual. When you select the bundle with 2.0 it says there is a printed manual. When 2.0 was released it did include a printed manual....so that is why there is a difference. No mess. It's all very clear on the order page. I apologize for the confusion I caused by giving you the bundle information.

THAT DID IT!!!!!!! You've got no idea how long I've been trying to do this!!! I've tried 3 other programs, plus the one that came with Win8. THANK YOU!!!!!

I tried FRAPS but even when in game the screen shot turns out to be of the desktop. I will try bandicam.

I have two problems with Windows 8. Neither is a huge deal. I can't "alt-tab" out of the game. I can do it with ctrl-alt-del and get out with Task Master though. I can alt-tab from the splash screen. The other is that I still haven't been able to take in game screen shots. If anyone has any ideas for me I'd like to hear them.

You won't get much mentoring that will do you any good but I'd be happy to play you. Shoot me a private message if you're interested.