Holien

Looking forward to this, not been reading in detail these posts as I have not played the Campaign and want a new campaign fix to replace the loss of playing SC. How long? Weeks by the sound of it?

The buildings I can live with if they have suffered more damage than last game as that can be explained away but bocage being cut is a hard one to explain away. Not sure what is causing that maybe classed as a bug? As you should be able to re-crew vehicles?

That was not quite true was it... The word panther did appear!!! Another hard battle and at times I thought I was going to go under. Total Victory in the end and lost 5 x Churchills, 3 x 6pdrs and 2 x 17pdrs. The Germans had one Stug running and all other armour destroyed including those 3 nasty JPanthers... My arty was used effectively to strip the German Infantry away and my last 6pdr and 17pdr saved my bacon. (Lost a FOO in the last 10 mins as Germans stormed the building he was hiding in). Some weird LOS issues over a field on the left flank where a 17pr should have seen the 3 tanks in front of it. They drove to within 50 meters and machine gunned the crew and forced the gu8n to be abandoned. Maybe a bug and I will add to my list and do a decent post explaining all issues found with the game. I must say there was only one annoyance with the campaign is the way terrain changed. You had at one point tall bocage and then it suddenly same map next scenario became low bocage. Also the Tank Traps were back after being taken away in Scenario 13? I think a few other inconsistencies but can not remember exactly. A bit like watching films and things not being set up quite right between takes...

Not really as it is all about deployment and biding your time. The AI is good but not great (it never will be great IMO due to restrictions of coding etc...) So if you get inside the loop on what the AI is trying to do, which with an AI attack scenario is fairly easy. Then map those observations against the terrain and what you have and you should be good. This is of course if you have a decent force to play with, as mentioned by others if you lose too much early on then you might reach a situation where even if you did all the above you could not defeat all that you are up against. Which is fair enough, as this is the beauty of a campaign.

Fair enough you can see all the hard work in this campaign and I would seriously buy you several beers for this as all very good. Hope you are enjoying the break. It does mean IU have time to try road to Montebourg as I know that area of France and now I know how good campaigns are it will fix my CM itch... Sounds good and I hope to fire that scenario up this weekend if all goes to plan.. I am sure there will be plenty of other nasty surprises....

Yes I would agree best to put men on ground floor hidden. I forgot and had them on 2nd floor hidden and they were lucky to only have a single man killed. Mind you I think even on the ground floor I lost a man. In hindsight I would have sent him to the houses on the right flank but I did not know if they were empty and I was prepared for that recon force to become a bunch of smouldering wrecks if the Germans had been able to sneak into those houses. The men in the foxholes survived and that position did really well considering the Arty dropped on it at the start. Hope your games are going well and maybe you can crank it up to Vet level for a bigger thrill....

Yes using good tactics and use of terrain does indeed mean you can win first time. It is tough vs the Panthers but if you know how to handle cats you can de claw them...

Thxs, the key to a good defense is a decent analysis of the terrain. It is clear you will be attacked by tanks where and how can they approach. What is your best defensive positions. In CM this is behind Bocage, it trumps all other terrain features, tall bocage being the best. The bocage on the left flank is outside your set up zone but a quick drive is worth the risk if you can use it to shield your tanks and hold that flank. The German armour then has to come side on to you and Panthers don't like it in the rear or sides, MKIV's the same. It is all about making it and uneven fight and by using the terrain and angles smartly you can give your side the edge. Luck can mean you can still lose duels but with an edge you will win more than you lose. Be prepared to look well outside your set up zone to see what terrain works best to defend your objectives. People too often look at just the objective and not what surrounds it or dominates it. That set up took well over an hour if not longer in thought and consideration as to what would work or would not work. Having your arty spotters in a good position to call in timely arty is also key. Vs the AI you can risk having men hidden on second floor buildings as it would appear the AI does not make speculative shoots. Vs a human you would have to use a different approach. I was lucky my forward OP did not get wiped by the German bombardment and only lost one of the supporting soldiers. If I had lost the FO I would have had a lot harder time, and I had fun trying to extract him from the house when the Germans got too close. I hope some of this helps in what is an excellent campaign and really showed the beauty of the engine to me. There are some bugs that need to be dealt with and when I have time I will post a new thread showing some of the oddities I found such as a Bren Carrier reversing through bocage as it fled a German tank... H

I have uploaded some slides / photos of a defence I set up for this. Obtained total victory for the loss of 4 Churchills http://www.flickr.com//photos/16572454@N06/sets/72157629772224720/show/ Later I will explain set up....

Just been able to finish this off and at 18 minutes the Germans threw in the towel and a total victory for the brave Scots... The airforce boys missed and did very little damage to two Panthers sat stationary next to one another. The Germans had 4 runners and 1 abandoned. They got no where near the objectives and the expected last minute dash by the remaining Panthers did not happen. Now for the joy of a night battle. Not fought one of those with the new engine so should be interesting to see how it goes. At least you can get flank shots easier at night... (I hope...)

Right must stop for the night but tally so far is only 4 Panthers left prowling and the rest de clawed. I have 11 Churchills still in the fight but one has had it's engine blown by some nasty shreck wielding German. (the crew is on a sticky wicket and might come in for tea) All AT guns still in play (one is down to two crew and they are pushing a 17PDR between them as they run away!!!). The 6Pdrs have been quiet and they are my final line of defence. One Churchill (minus engine) has won a VC by destroying 4 Panthers and a 17Pdr crew will be getting the same. Lost track of how many he despatched but he is down to 2 HE rounds and being targeted by an angry Panther. Some rockets are about to land and I think he has a bead on the 17pdr maybe they should cut lose and run.... 20 mins to go and I am waiting for the airforce to come in and help out (or hinder me!!!).. More on Tuesday. Good fun....

I hope you are behaving differently as well?

Yikes I have to keep what I have from Crescendo for the next one!!!! You S*d Paper Tiger we should run you out of town.... But then who would do the Arnhem Campaign!!! I hope you are working hard!!!

Panthers and more bloody Panthers... (MKIV's are for the weak...(I wish they were MKIV's!!!)) About 35 mins left and I have lost 4 Churchills. 1 my mistake in not thinking the AI would punish me. 2 were a fair cop and the fourth some weird LOS that surprised me and I could not get him out as crew panicked. So far bailed 2 maybe 3 Panthers and destroyed 4 or 5 (one I just nailed and I am awaiting outcome in next turn. The German arty has so far not done too much other than kill a few men. I managed not to be in the places of bombardment at the beginning bar my FOO who had a lucky escape and was instrumental in pretty much delaying the German Infantry attack on my right flank. The German Inf attack on the left has been held off by three (now 1) Churchills. I will try and make some time to post some screen shots of what I planned and how it worked out. I need to read up on air attacks to see how best to use them.... So far so good and I hope the remaining 35 minutes will see me hold the Germans off. Not a German on the objective yet!!! The Panthers are getting restless and I hope to bag a few more.... You have to love the 17pdrs!!! The scale of the battle is great.... H

It would be no problem as I can invite you to my drop box and you can download it easy enough so no e-mail required. The only downside is that you will get all my excellent results... Simple to just try it and see and if no good nothing lost.... I will PM you my e-mail address

Yep got Airpower in the Château but I have done it out of sequence down to that draw!! It was sort of useful in the Château and who knows what it will do in Crescendo....

If you really have no file before the save you talk of you are Scooby DooD!! I could send you my file if you need one as I have kept all files. Unless you have deleted it the game automatically takes a save where you can select Real Time / Turn based play (drop down choice I alluded to in my previous post). From this save you would be fine. I can send you that but I am not sure how it will effect the campaign results? I would guess you would get all my stats at the end as they must be carried between save files? It would at least save you starting from the beginning again?

Just finished that scenario and I know what you mean my men were getting minced!!! I was very surprised to pull off a total victory as it was a tough bugger to crack. The key in the end was to flank left and ignore the sniper in the house and all the troops / half track in village to the right. Of course it tells you this in the briefing but you can get drawn into fire fights you can ignore. Of course I failed to do this fully and lost 4 men taking out that 2 man sniper team and I got nailed by that damned IG gun but once I realised my mistake I just kept flank to left and lined all my remaining troops up against the bocage and engaged in concentrated fire power on the real target. The Airstrike did take out one squad in fox holes and then used it's second bomb to take out exact same spot second time!!! A*rse!! So with my ragtag force I managed to storm the buildings but not without some losses at the doorways!!! Really surprised I even got the 100 points for low casualties as I thought I had lost way too many. I had to throw in Co Hq at the end..... I think so far that was the worst scenario for making me feel I was close to losing. Quite nice to do a low intensity one (well hardly any arty and no tanks is what I mean by low intensity). Now Looking to do set up for Crescendo and boy do I get some toys to play with!!! 3x17pdrs - sweet... (Just wondering what nightmare will be thrown at me if I get all those toys what on earth does the AI get!!!)

Do not save when doing set up. Do all set up and then hit run for first turn... Known bug with all Campaigns. Check the Tech forum for more details. If you have taken a save it will always happen so reload from point where it gives you drop down choice...

Heh Heh... Well you said you were worried about it being too easy!! It was once I worked out my mistakes with the Churchills. Mission 12 is indeed a low tech low arty take the Chateau scenario... I am just hoping it stays that way as I have sod all arty and no AT weapons or ammo to deal with any nasty things.... Need to find some time tonight to do a few more turns...

OK now back on track after re playing "No Hiding Place". I managed by better deployment of the Churchills to only lose two (one was silly mistake by me) and gain a total victory with the Germans surrendering with around 17 minutes left. The 17pdr was key and with a slightly different position it nailed three of the five Panthers and the remaining two were nailed side on by a well placed Churchill. The AI used the same attack plan which helped and that Wespe made a nice big boom when hit by a mortar round so better luck that time too. - If you wanted to make it harder reduce the amount of arty as this was the game winner in it's ability to strip away the German Infantry from the Panthers. Before I replayed it I finished off the bonus scenario and gained a Major Victory on that and lost a couple of Churchill's my Stuarts and the two Archy's. The Germans surrendered before the time ran out as global morale collapsed. I did manage to take out one of the KT's and all four MKIV's. The Last KT was in sight but would have been a tough beast to crack. The other KT had survived around 8 Piat hits and was finally despatched by my SP gun. Again a lovely map and a tough challenge. 1st time to see Airpower in use and while it did no real good it was fun to watch the straffing runs. Now on mission 12 and this is proving to be a tough nut. I not sure if I will crack it with the limited time and lack of arty which has been so important in many of the other scenarios. All great fun....

Excellent.. Thanks for the linkage

Yes played at Veteran and the first technical loss was "No Hiding Place" some of the scenarios just preceding that gave me a few scares, but I managed to recover and the AI surrendered before the end of the game. "No Hiding Place" I just decided not to risk an attack and I can see that you do clearly state any loss dumps you from the campaign but in my mind a draw (with me having more points than the AI) could have not counted as a loss. Not a big point but maybe in future explain that a draw is also counted as a loss. In "No Hiding Place" you are really hampered by having only one 17pdr that can easily (ish) take out the Panthers front on. I lost four Churchills to me poorly sitting them. I very nearly did open up the flanks of the Germans but that damned Waspe did not die from the Arty I threw at it and it and the held off my flanking Churchill by taking the tracks away from me!! I must say your placement of vehicles in defence is excellent and has taken some work to crack. "Crescendo of Doom" rings alarm bells from my Squad Leader Days and I can see I have plenty more to do before I can claim I have finished the Campaign. I will try and report back on progress but it maybe quite a while yet as they are taking quite some time to play and do properly without me being wiped out. Excellent training material for playing vs Humans and as I have mentioned in other threads normally I have had no time to allocate to playing the AI. I have been so impressed with this campaign that I have allocated more time to playing AI than humans (in part due to work life balance but also down to the sheer fun this campaign has given me). If I ever meet you this is worth quite a few beers or drinks of your choice. Thank you.

OK, getting a win is NP as I know what I did wrong. I was going to replay it to see if my approach would work. I guess I need to get a win... I considered the draw a win as I had more points than the Germans but I can now see that it does not really count as a win... Which just shows how good the scenarios are. Yes all games played at Vet level.

Just checked the name of the previous scenario and it was "No Hiding Place" and I did not secure Foot worth 200 as it seemed a tad too exposed to be able to defend properly even if I could rush there at the start... So it would appear I have missed out on 12, 13 and 14? What should I have done to get theses scenarios?