SteveS

Timing is everything in St Eds. I was the Allied attacker and took the last of the sanatorium buildings one turn before the counter attack appeared. I caught almost all of my opponents forces out in the open to his misfortune. The allied briefing gave the impression that the defending force would be much stronger than it actually was so I did move forward with some caution. Luckily for me I was just fast enough. I was on the wrong end of the Stuka in Maleme. It probably caused a 600+ pt swing in that game as it pretty much destroyed a force that had a good chance of taking the rear 300pt flag. But I have no problems with it being included. If I had thought about it more I could have positioned my forces to be less susceptible to such an event. Perhaps the Allied briefing should have been more explicit about the potential for air attack, although it was hinted at. My only problem with Maleme was that it was perhaps a couple of turns too short given the number of objectives and the "tired" state of the Allied infantry. Individually they were all good scenarios, but as a group they provided a great variety of challenges.

Yes, well done to the organisers for all their efforts. This is my first ROW and it has been great fun so far. The scoring had a few surprises. My second best modifed score was a minor defeat. I guess the allies in Push to Maleme took a bit of a pounding in that one. Cheers SteveS

I was the one who had the problem Sergei is referring to. It was cured by installing the 30.82 drivers as I recall (although it might have been an earlier set). I didn't actually upgrade from 30.82 till the 56.64 drivers came out (when I also installed a GeForce FX5700 graphics card). I've just tested the map editor in CMAK for the first time since the upgrade and it does seem a bit sluggish again...about 3 seconds to shift a randomly generated 2800x2800 or so metre map. [ April 01, 2004, 01:22 PM: Message edited by: SteveS ]

Greetings. The NOWT final is over. Dr. J. has gallantly conceded both games and asked me to post the result. Unfortunately for my valiant opponent he didn't realise what a gamey bastard I am and found the major flags in both maps occupied by tired but established troops waiting to gun his lads down as soon as they sauntered up. About 2/3 of the way through both games I had most of the flags under control and was killing his lot a bit faster than he was killing mine. One map was especially favourable to my side in terms of early movement and once the bulk of my infantry was establised the war of attrition was always likely to go one way. Anyway, thanks to Dr. J for being a great PBEM opponent and thanks to Lou again for organising this. I had a blast, even if the time the tourney took to complete took the edge off a bit. Cheers S. P.S. Was there a prize ? [ December 21, 2003, 06:57 PM: Message edited by: SteveS ]

Update on the progress of the final. Both games are about 1/3 of the way through. Game 01, Dr. J as the Russians. I've read in a couple of posts on this forum the opinion that Combat Mission is like chess. It is actually more like poker...a game of skill but with a high variance. In this game I pulled the equivalent of drawing a runner-runner flush when poor movement plotting on a tight road left a Stug at a 45 degree angle to a direction I wanted to cover. Sure enough, a T34 popped up from just that angle and at a range of 220 metres surely couldn't miss. But it did, twice, and my Stug leisurely turned and nailed it first shot. Dr. J had the good humour to put a smiley on his comments, but I suspect his keyboard has some teeth marks on it Both infantry forces are beginning to engage around the main, 300 pt flag. The map has three other 100 pt flags with little action around them so far. Game 02, Myself as the Russians. Another map with a 300 pt main flag, but only two other 100 pt flags this time. This map also has rather more open ground in key areas than the first map. Less action in this so far. I ambushed and eliminated one of Dr. J's squads on a scouting mission and there has been some exchange of long range mg and mortar fire. Everything still to play for. We should be finished just in time for Lou's new CMAK tourney

Ok, thanks Lou. Dr.J, I suggest we send each other a setup having first selected the Germans. Good luck....but not too much

bump...anything happening ?

I'd have no problem with that, Lou. My availability is pretty good for the next few weeks so I can certainly handle two games concurrently. We could reduce the size a bit as you suggest, say 1250 pts with a 23+ turn limit ? If we do I'd suggest no casualties rather than the 10% setting used so far. [ November 01, 2003, 09:32 AM: Message edited by: SteveS ]

Here's a brief(ish) AAR and a comment about the settings for the semi. First thanks to Wes for being a sporting opponent and a pleasure to play against. Wes had first pick and went for the Germans. I probably would have too based on the fact that their basic armour is cheaper and just as capable despite the lesser quality setting. But the settings were fair enough and the greater robustness of the Russian infantry proved a bonus. My force pick was armour heavy. I expected a map in which I'd need mobile direct firing HE units to attack buildings and also mobile AT units hunting for limited LOS opportunities, so no onboard mortars or AT guns this time. I cherry picked a simple force of 2 platoons of 3 T43/85s (the early slow turret version to save points and because of the expected restricted LOS) 2 SU-76s (they're cheap at 79 points) 1 44A rifle company 5 Tank hunter squads 1 82mm (9 tube, 250 ammo) FO...as much for the smoke option although I didn't use smoke in the end. Due to the 10% casualties setting I lost 1 T34 and some infantry. The map showed two hills on either side with a central valley containing most of the buildings. 4 flags, two on the left hill, one in the valley and one on the right hill. The two on the left were much easier for the Russian side to take and hold. The valley flagged looked a nightmare surrounded as it was by so many buildings, and the right flag was difficult because it was on a reverse slope with easy LOS for the Axis support weapons. Basic and simple strategy was to send the bulk of my infantry to the left to secure those two flags. Send a small force (2 squads, their HQ unit, and a TH) to the right to at least try and deny overall control of that flag to the enemy. Armour on each hill would support the other side with crossfire. Tank hunters would scout around and try and pick off unwary Axis armour. Finally, opportunity kill any Axis armour with mine where I could. Eke out a small victory. I expected that battle would be decided by armour kill points and that is how it turned out. I captured both left flags and Wes captured both right flags as we sent the bulk of our infantry to the flags that seemed easier. However, Wes sent a larger force against my left than I did against his right. Crucially, the map enabled me to bring my tanks into more effective support positions than Wes and consequently, I inflicted more infantry casualties than he did. One key action was to destroy the building containing his arty FO and kill him before he could bring down any fire. The crucial moment on the left came when Wes tried to bring two stugs into a more effective support position. I'd already tried to ambush one with a T34, getting into a nice firing position for a side kill, but I'd left the commander unbuttoned and he was killed by a burst of MG fire from the stug, shocking the crew. The stug ever so slowly turned and fired two rounds at the T34 at a range of 150 m but failed to kill it before it backed away. However, Wes then moved his stugs into an ambush I'd set with 2 tank hunters and in, I have to say a beautiful moment, both stugs were destroyed on the same turn by rpgs. From that point, Wes had to play catch up and late on he was forced to go on an aggresive armour hunt with his remaining armour, 4 hetzers, against superior numbers. His choice of hetzers looked a good one at first as, despite my getting the first shots in from short range, they survived many ricochets off their sloping armour. I lost one SU-76 in the battles, and luckily survived penetrating hits on the other SU-76 and a T34, but in the end I killed one Hezter on each flank, on the right with a side shot from a T34 and on the left with one of the same tank hunters that had taken out a stug earlier. A real hero of the Soviet Union that guy [ October 31, 2003, 05:38 AM: Message edited by: SteveS ]

Quick update on my semi with Wesreidau. We're at turn 10. We would have been further on if it weren't for some irritating email problems with turns being sent but disappearing up either NTL's or BT's cyber-backside. The map is reasonably fair, with four 100 pt flags widely separated. This last turn saw the first significant exchange of fire, so it's been very cagey so far. Lou, win or lose I'll post some thoughts on the settings for the final nearer the time. I suppose it will move to 1945, in which case with rarity on the affordable equipment is much the same as now, especially for the Russians.

Hi Lou, Our semi-final is finally off and running. Wesreidau couldn't resist the shiny toys from Deuschland. How's the other semi going lads ? You can count me in for a CMAK tournament and thanks again for organising this stuff.

and thankyou PJ for being a very gracious opponent, if showing a misplaced optimism about my future chances Interesting game and interesting map. The Axis needed to capture the main flag very early with sufficient strength to adequately dominate the approaches from the Russian side which had very little cover for any infantry movement. You went for it, but unfortunately I had a clear line of fire for most of my support weapons, and it cost you dearly in vehicles. Once I got my infantry up the hill it was always going to be very difficult for you. On balance I think you drew the short end of the straw as far as the map was concerned.

Well, from the other half of the draw, PJ and I are only on turn 10 and we have a two week hiatus coming up due to a holiday, so we won't finish anytime soon. We've had a reasonably dramatic 10 turns so far though. I've managed to retake the major flag so the points advantage looks to have swung back rather heavily to the Russians. The Germans will now have to focus all their efforts on that one flag.

That might be a sensible idea, if you go with the same force mix and armour pts. As the Valentine IX is no longer a cheap option the armour advantage swings more heavily to the German player.

Bump....just wondering how the rest of the games are going. PJ and I are slogging it out at a regular pace. Our central hill is now crowned by several bits of burning metal with Made in Germany stamped on them. PJ boldly went for the flags early, got the minor under control and a unit at the major flag, but it cost him a stug and some halftracks. I'm counter-attacking and have the small problem of a Panther to take care of at some point. Everything to play for.

PJ (he had first pick and went with the Germans) and I have started our match and exchanged a couple of turns. The generator has thrown up a map with a central hill and two flags stuck on the top. There's a road which bisects the map from East to West and goes straight over the hill. Violence has ensued from turn 1 with both sides using the road for a bit of fast and furious action. Should be a suitably bloody affair.

Indeed, P-J and Mark...any sign of a conclusion yet ? Getting a bit itchy

They didn't panic and in fact the quickest route to safety would have been to switch to FAST MOVE and go forward, which I guess a veteran crew might have expected to do in real life.

I just made the following mistake in a PBEM, but the situation does, I think, illustrate a small problem with the tank Tac-AI. I've given a veteran Valentine IX a HUNT command to move it forwards into a small valley in the middle of the map (I should have done a FAST MOVE). 20 seconds into the movie a Tiger appears on a far ridgeline, 880 metres away. The VIX spots the Tiger, a yellow line appears between the two, and the Tac-AI stops the forward motion and puts the tank into reverse back up the slope towards what it thinks is a safe position. 40 seconds later the Tiger has fired 3 shots at the VIX and missed. The VIX has at no time targeted the Tiger and tried to fire back. At the beginning of the next turn I attempt to redress my mistake by cancelling the reverse order it has (there's no way it is going to make it back up the slope as it would take over a minute to reach safety that way) and give it a fast move towards an out of LOS position in the valley floor. Checking the targeting stats I see the VIX is 883m from the target with a hit percentage of 2% and a kill of none. The next movie starts. The VIX immediately targets the Tiger, raises its gun, but is blown up within 3 seconds. Surely any real life veteran tank crew would have tried to fire back in the first 40 seconds, even if there was very little chance of hitting. I don't see the logic in preceiving a threat, going into reverse, but not firing back when under fire because of what...they want to preserve their ammo ? Of course it was my mistake that led to the death of the tank, but in this particular situation the AI compounded the problem. Fantastic game though

Go with cool please. Light snow is ok but deep snow would be a pain without ski troops. [ April 15, 2003, 04:54 AM: Message edited by: SteveS ]

Well, perfect balance is probably neither achievable or desirable. Still if you go with Soviet Mechanised not only do they get potentially twice the armour pts, they also get smg troops. Just lovely to run into in a wood. Soviet Guards buys you 4-5 T34s/Valentine IXs against maybe 3 Stugs or 1 Tiger and 1 cheap TD on the Axis mechanised side. Tiger could be unkillable with the right map, or a big fat waste of 300+ pts. Anyway, the winner will probably be the guy that can best exploit the v1.02 targetting bug

There are other force combinations you could think of. In a 1500pt/10% loss Combined Arms QB you could have Axis Mechanised (399 armour pts) versus Soviet Guards (423 pts) or Soviet Cavalry (609 pts). I agree that the 730 armour pts the Soviet Mechanised gets are too much of an imbalance in a modest hills/moderate trees terrain. If the terrain is too flat or open the advantage swings to the Axis player if its clear. I'm not hugely keen on random weather though. There's a lot of variance as it is and in a tourney having tanks bog in damp weather would be even more of a pain I think. I'd plump for modest hills/moderate trees and dry weather. I'd be happy with Nick's 27+ game length suggestion. [ March 25, 2003, 06:55 PM: Message edited by: SteveS ]

Here's a brief AAR. Our map is on page 4 of this thread. When I saw it at first I didn't feel too confident. There was a line of four flags, three of which were in a valley which seemed much easier to attack from the Ruskie side. The last flag was on a hill on my right flank, but there I had a covered approach. I decided to send some infantry, a rifle company, carefully up the valley to positions just short of the flags. They'd then wait until the bulk of my forces, a panzergrenadier company and a platoon of 4 PZIIIJs, had secured the right flag and hill. I'd then use the armour to bombard the valley from an elevated position prior to a final assault. It didn't work out like that of course. I captured the right flag quickly and mauled Sandy's own first attack on the position, killing one T34 and a T60. I then saw 3 more T34s suddenly race over from the other side of the map up to the hill. I managed to get my armour in almost a half circle around them, and by attacking from several angles over the next few turns managed to knock out another two. The last two T34s survived the battle despite a couple of penetrating hits each, and they helped to prevent me from securing the right flank as I'd hoped, although I maintained control of the flag. As expected, the 3 flags in the valley fell to the Ruskies easily. I'd gotten 3 platoons into position, with the help of a bit of smoke. I then had a brain fart when I broke with my own plan and sent four squads to destruction by advancing across one last piece of open ground too far. They were cut down to a pixel within about 30 seconds. At the end I managed to contest the control of one of the valley flags which was in a copse of scattered trees. Another platoon assault had failed, despite this time having a reasonable amount of covering fire. But I relocated a couple of tanks up to it, just outside of tank hunter range; several turns of blasting the position with every gun I could bring to bear broke or pinned just enough the defending infantry. I finally lost my command tank with a couple of turns to go, when I did one shoot and scoot too many. I ended up down two flags to one, and had lost over half of my infantry, mostly stupidly, but the points advantage in the armour battle swung it for me...just. [ March 23, 2003, 07:46 PM: Message edited by: SteveS ]

Blue4 v Yellow4 is on turn 22 and getting into the end game. A few turns ago I managed to lose within 30 seconds about 35 men on with an assault on a wood on my left flank. It was only defended by a couple of guys with pitchforks and their dog...according to old Sandyorevich. I've learnt the valuable lesson that suppression doesn't mean sticking three mortar shells in and hoping for the best, but blowing the **** out of a place for about 5 minutes before you move in. On the plus side the hill on my right is decorated with three dead T34s and there are another couple skulking about with extra ventilation holes courtesy of my PZIIIJs. Still all to play for.

Sandy and I are up to turn 15. After an intial flurry of punches we're both warily circling the ring looking for an opening to land that knock-out blow.