Peter Cairns

If they put Rangers in they better put Celtic in too if hey want to sell any modules in Glasgow..... Peter.

Michael, "Yeah, I know. *sigh* It's always a tar baby, isn't it?" Let it go Indie, let it go........ Peter.

Michael, Thats three posts since "And that's all I wish to say on the subject."...... Peter.

I used to have the Janes pocket book of Pistols & Submachine Guns. It was about 240 pages and cover about the over 200 weapons half of which were SMG's Regardless of type and calibre about 90% of them had an effective range of 200m, a cyclic rate of 600rpm and an automatic rate of about 250rpm. In a battle what you do with your troops matters more than the technical differences between various SMG's. The variations between them won't make much of of difference compared to things like being in cover, being suppressed, whether you are moving or the target is. For LMG's and HMG's sustained rates and accuracy can matter a lot but a badly positioned MG42 can still be less effective than a well placed Bren (okay but not often even with a TRIPOD). A good plan and good tactics and control is worth a lot more than "My men have the Ultra 7X with Megazap ammo"..... In CMBO I've seen elite troops carved up by a poor MG which was well positioned. Peter.

And the say the Scots are mean. Is anyone really going to cancel a game they have waited a decade for over a measly £8..... Get a life...Get the game. Peter.

Odd question to ask, but there isn't a cannon run camera option is there? It was something I always wanted to have in CMx1, a pilots eye view of an attack. Not that bothered to see it from a shells point of view, that struck me as a bit daft, but from the cockpit would be nice.

Hell thats not thick fog.... I've seen fog so thick it slows the shells down..... Peter.

You should all play this..... Peter.

Scottie, I am not saying they are not there but I wouldn't expect them in a map Like those ones as the AAR shows. A dozen or so buildings surrounded by woods and fields isn't a town in is hardly even a village. If I was doing a map like that I might have one metalled road and maybe cobbled through the middle of the town and dirt tracks elsewhere. I'd prefer cobbles to tar and if I did have pavements it would be restricted to the best road in the centre of the village and then maybe only random parts of it. Peter.

Scottie, In rural France in 1940? In a village cobbled streets in the centre yes, but no pavements and even then sometimes just stone rather than cobbles. Peter.

I like both but if I have an issue it is with the Strafing in the air attack. I liked the effect but surely even the most inexperienced pilot would have executed a turn and gone for a high speed run along the road line. Even if you had been told to attack a tank in the middle of the column you would still come in low and fast so that any missing rounds would hit something else in the convoy.... Maybe it was the type of targeting chosen? I'd like it if you could choose linear for air attacks (Did they call them Strikes in WW2?). Where as with artillery they creep along the line it would make sense for aircraft to do it at a 90' angle in one pass. An attacking P-51 with rockets or guns would hardly attack a trench line with a half dozen front on passes on a different part each time instead of raking it along its length in a single run. The effects look great and I love them but the pilots tactics are all wrong. Peter.

Erik, Because I've got; "A Guid scots tongue in ma heid" Peter

I noticed in the Naval artillery video the large church made of modules that Steve mentioned as opposed to the stand alone one in the earlier videos. Peter.

Steve, Will the demo allow PBEM or TCP/IP, as I know people who i've said to "This is the game to buy" but who aren't convinced and I"d like to be able to get them on board by inviting them to a game. Peter.

Anyone ever play the Skirmish Rules by a guy called Donald Featherstone. I mentioned these on here years back. They were all for 1:72 scale and the same rules with modifications covered periods of history http://www.amazon.co.uk/Donald-Featherstones-Skirmish-Wargaming-Curry/dp/1409223892/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1304721827&sr=1-3 You can read them in part in Amazon. They were my first real war game and got me hooked on small unit tactics. Peter.

There is an urban Myth about WW1 when, as the barrage ends and stillness falls over the allied trenches, Scots are waiting for the order to go over the top. Suddenly a lone piper beings to play. At that the sergeant looks along the ranks and says; "Well lads, we can go over the top, or stay here and listen to the Pipes... FIX BAYONETS" Peter.

Magpie Oz. It was fun, but it was between two totally unrealistic forces in a highly unlikely landscape fighting in an unusual way. Thats not really what the game is best at, although it did do it well. A proper game is a TO&E based force on an accurate Map with realistic objectives. Thtas where I am hoping CMBN will excel. Peter.

Be careful what you wish for people.... For all I liked CNBB I think the CMx2 version could be a very different game. One of the biggest changes that we have seen is in command and control (C2) and the importance of battlefield cohesion and communication. I think this will be the key to making the game realistic in that the russian superiority in numbers will be balanced realistically by terrible C2. This will mean that as a Russian player a lot of the time you will be either issuing orders to no one or watching your orders being ignored. Certain in a T-34 v PzV battle I suspect that once the hatches close you could find yourself as all but a spectator. The way to win as the Russians might be to have a solid simple battle plan and to stick to it hoping that the Germans don't do something unexpected and that you can make enough progress before the fog of war gives the advantage to the Germans who will react better. In effect to win as a Russian you will need to play as a Russian. If they build it that way and it works they will have made a brillant game, but it might be one that disappoints those people who love Russian hardware and underestimate russian weaknesses. I remember the frustrations in CMBB of having a tank that could cut a PzIV in half but was scared to face it. If anything I suspect that in CMx2 commanding the Russians will be even more frustrating..... I like that idea and the challenges it brings, but not everyone will. Peter.

I used to play my son QB assaults where his attacking force had almost three times my points. In the ultimate Protection v Mobility battle in open rolling country in daylight (he liked to have things his way), he usually had about a dozen Elite King Tigers. My force was always thirty plus Regular Hellcats. My basic tactic was three rows, all hiding. The first row near the front would hide till he got close and be positioned to move into his half of the map at speed in an effort to get behind him. The second row would sit tight and wait for side shoots as he came forward and the last row would wait until the KT's had started to turn to engage rows one and two before engaging and hopefully getting side and rear shots. I usually won in what was a really gamey daft match but rarely had as many as half a dozen Hellcats left. Of course I finally came unstuck when he filled out his force by cutting it to ten King tigers and adding PZ11's to act as a screen. I could outrun the slow turret with the big 88mm but the small 20mm was to fast an cut up the paper thin armour on the Hellcat. Not really a proper game of CNBO but good fun with my son. Peter.

Even before I first saw an SPI game I used to play with 1:35 scale Tamaya models. I think that is another thing that is embedded because even now one of my favourites is Tigers v Shermans. It's still a classic quantity over quality match up with Mobility trying to overcome Protection. I also suffer from a bad habit of taking my armour in to close and losing guys assaulting tanks, but when you war is fought on an 8'x4' sheet of ply that works out at less than 100 yards by 50 yards at that scale you kind of get used to not engaging at range and running into tanks. I wonder how many other bad habits I have from 40 years ago that will crop up again. Probably underestimating HMG's and artillery because on a 100yard board the SMG is king and you can't deploy a Mortar..... Peter.

Oddly I played Firefight before Squad Leader and liked it a lot more. Quality wise their was no comparison in game feel; SL had hard backed maps great graphics and counters and a much larger set of rules but for all that complexity I still felt it was a dog of a game. It just didn't flow for me. FF had a basic map on paper blue and red counters and a simple set of rules, but it flowed with alternate firing and then movement and simple to use but effective artillery. Alternating fire was the closest thing you could get to flow without writing orders you could get and it felt more natural than one side fires everything and then moves everything while you sit and watch. In FF you reacted to events far more so that the different turns seemed to blend into each other and you could see who was winning at any point rather than just at the end of a full move. There was also no cheating... I never like the fact that in SL a hex looked like it was 30ft when it actually represent more than ten times that. It was the kind of fudge I didn't like. I fell in Love with CMBO almost at once because it offered the flow and realistic ranges of firefight and the texture of SL. WEGO overcame the problems inherent in SL because the system did the reacting for you and all the hard work on LOS and targeting leaving you free to do the bit that mattered coming up with a plan and commanding your force. Peter.

The Eastern front is a mammoth task and one that nearly broke the back of Battlefront the last time so don't hold your breath. Much as I like the t-34 as much as the Sherman, the next logical build is the rest of the war in the west followed by Italy and africa mainly because so much of what is needed in equipment terms is already there. I full expect them to work on the East in the background as they did with CMBN during CMSF ( I remember seeing a CMSF screen shot with an M-3 in it), but it will be an on going project while things that will generate more revenue for less work pay for it. As I said elsewhere I'd like a 39-41 game but without American involvement it might not pay that well. Put in the commonwealth and include Cannucks and Aussies and you add a lot of paying customers. Peter.

Well I have a soft spot for all british tanks from the Churchill through the Crusader to the Cromwell. They were all crap but I just like the fact that Britain went to war with tanks that looked like they were built in a shed at the bottom of the garden. Peter.

What I think throws a lot of people new to the game is that it is a command game rather than a control game. Most FPS or RPG games you control units and micro manage. sometimes its just your avatar or character others its armies. But in CM you give orders .. You are in command but not actually in control. In this respect it is probably closer to Roman Total War or Shogun in that you command a force. So from a marketing perspective that is probably the type of game to go with. Equally even though fewer and fewer magazines are out there a free demo of a disc can reach a wide audience. I first saw the game on a Mac magazine disc and the same again would probably be worth the effort. Peter.

I wonder how often Gunzel and those like him play games he bought in 2001. I remember playing the really basic demo for CMBO when i got it with Macworld eleven years ago and poor as the graphics were it was the game play that got me. I must have tried five or six different strategies and each of those five or six times before I even got the full game. If you think the graphics in CMBN don't look great have a look at chess... a black and white board of squares and only 32 pieces and half of them are all the same. I tell you with eye candy as poor as that Chess will never last..... Peter.