History Buff

Yes a great series it was. I've got 3 of the 4 series after the war when the colony ship arrives. But I don't have the first book so they are collecting dust until I can find it. If I remember correctly the war finished in late 44 in that series didn't it? Been a while....

I'm almost finished 41. First week of December. Just lost all my scrounged units to a human wave. The only thing that's killing me is the huge handicaps the soviets get in these later months. You try doing an assault through a blizzard with twice the amount of men facing you. But I may yet survive the winter. Question : What happen if you last battle is on the 31st of December at Night. Then you are immedeatly counterattacked? Go to 42 early? What I'm trying to say is, are all the parametres for crossing over to 42 set and explained? :confused:

I agree with the favour thing. It's really annoying sitting there adding up mortars destroyed / KO'd. Maybe lighten it up a tad, by getting rid of different values for Ko'd mortars etc. You know how many mortars I've destroyed. On the immedeate attack bit, yeah it's sometimes not the best but I think it's something to live with. Surely you can use your favour to decrease the roll to prevent your boys going over the top? "No sir, my boys a tired. Send old Charlie company will ya?" I also suggest two things with favour. 1. Maybe gain 1 favour for every 50 Inf Casulties. It would give some importance to fighting inf vs inf. 2. If my idea of a random event chart (see above) is implemented favour could be used there. To prevent your boys from doing a river crossing and to get some R & R.

Had a browse through one of my WW2 books. Recorded some dates as i went through along with what info on weather I could find and some interest facts I forgot. 8) 1942 -Jan - Soviet Paratroopers bolster Partisan -Feb - Cold, Snow on Ground but clearing skies. -Early March - Soviet Crimea Offensive -Mid May - Soviet Kharkov Offensive -Late August - Stalingrad Begins, German Assault -Mid October - German Offensive inside Stalingrad -October 22nd - First Snow Falls reported. -Nov 21st - Uranus, Soviet Assault -Novemebr 26th - Stalingrad encircled. -Dec 12th - Von Manstiens relief of Stalingrad beings. Germans pull back from the Caucusas (Or however you sepll it). -Dec 16th - Soviet Operation Saturn Begins. Italian Army Crushed. Late October 1941. Doing an assault at night in heavy snow with more of the cursed stuff falling. I don't think I'll survive the winter. On one other note a new idea I've had. It's a way to incorporate the special battles like city fights, river crossings people have been talking about. What about a random event chart which you roll on after each battle. Or at the least if you roll say between 8-10 of a D10 after the battle. Came up with a bit of a chart. D20, which is avaliable on those electronic dice programs. But most veteran gamers will have one or 2 lying around. 1 - Supply Problems, food and fresh water is not reaching the frontline. Your men are considered "weakened" for the next battle only. (Food once again comes). 2 - Scrounged Units link up with their proper units. Your current Scrounged units value becomes zero. 3 - Great Advance made. The enemy are retreating in front of you and do not wish to fight. Your CO is in praise of you and your men's efforts. Gain a further 5 favour points. [Only takes effect if your previous battle was a victory and the Soviets are not counter attacking]. 4 - Rest and Relaxation for you and your men. Your troops are pulled from the front line to the reserve lines for one week. [Which is added on to your next date rolls]. In that time you are fortunate to encounter a high ranking officer from your division and you are favoured after numerous conversations. Increase your favour by 2 pts. [To only take effect if the Soviets are not counter attacking and you are not involved in a further attack against them]. 5 - Training. Your men are given a rest from the fighting but in preperation for a coming attack they are given some specialist training in regards to future operations. All units under your command may add 2 experience points to there record. Training lasts one week which is added onto your normal date rolls. [To only take effect if the Soviets are not counter attacking and you are not involved in a further attack against them]. 6 - Special Mission. River Crossing. A river blocks the Division's progress ahead. Your command is given the task of crossing the river and forming a beach head for further landings, bridge building equipment etc. If this mission is successfully carried out you may add +3 Favour to your favour score on top of all other factors. 7. - Special Mission. Partisan Raid. Your command is given the task of destroying a suspected Partisan group in the area. The following factors are set. Force Mix - Infantary Nationality - Partisan Division Type - Infantary The rest a rolled for like a standard mission. 8. Special Mission - City Sweep. Your force is taking part in a sweep of a particular area of a city. The next map you play on must be of Large Town / City form with the following characteristics. Battle Type - Axis Attack Tree Cover - Light Hilliness - Flat Damage - Heavy All other characteristics are rolled as normal, including date. 9. Replacements Lost - For some unexplained reason your promised replacements have not arrived. Conduct an emergency reorganization instead. I said 20, but I can only thing of nine at the moment. But I'm sure you all understand the idea. Add a bit of sudden surprises to the whole fray. Plus gives another reason to lower your scrounged units. For some strange reason i have 396 pts of scrounged units. Haven't had to do an emergency reorganisation for while.

Oops double post..... [ January 12, 2003, 03:25 AM: Message edited by: History Buff ]

What fronts? Time Periods? Are these guys focusing on? I have access to alot of stuff regarding the period, want me to start 1943 if 1942 is being researched by a whole mob? Just a thing with large battles in a town. What happens if you take the map in an axis assault on a town and have three more battles to fight in that large town? Going to a different map was not the general idea I felt when I hit this situation. Maybe Large Town battles' instructions will need to be made more clearer. Or it's just me.

Been away down south wine and cheese tasting all week. But I'm back and the war will resume. Amazing how it will stop for a lowly Company CO who wants to have a holiday and get sloshed. Anyway I'll endeavour to get some small maps done for the campaign before University starts again and send em your way Biltong. Small? Villages? Towns? Rural? All?

Yes. If the current form of calculating experience remains in place. At the moment a unit in the thick of the fighting taking on swarms of the enemy taking out 50 of them gets the same experiene increase as a unit in the second line who got a lucky kill via a pot shot. Suggestion : Make experience gain via infantary casulties at a rate of 1 exp point for every 5 caused. Or even 1 every 10 caused would still make a marked difference in showing which squads are in the front line fighting and ones in the second line going for pot shots. On the note of experience.... the formula given to calculate experience after replacements is detrimental to the player. It goes back to the old problem of realism or enjoyment. For Example. A mortar team takes 2 casulties leaving only one member left. Experience of that soldier is 8 since he was rattled and had lost his equipment. After replacements with two regular soldiers (Experience 10) the equation would look something like this. ((1 x 2 x 11) + (2 x 10)) / (3 x 2) = New Experience 22 + 20 / 6 = 7 Therefore lowering the experience even further even though two more experiened and confident soldiers have joined the unit. Suggestion - Go back to the old way of calulating experiene after replacements. (Men left x Experience After Battle) + (Replacements x Experience) / (total men in unit) = After Replacement Experience for unit. The same situation calculated with this method would lead to: (1 x 8) + (2 x 10) / 3 = After Replacement Experience* for unit. 8 + 20 / 3 = 9.3333333 or 9. A good mix of the two factors. Just a note, what I'm pointing out is that any unit which suffers ore than fifty % casulties might as well go down to conscript level, even when replaced with reg troops. Aren't I a sucker for the old ways..... [ January 01, 2003, 03:26 AM: Message edited by: History Buff ]

Anyone got the Rules 1.5 in pdf format yet? I got an excell reader on my mac, ut when I print it out, well it isn't readable. I can't seem to export them on my machine. Any please help. Thanx in advance.

Merry X-Mas and hope 2003 gives you all many PBEM wins.

Sorry Biltong, I'm just a strong advocate of the kind of experience system used in 1.3. Counting casulties caused, mortars etc. And as I've said before, don't want to really have to go to a system where the only real way you can get any experience is blow up tanks.

This is a last effort effort plea..... Anyone still have V1.3 Core Sheet, and rules sheet in .pdf format. If you do can you please email it to me. I just wanna finish the first 5.5 mths in the same version. Thanks in advance email: themob@vianet.net.au

Heres an Idea to get around the hassels of point diff etc and the fact you can't change individual squad's exp in a QB. Create a scenario. Let the computer design the map and place the soviet units. You can do everything down to the exact pt cost you rolled etc. Only prob i you have to pick the soviet forces by hand which means you know what your up against. Should we lobby BFC to allow indidual squad exp selection in a QB or auto generate force in a scenario? Hehehehe

I wouldn't suggest +1 for every casualty caused, but +1 if any casualties are caused, regardless of number. This makes squad experience growth more predictable; easier to manage. ++++But there is a difference of of killing 10 enemy soldiers, and 1 enemy soldiers. Maybe 1 exp point for every 5 enemy dead? For all those who say it's too easy to become crack, maybe the experience system is not to blame but possibly the QB you generate are to easy?+++++

I'm in absolute agreement with everything you said, (ok, I do have one question about your *signature* line but everything else ). ++++Whats wrong with the Sig? ++++ So for myself, if you haven't guessed, I would suggest that the rules lean toward the RPG side rather than the Grog side. I have nothing against Grogs... duh! But the rationale for their possible interest in a campaign with rules anything remotely like we have now seems... extremely rarified. ++++Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that the campaign not follow what realisticaly happened. And snow should fall in Dec etc. The main gripe I have now is that experience in 1.4 onwards can't be earned unles you blow up tanks etc. What about the fact that you hit a small spec in a Russian uniform with your rifle? Even the grogs would tell you that many infatry formations fought other infantry formations. This whole community seems to just worry about tanks and blowing up tanks. I don't want to see this campaign system slip into that mentallity. What I'm saying is bring back the 1.3 core sheet. Count infantry casulties suffered and caused, count mortars being destroyed etc. Don't just disregard them!+++++

Below is the "concerns" feedback I've emailed Biltong about 1.4. He suggessted to post em here for discussion. ++++ Just going over the 1.4 core force rules / battle group sheet. I see that it will be even harder now for a unit to gain experience with the majority of enemy units like mortars and number of casulties being inflicted being removed from the equation, I feel troops will remain at a reg experience level for the entire 5 and a half months. My personal campaign for instance has only vs infatary formations since Barbarossa to August so far, under these new rules there experience would of only increased marginally at best. Under the 1.3 rules they have slowly increased to veteran status over 2 months and it's been a tough time getting there believe you me. I feel having the "complicated" system will encourage people to go out and get their core force into the thick of it rather than hang back and hope for an enemy tank to rumble by. 1.4 at the moment as well really hinders people who fight non-armoured formations as I have been doing. I believe that BFC is trying to make a fine line between realism and gaming. Make it to realistic, it would be a good history lesson but it will also mean the game/campagin becomes impossible to play. More and more do we see scenario designers putting impossible odds into their 3rd party scenarios that they become not a challenge but a waste of time. Even though it's a touch unrealistic that units will become better over time in the real world as the grogs have pointed out, it will give the campaign purpose for the player. For if a player looks at the rules and says, I can't physically get to a veteran level whats the point of this once the winter sets in, less people will play it. Also with the 1.4 rules, okay the grogs have been satisfied but the only way to earn experience in most cases, like the infantary problem I'm facing is to rely on replacement rolls to boost your experience. Players want to say, hey my company is CRACK cause I TRAINED EM THAT WAY! I feel v 1.3's core sheet of gaining experience for causing casulties destroying mortars etc was valid. Remember troops didn't only gain experience from blowing up tanks and bunkers!!!!!!! ++++ Endure! [ December 17, 2002, 12:33 AM: Message edited by: History Buff ]

I just got a simple question. How do I manage replacements? After each battle I win do I immedeatly have a full company of new troops intermixed with my old ones? I'm having real probs with this section. Plus does anyone know if it is possible to change individual squads experience in a Quick Battle? How do you do it? Thanks all for this great innovation

Send me a copy... Much appreciated themob@vianet.net.au

I think this is a bug but don't have a pic to back me up. Played a game with an SS recon company, (QB). The troops were in the SS brown, while the company comander in the Heer grey. ????? Thought you may wanna know.

Okay how many are from WA? -CDIC will be soon. -Noba, -AussieJeff -Myself. That makes 4 I now know of. Any of you guys want to contact me get me by email cause I don't grace these boards regulary these days. [ November 16, 2002, 02:36 AM: Message edited by: History Buff ]

CDIC[/qb]

This place is full of grogs so here goes. Anyone know a good place to find out where German divisions were at particular time periods during the war, including their status and what they were doing. Already got decent SS Division info, just need standard Heer now. Also topographic maps and weather reports would also be handy. Thanks in advance.

To my Great Grand Father who fought at Gallipoli in the Light Horse. He lost one of his legs and arms at the front. Returned to Australia but died of stress and injury related reasons shortly after the war had ended. To my Grandfater who died this past year. A freedom fighter in the dutch underground. Never ever talked of major experiences, especially in 1943-1944 when the Underground really got up the German's noses. And lets not forget all those who were soldiers on the other side, many of whome in WW2 didn't know of the death camps etc. They enlisted for what they believed in at the time and went through the same hell as the allied soldiers and deserve equal praise because something we were all meant to learn from WW2 is we are all equal.

What? When my T-34 came on i raced it up the road to flank the enemy Stugs. When i turned the corner a StuG was waiting. No more Y-34.

I got CMBB on the west coast of Oz yesterday. It took about 12 dys to get here. Played my first scenario and got me a** whipped. I played that one when the soviets are trying to the house to get out of the cold. Damn the Germans had to many tanks. Rule 1 - Don't Assault infantary in deep snow. Oh well. My second game I'm starting to get more of an even game going, but oooh those enemy tanks are damn accurate when it comes to shooting compared to mine.