JulianJ

Thanks guys for the heads-up. I will be buying it too.

I don't know how well NATO militaries would perform against Russians, especially with their recent combat experience in Syria, but last year I went to a British Army show, for reservists (the TA as was), and I was astounded at the junk they were equipped with: unarmoured WMIK land rovers, computers that looked like they ran Windows 95, 105mm arty towed by a tiny truck that obviously couldn't carry many rounds. They did a set-piece battle with the landrovers against "terrorists", which of course they won, and I was just thinking TOWs, Airbursts, massive IEDs....I suspect this will not be a popular view, but Britain's military (Army, Navy & RAF) has probably dropped down several leagues.

Sadly I haven't been playing any tabletop games for a while because I can't find the time...or the opponents. There were a lot of open participation games at Salute but I didn't get to play any of them. Firstly I was looking for my friends, then we went round some stands they wanted to see, then we had a longish boozy lunch, then went round again, and by that time I was too knackered and needed to go home!

Seems I have reached the limit of allowable uploads. I had a great day, met some gamer friends, had lunch in the pub and then went back in the afternoon, when it was quieter and TIP: at the end of the day you can grab bargains and discounts from the many traders who want to offload stuff. I'd just met a friend called Jon who I don't see very often because he lives a way off, (the crowds were milling and it was difficult to find people) and a Halo Marine came up and assaulted him! That doesn't happen every day....apparently it was a LARPer he knew.

There were a lot of steampunk games - look at the quality of the terrain building!

Salute is one of the biggest tabletop gaming events in the UK, held annually in London's ExCel centre (an f-awful hangar with overpriced everything ). The theme this year was Post-apocalypse. Painting and terrain absolutely stunning.

Thanks for all the feedback guys. I didn't think a bit of a peeve would elicit such informative replies..

I have just played a QB on Veteran as the Russians v. Ukies. The artillery took 13 down to 9 minutes to arrive and adjusting fire was likewise lengthy. In game time 13 minutes is an eternity. As I don't like to do first turn pre-ordered fire, I had to get my spotters in position and so basically fought half the game without arty. I realised that my on-map 82 mm mortars were also subject to lengthy delays, so I moved them to a good position and fired them direct. It did seem an unconscionable delay.

Amazing! I wish we could have some of these contraptions in the game.

One Javelin-related thing: I have some WMIKs for the Jave teams which seem to have Javelins and Launchers aboard, but I cannot seem to find any way to fire them. Not apparently the onboard crew, nor the sole survivor of a Jav team who got back on the vehicle.

The objective is to take a town. The Scots footsoldiers don't have breaching charges, so I think the intention of the designer was to have a section of pioneers with them, but doesn't seem to have happened.

Downloaded immediately. I am sure this will go a long way to defeating the Syrians with appalling language. Thx @George MC

OK, Mikey, I obviously didn't peek, that would not be cricket old man, but the briefing says you get 7 platoon, plus the WMIKs AND the assault pioneers + their HQ + a TUM ST - the latter definitely didn't turn up.So I expected another 10 men and a Land Rover. [Whinge, whinge...didn't that SOB Rumsfeld say that you fight with the army you have, not what you want? Mind you I don't think he ever did a day in the dirt...]

I have just started playing Edge of Darkness, which is a bunch of 5 Scots taking a town. I am playing some bagpipe music to lift my Jocks' morale, even if it annoys me! (love the classic Brit TV series names btw) I won't do any spoilers, but I was puzzled that some of my reinforcments - namely the assault pioneer section + HQ + Land Rover didn't turn up (OK that may be a normal HQ Snafu!) when they were supposed to; 7 Platoon arrived but not them. I could do with more smellies on the ground for an urban dust up - my Glaswegian scum love it! Is a straight razor prohibited in close combat? I am operating SnailKrieg, a form of warfare I pioneered in BS. It's exactly like BlitzKrieg but much...much slower. I creep up by inches. It does work and only goes wrong when I get bored in the later stages of the game and take unnecessary risks. The Javelin infantry aren't due till D+45. I really need them and don't feel like going down while there are several active BMPs which are going to do me a terrible mischief if I expose myself (?!).

Happy Birthday Mord! Have a good one! At least you are too old to get drafted into whatever mad wars our pols seem to be wishing for!

Actually, I think this debate has been useful in making some online dangers clearer to me, and that I am not adopting the most secure methods, which I shall try to do from now on, clouds/silver linings etc.

Actually Steve, it is my impression that the financial services industry wants people to use their cards easily online, without putting users off and this makes fraud easier than it could be. IMO the banks take it in their stride as part of the costs of doing business.

This morning I had a chance to check, and it was not the first transaction, I'd activated it at the end of november, made 3 transactions with my website hosting provider online, then BF on 23rd Dec. The attempted frauds were on 8th Jan. So of course it could be my hosting provider, but it is still a "bit of a rum do". Strange. Actually - my hosting provider does store the card numbers for repeat billing via a merchant gateway. But it has my debit card and another credit card and neither have had fraud attempts, which does suggest that they somehow got hold of it via the BF transaction. I can't see any other possibility, although I do concede I am no cyber crime expert.

"That's an eye opener, Mr Frodo, and no mistake." I also had a couple of attempted small transactions, about 2 weeks ago, on the card that I used for SF2. The CC issuer caught them and cancelled/replaced the card. All I will say is that it is odd that it was a new card which I had got but not used, so BF was the first online transaction I had done with it. I did wonder whether to contact BF but then decided it was probably paranoia - however I saw this thread, and so joined in. I am reassured by BF's not holding CC details. From my perspective I can't see how they got it other than BF's payment merchant (not BF). Anyway no harm seems to be done. I hope @sburke's eggs are organic and free range.

I actually think there is another important reason for uncons to have off-table light arty - mortars, (Hell cannon?), I particularly like the idea of the home-made Grad launcher, as @MikeyD suggests, which I expect most people have seen on vids - a tube/ramp with a bipod at the front or suchlike. The reason is game balance. The NATO side seems very overpowered already. I am playing one of the games against only uncons, and my reserves are just sitting out in the open behind a berm in their Strykers because I do not expect or fear an artillery strike will cause them any hassle. In CMBS, artillery is to be feared, and quite regularly even the AI manages a deadly strike on me, sometimes on the deployment zone, more often if I have been hanging around somewhere too visible, like on top of a hill with spotters, command elements and AT teams, for example. It seems to me that the fighting power of insurgents is not to be under-rated, given what has happened to very powerful and well-trained forces in various parts of the world. I'd like to see a wider roster of equipment - the improvised weapons are, from my point of view, interesting. Home-made armoured vehicles, including VBIEDS, the Kurds' ingenious 50 cal and 14.5mm sniper/antimaterial rifles, technicals with a wide variety of weapons, and of course, home made rocket launchers and armed drones. I know some of this is a bit "out of period" for 2008 but it is not unreasonable for an imaginary conflict to have an immediate effect on weapons development. ISIS's use of one or more massive, armoured VBIEDs (a sort of precision airstrike-equivalent) to blast their way into prepared positions, followed by an immediate aggressive ground attack, has been very effective against even battle-hardened fighters like the Kurds and the Syrian army and overwhelmed parts of the Iraqi army, with small numbers of attackers. So I don't think that uncons should necessarily be so weak and fodder for conventional troops.

Yes, I agree with MOS: the blast command doesn't always work. If it turns into a quick move you do as he says and it should turn into the orangey-brown blast line.

Is there a solution then? I've just tried 4 times to do a QB and it all falls over, which is quite frustrating.

I've just got SF2 and am playing my first battle, with Scimitars and other recon vehicles. I was surprised how few HE rounds were carried, 39 as opposed to over 100 AP, which doesn't seem right, whatever the Brit army specified (not that a quick googling said what was normal loadout). Surely the logistics tail would respond if the units called for more HE when resupplying?

To go back to the original question: I do think buildings and cover are undermodelled. I can quite understand that a breeze block building won't stop 7.62 but modern concrete buildings, especially those prepared for defence (e.g. a sandbagged position inside) and trenches/bunkers/foxholes do seem to be much easier to destroy than RL as seen in videos of action in places like Syria and Ukraine. In Ed Nash's excellent book Desert Sniper (recommended - see reviews on FGM inc mine) a ISIS fortified house position that has resisted all sorts of attacks is finally hammered by using the YPG "home made" 12.7mm and 14.5mm sniper rifles. (here's hoping we can get some of that stuff in the game sometime)

Surely the sensible thing is to pay the $35 and download, then install when you have the time. If the discount is stopped, you'll be kicking yourself, I imagine.