Nigel Ewels

Like you I'm having trouble with this one. I've tried lots of smoke and pummeling the Germans with artillery but nothing seems to work. The steep hills make rapid movement up the slopes very difficult not to mention the minefields. The first bursts of automatic fire (way too accurate at long range but that's a general CM gripe along with spotting) has your guys go to ground and before they get going again the mortars zero in and then all you can do is go to ground and try and minimise casualties. The tanks provide some fire support (and more smoke) but have to be careful of mines and tank hunters. While this does reflect the very difficult conditions of the Casino campaign, especially the crappy terrain, I would suggest a few tweaks to the campaign (which of course we can't do). While the FJ were well trained, experienced, had high quality leadership and were highly motivated, after five months of combat many units would not be at full strength, which they all seem to be in the three scenarios I've played. While the Poles had problems finding replacements they probably had more veterans in the mix then the scenario allows. Also while training and experience were a mixed bag just about every Brit and NZ source I've read indicates the Poles had very high motivation and a reckless disregard for danger when it came to getting to grips with the enemy. Higher motivation and leadership ratings might help reflect this. In the meantime, however, take cover and have fun exchanging artillery stonks with the Germans. The hit ceasefire and move to the next scenario.

Its a tough campaign and tougher in V2.01. I find I need multiple replays from saved games for most scenarios and its hard not to start being gamey when you know what is in store for your pixel truppen. The German MG's in scenario 4 are a real bitch, especially with a lot of Green Brits in your platoons. The time constraints in most scenarios often make you take more risks with your troops then you want to, but hey wargaming is hell.

Oh I see it JRMC1879. All the skins on the soldiers, buildings, hedges, etc are buggered. Its like they have been undercoated in this bizarre pattern and not finished off. The actual game performance apart from that seems okay so must just be a graphics or mod issue.

Just downloaded and my graphics have all gone haywire. Hedgerows and uniforms are all in a crazy LSD inspired tiger camo. Same thing happened when I loaded the CMFI upgrade a few weeks ago so I had to uninstall that and re-install without the upgrade. Not sure what to do with CMBN. I want the v2.0 upgrades but the new colour scheme will drive me insane.

Woo hoo, bonus scenario. Best of the lot. Bit easy though compared to the campaign. Wait, are those more PzIV's?

Well I've slugged it through to Fair and Square. It wasn't pretty and I'm sick to death of German artillery. Stonk, stonk, stonk. And why does my 25 pdr battery only have one troop and not two? Anyways, some nice maps to bury my virtual dead on.

I'm playing the first ASH mission and certain German teams seem bullet proof. That LMG team at the railway for instance. That infantry gun is also a nasty surprise especially when it also seems impervious to small arms. My guys can't even suppress them let alone kill them. That is with a platoon laying down fire in most cases. Then there are those bloody pistols. One guy wiped out half a section at 50m with a Luger while being "suppressed" by the rest of the platoon. I give up. No point fighting if my guys can't hit anything with small arms fire.

PT, are you thinking of doing a scenario pack of the missions from the campaign?

I read the intro briefing for Scottish corridor. It got me on the 2nd ASH having landed in Singapore just in time to surrender. They had actually been there for 2 years and were the best jungle trained unit in the Malayan command (that's including the Aussies) nicknamed "The Jungle Beasts" and were involved in almost continuous rearguard actions from the Thai border to Singapore, where they were the last unit onto the island. About 52 got out to Celyon and India where they were assigned to training others on Japanese tactics. Two even hid out in Northern Malaya during the war. The 2nd ASH in the CMBN:CW campaign was formerly the 15th battalion, re-designated in May 1942. While there was a lot of rotation of personnel to provide trained replacements for units serving in the front line, this also worked to place veteran personnel back in "green units". Most of the men going into Normandy lacked combat experience but they were far from new recruits just finished basic training. Most had gone through extensive training and exercises (1 to 2 years worth), including intensive pre-Overlord training. Most of the immediate replacements for battle casualties had similar levels of preparation. I'd thus be inclined to rate them as regulars as opposed to green. Of course that all depends on how you apply the ratings system. Unfortunately with campaigns its harder to tweek settings to reflect personal preferences as opposed to scenarios.

FO's also won't work once the radioman and observer are taken out, so make sure they hunker down safe and sound and don't get into a fire fight. Got caught out in a CW scenario where I had my FO in what I thought was a nice safe place, concealed, away from the action but with good line of sight. The first fighting that occurred was a German patrol stumbling across them and wiping them out. C'est la guerre.

Broken troops and bailed out AFV teams should definitely surrender more easily. In the former case, as others have stated, its no fun slaughtering headless chooks who run lemming like into fields of fire (they are panicked and scared yet when they see their comrades cut down in the open they neither surrender, seek cover or run the other way but run into the killing field) and in the latter case they currently tend to behave like assault troops once they've bailed out and pushing onto their objective sans AFV something made worse by the current modelling of pistols which make the way too effective. While some AFV teams might join in the assault most would head to rally points once they had bailed out, seeking to evade a fight. Why waste trained tank crews in infantry fighting?

The first scenario just sounds like playing the AI.

Where did the Krauts get all that fire support? I just don't enjoy 50 minutes of being mortared and shelled. I've played three times now and every time any promising move by my troops usually ends with a 81mm or arty round landing in the middle of them. That's if they've survived the traffic jam, which usually gets a round or two causing maximum casualties. No pioneers until half way through. Not enough fire support or prep given the toughness of the enemy positions. With only 50 minutes to achieve the objectives its very tough to do this without heavy casualties. I'd like to stick the designer of the campaign on Razorback Ridge for a few minutes with L Company.

This was a well designed campaign. Plenty of battles and even the tough ones were balanced enough so that you could see a way through them. Good mix of units. I fell sorry for the Glider Infantry though. They have the toughest battles and lack enough support early on, especially pioneer or engineer support to tackle that bocage.

Actually being sarcastic here. I paid $50 to get the CD shipped including postage. It took nearly two weeks to get here. It then took ages to load on my laptop using Windows Vista and then when I tried to play a scenario it loaded up but as soon as I tried to give an order on screen the game crashes. I can click on units and look around but as soon as I give an order that is it. So gaming experience has been fairly negative so far. Also the whole licensing (ie having to de-licence the CM:SF titles on one machine before loading on another) is yet another inconvenience Battlefront has thrown at honest customers who've paid their money. I'm sure hackers can get around it its just us mugs that have to engage in this rigmarole. While I'm here I'll also add that trying to access the Battlefront system (technical help/comments) is an increasingly inconvenient and time consuming business. I've got enough passwords and usernames in my life without having to remember two more for Battlefront (the account one and the forum one). As a customer whose has bought Battlefront products for ten years I feel the company's interaction with customers has deteriorated significantly from the early days. I really enjoyed the CM 1 titles and have persevered with CM:SF even though I find it a more frustrating series and the scenario design less friendly in the hope that Battlefront will continue developing cutting edge computer wargames. After my experience with CM:A I think I've about had it. My earlier good experience with CM 1 makes me hope that CM:N achieves this but not sure I'll have the incentive to find out. I've already shelved my plan to buy CM:NATO based on the quality of my CM:A experience. Cheers