Krilly

I went to the Bovington tankfest in 2009 and it was a blast! Two days of scouring the museum, oogling tanks riding all over the place, watching mock battles and chatting with re-enactors. Great fun, I recommend it to any trackhead out there. 2010 tankfest synopsis 2011 tankfest announcement; http://www.tankmuseum.org/ixbin/indexplus?record=ART2815&_IXMENU_=news_and_events

Basically what Micheal said. I feel that smoke for vehicles was not as common as it is now, standard smoke dischargers appeared in the later part war for the germans for example. In the QB all the shermans popped smoke after being fired upon. Although interesting from a game standpoint, I wonder if it really was such an ingrained reaction in ww2 already. I seem to recall reading more about allied armor shooting smoke then popping smoke. All this from gut feeling, not backed by research

In all honesty, from the aar's and previews it feels that units in CMBN are a bit to 'modern' at using smoke. We'll see how it is in the full game though.

Oh the memories. I played that demo for more hours then some full games.

This. No more elite panzers just because they are 'ze germanz'. No more shermans exploding just at the hint of german armor. More interesting battles based on mathematical facts and research. Bring on CMBN god damnit

Quick! Someone ask an interesting question about market penetration so we get more interesting quotes from Steve .

No it's not, it's the sound of hundreds of refreshing monkeys training their mouseclicking fingers.

Jay! Cash send and refreshing monkey at the ready!

To be clear. The preview was about the full game and it was clear work was not yet fully completed. The date of the release or demo is anyone's guess at the moment, we'll just have to wait for an official BF statement about that.

Ok, guess I will kick it off. Can't believe it's been a week a already. I want to play the damn thing for real now. Anyways the preview. First I like to thank Dave and Jurrie again, it was very nicely organized and Dave his enthousiasm was infectious. Also, I liked meeting so many CM enthousiast and all the 'groggy talk' that went around. I will come back to some impressions I jotted down about the game the day after and comment on them; -Graphics are great, especially fog/smoke effects. -Vehicles are a joy to look at when they are moving/aiming/firing. -Randomization with clutter on the vehicles is very nice. -Graphic performance seemed very smooth, even with lots of infantry and vehicles around (on a laptop). -Very nice to see that all vehicles sport the same ammo schemes. (Less chaotic then in original cmbo). In the looks department all seems fine :-). We still saw some unskinned vehicles (M8, StuH42) but not many. More importantly, those that were skinned looked very pretty indeed. I remember Bart starting up a map just to look at all the main german armor and we all stood there drooling at them for a bit. A tiger moving about, firing his gun and rocking slightly. Jummy! I saw smoke effects on many occasions (airstrikes, arty, vehicles and infantry popping smoke) and it looked very pretty indeed. The overall look of the game is gorgeous, especially if you zoom in on the action. Oh and I almost forgot, I saw that the Sd.Kfz. 251/7 is moddeled with its distinctive bridge pieces :-D -Airstrikes rock! :-D -On board mortars firing are a joy to behold. -it's a bit of a pain to see which on board mortar you are plotting for with a HQ, right until you plot the actual mission. One scenario we played head to head involved americans assaulting a german entrenched position. It involved some air support and plenty of onboard mortars for the amis. Since the volume was crancked up nicely and the american side was showing on the beamer, we got to witness this awesome firepower like we were in a cinema. Needless to say the sights and sounds of airstrikes are impressive. Also mortars firing on map are a joy since you can see your own rounds arcing over. What I found slightly annoying however, that with multiple mortars I couldn't tell which mortar on the map I was plotting for with my HQ. Only when the target was selected I could tell by the targetting line. Maybe it was inexperience with the CMx2 engine here. -Arty/CAS chatter is still cmsf and way to modern. -Small arms sounds were a bit flat, except for the 50cal so it seemed. MG34/42 was not impressive soundwise. I was told there was still quite some work te be done in the sound department. The .50 firing sounded like the beast I reckon it to be but stuff like the 'MG34/42' firing still sounded a bit flat to me. -Realtime not so hard as I thought. -UI improved? I remember dowloading the CM:FS ages ago and being put off by the UI. But with the CM:BN demo I just sat down behind a laptop, fired up a QB and started to play. On RT no less. And I had no problems with it! Ok, I used ESC a lot, like the gamey bastard I am, but I mean I was able to play the game without a hich in RT without having a real problem with the UI whatsoever. I dont know if anything has changed or it was me wanting to really play it. Just a funny observation. QB The QB generator has so many options I was a bit overwhelmed. Most promising is that it lets you either cherry pick a force or let's you autopick one. Also being able to manually pick a QB map of which Jurrie told me there are 'close to a 100' is very promising. The QB map I ended up playing was very nice and interesting (some bocage fields, a walled orchard and a small farm as objective) and made for an interesting game. Scenario joys. We saw quite some scenario's go by as we were playing and I dont want to spoil to much of it. One that was mentioned a lot already is a scenario based on 'Barkman's Corner' which was a lot of fun. A lot of unsurported shermans going head to head with german infantry and a lone Panther. Carnage Another scenario which looked interesting was already being played by Bart when I stepped in. It involved an american attack on an german held farm + surrounding area. It seemed to dissolve in a number of small interesting skirmishes. As I remember, Jurrie mentioned it was based on 'Dead Man's Corner' for you Grogs out there. Overall the scenario's I saw were promising but still ondergoing testing. We actually had some discussion on how to make scenario's interesting from the defender's point of view. All in all I walked away from the preview with the feeling CM:BN is going to be a blast. I didn't for a minute miss all the stuff we woried about on the boards (flames, AA, more vehicles), it's just that the stuff that is in is done well and looking pretty. I seriously think that CM:BN is going to rock the gaming world again like CMBO did in its day. It was certainly looking that way on the previews.

Nice pictures. Too bad my camera whimped out otherwise we would have had an awesome photo of fried sausages as well :-(.

Oh yeah! That was hilarious, we were zoomed in on a hanomag (drooling over the graphics) while some americans were laying in pinned/shaken pretty close, all of a sudden one of the hanomag crew stands up and begins unloading his sidearm at the poor ami's . I think he scored some casualties as well. Those germans were triggerhappy for sure! Aah, so much fun stuff happened it is hard to remember it all even now :eek: Another one; a bottuned stug was sitting on a small ridge looking down on a road where american halftracks zoomed by handing the stugs a turkey shoot. While we were admiring the random differences in schürzen between the stugs (there was one without, and one with),suddenly the crew pops up and the loader squeezes off a burst of mg fire at the american troops and the gun fell silent. 'Oh yeah' Jurrie says dryly 'on a stug the loader can either load the gun or man the roof MG, but not both at the same time.' My heart cheered a little at the level on detail on that one.

At home at last :-) first off, it was all nicely organized. There was a big ass beamer set up for those not able to play, and there were 3 machines to play cm:bn on, David and Jurrie had it setup beautifully. Great work guys. How was cm;bn? It is smashtastic :-). You have all seen the pretty screenshots, but swooping down The camera to streetlevel will give you 'Movielike scenes' like every time. It is a joy to see squads move about, acting natuarly and seeking cover. Infantry movement and combat feels very organic and I think it will likely be here that cm:bn Will show the greatest improvement in relation to the cmx1 series. Oh and the vehicles look great :-). We spend some time oogling vehicles, and especially the little variations like shurzen are nice. Trackheads rejoice because they look great We spend some time playing some evil scenario's, a score made by David and Jurrie themselves. There are some surprises, which I will not spoil, but the scenario's gave us the opportunity to see a lot of interesting tactical situations, and of course for them to see a live test of their work. Some remarks; panthers cream shermans, stugs like to turkeyshoot halftracks, and airstrikes sound and look awesome. :-D. The QB is a blast and I solo-played one against the AI on a very pretty pre-made map, in the fog. I played an mechanized american force with some greyhounds, halftracks and m8's against unknown german forces. It turned out to be a german mechanized force as well and in the end there quite some burning greyhounds and hanomags on the field. I had a blast. Oh, and the QB let's you cherrypick or autopick, it's nice. We encountered some problems as well, head to head suffered from some networking problems and we encountered a German bunker which couldn,t be supressed with even with half the american army firing at it. But I am sure those will be adressed soonish. All in all the game feels very close to finished, it is stunnningly beautifull at times, feels very realistic and above all is a blast to play. Damnit I wants to have it. I wants it now! My precious....

Head to head is going fine. Bart staged very well excuted attack on the Woods and Germans are getting à sound trashing.

Quick update We're having great fun so far. The game is looking great and a blast to play already. So many impressions Airstrikes are bloody impressive! Just started a head to head but suffering some network problems ATM.:eek::confused:

@wodin: escapism is a powerful tool, we humans tendens to forget that living in the moments has its own merits. Here's hoping CM:BN gibes you all the escapism you need

Did someone mention a release date?

Great! I'll be bringing Sukerbole (suikerbrood) from Friesland.

Indeed, may I mention 'Overloon'? I am sure many of us Will work on some scenario's when it comes out.

Nice read. This part really got me laughing as I could picture the carnage and frustration ;

A drunk rune dancing naked on a tabletop? Some QB goodness! Give gory details!

If you are looking to get to know more about the organisation and 'hardware' of The german and US forces I recommend you pick up the 'army handbook's. Especially * The german 'army handbook is a real gem. The us handbook is a bit light but a decent start at getting to know us forces in WW2. http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-German-Military-Forces-Department/dp/0807120111 http://www.amazon.com/Army-Handbook-1939-1945-George-Forty/dp/0750920505

Agreed, the uniforms look great.

Two titles which I enjoyed and I think are interesting reading in regards to a CM:BN type game are Infantry Tactics by Stephen Bull and Panzertaktik from Wolfgang Schneider. Althougn I love The Schneider book I recognize it is not for everyone as it is rather picture heavy. But both books are quite informative about small unit tactics in WWII. http://www.amazon.com/Infantry-Tactics-Second-General-Military/dp/1846032822 http://www.amazon.com/Panzer-Tactics-German-Small-Unit-Armor/dp/0811732444/ref=pd_sim_b_1 Edit: choose Amazon liNks for the 'look inside feature' which helps in getting a 'sneak preview' of the books.