Bud Backer

Unfortunately the paucity of maps is something I’ve noticed in his other books, but we do have other sources for those. I’m glad you brought these two up. My interest is generally from 1942 on but it’s a nice change to revisit these earlier experiences. Thanks for the nudge to do so.

From a battle I have been playing in pre-R2V CMFI for months with a friend. It’s a huge complicated battle, starting in pre-dawn light and with rain. An early engagement led to him losing quite a lot of armour and infantry around a wooded hilltop that I was using as a place to park my reserves. My estimate is it cost him three to four Shermans, three to five Bren carriers, and probably a platoon and a half of infantry. I lost a Panzer III and a Tiger and one squad. I still have armour, artillery and infantry there. That was an unfortunate place for him to attack... A kilometre or two away, my main defensive position, a large town, falls under an exceptionally heavy artillery bombardment. This explosion is the result of a large artillery shell striking the roof of a Brumbar, as well as the detonation of on-board ammo. Never seen this in game before and the image isn’t doing the spectacular effect justice. Nevertheless you can see the blast is substantially taller than the four and five story buildings nearby. This is the scene after the blast dissipated. The Jagdpanzer IV in the foreground is operational and undamaged from the blast, but the hapless Brumbar, which is kept secreted totally out of sight, is visible (below the smoke plume and flames) in the giant crater beyond it. The blast appears to have knocked down an adjacent building as well. Men inside nearby buildings are cowering.

Banned for making a bug report, geez... Never heard of this bug either. Perhaps it’s not in CM...

Full games (non-demos) CMBN, CMRT, CMFI, CMBS, CMSF2, CMFB all work on MacOS Catalina. Several beta testers are using that OS.

Coffee going up the sinuses into the nose, or on the monitor and keyboard. Ahhh choices are what life is all about.

That was my experience after having CMBN and thinking, CMFI? Really? who cares? And now, I love it!

Heh. With a bit of searching the archives I can even see @MikeyD participating in those discussions so long ago. Good memory, sir, good memory indeed. Quite a number of threads on this and related topics.

I’ve done COOP play in CM and other games. It’s entirely workable, as long as both players can function truly collaboratively. That was never a problem for me. Yes we had disagreements on strategies but we resolved them and continued. The reward of doing something together with a friend far outweighs any minor debate.

I’ve done COOP play in CM and other games. It’s entirely workable, as long as both players can function truly collaboratively. That was never a problem for me. Yes we had disagreements on strategies but we resolved them and continued. The reward of doing something together with a friend far outweighs any minor debate.

Ditto.

They were devastatingly effective in a PBEM battle I did some months ago. And I had only a limited number of them so it’s not that I could afford to volley fire dozens. Broken? Not convinced. Not by a long shot.

I understand your point of view, and it’s not peculiar reasoning. The positive out of this situation however is that the upgrades recommended are inexpensive AND will vastly improve the quality of play-experience. Hopefully that is adequate consolation you’re getting something of value out of it all, especially if you’re hoping to play PBEM games.

this is terrific, thank you so much for doing these!

QB is definitely my favourite way to experience CM. There are many quality maps in these games and when plaything against a human, it's a rewarding experience. I often will tweak a map to present a bigger or alternative challenge to that posed by the original designer, which only increases one's options dramatically.

@IanL this is one of the nice things about playing against a friend - you can have rational discussions about your own performance and not have to grandstand about how well you did. Hence us both feeling like we lost to the other. I’m looking forward to a debrief on this when we get together for brunch.

Yes, as I am the one losing in our marathon CMRT battle! LOL

What @Bulletpoint said is largely how I use them. Essentially they are a mobile, lightly armoured version of the smaller German infantry gun and quite handy. I use the latter when I can’t get the Stummel, but when possible, I usually buy a couple of Stummels to support each infantry company. I find them more useful on the offence than the defence, where I can take advantage of their mobility and that their armour will keep their crews alive where an infantry gun would be much slower and more vulnerable.

Not to worry. RL stuff has kept Ian and I busy but we are slowly exchanging turns and will resume.:) But I’m glad you like these little vignettes too!

True. Even on some large maps there can be sightlines that allow for some entertaining long range gunnery practice. Now with a nice 88 that is a gift indeed.

I think I liked my narrative better!

So he’s ignoring the wee enemy tank behind him to shoot his (wisely) fleeing comrades in the back? Guess he’s gonna get what he deserves!

That’s cool info, @IanL! Never knew that.

I started with CMBN years ago, and then CMRT to have some eastern front action. CMFI was sort of an odd choice for me, I wasn’t that keen on Italy as a WW2 experience. But over time, its versatility, with an early period (1943) and a good assortment of nations to play and most of all, the QB maps that were really intriguing... I think it’s become my a favourite. Despite my original lack of enthusiasm for it. I’m pretty sure you will have a LOT of fun with this.