Bulletpoint

I think you're on to something good, but if you try to show too much at the same time, the player won't see the detail. So I suggest you just go with the helmet and maybe the weapon. Helmets were pretty iconic in WW2; easy to see the difference between a US, British, and German helmet.

I believe the real difference is that the AI will never put its troops on hide orders. To get the benefit of the trench or foxholes the troops really need to be actively ducking down. This is also the reason slow-firing mortars (target light) will be more effective than quick-firing. Because the enemy will play whack-a-mole and get hit by every bomb while sitting upright. But of course it also takes longer time to slow-bomb a target.

In one of the Scottish Corridor missions (night music?) I had my guys hide in foxholes just before they were hit by a Nebelwerfer barrage. They got through it alright - a few casualties but very little compared to the size of those rockets. So I'd say definitely hide in foxholes if you think a barrage is incoming.

I guess those who have the full roster are the ones who have the vehicle pack? In that case, they took out the priest and the M8 from the base game and moved them to the vehicle pack? I don't mind that others can buy extra vehicles, that's great! But for BFC to take away the stuff that was in the base game.. is less great to put it nicely.

Thanks. Never knew this. It seems it would be so simple to go into the code base and clear that little offending check box. The game also has a similar problems about scenarios, where some scenarios are flagged for Market Garden dependency, even though the scenarios were made years before Market Garden was released. You can start QBs on these maps, but when trying to load the following savegame, it gives you an error message in red letters that MG is required.

Seems the thread you linked to was started 8th of March 2015? If so, we're about 3 months from the second anniversary of these bugs. I have no ill will against BFC, but it seems to me they bit off way more than they can chew having so many game families, modules, packs, with their associated code bases and patch versions in play at the same time.

Thanks for the info. Quite sad to see that these bugs are nearly two years old now. Not much hope for CMBN when new patches break old stuff that is then never fixed, or maybe fixed after several years.

My list looks like that of @user1000 with the only difference being that I don't have the AA halftracks (because I don't have the module that brings those). I only have CMBN and Commonwealth. But both M8 howitzer and the Priest should be part of the base game, unless I am mistaken.

I'm setting up a QB in September right now (type "mix", so there should be both infantry and armour available), and I'm positive there's no Priest when I select the "Armor only" tab and go to "Single vehicles".

Both vehicles are part of the base CMBN game; I've seen them in scenarios. There's one in The Road to Montebourg, and I've seen the M8 in a user-made scenario once. Just can't sem to find hem now. I read in a thread that it should be in the cavalry squadrons. But I don't see it there,

I don't have any such battery in my list, only these: Medium Tank Battalion Medium Tank Battalion (mixed) Light Tank Battalion Tank Destroyer Battalion Flail Company (which is empty, since I don't have the vehicle pack I guess) Forward Observer Section It's not under Single Vehicles either. I only have loads of various Shermans there, Stuarts, M10s, Halftracks, and Armored Utility Cars.

Also, why do cavalry squadrons have mortar sections?

I'm browsing through the options for setting up a quick battle, and I can't find the option to buy the 75mm M8 assault howitzer, nor the Priest anywhere. I read another thread that said the M8 is found in the Cavalry Squadron, but I can't find it there, despite trying various months. The Priest is also absent. I'm sure I'm doing something wrong, so please tell me what it is

I can't comment on this specific mission, but I know from designing scenarios that team sizes are a bit variable each time you start the scenario from the beginning. Also weapons load-out can vary a bit, for example sometimes scouts get SMGs, sometimes they get a rifle.

Well, those didn't change anything. But was worth a shot.

I think that in general, I would have liked more missions where you command smaller parts of the Kampfgruppe, with more limited objectives, rather than commanding the whole group at once.

I didn't like it either. So many waypoints to plot for the groups of trucks. And the "human wave style" attack seemed weird, at least in Normandy. More like an early war Russian attack. Also, I misunderstood the briefing and didn't pull back my forces in town before they were nearly destroyed. But of course it's not the fault of the scenario designer that I'm stupid Yes, I had to restart it several times halfway before I got it right. Which I never like to do, as it feels like cheating. But I thought it was an interesting scenario, and that in theory I could have won it on the first try if I had been smarter. I always like that kind of scenario, even if they are often very frustrating because I keep kicking myself for the mistakes I make. By the way, I think it's a bit much to expect the player to take all three objectives. I took two of them (bridge crossing and crossroads) and ceased fire, thinking I had earned a tactical victory now that the crossing and road ahead had been secured. But it only yielded a draw. Strangely I can't remember the final mission at all right now. Maybe it just seemed so hopeless that I ceased fire quickly? But I think I still got a campaign win overall.

I heard if you pit veterans against greens that scene from Private Ryan will play out

Yes, that's the ones. Thanks. Will send you a PM

In my attempts to fix my horrible shadow problems I came across some posts that said there was a "shader fix" that can be used for CMBN and CMFI. But the links for the files didn't work any more. Does anyone have the files please?

I believe I once read in some patch notes that the damage caused by WP had been reduced.

Yes, I think your approach is the only proper way to do it. I think the idea of a "sneak past the enemy at night" mission is good, it's just that there's no way for me as a player to see how dark it really is, and the briefing only says it takes place at 03:00. If the briefing had stated that "it's so dark you can't see your hand in front of your face", then I would have understood much better how to go about it. But still, if it's that dark, you can't realistically drive a tank through the landscape, and you can't really move about on foot either. Try running through a forest while blindfolded It was a good campaign for sure. I'd rate it 8/10 bulletpoints. Very well presented in briefings and overview maps, and the battle maps were also well done. Never played a campaign that was perfect; there are always hits and misses. The two missions that stood out for me were the first one and the one where you're crossing the Dives river.

I can follow your argument, but I come to the opposite conclusion actually. In most CM maps, the map itself is quite small, and the parts of it that offer both cover and useful LOS are at a premium. There will often only be space for 1 or 2 squads at the sharp end. At least in dense terrain maps, and if the map is very open, you generally don't want a lot of infantry anyway, because then the bigger guns dominate. I think it's worth having slightly fewer but vastly better guys occupying the places that actually make a difference. If your opponent lands 150mm artillery on you, you have a problem no matter what your troops are.

Ah right, that's true. The modules for Normandy are still very much Normandy with its endless hedgerows...

I bought the Commonwealth module to try my hand at the British forces, and they definitely play differently from the US "easy mode" army The Brits play like the worst of the German army (slow firing rifles, lack of proper platoon based mortar - what do you mean you only brought 12 rounds for this 50mm popcorn launcher?) combined with the worst of the US army (weak, slow, myopic WW1 style tanks). Add to that slow artillery call times, and you have the recipe for a good challenge. The bren gun is pretty good though and especially the bren carrier is the queen of the battlefield. The included campaign Scottish Corridor also has many good battles (and some less good, but let's focus on the positives here).