Derfel 2nd

Late to the party but just want to chime in with the choir praising this news! As an old fart who did national service 81-82 and then spent basically then spent basically the entire rest of the 80's playing Frank Chadwicks "Assault" boardgame I am so very much looking forward to this. If you want to keep pace with the Assault series the additions to the basic game were: Boots and Saddles -Primarily American Cavalry units Cheiftain- Army of the Rhein -What it says on the tin, seem to recall belgian and dutch units made an apperance as well. Bundeswehr -West German forces Reinforcements -Bits and bobs from various Nato units. All expansions came with Warsaw pact units as well, including some speculative ones. Finally, people who complain about the GRG (Swedish; "Granatgevär" i.e the "Carl Gustav") should be cast out to the nether regions, where there is darkness and great nashing of teeth... It is without doubt the best weapon to issue from the loins of the Swedish manufactury of arms. If Charles XII had GRGs at Poltava, things would have gone very differently, just saying...

Yeah, the artillery (the organic 120 mm mortars) got left out in a couple of scenarios, even though the briefing stated they would be there. Finished the campaign and must say it was an absolute hoot, I blush to admit that I had to scum-save my way through at least two battles, but I'll blame that on those missing mortars...

SPOILER ALERT!!! This is a thread where I moan about a particularly irritating situation in one of the scenarios in the "Charge of the Stryker Brigade". If you haven't played it you might want to stay away. OK, so I come to the scenario "Rockets red glare"; arriving with some scouts and not much else, enemy (red force) units in company strength move up and occupy positions very near the map edge closest to where my scouts arrived. Then my first reinforcements arrive/materialise right in front of the enemy positions and are of course instantly annihilated. So, ten minutes in and I'm down an entire Stryker platoon... somehow I doubt this was the scenario designer's intent... I could be wrong... Anybody else noticed this?

My sentiments exactly; I suppose you stand with the Sens, you have my sympathies, having supported the Rangers and the Leafs for bleeding decades I feel your pain... So [raises glass] here's to speedy development whether it be patches or trade deals.

Amen to that brother, Amen to that. (or "So Say We All" for the nerdier folks). After all these years I still get a kick from remembering the guys insisting that ASL and it's ilk were SO much better and entertaining than any wretched computer game, firing up CMBO and watching their jaws thudding to the ground...

Allright; just to pass the time I'm opening a betting book on this; What will come first, the NHL trade deadline or The CM patches?

Thanks Steve! Good to know that it wasn't anything bad (i.e personal) that kept you away from the board, as I said in another thread there's all sorts of shaite that life can fling at you once you hit a certain age. Looking forward to the new stuff whenever it arrives!

Well, now it feels like the old Board again, people arguing furiously about Bren guns... Also a bit over-zealus defence of the company, a bit of hyperbole on the side of the complainers, and to top it off someone who doesn't believe in Charles and Steve's existence... makes me feel young again. All that aside, this silence on the issue of the patch and the complete lack of updates on the website is a tad worrying. I couldn't care less about the patch issues in comparison to the idea that the guys who has given me endless hours of entertainment for the last 20 years are in trouble in some way, since most of us here are in 'middle-age' we know what a lot of **** that life can throw at you once you hit 40 or thereabouts. So, here's hoping it's just that the patch is turning out to be a right clusterbuck to adjust and that's all.

I see. That's a little sad.

So, being of a rather lazy disposition I decided to use a map part of one of the scenarios of the battle pack as the base for an upcoming little h2h tournament. Now, at least one of the players in the tournament is too cheap... er... economically minded... to buy more than just CMBN. Well, usually no trouble, thanks to the nifty spacebar command in the unit editor I can avoid using units from any other module. To my immense annoyance I find that this sort of recycling of maps (well, part of the map) is apparently not possible, something keeps insisting that the scenario demands the battle pack. I removed all units, same result, getting interested and more annoyed I subsequently removed all buildings, then replaced all terrain with dirt, finally I removed everything, bridges, roads... It still insists on requiring the damned Battle Pack! So, now I've spent more time investigating this than it would have taken me to slap together an map of my own, but I'm still bewildered. Are those scenarios/maps tagged in some way that is inaccessible to the private scenario designer? If so, that is mildly alarming as it would indicate a drift toward more restricted access to pre-produced material, something that I would hate to see, as the possibility to edit, re-use and convert published scenarios has always been a very strong point in the CM system of games. Of course I'm not suggesting that all vehicles and buildings should be available from modules that you haven't acquired, but the maps...?

Friends! Romans! Scenario designers! I come not to drivel about some dead roman dude, but to make a proposal about how we describe mode of play in our scenario descriptions. Primus; The scenario designer should always include a mode of play description in the primary information. That is the info that can be seen when scrolling thru the scenario menu. Secundus; There shall be four, and ONLY FOUR possible descriptions. Namely: 'Playable in all modes', 'Playable as H2H only', 'Playable as Allied vs AI', or 'Playable as Axis vs AI'. Possibly, if you want to sound less peremptory we can agree on 'Recommended play as Allied vs AI', 'Recommended play as Axis vs AI', Recommended Play as H2H' or 'Playable in all modes'. So, what say ye? Shall we stand and be standardized or be forever and confusingly sundered?

OK, I'm shoving this in here but I might also start a separate thread. I have request/wish/begging on bare knees... Is there any way to make the descriptive text of the vehicles appear in white to contrast with the dark background, I don't know about others but even on my 26 inch screen the text below the vehicles seem blurred and all but unreadable. For example look at Juju's preview pics (see the thread about Juju's UI), compare the text under the tank destroyer with the text under the mortar in his later preview pic. If this is possible it would really remove an PITA for me, and maybe others. Juju informs me that the colour of the text is hard coded so it can't, or at least shouldn't be modded. So please?

*Sigh* I feared 'twas so. Thanks for the info. I guess the only recourse is to pray to the CM gods for change... STEVE! CHARLES! ANYONE? I CAN'T SEE THE SODDING DESCRIPTIONS! PLEASE FIX OR DO SUMFINK!

Superb work as usual Juju. I have request/wish/begging on bare knees... Is there any way to make the descriptive text of the vehicles appear in white to contrast with the dark background, I don't know about others but even on my 26 inch screen the text below the vehicles seem blurred and all but unreadable. For example look at your preview pics, compare the text under the tank destroyer with the text under the mortar in your later preview pic. If this is possible it would really remove an PITA for me, and maybe others.

CMRT Forum? Bah! Details. I can be equally confused and confusing in any Forum. In fact I started this thread here because I really wanted some of the Farm FOs from CMRT for use in CMBN, as it turned out I got all I wanted and more. I'll happily take on any collaboration as long as it doesn't involve any... you know... work. As for knocked out tanks as FOs I think that would be useful, especially if they really look knocked out, as noted above there is a point in putting up vehicles from a previous battle as FOs rather than adding them from the Unit selector in the editor. I'm going to abstain from commenting on the whole modtagging debate as I don't know squat about modtagging. Whenever we have a multiplayer tournament (or just a h2h game) I just prepare a modfolder that all players download and use during the games. There's probably a better way of doing this, but it works, so I ain't fixing what works.