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Just checking this thread to see how your shopping list is shaping up. The only game on that list I have in my collection is Alexander. Like you I am also looking forward to Pacific War; it is one of my grail games, been looking forward to the reprint for a long time. Not sure about the other ones. But I wanted to point out something I think you are probably figuring out on your own. Most of the "lightweight" wwii tactical games you are considering are not likely to bring anything new to the table if you're a long time experienced CM player. It can be a fun change of pace, an interesting side dish but I don't see how they are going to feel too satisfying for you unless you pick something that's either really in depth and detailed or that deals which another theatre, scale or era. CC for instance, to me it feels almost like a euro game, more than a proper simulation. Like I said, it can be fun and entertaining, in a refreshing sort of way to play something lighter but I doubt you will learn anything new. Again I hesitate to recommend Fields of Fire, but at least you know you will learn something here because of its angle and the way it portrays elements that CM barely touches : command and control. And my advice is to stay well clear of Memoir 44 unless you want something you can play with your son or nephew. It is very very lightweight.

Empire of the Sun is really really good. Yes anything by Simonitch. It hits the sweet spot between rules complexity and simulation level as far as operational wargames are concerned. I can't rate these games highly enough. The scale and the counter density is just right (well maybe slightly less so for Stalingrad), the rules are clearly worded and tight, the maps are easy to read and very clean looking . It is one of the designers I was thinking of when I was talking about master craftsmen of the hobby. Ukraine '43 and Ardennes '44 in particular are amazing. I haven't got Stalingrad '42 yet but I am thinking of purchasing it. I don't really have enough room to set up a 3 mapper though so I wouldn't be able to play the full campaign but there is a separate Case Blue and a Uranus scenario too. Another option would be A Victory Lost, also on the Russian Stalingrad counter offensive and Manstein's famous backhand blow. This one is a gem, a very elegant design with only a dozen pages of rules but might be out of print sadly. If you can get a copy though, it would be the perfect introduction. For grand tactical, personally I delved a bit into the Tactical Combat Series from MMP and it is interesting but I wouldn't recommend it unless you know what you're getting yourself into.

Now I can try to answer the other part of your question. Are tactical wwii tabletop wargames obsolete if you also play CM? It is tempting to say yes because CM scratches the same itch without having to burden yourself with reading and learning a 40 pages rulebook (or a lot more for ASL) and it probably models most aspects of infantry and tank combat much better. Let's just take armor penetration for instance. You're clearly not going to have the same level of detail with a 6 sided die or even a 10 sided die than a computer algorithm gives you. The PC simulation is going to be much more fine grained and accurate provided it is fed the right data. There is something to be said about poring over a good old fashioned paper map though instead of staring at a computer screen. And even though it sounds a tad quaint, it has its appeal especially if you already spend a long time in front of a screen for your job for instance. The tactile aspect too is not completely irrelevant : rolling the die, fiddling with counters etc. You'd think it is in a lots of ways a throwback to a bygone era and just nostalgia but you'd be surprised by how popular tabletop wargames have become in the last 10 years. There is actually a golden age of tabletop wargaming these days caused by a generation of grognard designers who have grown up in the heydays of the hobby in the 70's and who have now reached some sort of peak after having honed their skill for so long. New designers too are coming up with LOTS of new systems and there is plenty of innovation with the addition of cards (to add political elements or randomness), impulse movement (you only activate and move a part of your total force, usually a formation then your opponents does the same), and even simply doing away with the hex grid which is replaced by a point to point system or simply areas etc... Now if you're purely interested in wwii tactical then it'd be a hard sale to try to convince someone that tabletop is better I have to admit. I have stopped playing ASL the day I discovered CM. Mostly because the rules overhead doesn't translate into a more realistic simulation. Sometimes though, I feel like CM scale is too constraining. You might want to expand your horizons and command several battalions instead of a company or two for instance. What if instead of trying to capture a village, you want to cross a major river and encircle a whole enemy division? That's why I mostly play operational or grand tactical wargames these days. They scratch a different itch and there is no doubt in my mind that tabletop wargaming does it better at that scale than computer games. No it is not the same at all. They don't attempt to simulate the same elements. There is a lot of micro management in CM, sometimes it feels too much of it. In Fields of Fire you are clearly in the boots of the company commander only. You pick the avenue of approach, you allocate assets to the different platoons, set up a base of fire, reserves, decide when to push, when to disengage, when to launch the assault, where to setup an evacuation spot for casualties etc... you don't pick the exact piece of cover you want the men of the first platoon to use; you tell them to head for this built up area or this patch of wood but not behind which tree trunk they need to hide. It is zoomed out. It doesn't mean that there are no hard decisions to make, it is just not on the same level. For instance your soldiers once they open fire will keep firing and in order to tell them to cease fire, you either need to have your XO there or use pyrotechnics, a red flare for cease fire for instance. It is all about orders and command and control. You can give a limited number of orders each turn. But you can set up a sop at the beginning with the different flares and colored smokes at your disposal for when you are not in range or when you run out of command points and your troops will react according to the pre-planned orders. You also have handheld radios, field telephones whose lines can't be damaged by artillery thus severing your communication network, you can dispatch runners etc. It is a deep game but a bit involved. I haven't tried these rewritten rules. But I'd say if you are interested just go for it. It is a good mental workout and I see you already know about bgg. It is a rather popular game so you won't get stuck if you have a problem, someone will probably already have asked the same question somewhere. I mean the rules are not easy but it is nothing impossible. The box is jam packed full of components, cards, counters and rulebooks but it fits just fine.

I play tabletop wargames from time to time, but not so much wwii tactical. I have Fields of Fire though. It is a good game, I think the designer is serving in the Marine Corps and he has published several wargames; his Musket & Pike series is very good. I have the first edition covering Normandy, Korea and Vietnam, not the one about the Pacific theatre that you are interested in but it is the same rules really. The game deals with command and control issues with some interesting and unique mechanisms. It is not at all like ASL and takes a much broader view of the topic, putting you in the shoes of a company commander. The "board" is actually made of rows of cards that you pick randomly according to scenario instructions. One of the Hue scenarios below : I hesitate to recommend it as your first foray into tabletop wargaming because the rules are a bit of a mess to be honest even though this is technically the third edition. It is not for the faint hearted and you should be prepared to invest a lot of time browsing the game forums trying to decipher the finer points of the ruleset and be ready to face lots of ambiguous situations. But it is a rewarding game, eminently replayable that models elements of command and control and company level engagements that almost no other wargame tackles. edit : Oh and I forgot to mention that it is a purely solo game. The enemy is setup on the board and reacts on its own without you having to play both sides if you don't have an opponent.

Yes only 100 rounds of 7.62X54R for airborne PKMs, that's disappointing. For mech airborne, they can acquire more ammo from vehicles but the pure infantry airborne are a bit screwed.

Oh I see, patch notes don't tell the whole story then. This is great. Good job!

Nice. What about Syrian airborne though? You couldn't pick them in quick battles or something. I forgot what the exact issue was with them.

I like Hapless : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9egpHJiRis89uHkeyJiEug

JasonC regularly posts on Boardgamegeek. He is into tabletop wargames these days, mostly the operational kind I think. Just register there and try contacting him, he'll probably reply. He has a rare quality : he is incredibly knowledgeable AND actually enjoys sharing what he knows. Sure he was abrasive, didn't play nice with others, was blunt, didn't suffer fools gladly and would call you an imbecile at the drop of a hat. Yet he possessed incredible insights on military history and tactics and the forum was a lot more interesting when he was around.

Good job dude.

Yes actually this isn't even a proper road, it is just a foot path really. I don't know how much it reduces bogging chances but it is probably minimal. Also it is barely visible normally without snow, which how I first did the map. I usually take great care not to have jagged roads but in this case you should just drive your vehicles in a straight line along the path and not bother about all the little twists and turns.

Thanks for taking the time to give some feedback. This is really useful for me. Concerning AI plans, yes there is not much in the way of AI plans in this battle. With a map of this size, it gives the attacker a lot of freedom; you can decide to attack toward the centre, left, wide left, right and wide right. But on the flip side, so much freedom makes it impossible to predict the movements of the attacking force. So rather than having the defender launch blind counter-attacks with several plans in the hope that one might connect, I decided to have them stay static. Also personally, I find that in most cases when I play a scenario against the AI, counter-attacks usually make my job easier as the attacker because they often just get slaughtered in the open, in the case of infantry in particular. You got unlucky to have a vehicle bog down with these ground conditions. I picked frozen ground on purpose because the single tank is kind of crucial to the success of the attack and I didn't want it to get immobilized. I think I must have played this scenario 4-5 times to test it and never had a vehicle bog. But hey that's part of the fun, friction and all. Good point about the placement of doors. I have thought about this problem before. This might lead me to change my mapping technique a bit in the future.

I was thinking Poland would make the most sense too. I'd love to see these armies in a future game though. France and Israel would fit in SF2. China I don't know, there is Taiwan but it is pretty limited in scope and it feels like the whole affair would be decided at sea and in the air.

Right yes it won't be historical. We don't have the right models of tanks, lots of equipment is missing and it won't be a battalion sized force like in reality. And even if we had all these things available in the editor, I am not sure it would be possible to portray this type of fighting accurately anyway. Too little is known about the battle. The time frame would be hard to reproduce. Real engagements are much more slow paced. And the way I understand it, these clashes are much more about long range firefights with one side pulling back early before getting within small arms range, without house to house fighting. But it won't stop me from trying to make something fun and interesting. It will be like what you sometimes see on television "based on real events". The map is as accurate as I could make it though, just think of the scenario as a bonus.

Thanks. Let me know what you thought about it when you're done : whether it was too easy, too hard, if you found it interesting and it was fun or not. I am working on part II. Hopefully I can make it a bit closer to the real events than part I which is fictional.

True but it is a bit unfair to compare the two though. Mark Ezra has to make hundreds of QB maps for each game. He can't spend weeks or months on a map like some scenario designers do.

Welcome back. I remember you had a good looking reskinned panzer in CM1. At least that's what I think it was. But I definitely remember your name.

I hope that that this can be added to the game, probably in CM3. Weren't there rumours or an official word from Steve that they were working with a military? I forgot which one it was. It doesn't seem impossible that they would have some specifics requirements and have Battlefront modify the game engine to add some features. This might be one of them if they use CM as a training tool, it would make sense. Also having a "game master" or a referee that could observe and spawn stuff on the fly, a bit like they do in Arma.

You sort of can. Unmask a unit, cancel its covered arc then give a fire order, pause 30 seconds and give a quick or fast move order to pull back. If the timing is not right or a cloud of dust or what not gets in front of the unit then the ambush will be blown though. But yes especially in modern warfare, it often feels like this is the only way to stay alive. Repositioning otherwise you're toast. And often it is not a matter of minutes but seconds.

Yes this is what I want the most too in the next module, fairly low tech stuff like DShKs, ZU-23s, BRM-1s and GRAD launchers rather than the latest developments in tank technology. Well ideally both of course but if I'd have to pick it'd be real stuff that actually saw some action on the field. How are air assault units equipped differently than what we have at our disposal now?

Thanks. By the way Haiduk, you should go ahead with your project. I doubt too many people who play CMBS know more about this war than you. And you shouldn't worry too much about being 100% accurate. If the tactical situations are interesting and you manage to capture the feel of the conflict, that's good enough even if you don't have the exact model of tank.

Heh no one is arguing that cover and basic tactics don't matter. Not sure what good it does to reduce our position to a caricature. Not sure either why you appear to take this personally to be honest because this isn't about you. It is about a mistake some people make. Being so reluctant to attack over open ground that they systematically take the cover no matter how crappy or obvious it is. I have seen it several times and it wasn't against the AI. All I am arguing is this : If the drive for cover is so strong that you become a/ predictable or b/ bunched up as a result, then the alternative, attacking over open ground is -sometimes- preferable and it is not something to be feared or avoided at all cost. It is perfectly feasible, albeit clearly not ideal and a bit painful. I don't see what's so controversial about this. This is just pointing out a potential pitfall that some people fall into. That's all.

Damn, that's funny. Maybe a pity to be both working on the same area though. Yes you're right; you have to be a bit creative for the industrial areas, it is not easy. There are lots of pictures on google earth and wikimapia though, it helps a lot. Here is a good link. This is what gave me the idea to map it. https://medium.com/dfrlab/minskmonitor-ukraine-takes-control-of-village-near-horlivka-54f29260b5c0

Hmm yes you probably need 8GB to be comfortable. I don't know why I said Horlivka, my bad. Well I have one of the Gagarin mine near Chyhari that I will probably try to finish next. But I meant Vuhlehirsk.

Maybe with crack troops with ATGMs versus low motivation low quality separs but yes I don't think I'll ever do Dzerzhynsk, built up areas takes a super long time to map the way I do it. I have a Horlivka map half done but I don't think I'll ever be able to finish it. If you have some other interesting areas in mind though feel free to suggest them.