A BLOODY RIDE campaign feedback *SPOILERS*

[Erwin]

Finished battle #3, and it was another terrific scenario with surprises and new challenges that definitely made sure each mission so far has not been "cookie cutter." It's fun to have some heavy arty at ones disposal as well.

The last campaign I played, Die Letzte Hoffnung, is also a very enjoyable/challenging and highly recommended campaign. But, I think I am enjoying ABR even more - possibly because the ABR maps are larger and there are more opportunities for inf flanking - even though with the lack of engineers again, the tanks and halftracks are forced to stay close to the road. The replacements in ABR are somewhat better so that one doesn't feel that one is getting bled dry. Also, since the ground is dry, there are far fewer frustrating immobilizations than in Hoffnung.

What makes a battle of campaign really good imo is when one gets the feeling that good tactics are rewarded and that one is being a good CO - it's the verisimilitude that counts.

On to battle #4.

[Wodin]

I'm playing a scenario at the moment (Sie Amis Kommen 2, I think it's called that). Once finished I will be playing Bloody Ride.

[Mr.X]

Hey Erwin,

glad to hear, you have managed the third mission successfully I am very interested in your next results. I also read your spoilers about the CMA-mission ROAF and I hope the start of the commonwealth module will prevent boredom. At the moment I´m creating a new campaign about the fighting for Cambes (12.SS Hitlerjugend) and these map is definitely large enough

Regards

Frank

[Erwin]

One of the aspects of ABR I am really enjoying is that inf recon really pays off.

My inf have foiled cunning inf and ATG ambushes, and have also managed to spot enemy TD's that are also cleverly placed. I usually get a FO to where recon inf has LOS to them and use arty to damage/button em up. Either the arty does em in or they don't spot the Panthers when they sneak up and prang them.

Actually, I have been so successful at spoiling the US ambushes and keeping my own armor alive and well in this campaign, that I even start to wonder if maybe the US TD's etc. are not positioned cleverly enuff. Like, is this too easy?

However, I do feel as a piece of entertainment, ABR is perhaps the best so far as I feel (so far) that I have comfortably sufficient forces to accomplish the missions.

Fighting desperately with inadequate forces and/or getting massacred by enemy arty as experienced in COURAGE AND FORTITUDE is great for learning how to play. But, it's not as much fun as campaigns like HOFFNUNG and ABR.

[Erwin]

So, in the first 30 minutes of Battle 4, lots of surprises and challenges (again).

What has worked is my SOP tactic of sending out the onmap inf platoons as recon on both flanks, while being very cautious about moving up the primary road.

The recon discovered 3 sets (so far) of enemy scouts that I was able to flank and kill with maybe a couple friendly casualties. The real prize has been getting LOS to 5 TD's situated in ambush positions focused on the road.

I always start each scenario with preregistered bombardment with my 105mm and 220mm delayed for 15 minutes, since this gives accurate fire on potential enemy locations out of LOS. However, now I cancel or adjust these as I send my two FO's to my scouts' positions to get LOS to the TD's.

There are two TD's close together on the left and one gets blowed up good around 20 minutes into the scenario. On the safe assumption that his neighbor is stunned, I send a Panther to a road position that seems safe from the other TD's and it kills the 2nd. However, something KO's its main gun. Replacing with a 2nd PzV it takes out a truck and recon vehicle, but again, gets a gun hit(!) from some unseen weapon. So, two Panthers out of 5 on the map so far with no main gun.

On my right flank my 2nd FO is adjusting 220mm fire on a third TD, when a large blast lands nearby and lightly wounds a bunch of guys. I think damn that's a lousy spotting round. But, next turn it's actually enemy FFE on my position, and these seem like big guns. I lose about 8 guys including the FO. That is bad. As the bug in CMBN means I cannot stop the 220mm adjustment and there is no one to spot for it.

This one of the times when the game system has screwed me that I consider it justified for a player to redo that turn and having the FO and the other FAST move away from the enemy impact zone. But, so far I have soldiered on...

My plan now is to use the surviving FO to KO each TD in turn, but that will mean moving him to different locations and a lot of waiting for FFE. In the meanwhile, my inf will conduct very cautious probing on the flanks to see what else is out there.

Again, a wonderfully different scenario from the previous 3, and am enjoying this campaign very much.

I don't know if it was a choice re "realism" or what but the tactic of always using preset bombardment for arty available at set-up, seems almost too easy and gamey. I would suggest that (unless it is a deliberate design choice) that arty arrive as a turn 2 reinforcement.

[Mr.X]

Hey Erwin,

again a very interesting report. Your way to manage this mission shows that you´re an experienced player, I think. I got mails from two other players (one of them during the last testing period), who complained about unavailable options to succeed in this scenario. But they weren´t creative enough

About the arty: I have thought about this for a long time, but I think, it is more realistic to have the FO´s directly. So, the player gets the chance to destroy parts of the enemy fortifications and ambushes without too heavy own casualties. However, there will be enough surprising situations left, I hope And I feel myself kinglike, if I can see a nice artillery-bombardement

Regards

Frank

[Mr.X]

Hey Erwin,

any news from the front? Sorry for my curiosity...

Regards

Frank

[Erwin]

Down to the last 15 minutes of this mission (#4) and loving it. Am getting good at predicting your tank ambushes and sending FO's to use the heavy arty you thoughtfully provide to kill enemy TD's (5 KIA now).

However the ATG's were harder to spot, and have lost one PzV (and 2 halftracks) now with two other PzV's losing their main gun and a couple others with minor damage - but have killed two ATG's - mainly by flanking inf one near the crossroads and one in the enemy right rear.

As usual my inf takes the most casualties (about 25 so far) - esp in the final minutes as I start to rush and get careless. CF shows a Draw. But, I am poised to occupy several victory locations and the US are starting to surrender. So, I expect some sort of a win shortly. I just hope my inf losses don't cause problems in the next battle(s).

The main nasty surprises in this scenario were the US heavy arty, followed by the number of TD's and ATG's - which meant that the inf had to do most of the work while the Tanks wait for it to be safe to advance along the road.

Tanks really have a hard time doing much useful stuff in CMBN - at least the way I play. Had a lot of engineers in this mission, but due to the enemy AT assets, I didn't feel it was safe to send my tanks across country either. Would prefer to have an extra platoon instead of two PzV's any day.

[Mr.X]

Hey Erwin,

thanks for the news. Always interesting to read your detailed reports. And don´t worry - you will always get enough men/material to be able to win the single missions

Regards

Frank

[StoneAge]

Mr X

This is the best camp I have played so far. My play style is similar to Erwin's, use infantry to find them then take them out with the best weapon. My tanks tend to spend a long time at the back of the board and I tend not to use pioneers to blow holes in the bocage for tanks as I think that it would take longer to do than the super speedy work they do now.

I like the fact that you spread out the victory locations and make many of them.

The only Issues I have with the camp so far are:

Battle 2:

Tank crews with super scoped pistols taking out a full Sqd at 200m +

Battle 1,2 ,3 and 4:

First shell to hit a pather always takes out main gun. (3 in the first battle alone, boy was it hard to take out tanks after that)

Battle 1,2 ,3 and 4:

Troops being too close togeather when Heavy Arty Lands (not always american)

Battle 1,2 ,3 and 4:

American Homing Hand Grenades always hit that 1 nut that hold the tracks on

And seeing as these are not scenario design issues that means so far this camp is 10 out of 10.

Now 10 mins into battle 5 and totally loving it

[Erwin]

The last part of this scenario went well... Was able to get the goo quality reinforcing platoon round the left map edge and prep to attack the buildings (cross the river). A scratch force of engineers and the poor quality (reinforcement) platoon took the building in the center. And remnants of the original company attacked around the right map edge taking the buildings by the road.

The TD and AC at the rear map edge succumbed to heavy arty. The AI surrendered with time to spare. I echo the previous post re having 3 PzV's with gun damage.

[Erwin]

NEXT MISSION #5: Again, an interesting and unexpected set-up (for this campaign)...

This mission seems to be primarily infantry (2 beat-up platoons plus a FO with only 2x81mm mortars) and only a 251/10 with 75mm gun and one 251/1 in support. Map is more like the usual tiny CMBN maps with little flanking opportunity.

Started with one platoon on the left and one in the buildings by the main road in the R Center.

The first 8 minutes:

Mortared the closest objective buildings as well as the farm close to the rear map edge. Used the 251/10 to bombard the Grain Tower that the briefing said would be an enemy Ob Post. Then targeted the closest objective buildings when the mortar barrage lifted.

Followed up with inf assault (always split into teams of course). Went quite well with minimal casualties.

The left flank platoon ran into a HMG and a scout team that caused 30%-40% casualties before they were overwhelmed. The irony is that had I simply focused both platoons on the main road, the enemy forces on the left map edge would have had no LOS to my guys.

So, now I have to decide whether to continue probing ahead on my left flank with the remnants, or bring em back to the main road and contine advancing up that.

The briefing makes no mention of reinforcements, and ammo is aleady a little short. So not sure how to win this one. One hour and 12 minutes to go. Maybe my initial attack was too hasty.

[Sabot6]

I've just started "A Bloody Ride" and am really enjoying it; thanks, Mr. X, for putting in the time and effort into this campaign!

I do have a quick question about LOS during night in the campaign: I've played a bit with the scenario editor and searched the forums to try and answer my question, and thought someone here might have the answer. What is the maximum LOS during night? When I tried to figure this out with the editor, it seemed that my FO could see out to around 300m, which seemed rather far given the lack of light (I also seem to remember when I played "Devil's Descent"--another great scenario BTW--that my troops also had LOS over 200m...).

I'm a huge fan of CMBN and love the game, but am curious if these sorts of night time distances for LOS are historically accurate, or am I not thinking about the situation properly?

Thanks in advance for any thoughts others may have!

[OrdeaL]

Ive done great on all the missions up to number 5. I got slaughtered by arty/mortars and lost my whole left flank to mg squad lol. Misson failed. Anyway mission 6 was a complete success and hardly lost any men and no vehicles. On to mission 7 tonight

Thanks Mr X my fav part about this game is the campaigns!

[Erwin]

One of the aspects on ABR I really appreciate is that they are (nearly ) all daylight scenarios.

I can't understand how people play night scenarios without turning up the gamma and brightness so it looks close to daylight anyway. You can't see a bloody thing at night.

[Erwin]

Um... now I have FRAPS pics, how does one post pics here?

[GhostRider3/3]

So, in the first 30 minutes of Battle 4, lots of surprises and challenges (again).

What has worked is my SOP tactic of sending out the onmap inf platoons as recon on both flanks, while being very cautious about moving up the primary road.

The recon discovered 3 sets (so far) of enemy scouts that I was able to flank and kill with maybe a couple friendly casualties. The real prize has been getting LOS to 5 TD's situated in ambush positions focused on the road.

I always start each scenario with preregistered bombardment with my 105mm and 220mm delayed for 15 minutes, since this gives accurate fire on potential enemy locations out of LOS. However, now I cancel or adjust these as I send my two FO's to my scouts' positions to get LOS to the TD's.

There are two TD's close together on the left and one gets blowed up good around 20 minutes into the scenario. On the safe assumption that his neighbor is stunned, I send a Panther to a road position that seems safe from the other TD's and it kills the 2nd. However, something KO's its main gun. Replacing with a 2nd PzV it takes out a truck and recon vehicle, but again, gets a gun hit(!) from some unseen weapon. So, two Panthers out of 5 on the map so far with no main gun.

On my right flank my 2nd FO is adjusting 220mm fire on a third TD, when a large blast lands nearby and lightly wounds a bunch of guys. I think damn that's a lousy spotting round. But, next turn it's actually enemy FFE on my position, and these seem like big guns. I lose about 8 guys including the FO. That is bad. As the bug in CMBN means I cannot stop the 220mm adjustment and there is no one to spot for it.

This one of the times when the game system has screwed me that I consider it justified for a player to redo that turn and having the FO and the other FAST move away from the enemy impact zone. But, so far I have soldiered on...

My plan now is to use the surviving FO to KO each TD in turn, but that will mean moving him to different locations and a lot of waiting for FFE. In the meanwhile, my inf will conduct very cautious probing on the flanks to see what else is out there.

Again, a wonderfully different scenario from the previous 3, and am enjoying this campaign very much.

I don't know if it was a choice re "realism" or what but the tactic of always using preset bombardment for arty available at set-up, seems almost too easy and gamey. I would suggest that (unless it is a deliberate design choice) that arty arrive as a turn 2 reinforcement.

I am not sure what it is, but why is it that in the game, the Panther's gun seems to always get put out of action? just wondering if anyone has done tests on this. I was reading your response and could not help notice that the gun of 2 panthers KO'd. This is usually the case with my Panthers as well.

[Erwin]

If others are experiencing the same thing, it could be the sister issue to the excessive bogging/immobilization phenomenon that seems to occur in the strip between road and offroad.

[JonS]

I don't know if it was a choice re "realism" or what but the tactic of always using preset bombardment for arty available at set-up, seems almost too easy and gamey. I would suggest that (unless it is a deliberate design choice) that arty arrive as a turn 2 reinforcement.

That's my usual preference, although it might be worth noting that the soonest reinforcements can arrive is at the 5-min mark, not the 2-min mark. It's a small difference, but sitting around for that long can be annoying.

Also; a vocal portion players really, viscerally hate not having artillery at-start, and have used all sorts of arguments to rationalise why it should always be available.

[Erwin]

So long as the designer realizes that allowing preset bombardment can make things a lot easier for the user that is fine.

I find that by presetting bombardment usually LIGHT and LONG with 15 minute delay on likely enemy positions out of LOS at the start one can get recon to confirm if there actually are enemy units there by then.

If not, it seems to be faster and MORE ACCURATE to adjust that preplanned bombardment to another target. That target does not have to be in LOS of the FO at that time either.

It takes a few minutes to readjust, so as long as the new target is at a location that one can move the FO to a location where he has LOS to the new target area by the time spotting rounds come down, it seems to result in an accurate strike.

This technique has been a very efficient method of killing enemy TD's in every mission of ABR campaign.

[bodkin]

Playing the first mission and thought I was doing quite well until the closing stages.

*Spoilers*

Those US mortars are killing me, it feels like they have spotters hidden everywhere. My FO is on the wrong side of the map and I can't really afford to wait 8 minutes for arty to be called in by an officer. I'm thinking it might be better to forget about the final objective rather than lose to many men.

[bodkin]

Well I ended up with a total victory, although I had to reload and try a different approach against the mortars.