My Wish List for Modern CM4 titles

[Erwin]

4 hours ago, Mord said:

13 hours ago, WhiteWolf65 said:

Well, it seems this thread has gotten off topic and if I stepped on any toes or broke any rules, I do apologize to the moderators.

It's your thread, you can do with it as you please. Besides there are a hundred just like it stretching all the way back to CMBO. I even made one circa 2000! Nobody's gonna care, no worries.

LOL... be afraid, be very afraid... we do have hall monitors here who DO care, and u may get jumped on...

[Sequoia]

There's also this miniature battles game:

 

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3565/mordheim-city-damned

[WhiteWolf65]

4 hours ago, Erwin said:

LOL... be afraid, be very afraid... we do have hall monitors here who DO care, and u may get jumped on...

Wouldn't be the first time I've been called on topic in other forums. I must learn restraint.

[WhiteWolf65]

8 hours ago, Mord said:

Yep. They are the original LARPers. More power to them but it is a geekfest. There's actually a pretty good documentary about them on Amazon (I think). I wouldn't be caught dead running around in leotards screaming "FIREBALL! FIREBALL! FIREBALL!" while I pretended I was casting spells on a 4th level Ranger-Elf-Assassin with blue hair. LOL. As it stands now I can't stand most fantasy in books, movies and video games. It's just soooo cliche.

 

That's badass.

Did you ever imagine one day you'd be able to play that battle in your kitchen or living room, with nary a fraction of the setup time or worrying about the rules? It sucks getting older, but having lived through cardboard and pen & paper games we can truly appreciate the gaming times we are living in.

 

TSR was a big part of my childhood. I had just about every RPG they put out between 1980 to 1985. Two friends turned me onto D&D and that was it, my life was never the same.

 

It's your thread, you can do with it as you please. Besides there are a hundred just like it stretching all the way back to CMBO. I even made one circa 2000! Nobody's gonna care, no worries.

 

Mord.

Yeah, I  have some friends that own a leather company and they are big into Dagahar, or however you spell it. I'm like you, not my cup of mead.

My oldest wargaming friend and I have discussed how wargaming has evolved over the 45 years he and I have been playing. Speaking of the Battle of Aachen, I was playing a humongous Campaign Series: West Front scenario until this clunker of a computer decided to literally kill the game. I had all the SPI monster games (Atlantic Wall, Highway to the Reich, Wacht Am Rhien, Decent on Crete). We set up Atlantic Wall, which took us all day to do, and never played it. I was big into D&D and some of the early FRP computer games but I've lost interest in them. Give me a PzKfw VG over a wizard any day of the week.

[Mord]

42 minutes ago, WhiteWolf65 said:

I was big into D&D and some of the early FRP computer games but I've lost interest in them. Give me a PzKfw VG over a wizard any day of the week.

I started with D&D but it was never a favorite. I was more into Top Secret, Boot Hill, Talislanta, and Marvel Super Heroes and a bit later Call of Cthulhu. On the reading side I was more a Howard and Conan freak than Tolkien and Lord of the Rings. In the last four years or so the only "fantasy" I have played gaming wise has been Grim Dawn and Battle Brothers and neither of them has Elves and Dwarfs. Most of the games I really love are history based. There are some exceptions, but my true loves/addictions are historical heavy. I wish more RPGs would try that avenue.

 

Mord.

[WhiteWolf65]

5 hours ago, Mord said:

I started with D&D but it was never a favorite. I was more into Top Secret, Boot Hill, Talislanta, and Marvel Super Heroes and a bit later Call of Cthulhu. On the reading side I was more a Howard and Conan freak than Tolkien and Lord of the Rings. In the last four years or so the only "fantasy" I have played gaming wise has been Grim Dawn and Battle Brothers and neither of them has Elves and Dwarfs. Most of the games I really love are history based. There are some exceptions, but my true loves/addictions are historical heavy. I wish more RPGs would try that avenue.

 

Mord.

Same here. When I was playing D&D in the late 70s and early 80s, I was very much into the third party expansions, i.e. City State of the Invisible Overlord (actually made a 3D map of the city for use with 25mm miniatures). My gaming friends and I even came up with our own X-rated expansion but we never published it, but it did gave a whole new meaning to the game. I also played Empire of the Petal Throne which was very cool for it's time.

As for the Campaign Series, we beta-testers tried to talk them into converting the games into a  non-hex system (especially me since I was one of the map designers) but it was hard-coded into the game so it couldn't be done. They have made significant improvements but so much more could be done with the games but that is another discussion altogether and not appropriate to discuss here. It might be best to continue this discussion via private messages. I don't want to clutter up these forums with topics not related to the Battlefront Games.

[Bulletpoint]

12 hours ago, MAJNIO said:

...Mord means "murder" not just in Danemark. In Germany, Switzerland, Austria and not forget mighty Liechtenstein as well...

Shh! Don't take away our moment in the limelight please. We've been waiting a 1000 years.

[Mord]

1 hour ago, Bulletpoint said:

Shh! Don't take away our moment in the limelight please. We've been waiting a 1000 years.

 Glad I could help!

 

Murder.   I mean...Mord.

[LongLeftFlank]

On 2/4/2019 at 5:12 AM, Sequoia said:

Hamlet was about a murder in Denmark let us not forget, and yes 1000 years ago everyone feared the Danes.

Alas, poor OP. I knew him well.... 

P.S. If once you pay the Danegeld, you will never be rid of the Dane.

[LongLeftFlank]

On 2/4/2019 at 5:12 AM, Sequoia said:

 

Edited February 6, 2019 by LongLeftFlank

[Ivanov]

My list of modern, post WW2 CM titles would be:

1. CM Middle East - mainly Arab-Israeli wars.

2. CM Fulda Gap - hypothetical WP vs NATO confrontation - different modules, from the 50's to the 80's

3. Ultramodern conflicts in the spirit of CMBS, more Russian and Chinese modules.

4. CM Vietnam, - a combination of conventional and unconventional warfare in the spirit of CMSF.


To be honest, the modern warfare is what I miss most from the offer of contemporary games.

[absolutmauser]

It would be cool to have a CM set in the 80s for Cold War gone hot type scenario, but also then we could do stuff like Grenada. That would be pretty neat. 

I just like PASGT and ALICE gear, maybe  

[Sgt.Squarehead]

4 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said:

P.S. If once you pay the Danegeld, you will never be rid of the Dane.

Oh I don't know, skinning one alive and nailing his hide to the door of your local monastery seems to put them off quite nicely. 

Yup, that's my town! 

But it speaks to just how active the Danes were at the time, that a town located here:

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Worcester/@54.6540276,-5.5419212,5.98z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x4870505800bbccd5:0xab9aa4f4d0da911c!8m2!3d52.193636!4d-2.221575

Was being raided from the sea! 

 

[Jock Tamson]

On 2/3/2019 at 6:47 PM, sburke said:

Pfft my last name is a verb and it means to suffocate.  And there is a reason it is a verb because a Burke actually DID that.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burke_and_Hare_murders

welcome to the big leagues.... hippy

 

When an elderly pensioner died at the Edinburgh boarding house of William Hare in 1827, the proprietor and his friend William Burke decided to sell the body to a local anatomy school. The sale was so lucrative that they decided to make sure they could repeat it. They began luring nameless wanderers (who were not likely to be missed) into the house, getting them drunk, then smothering or strangling them and selling the bodies. The two disposed of at least 15 victims before murdering a local woman whose disappearance led to their arrest. At Burke's execution (by hanging), irate crowds shouted "Burke him!" As a result of the case, the word burke became a byword first for death by suffocation or strangulation and eventually for any cover-up.

 

 

Edinburgh was at the centre of the medical world in the c18th and c19th, hence the need for cadavers.  Many Edinburgh graveyards still have a watch house or watch tower in them, to guard against grave robbers:

[Jock Tamson]

13 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Oh I don't know, skinning one alive and nailing his hide to the door of your local monastery seems to put them off quite nicely. 

Yup, that's my town! 

But it speaks to just how active the Danes were at the time, that a town located here:

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Worcester/@54.6540276,-5.5419212,5.98z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x4870505800bbccd5:0xab9aa4f4d0da911c!8m2!3d52.193636!4d-2.221575

Was being raided from the sea! 

 

Most of England north of the Humber was run by the Danes - the Danelaw https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danelaw 

And of course ultimately, in the shape of The Normans, they came back again 150 years after Alfred had defeated them.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

I'm not convinced that CM:Danelaw is going to make the cut TBH.....Probably more of a thing for the Medieval Total War forum. 

It's not really a modern title, but I'd quite like to see a CM:Berlin Crisis, featuring a crossover of units from CM:BN/CM:FB/CM:RT and a few extras, particularly the IS-3. 

Edited February 6, 2019 by Sgt.Squarehead

[Michael Emrys]

On 2/3/2019 at 5:37 PM, WhiteWolf65 said:

I had all the SPI monster games (Atlantic Wall, Highway to the Reich, Wacht Am Rhien, Decent on Crete). We set up Atlantic Wall, which took us all day to do, and never played it.

Are you sure Descent on Crete was an SPI Game? I vaguely recall something by that name, but never owned a copy. AH had a nice Crete game about that same time that I played. It had a nice extra that came in the box, which was a what-if game of the invasion of Malta that I liked even better than Crete.

I had all the other games you mention. I set them up and played the first turn or two. I also had a whole slough of GDW games that I played through to conclusion (in most cases) and loved a lot. Then there was Fall of France. That was a real heartbreaker and I will tell you why. I really wanted to play this game and could hardly wait until it appeared in the store. I took it home and studied the rules and examined the maps until I had a clear idea of how the game would work. Then I set it up. That took two full days, one for each side. Then I played the first part of the first turn. Another day or two went into that. Then disaster struck. You see, I had set up on my living room floor because that was the only space I had that was large enough to hold it. And about the time I was well into the first turn, a friend came over with her two year old daughter who promptly made a bee line straight for my work of war game art, marched right on the map and began shuffling her feet and kicking counters all over the place.

Through an act of supreme self discipline I did not throttle the child on the spot. After they had gone, I gathered up the hundreds of pieces, the maps, the rules, the player's aids, and put them back in the box. Every now and then I pull out the box and open it up. I gaze sadly on the beautiful maps, the little plastic bags into which I had sorted out all the thousands of units, and all the other impedimenta of one of the greatest games that was ever made...and that I never got to play. Monster games are a particular form of sadistic cruelty.

Michael

[Sgt.Squarehead]

On further reflection, what I'd really like to see is a CM:SF2/CM:BS Civilian & Paramilitary Vehicle Pack.....Considering the type of wars we fight these days, I'd call it a must for the modern titles TBH. 

Edited February 6, 2019 by Sgt.Squarehead

[Sequoia]

Just checked Boardgame Geek, yes Descent on Crete was a 1978 SPI game using the same system as Highway to the Reich (Market-Garden)

[Sequoia]

Sgt S, I assume one would need paramilitary to go into those vehicles which would be an addition to your request, right ?

[Michael Emrys]

1 hour ago, Sequoia said:

Just checked Boardgame Geek, yes Descent on Crete was a 1978 SPI game using the same system as Highway to the Reich (Market-Garden)

Cool, thinks for the update. That was a year when I was moving around a lot and hardly doing any gaming at all. Besides, I was never all that thrilled with the HttR gaming system even though I was impressed with the amount of research that went into the maps and OB.

Michael

[WhiteWolf65]

14 hours ago, Michael Emrys said:

Are you sure Descent on Crete was an SPI Game? I vaguely recall something by that name, but never owned a copy. AH had a nice Crete game about that same time that I played. It had a nice extra that came in the box, which was a what-if game of the invasion of Malta that I liked even better than Crete.

I had all the other games you mention. I set them up and played the first turn or two. I also had a whole slough of GDW games that I played through to conclusion (in most cases) and loved a lot. Then there was Fall of France. That was a real heartbreaker and I will tell you why. I really wanted to play this game and could hardly wait until it appeared in the store. I took it home and studied the rules and examined the maps until I had a clear idea of how the game would work. Then I set it up. That took two full days, one for each side. Then I played the first part of the first turn. Another day or two went into that. Then disaster struck. You see, I had set up on my living room floor because that was the only space I had that was large enough to hold it. And about the time I was well into the first turn, a friend came over with her two year old daughter who promptly made a bee line straight for my work of war game art, marched right on the map and began shuffling her feet and kicking counters all over the place.

Through an act of supreme self discipline I did not throttle the child on the spot. After they had gone, I gathered up the hundreds of pieces, the maps, the rules, the player's aids, and put them back in the box. Every now and then I pull out the box and open it up. I gaze sadly on the beautiful maps, the little plastic bags into which I had sorted out all the thousands of units, and all the other impedimenta of one of the greatest games that was ever made...and that I never got to play. Monster games are a particular form of sadistic cruelty.

Michael

Yes, Decent on Crete was one of the SPI monster games, company level.

Same thing happened to me with Atlantic Wall. We set it up and then my late first-wife's cat decided that laying on my 4' x 8' gaming table where the game was set-up was the perfect place to take a nap. Care to guess what happened to the cat? If I had been you, I would have showed restraint as far as the child was concerned but as for the mother, I would have not been so understanding. Not that I would have harmed her but I sure would have told her to parent her child better.

I also lent a student at the University of North Carolina @ Asheville the maps for Highway to Reich so she could include it in her thesis paper about the battle of Arnhem. Yes, she returned the map and made an excellent grade as well.

Those were the days, weren't they? In some ways, I miss them while in other ways, I do not. Like trying to consume all of the rules for ASL.

Chris

Edited February 7, 2019 by WhiteWolf65

[WhiteWolf65]

7 minutes ago, WhiteWolf65 said:

Yes, Decent on Crete was one of the SPI monster games, company level.

Same thing happened to me with Atlantic Wall. We set it up and then my late first-wife's cat decided that laying on my 4' x 8' gaming table where the game was set-up was the perfect place to take a nap. Care to guess what happened to the cat? If I had been you, I would have showed restraint as far as the child was concerned but as for the mother, I would have not been so understanding. Not that I would have harmed her but I sure would have told her to parent her child better.

I also lent a student at the University of North Carolina @ Asheville the maps for Highway to Reich so she could include it in her thesis paper about the battle of Arnhem. Yes, she returned the map and made an excellent grade as well.

Those were the days, weren't they? In some ways, I miss them while in other ways, I do not. Like trying to consume all of the rules for ASL.

Chris

Thank God for computers. Right?

[Erwin]

The major problem with those old cardboard wargames (esp from 1970's-1980's) was learning the rules.  It could be fun to lay out a huge map and counters.  But memorizing dozens/hundreds of pages of tiny print rules deserved a PhD in study.  And then, in the multiplayer games, the rules lawyering and interpretation was horrendous and often led to disputes.  In the end, that's what made the games virtually unplayable. Some of the graphics (eg: Victory Games' "Pacific War") were gorgeous.

It's surprising that a new generation of cardboard wargame companies have emerged and survive.  The graphics are often gorgeous, and the rules are much simpler and more clever, in that they allow for sophistication, but are much easier to understand.   Nonetheless, wargamers are like Polar Bears - all alone and endlessly searching for mates. Since nearly everyone now plays solitaire, it's hard to understand why cardboard wargames still seem to flourish.  I must have over a thousand sitting in a garage, but haven't bought more than 4 or 5 in the last 25+ years (since computer games became good), and then haven't bought more than 4 or 5 computer games since CM1 first came out in 98.

[Michael Emrys]

3 hours ago, WhiteWolf65 said:

Thank God for computers. Right?

Yeah. Not having to count off movement factors before moving, adding up long columns of attack factors in my head, remembering which rules apply to this particular situation, etc., etc. ad infinitum is a real blessing. Not to mention that my computer takes up far less space on my desk and if I have to leave it in the middle of a turn, I can save it and come back later in confidence that it will still be there intact when I come back. To say nothing of how much more comfortable it is to play seated in my custom chair than to have an aching back and neck from hours of leaning over a table. Would I want to go back? Not really, although I do wish that some of the great games of the past would be converted to computer. Alas, that day has not come.

Michael