AAR - UK H2H British Armour Mix vs Syrian Armour Mix

[THH149]

Hi

Some thoughts on this scenario from the UK pack, it has no name so you'll have to find it using the description above.

• I was Syrians and ran forward from the set up to claim a solid third of the objective zone in this meeting engagement between Syrian and British forces. MyT-72 TURMS covered the central road and got first shot on a Challenger but was then destroyed. The Brits then carefully and methodically set out about picking a building and destroying everything in it. The two remaining T72stried to get side shots on the three Challengers but died from Brit AT4s and a Challenger. After that it was a quick result to Syrina surrender (nothing left in Objective Zone) at 15 minutes left to play out. A bad day for the Syrians.
• As to the Syrian strategy, there was none really other than to rush forward to hold as much ground as possible and try to withstand what I expected to be an onslaught. But I would play it again as Syrians to see much I could reduce how badly they would lose by.
• The British player said afterwards that he was very deliberate and careful when bringing troops into the fight, only exposing them a little to ensure there was massive firepower on the next Syrian position. Good on him for such discipline.
• During the game it became clear that the Brit had 3 Challengers and the Syrian had 3 T72s, and as one needs 3-4 T72s to destroy a Challenger or Abrams (like the number of Shermans it took to destroy a Panther or King Tiger), I sensed that the game wasn't well balanced. Mmmm!
• After the game I sat down and calculated the points value of the respective forces: I estimated Syrians had 2,440 and the Brits had 4,880 points per the scenario editor.  This wasnt a game it was a simulation, of what I'm not sure (a Syrian reinforced company being quickly crushed?).
• Cutting the game time from 35 to 20 minutes would give Syrians a better chance at a draw, but an extended game is going to see Syrians lose (if Brits retain some Challengers). Probably much more balanced set of combat values is needed. 

I come at CMSF2 from an advanced Squad Leader background, where its expected that the scenarios are thoroughly (more or less) playtested where each player has an even chance of winning (barring differences in skill levels and chance). Also, scenario cards in ASL are more transparent about the respective points totals and as the maps and other factors are well understood, one can make some kind of assessment of game value before players commit to a scenario. I do like the fog of war in CMSF2, but I do like balanced games to as well as simulations but I'd like to know also what kind of scenario I'm playing (game vs simulation).

Just my two cents...

Let me know what you think....

Best

THH

[Sgt.Squarehead]

T-72 TURMS-T is not your average T-72.....Their targeting system is at least as good as that of the Challengers they are facing, possibly better, but their armour is rubbish vs 120mm sabot, so you need to be very, very sneaky with them.

TBH the virtual omni-presence of T-72 TURMS-T in scenarios gets on my nerves, they are not at all common.....Two or three per company in a well equipped battalion would probably be about right.

Edited November 28, 2020 by Sgt.Squarehead

[THH149]

Understand what you mean about the gun and armour.  But, the T-72M1 TURMS-T has a combat value of 262 (individual vehicle) but a Challenger 2 has 560 pts, so the Challenger is still twice the combat value.

So, I'd advise scenario designers to give Syrians twice the number of T72s vs a set number of Challengers (if that was going to be the most an important measure of the relative combat value of the forces, eg not taking into account terrain, time, Defender benefit, airpower, other force assets etc etc).

Best

THH

[Sgt.Squarehead]

I've never looked at a 'Combat Value' in my life TBH, so I'm not sure what it measures or how. 

PS - I'm guessing it's a QB thing.

 

Edited November 29, 2020 by Sgt.Squarehead

[THH149]

Oh! You made me look at the scenario editor again and indeed it doesnt use a points budget for the respective sides! wow! 

That makes the designers job a little harder if they're aiming to create a balanced game!

Best

THH

[Sgt.Squarehead]

6 minutes ago, THH149 said:

That makes the designers job a little harder if they're aiming to create a balanced game!

War tends not to be balanced.....Consequently scenario design is not really about balance either.

[Combatintman]

7 hours ago, THH149 said:

Oh! You made me look at the scenario editor again and indeed it doesnt use a points budget for the respective sides! wow! 

That makes the designers job a little harder if they're aiming to create a balanced game!

Best

THH

You can always go into the QB menu though to look up values if its your thing.  I never bother - testing is always the best way to determine whether you have got your scenario behaving as you want it to.

[THH149]

yep, testing is essential. The extra bit of info on combat values is useful for players and designers alike, and of course the mechanics of the game mean that a player has to open the game from both red and blue sides and then work through the process of calculating combat values before the game starts, even though that is not the full story. I'd hate for me or my counterpart to learn that one or other of us had no real chance, despite their skill level.

As a newbie in CMSF2, is it generally the case that scenarios are balanced (say no worse than 60/40) between H2H so the game is a game of skill? 

  

[George MC]

Overlooks the view that if you are fighting a balanced engagement you are not doing it right. 
 

in CM if you want balanced best play QBs H2H. Scenarios are not often balanced in the sense you are asking fir. A lot of CMSF2 is asymmetric- Syrian conventional forces taking on NATO conventional forces toe to toe will not end well for them. 
 

you can work around this by effectively recreating ‘sandbox’ engagements where REDFOR (Syrian) given top of the lone kit and maxed out experience levels (NTC type thingy) versus bottom of the line NATO stuff with lower experience levels. 

[Combatintman]

1 hour ago, THH149 said:

yep, testing is essential. The extra bit of info on combat values is useful for players and designers alike, and of course the mechanics of the game mean that a player has to open the game from both red and blue sides and then work through the process of calculating combat values before the game starts, even though that is not the full story. I'd hate for me or my counterpart to learn that one or other of us had no real chance, despite their skill level.

As a newbie in CMSF2, is it generally the case that scenarios are balanced (say no worse than 60/40) between H2H so the game is a game of skill? 

  

Note that my comment emphasises the scenario behaving as the scenario designer intends.  I prefer designing one side vs the AI to H2H or playable by both sides because it is far easier to achieve your intent in this manner.  Nonetheless, and there's been a lot of discussion about it recently, an effective way of achieving balance is through Victory Point allocations.  For me, once you master it, the Victory Point combinations in the editor are extremely flexible and powerful and probably one of the strong points of the editor's design.  If you use them correctly a platoon-sized force for example can achieve a victory over battalion-sized force and using such constructs were, and still are, common in Shockforce because of the asymmetrical force match-ups.  QB purchase values or relative combat power calculations don't help much here.  As I said earlier, I never use them and I just think that all you achieve by using them is to add another step/calculation in the design process which more often than not will be blown out of the water during your first scenario test run.

[Combatintman]

1 hour ago, THH149 said:

yep, testing is essential. The extra bit of info on combat values is useful for players and designers alike, and of course the mechanics of the game mean that a player has to open the game from both red and blue sides and then work through the process of calculating combat values before the game starts, even though that is not the full story. I'd hate for me or my counterpart to learn that one or other of us had no real chance, despite their skill level.

As a newbie in CMSF2, is it generally the case that scenarios are balanced (say no worse than 60/40) between H2H so the game is a game of skill? 

  

Addressing this point, I can only speak from my own design experience.  I have designed four scenarios playable both sides and H2H and three of those were historical scenarios.  The design was therefore strongly influenced by the real ground and real forces involved.  No point calling a battle 'attack on Sword Beach' and then populating it with GIs because they allow you to hit a 60/40 ratio better than the British who actually landed there.

The nuance therefore is to combine the sum of the parts and confirm by testing with the intent that both sides can at least edge some form of victory with the resources available.  I certainly didn't approach any of them with a fixed mindset in relation to combat values or a 60/40 (or any other figure) ratio.  Relating to the Victory Point discussion, I seem to recall that most of the 'balancing' involved fiddling around with the VPs rather than say, deleting a Panther which actually took part in the battle from the Orbat because it made the Germans too strong.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

VP balancing, is indeed the real key to scenario design and while there's a formula for calculating results, there's no formula for getting the points allocation correct in the first place, it just takes trial and error and an awful lot of testing.

[THH149]

As I come from an ASL background, I think I've confused ppl by using terminology and meaning that's common in the ASL space. By "balance" I mean the scenarios win/loss record for either side comes out as roughly 50/50 (say 60/40 is OK) where attacker has a 50% chance of winning.  I don't mean balancing a scenario by giving both sides the same everything and a symmetrical map etc etc.

Maybe putting it differently,  would I play this (scenario X) in a tournament? Or against my regular gaming friend where we wanted to both have a 50% chance of winning? Where the results were used to rank players they wouldn't choose a scenario which was unbalanced ('cos it would unfairly impact their ratings cos the scenario is no longer a game of skill and they've already lost if they chose the wrong side).

And don't get me wrong, I don't mind scenarios that simulate historical or fictional actions, I'd just like to know that the scenario is a simulation with little care for both players having an even chance of winning. There is greyness in that question too, as the designer could decide they intend to use all historically present and relevant assets, historical terrain, but set victory conditions  so they are judged on whether they do better or worse than historical situation (or they may tweak other things too).

In the scenario balance issue relating to the Panther, I'd think just removing the Panther would be design laziness. The designer could reduce the scenario turn length, change victory levels, or change objectives etc etc 

For the scenario above ie "UK H2H British Armour Mix vs Syrian Armour Mix", I'm wondering how to fix it to achieve a more reasonable game balance while keeping the flavour of a meeting engagement between two tanks reinforced motorised infantry companies, maybe:

• make Syrians twice as strong (maybe reasonable)
• shorten game length to 20 minutes (makes it harder for Brits but much harder for Syrians)
• change VC to make any Syrians left in Objective box at game end a loss for the Brits and tactical victory for Syrians (a better change)
• move Objective zone closer to Syrians, so they can occupy it earlier (as they dont have vehicles the brits do), and away from Brits, giving Syrians a chance to occupy the zone earlier and fight a defensive battle.
• change VC to have a casualty limit on Brits (at present there are no casualty restraints, as all 300 points are allocated to controlling the Objective Zone).
• some kind of asymmetrical victory conditions (which is a real strength of CM).

Is there any resource online where the 'official' CMSF2 scenarios have their win/loss results recorded?

Are all the provided scenarios with CMSF2 unbalanced? Which arent? Is there a playtesting community I can join?

This is fun right....

Best

THH

 

[Combatintman]

On 11/29/2020 at 10:18 PM, THH149 said:

As I come from an ASL background, I think I've confused ppl by using terminology and meaning that's common in the ASL space. By "balance" I mean the scenarios win/loss record for either side comes out as roughly 50/50 (say 60/40 is OK) where attacker has a 50% chance of winning.  I don't mean balancing a scenario by giving both sides the same everything and a symmetrical map etc etc.

Maybe putting it differently,  would I play this (scenario X) in a tournament? Or against my regular gaming friend where we wanted to both have a 50% chance of winning? Where the results were used to rank players they wouldn't choose a scenario which was unbalanced ('cos it would unfairly impact their ratings cos the scenario is no longer a game of skill and they've already lost if they chose the wrong side).

And don't get me wrong, I don't mind scenarios that simulate historical or fictional actions, I'd just like to know that the scenario is a simulation with little care for both players having an even chance of winning. There is greyness in that question too, as the designer could decide they intend to use all historically present and relevant assets, historical terrain, but set victory conditions  so they are judged on whether they do better or worse than historical situation (or they may tweak other things too).

In the scenario balance issue relating to the Panther, I'd think just removing the Panther would be design laziness. The designer could reduce the scenario turn length, change victory levels, or change objectives etc etc 

For the scenario above ie "UK H2H British Armour Mix vs Syrian Armour Mix", I'm wondering how to fix it to achieve a more reasonable game balance while keeping the flavour of a meeting engagement between two tanks reinforced motorised infantry companies, maybe:

• make Syrians twice as strong (maybe reasonable)
• shorten game length to 20 minutes (makes it harder for Brits but much harder for Syrians)
• change VC to make any Syrians left in Objective box at game end a loss for the Brits and tactical victory for Syrians (a better change)
• move Objective zone closer to Syrians, so they can occupy it earlier (as they dont have vehicles the brits do), and away from Brits, giving Syrians a chance to occupy the zone earlier and fight a defensive battle.
• change VC to have a casualty limit on Brits (at present there are no casualty restraints, as all 300 points are allocated to controlling the Objective Zone).
• some kind of asymmetrical victory conditions (which is a real strength of CM).

Is there any resource online where the 'official' CMSF2 scenarios have their win/loss results recorded?

Are all the provided scenarios with CMSF2 unbalanced? Which arent? Is there a playtesting community I can join?

This is fun right....

Best

THH

 

This link with a shameless plug for one of my scenarios might be what you're looking for in relation to scenario win lose draw stats:

Probing around Poteau - Combat Mission: Final Blitzkrieg - TheBlitz

Otherwise the incredibly helpful @IanLhas a list of scenarios across all of the titles that may be helpful:

Scenario List for BFC Combat Mission 2x Games (lesliesoftware.com)

With regard to 'improving' the H2H scenario - personally I wouldn't bother as you don't really have much scope on a 512m x 512m map with two company groups launching at each other from opposite ends of the map.

 

[THH149]

Thanks for those tips.

I would love to play that scen but Ive only got CMSF2 on Steam right now.

THH

[THH149]

My final assessment for this scenario: an unbalanced dog.

Not worthwhile playing H2H as Syrian the Brits are highly favoured to achieve the scenario's Victory Conditions.

Even against the AI, the Brits can win with just the three tanks, they don't need the rest of the force.

Best

THH

[Sgt.Squarehead]

So you are saying you couldn't beat the British force when it was controlled by the AI? 

I normally have a fundamental objection to playing against the Brits in CM:SF2, but I might have to give this one a closer look.

[Lethaface]

It might indeed not be very balanced for H2H, but against the AI it's definitely doable. The Turms-T is a great tank but 1v1 not exactly equal to the Challenger 2 imo.

[THH149]

I can't recommend it H2H unless you're giving the Brits to a very new player and you want to encourage them to play more H2H, so the scenario is a learning one. In the scenario description it's specifically described as good for H2H play so I'm not sure what's going on with that recommendation.  Unfortunately, the players are locked into the orders of battle for both sides and can't supplement it with a balancing provision like in ASL.

I've played the scenario several times since against the AI both as Red and Blue forces.

Against Red AI, I've found the Brits only need the three Challengers, and the rest of the force stays in the deployment zone but I don't control them at all but do allow them to fire at will. This ends in a Blue win if the Brit moves the Challengers to patrol around the crossroads even a little bit.

Against Blue AI, I found it's quite a bit more difficult and requires much more careful play especially until the Challengers are gone (the T72s will flank the Challengers once they're found). This usually ends in a draw as the Brits hold onto one corner of the objective zone and Red runs out of time. But taking Red Force would be the challenging way to play this Scenario. But as usual against the AI after repeated play the patterns of movement are recognised even it not exactly the same each game.

Edited December 2, 2020 by THH149

[Sgt.Squarehead]

I got properly slapped by the AI at my first attempt (as the Syrians)! 

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Second try.....The results of this encounter would not go down at all well in the tabloids:

So now three T-72 TURMS-T are hunting down one Challenger 2 and we already know exactly where it is.....Anyone want to place bets on how this one ends? 

 

Edited December 3, 2020 by Sgt.Squarehead

[Erwin]

Obviously, a trick question.  Clearly the poorly trained Syrians won't even be able to see a tank at such "long range" due to CM2's LOS issues, so the superbly trained Brits will swiftly rotate their turret and kill the T-72 and the superbly calculated shot will kill the other two T-72's via ricochets.   

Edited December 3, 2020 by Erwin

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Nope, that one is already dead.....There's a sabot hole in it! 

But it was a trick question.....The final Challenger got all three of my tanks under circumstances not unlike your suggestion above. 

To be fair, bad timing and sloppy maneuver on my part contributed massively, I exposed my T-72s flanks, popping out of cover for snap shots, but the Challenger knew we were there (& I knew that it knew, but I was all gung-ho by this point, having whacked two already) and the timing was such that it put a sabot round straight through the side of one T-72, exiting directly into a second and brewing the pair of them! 

Stupid really as there was still 19 minutes on the clock when I took out the second Challenger, plenty of time to redeploy and take that final tank out from an unexpected direction.....But as I said, I got all gung-ho and buggered it up! 

Edited December 3, 2020 by Sgt.Squarehead

[Erwin]

Really...?  I actually got that correct??!!!   What can I say... am brilliant...  

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Yeah.....Kind of!