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Rollbahn D Part I, new Campaign


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Finished Butchers of Baugnez. Another enjoyable scenario, with a few caveats.

Spoilers:

Beautiful map, as we have now come to expect. I particularly liked the huge watershed feature. One thing I would change is that I don't see why such a wide area around the small water streams would be devoid of trees. Usually trees grow well close to mountain streams.

The briefing warns that there will be air attacks but I got the impression that they would arrive later. I had to restart this mission (first time so far) due to getting strafed. Not a fan of how air power works in this game to be honest, but I understand you wanted to include it for historical reasons.

If you want the player to get hammered from the air immediately you might want to mention it in the briefing .. something like "As you study the map, suddenly you hear frantic shouting: Achtung Jabo!"

As the mission progresses, I get on to butchering Baugnez. I liked the inclusion of this part; not because I'm a sadist, but because it's the first time ever in CM that I see a mission showing the value of tanks as breakthrough weapons rampaging behind enemy lines. You might have dismounted a few of the trucks and placed the drivers around to put up a bit of resistance and surrender.

The actual attack on the Ami HQ was interesting too. Nice terrain that posed some challenges without feeling like it had been customised to frustrate the player at every turn. Lost a PZ IVto the hidden mine flail tank, but was able to knock out that one and its buddy by risking a Panther on a big flanking move.

The late arrival of more Jabos was actually interesting. I had sort of guessed you'd place an observer team in the church steeple, and made a mental note to immediately bombard it once I got the chance, but then forgot all about it. Had to have everyone jump out of their halftracks and do an emergency dash to cover, which felt very realistic. I didn't bother to bring the AA vehicles to the front, but strangely enough the main force back at the setup zone also got attacked by air, and I don't know how you did that. No enemy unit had LOS to that place to call in the attack.

One thing I might change would be to make the capture of the HQ more interesting. You made the HQ unit a destroy objective as far as I can see, but they are hidden behind all the other units , so there's no real way of taking them out before the Amis surrender - Instead of making the centre of the village a regular occupy objective, the map might be a bit bigger, and make the occupy zone a ring around the village - so if you took that objective, the HQ could count as surrounded, and the briefing could say that the HQ would be captured in that case. Another thing could be to make a time limit so that the HQ would exit the map if you took too long. Just some ideas.

Oh, and the usual caveat - A huge beautiful map with winding roads like this is a pain to move units through. Each vehicle took around 50 clicks to plot waypoints to get from the setup zone to the hill overlooking the objective. I simply could not bring myself to do the clickwork, so hoped I'd be able to take the objective with a minimal force. In the end, I managed it.

Edited by Bulletpoint
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And that's the end of the first act of this massive campaign.

In conclusion, I very much enjoyed this act, especially because the Spitze missions were my favourite of the official Peiper campaign, and I always wanted to see that part expanded upon.

I appreciated being able to use many of the German vehicles as intended; for example using MG halftracks to give fire support for my infantry - something that works against light opposition but not when the enemy is bristling with tanks and AT guns like in most scenarios.

Also a pet peeve of mine: Often in CM, the ground has been deliberately sculpted to prevent any long-range LOF to anything, making the halftracks nearly useless. In this campaign, LOF was not always granted, but in many cases it was actually possible to find overwatch positions.

Looking forward to the next chapters.

Edited by Bulletpoint
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Re Mission 6:

 

****** SPOILERS ******

 

One only has the 4 Eng teams with the Spitze tanks at start.  Mission 5 seemed to make the Eng very precious and I was worried about losing any of them.  So, I led with a Pz IV (my HT's are too damaged and slow).  However, some nasty ambushes killed a tank which should not have happened as one should lead with inf and/or HT's.

Restarted and led with the Eng, and resulted in 4 men lost.  This is also bad since they are the only guys with charges and useful vs buildings and hedges etc.

If one knows that the reinforcements were coming within 10 minutes, it's best to do nothing with the Spitze (stay stationary) and wait for the inf and HT's.  Then lead with them.  They are more expendable.

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