Spoilers: VoT stuff

[Guest Walter R. Strapps]

Okay, I've played the valley several times now and first of all-- very impressed obviously. I had gone to play the previous demo a few weeks ago and I wasn't as impressed as I had been originally, but Valley alone has convinced me to pre-order the full game (mainly so I can play as the Canadians ).

Anyway. To other matters. First of all, I was playing as the Germans, knocked out one of the first two Shermans, and the other one was kind of farting around or something behind the northern hill. Then the reinforcements showed up . They managed to take out the anti-tank bunker (I had lost the infantry gun in the first turn), and were basically not doing much but moving forward slowly. After an *interminable* wait, my reinforcements finally showed up. My Panther took out the second of the original Shermans (which was coming down the road in the north) and then hit another of the new Shermans before the smoke landed all around him. Moved him forward, took out the 76mm Sherman and then the remaining Shermans *RAN AWAY*. Yep, right off the map. By the end of the game I had a PS team up in back and they were just gone. Anyone else seen that? I expect a severe reprimand for those tank commanders.

Meanwhile, I had obliterated a fair portion of the Amerian infantry as it tried to enter the town only to encounter most of my rifle squads and heavy MG fire. (ie there were 5 rifle squads, a Platoon HQ and a Bazooka team eliminated virtually on top of each other in at the western wall.

The remaining infantry was regrouping just over the hill and since my group of squads guarding the northern approach was finding itself unengaged, I charged them over the hill killing most of the remnants of 3 or four squads before they were *torched* by a flame thrower team (very cool effect by the way, the trees/ground kept burning to the end of the game).

Anyway, all in all, very fun, very cool and boy oh boy do I hate that artillery Oh and 177 casualties to less than 60 for me. Look out, I'm on fire.

Cheers,

Walter R. Strapps

P.S. Haven't tried PBEM yet, but if someone would like to, pop me a line at wrs13@columbia.edu