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[Clinton]

Ahhhhh, I see. Thanks for clearing that up.

[Grunto IV]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by dalem:

Now play nice! Miniature gaming has many benefits that even CM does not.

-dale<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

heck, squad leader does too. the thing with miniatures or sl/asl versus cmbo is that cmbo takes care of so much of the 'grunt work.'

but the modelling of the battle in tabletop miniatures or asl is sometimes 'more realistic.'

...at least in my experience.

andy

[dalem]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Grunto IV:

heck, squad leader does too. the thing with miniatures or sl/asl versus cmbo is that cmbo takes care of so much of the 'grunt work.'

but the modelling of the battle in tabletop miniatures or asl is sometimes 'more realistic.'

...at least in my experience.

andy<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I still play all three - CM, WWII tabletop, and ASL. And I've converted ASL to the tabletop in 15mm to boot!

They're all good.

-dale

[Panzer Leader]

I'm curious, how do you handle the Fog of War in miniatures?

[Stalins Organ]

Some games use markers - sometimes including false ones that represent nothing at all. In other cases you just get dice rolls to "see" the opposition, and/or a requirement to stick to orders combined with limited ability to change those orders.

Additionally there's the dice!

[Andrew H.]

You can't really compare a game played on a 10 foot by 4 foot board with one played on a 15" screen. CM is more realistic than, say, microarmor, but I wouldn't say that CM was "better," or even "more fun." CM has nothing like getting 12 friends together to play miniatures. On the other hand, solitaire with miniatures doesn't really exist.

There are charts and stuff for miniatures, but it's not really much like D&D. In our microarmor games, people usually commanded small units, like one or two platoons of tanks, say. We also had painted dowels to use for measuring movement and distance, so a "T-34" dowel would have fast moves, half moves, etc.; while a movement dowel would be marked off into 250/500/750/1000/1250, etc. (with each area painted a different color).

Players would tend to have a card with the relevant stats for their vehicles with them (and typically only had one or two vehicle types). So to shoot, you would lay down the distance rod, read off the distance (say 1250 feet), see that you need a "6" to hit at 1250 feet, and then roll to hit. This would be followed by hit location, and your chart will tell you that your gun penetrates, say 60mm at 1250 feet. The other guy's chart has the thickness of the area hit.

While this might sound like a lot of rolling, abstractly, it goes very fast when you actually play it. And is punctuated by the kind of chatter and comments around each roll that you would expect in a wargame.

SL, of course, has a much more complex ruleset and far more rolls are required; it's more difficult to get excited about making the "pre-AFV assault TC", especially when the leader and every squad has to make it.

[dalem]

Yes. To me the SINGLE biggest benefit of computer games is true FOW. VERY hard to achieve a semblance of it on the tabletop. Not impossible, but hard.

-dale

[Berlichtingen]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by dalem:

Yes. To me the SINGLE biggest benefit of computer games is true FOW. VERY hard to achieve a semblance of it on the tabletop. Not impossible, but hard.

-dale<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

A friend of mine and I used to run WW2 skirmishes at Gen-Con... we set up two identical tables and had the players for each side playing on their own table... the only enemy they saw were those we put there. FOW is difficult in miniature wargaming, but not impossible.

As to comparing them... you can't. THey are both very fulfilling. Now, as far as I'm concerned, CM is a strange bird... other than it, computer wargames are not worth the disks they are burned on. CM is the only computer wargame I have seen that brings the depth of miniature wargaming to the computer. While I have (and will continue to) played the hell out of CM, 1944-45 West Front is not my favorite period to play. So, my 15mm Napoleonic Russians and French will be gathering no dust and I will continue to paint my SYW Prussians and Austrians.

[Gyrene]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>CM has nothing like getting 12 friends together to play miniatures. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Not being able to find even one person to play against is the main reason I had mostly given up on ASL, having 12 people to play with would be a dream.

Squad Leader was much easier to teach to a new player and usually more fun than ASL.

Gyrene

[Soddball]

I think that it comes down to personal taste at the end of the day. I've done tabletop wargaming (in particular a great deal of Battletech, although not any more) and that was alot of fun, but I've come to prefer the CM-style. It's only CM that has made me change my ways - I don't think that Talonsoft's Eastern Front was a desperately good adaptation.

One of the big pluses of tabletop gaming, as has already been said, is the social aspect. One of the big downers is that for a four-hour game, you have three hours of setup and an hour of tidy-up (sometimes).

I once ran a Battletech game with 14 players (7 teams of 2, each controlling 1 mech in ice-filled caves) and we failed to finish after six hours. Unfortunately, you can't always save the game and come back to it.

So in summary, I would suggest that those who haven't had a go at SOME form of tabletop gaming find a local group and spend a couple of weekends trying it. You'll be surprised. Don't kcock it till you've tried it.

Never could be having with all that painting though. I have the artistic skills of someone who has had their hands and eyes removed.

[tailz]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Berlichtingen:

As to comparing them... you can't. THey are both very fulfilling. Now, as far as I'm concerned, CM is a strange bird... other than it, computer wargames are not worth the disks they are burned on. CM is the only computer wargame I have seen that brings the depth of miniature wargaming to the computer. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Cut my gaming teeth on Squad Leader back in 19%$. You're right Berli, most PC wargames aren't worth the disks they're burned on... CMBO leaves me wishing my old gaming group was together. (CM is excellent, but IMHO, I'd drop it like a hot potato to get a good carboard game going again.) PBEM/TCP-IP/chat windows... just aren't the same as head to head over the cardboard and dice (the closes I got to miniatures was AH's Bismark... and my old knees just aren't up to spending that much time maneuvering squadrons on the floor!!).

I would agree that you can't compare CM vs tabletop... Apples and Oranges I think.

:cool:

[Gen-x87]

God when I was a kid my friends and I would run upto bengamin franklins and grab hundreds of miniature army men with tanks and use my railroad set as the battlefield. It was actually quite a fun time.

When I got the demo of CM the first thing that came to mind was my firends and I. Hence the reason I loved this game so much at first. Of course the realism has turned me on a bit more now.

But miniatures are fun IMHO also. Both CM and Miniatures IMHO have the same roots. Just CM plays a bit faster on a larger scale

Gen