Biltong Posted March 21, 2003 Share Posted March 21, 2003 Biltong’s Campaign Rules 41 South v2.2 and 42 South v1.1 Player Guide v2.2 A complete walk-through of the first battle, the more difficult rules explained in some detail and lots of lovely pictures BCR Map Packs with over 220 maps!! All of the above - Get it here: SuperSulo's Site or here Scooby's Site - including PDF versions for the non-MS compliant individuals If this is the first time you hear about BCR… :confused: BCR is a set of Campaign rules that enable you to play a series of battles from Barbarossa to Berlin. BCR 41 & 42 South is the set of Rules covering the months June 41 to December 42 in the Army Group “South” Theatre of Operations. Operation Barbarossa erupts on 22 June 1941 and you and your Battle Group storm through the Soviet ranks through the long months of summer in the steppe and the mud and rain of October. You take your men all the way to Rostov, Khar’kov and the Crimea before the incredible cold of November halt you in your tracks. Then the Soviet counter attacks start. You are the commanding officer of a company of German Mechanized Infantry and some armor that you take through the whole CMBB time frame. As you lead your company and armor into Russia most of the parameters of the battles are dictated by historically accurate data, e.g. on the 4th week of October 41 it suddenly turns bitterly cold and the German advance freezes to a halt. You, your men and armor gain or lose experience throughout the Campaign. You start off with Regular troops, but after a year it becomes obvious that the quality of your replacements are getting worse... How your men grow in experience will depend on how they fare in each battle… how many men did they lose; did they get rattled; did they take out a MG pillbox or maybe even a tank? You yourself, as the CO, learn and slowly gain or lose Favor with your own commanding officer. If you screw up, you lose favor... Favor that you could have used to avoid launching an Immediate Assault straight after your last battle without even getting reinforcements. You also get a Task Force to support your Battle Group: Infantry, Support, Vehicles, Armor, Arty or Air, depending on factors such as who assaults or attack who, weather etc. With designed scenarios you quite often have ‘balanced’ forces, but with BCR you’ll get the real thing: Sometimes you know who your opponent is; sometimes you are facing unknown odds. Sometimes you have an easy go of it - hammering low on ammo and decimated green Partisans, but later that night you might face a counter-attack from 3 companies of Guards Mech, before you had chance to get reinforcements... You have to think on your feet and learn to retreat when necessary... no more heroic defenses or assaults till the last man!! Your men's survival is of the utmost importance... even to the extent that you'll rather lose a battle than lose too many men! The objectives still matter – you still want to win, but not at the cost and risk of decimating your men. Here realism rules for the first time. As a learning tool this is unsurpassed.... You learn to think and act like a real commander... If you think you’ve got your tactics down pat, – Think again… You will get into situations that you’ve never encountered before… and never will with normal scenarios and QB’s. BCR is just for yourself… the battle is between yourself and an enemy who grows stronger every year… You will have to become a better commander for you and your men to survive till the end. If you have any questions - post in this thread and I or one of the old hands will answer you within a day or 2. Enjoy!! Biltong [ March 21, 2003, 02:47 PM: Message edited by: Biltong ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biltong Posted March 21, 2003 Author Share Posted March 21, 2003 Dr. R writes: "Based on the rules, it sounds like I can use my tank in the next battle as long as I can find enough guys to replace the crew completely. Is this correct? Or is the fact that the tank is knocked out taken into account at all?" Not in 41 - here the rules are still quite simple. In 42 you'll find that there's a potential delay for replacing/repairing armor... The rules will gradually expand and become more realistic from year to year. I did not want to scare off everyone at the start with a huge volume of rules. As it stands now the length of the rules are the main cause of rejection of BCR by new players. Sigh - fanatics are few 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biltong Posted March 21, 2003 Author Share Posted March 21, 2003 Sgtabell writes: (re counter/immediate attacks) It would seem to me that the Task Force composition should be the same? Did I miss something on this one? Hmmm - actually a good point. As the rules stand now you have to roll for a new Task Force. The reason for a new Task Force for every battle is to provide variety and enable you to play with as wide a selection of units as possible throughout your campaign... getting to know different units and their capabilities. They also provide the cannon fodder that keeps your Battle Group alive But you are right... it would have been more realistic to keep the same Task Force for Counter/Immediate attacks... But the whole Task Force concept is unrealistic in any case, so just look the other way If and attached unit is destroyed, my assumption is that it is not reinforced, (or under Allied Counter Attack situations?) Yes - once lost they are gone... You have to be very carefull with them. Even so, you must use the Attached Units first in an Emergency Reorg... This is where you will lose most of them... Why the limitation on the 3 units for Attached units? (I know, I know, if I don't like it I can change it), but was wondering if it was a game balance thingie? Just an arbitrary number to prevent the players from building up a secondary 'Battle Group' of superhero's and forget what the main aim of the campaign is: To keep your Battle Group alive and increase their experience... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biltong Posted March 21, 2003 Author Share Posted March 21, 2003 EasyCo writes: It's here! Hopefully you'll like it. Seahawk was very patient all that e-mail back and forth. And theres more! Ill be better than before. The same for Seahawk too. It will be fun to see that Kiev battle. Very nice - can't wait to see what you two fanatics come up with for Kiev Have a look guys - BCR's 1st published AAR's and quite literary too EasyCo & Seahawk's Gift 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
History Buff Posted March 21, 2003 Share Posted March 21, 2003 Fanatic you say Biltong? I just signed up to be a CMMC GM for some reason. Nah seriously sounds fun Hey I wasn't even drunk at the time. From the front : Hortern was advancing in the immedeate assault his superiors had ordered him to carry out. Ordered to "watch over" the Hungarians. Horten not wanting his men to die surrounded by idiot commanders from another army sent his troops forward in a flank attack while the main Hungarian force attacked through the wheatfields with Hotchkiss support. (Anyone sen how many Hotchkiss' you can buy for 800 pts). As the Hungarians came under fire from distant T34's, Horten smiled and proded his Hungarian "scouts" to move forward in front of his men. No man from the German army was going to die in a fools advance in the open. Even if they had ample artillery. (1500 pts worth). +++++ Why oh why did I have to have my first major major battle with a bunch of Hungarians. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Olesen Posted March 21, 2003 Share Posted March 21, 2003 Have you all noticed that Biltong's Campaign Rules? I bet that pun was intentional 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seahawk-vfa201 Posted March 21, 2003 Share Posted March 21, 2003 I wondered: The Editor is able to open battles and operations (works with some of the provided ones) but cannot load the QB battle generated. Why? If i could I might eb able to re-set all the correct ammo levels for the imported units. Anyone knows why Editor refuses to Load an QB battle? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hobo Posted March 21, 2003 Share Posted March 21, 2003 News Flash - Lt. Gerdes was wounded leading his men up a hill to an objective. The LT was one of the most talented leaders in Hpt Glosers company. His men really rallied around him, his ability to attack the Russians was unmatched, and he was pretty good at conducting surprise attacks. It looks like Gerdes will be out of the battle for 6-9 months while his leg heals up. In his absence Lt. Bauer will assume control of 2nd Platoon. He is a little green but equally talented scoring high leadership and stealth skills and is a fair shot. Good luck Lt.. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hobo Posted March 21, 2003 Share Posted March 21, 2003 I am a big fan of BCR and Wreck's rules before it. For those interested, I use the editor to keep my leaders from battle to battle. If a command HQ gets hit I randomly determine if it is the leader and then randomly determine if the hit will keep him out of the next battle (80% chance of not making it). If the commander gets it, I promote my favorite Lt to his spot and randomly gerenate a new Lt. For every advancement in the the commanders experience I add one randomly generated skill. My solution for getting around the ammo bug is to normalize the ammo amounts between the Germans and the Russians. Thus if Germans get 80% and the Russians get 50%, I set the Russian level at 70% (100 - (80-50)). Of course this only works as long as the Germans get more ammo than the Russians. Thought somebody might be interested. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biltong Posted March 21, 2003 Author Share Posted March 21, 2003 Originally posted by hobo: ... Thought somebody might be interested. I am very much so - I'm itching to code the rules for commanders re Determining wounding or death; If wounded - recuperation time; If dead or out of action too long - Replacement by outsiders or Battle Group junior officers; and Officer advancement and/or loss of capabilities; All the above dependant on date/performance etc.... But - until we hear from BFC re the ammo bug, it's all on hold - all we can do is hope... Your idea for cancelling out the ammo bug is a good stopgap sollution for 2 thirds? of the year in 41, 42 & 43, but once we hit the mud & cold and later years of the war the problem will once again be too large to use the SE option. Great pity Hold thumbs. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperSulo Posted March 21, 2003 Share Posted March 21, 2003 I've been playing the Kiev battles (on the 4th right now), and I must say I HATE THAT GAMEY AI! In the 3rd battle, the AI had random Force Mix... Oh look, it has 6(!) KV-1 41's! I had nothing that could deal with them (as usual...) but my trusty infantry (no tankhunters). I managed to knock out two of them and one got immobile. My company CO bagged one of them! In all we destroyed 20 tanks, got a Major Victory. One of my platoons almost got completely wiped out, one squad (a CRACK one) lost all 10 men. *sniff* In the 4th (and current) battle, the AI got Armor force mix... I bought 4 tankhunters, incase I'd face more MONSTERS... You guess it, so far I've seen two KV-1's. The AI had them plus maybe 10 other tanks stashed in a pavement/scattered wood area. I sneaked 3 tankhunters and 5 pinoeer squads to maybe 100m away from the tanks. Then my 81mm FO smoked the whole area and the guys RAN like hell! The first KV got knocked out by a TH that ran passed it, throwing an explosive in sprint . The second KV took two "panzerwurfminen" or what they are called and one granade bundle before it got knocked out. 5 other tanks were also destroyed by infantry in those 2 turns. Once the KV's were gone, I rolled my two panzers in on the right flank, shooting up the rest of the tanks. The THs and pioneers only lost 2 guys! That's not a bad trade for 2 KV's and 5 other tanks. PS: The date is wrong on map 4 (or was it 3?), it is set to 1943. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biltong Posted March 21, 2003 Author Share Posted March 21, 2003 Originally posted by SuperSulo: I've been playing the Kiev battles ... PS: The date is wrong on map 4 (or was it 3?), it is set to 1943. Ahh checked and the 1st one was also wrong. How did you find the maps and special rules? Did they work? Overdone? Ballanced? Things we should exclude/include - any other ideas? If you think you might "spoil" when answering rather e-mail me. Curious. We've started working on Sevastopol and Stalingrad. Hope to make them even better... Manstein has found some excellent maps and pics for Sevastopol. Biltong 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EasyCo Posted March 22, 2003 Share Posted March 22, 2003 The Seahawk AAR is here! Number two.. I just can't wait for the first Kiev battle. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperSulo Posted March 22, 2003 Share Posted March 22, 2003 I'll finish all 5 battles before I'll give my feedback. Should be done on Sunday, don't get many hours of play fri/sat. Ok, just some small things I can remember now: Really nice maps you usually get a bit bigger battles, with the additional forces given to you? city maps are slower (fps-wise) for me... I guess all those houses adds to the number of polygons and textures used more later 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seahawk-vfa201 Posted March 22, 2003 Share Posted March 22, 2003 Just finished Kiev Outskirt. Nice map, pretty easy advance. All my squads but 1 are Regular now. PzIII crew is close to become veteran as well. AAR being sent to EasyCo for his Journal of Hauptmann Hawk. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atiff Posted March 23, 2003 Share Posted March 23, 2003 I have a question about the CMBB battle setup side of BCR. How do you set up a battle where all your troops have different Experience levels? I mean, if you have a company with one platoon as Regulars and the rest as Green, how do you purchase that? As far as I can see, you can only do this by setting up your forces in the Editor, then saveing the map and loading it into the QB. Is that what you guys are doing? And thanks to Biltong and everyone for their efforts. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EasyCo Posted March 23, 2003 Share Posted March 23, 2003 AAR being sent to EasyCo for his Journal of Hauptmann Hawk. Ive got it.. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biltong Posted March 23, 2003 Author Share Posted March 23, 2003 Originally posted by atiff: ... How do you set up a battle where all your troops have different Experience levels? I mean, if you have a company with one platoon as Regulars and the rest as Green, how do you purchase that? As far as I can see, you can only do this by setting up your forces in the Editor, then saveing the map and loading it into the QB. Is that what you guys are doing? ... You can do it the editor way, but unfortunately there's a bug in the editor that resets all your ammo to full. The influence of ammo on the battle (esp in the crucial winter and counter offensive dates) is so important that it cannot be discarded. So, until this bug is fixed you're stuck with averaging out the experience in your company - see Note 12 - Generating the real Battle: "You won't be able to buy the HQ/Squad/Team etc. in your Inf. Company at different Experience Settings, so you have to average the Experience for the Company. Add up the experience of each Co unit: HQ/Squad/Team and divide by number of units. The player determines the Experience level for the company using Appendix A (which follows the Notes section)." The chance that Charles will be fixing the ammo bug is quite slim, but hold thumbs - the new patch will be out quite soon I believe. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seahawk-vfa201 Posted March 23, 2003 Share Posted March 23, 2003 Originally posted by atiff: I have a question about the CMBB battle setup side of BCR. How do you set up a battle where all your troops have different Experience levels? I mean, if you have a company with one platoon as Regulars and the rest as Green, how do you purchase that? As far as I can see, you can only do this by setting up your forces in the Editor, then saveing the map and loading it into the QB. Is that what you guys are doing? And thanks to Biltong and everyone for their efforts. Yes, that is what we are doing to track faithfully squads/units experience. There is no other known way. Drawnbacks: you cannot set ammo level. You end up with full whatever you set as soon as QB loads the map with your units. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seahawk-vfa201 Posted March 23, 2003 Share Posted March 23, 2003 Originally posted by Biltong: </font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by atiff: ... How do you set up a battle where all your troops have different Experience levels? \ ... You can do it the editor way, but unfortunately there's a bug in the editor that resets all your ammo to full. The influence of ammo on the battle (esp in the crucial winter and counter offensive dates) is so important that it cannot be discarded. [...] The chance that Charles will be fixing the ammo bug is quite slim, but hold thumbs - the new patch will be out quite soon I believe. </font> 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Rosenrosen Posted March 23, 2003 Share Posted March 23, 2003 Although the kills calculations are remarkably improved in CMBB compared to CMBO, I still think there are problems. It's not uncommon for a kill to go uncounted, even in the AAR. Usually this applies to PBs or AFVs that get "abandoned." The unit(s) that caused that damage don't get credit for the kills. Also (but more rarely), I've seen double kills counted. The instance that I can remember is where I had a tank and a mortar taking out a gun. Both hit close to simultaneously and both got credit for the kill. Anyone else noticed this? I guess that the units don't get experience credit for kills that the computer decides not to tally. Dr. Rosenrosen 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Rosenrosen Posted March 23, 2003 Share Posted March 23, 2003 On the Battle Group sheet, it's not clear how you should count the casualty statistics for halftracks and other vehicles armed with only MGs. (I'm using 251/1 for transportation mostly.) Are these vehicles forbidden as attached units even though they are listed under Vehicles instead of Armor? If they are allowed, what are the casualty ranges for extra experience points? Thanks, Dr. Rosenrosen 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atiff Posted March 24, 2003 Share Posted March 24, 2003 Thanks all for your replies to my question. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hobo Posted March 24, 2003 Share Posted March 24, 2003 I want my attached units back. One anomoly in the rules has you losing your attached units during an emergency reorganization and never getting them back. I would think that once things have settled down you should get your attachment back. In my case I keep getting and losing an attached 150MM gun. I would think the men would go back to their gun once the emergency is over. Any thoughts? Regards, Hobo 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
History Buff Posted March 25, 2003 Share Posted March 25, 2003 Originally posted by hobo: I want my attached units back. One anomoly in the rules has you losing your attached units during an emergency reorganization and never getting them back. I would think that once things have settled down you should get your attachment back. In my case I keep getting and losing an attached 150MM gun. I would think the men would go back to their gun once the emergency is over. Any thoughts? Regards, Hobo Problem - When the emergency is over your force is probaby 20 miles away from that gun, which is now in soviet hands, and Berlin's just ordered you to move closer to the Don. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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