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CMBN preview, Liverpool UK 19th Feb


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First off, sincere thanks to Other Means for giving up his time and hosting a splendid afternoon, and for the beers.

It was also great to meet some fellows from this site in person. Thanks for your company guys, and for helping me have a super time. It was interesting to see other chaps style of play and how they used the interface options - Other Means, I shall make the effort to learn hot keys after watching you maestro performances.

As to the game, awesome, totally awesome. I totally agree with GraemeA above, the graphics are gorgeous and suck you in and the fighting was intense and exciting. As someone said, "The Magic Is Back".

The head to head game Graeme Referrs to was brilliant and so frustrating. Sandy was driving for the "old men's" team whilst I was keeping a view, shouting encourgaement, giving tactical suggestions and generally bouncing around the room with excitment like a debutante in a knocking shop. When Graeme and Kilgore's Panther made its appearance I was actually looking at the exact place on the screen with a low (level 1) camera angle. The Panther powered into view down a narrow lane swerved, like it was doing a hand-brake turn, through a gap in a hedge and fired off two quick rounds brewing two Shermans inside three seconds. It looked, and was, stunning.

The frustration? Well that came from the real time play. There was so much going on that I couldn't keep track of it and, whats worse, I couldn't enjoy it. The event above with the Panther was over inside five seconds, I don't think Sandy ever saw it because he was too busy with the controls. Neither of us saw the death of the Panther or of six, out of the eight tanks, we lost. The game is too good to miss the level of detail it provides.

Infantry combat was very good, indeed. It looked good and the results felt about right (MGs appear deadly). In the scenario Strange Awakening (which was an absolute hoot - well done Mr. Means) it got to the point where several of us were thinking, "OK, the AI should be chucking it in now" when the AI surrendered, It didn't go on too long, as often happened in CMx1 nor did the AI fold too early - a common complaint of mine in CMSF.

I was very interested to see the surrender mechanism in action. At one point one of our US squads got out on a limb and two of the survivors offered to surrender whilst a couple of others tried to fight on (and died). This partial surrender has been the discussion in one of the threads and some of the posters had suggested that such an event was unrealistic (all would surrender or none). In this event the circumstances and timing of the individual surrenders and deaths felt entirely reasonable and what struck me was that the new functionality is spot on considerng the 1:1 modelling. We also saw how men attempting to surrender can be brought back into play by the use of a leader and how a surrender can be completed. I was impressed.

Morale and leadership effects seem to have been given a big makeover. There was no time to really analyse what was going on, but it seemed to me that these factors were having a greater affect than previously in CMx1 or CMSF, especially for the US forces.

The Quick Battle stuff we looked at is definitely on the right lines for me. We did hit a problem with a passive AI (possibly due to problems with the map), but the force purchase arrangements were very good. They provide sufficient flexibility and at the same time maintain the chain of command requirements needed for the game to function as intended. I also liked the ability to preview the map from the purchase screen so that it is possible to choose the sort of troops you think you might need to attack/defend (another one of my pet moans from CMx1 overcome).

I could go on but I have gone on too long already so I'll finsh with this. In another thread I said that I would be prepared to pay £100 for CMBN based on my experience with CMSF. After seeing the game yesterday, I'll up that. I would now be prepared to pay £200 and, if it had WEGO TCP/IP as per CMx1, I would happily pay £50 per month.

CMBN is awesome, now.

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"Well I suspect RT will play far better in CM:BN due to the slower pace, rates of fire, weapon accuracy etc"

Dunno, the action I saw yesterday was, at the crucial times, as intense as anything I have ever experienced in CMSF.

Other Means is of course correct. If the replay option had ben available I would probably still be in Liverpool - just replaying that Panther swinging through the gap, with the clouds of dust in its wake and the flames bursting from the muzzle of its gun, would have taken an hour to do full justice to the drama of the moment and the quality of the game graphics.

However, please, chaps, let us not get bogged down into the futile real-time/WEGO debate. This game is just -ing brilliant however you chose to play it.

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Well nothing can compare to a big battle with marine squads, javelins, 20mm auto cannons and laser fast abram tanks. None of these are in CM:BN..I hope the instensity had more to do with first time excitment :)

Oh no, the intensity is there, but it has more to do with the fact that the combat ranges are 1/10th of those of CMSF ;) Lots of close quarters in bocage country, and it's really tense, but in a WW2 sense. It "feels" slower but more fluid; definitely more personal; less clinical with the lively terrain, and more intense than CMSF imho. Combat at long range is of course vastly different, and it's so nice to see things actually miss for a change. Oh, and not every hit makes the enemy tanks go nuclear (also nice).

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An intense WW2 firefight can last upwards of 10 minutes in the bocage. I had a nice long running fight last night during the course of which I was able to work a platoon round the flank of the defenders and finally end the fight in my favour. All the time while I was sneaking my guys round the flank, I could hear the other guys hammering away at each other relentlessly. Fantastic stuff!

I don't remember seeing many BLUE v RED firefights last much more than one minute in CMSF. Yes, it could be real intense for a few seconds but then, one side would break. And tanks can take ages to eliminate each other, especially at ranges over 500m.

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Well nothing can compare to a big battle with marine squads, javelins, 20mm auto cannons and laser fast abram tanks. None of these are in CM:BN..I hope the instensity had more to do with first time excitment :)

Spoilers for “A Strange Awakening”.

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One of my favourite bits from Saturday was in our final game against the AI. As the ‘Mercans we decided to try and rush to a commanding position with three HTs full of infantry, only to find the Germans had the same idea – and had a 20mm armed AC that tore through the HTs like paper.

Two HTs abandoned with the squads legging back for cover (until one stopped and tried to get to the Railway station – messy) but one HT was immobilised with the 50cal still operational. Whoever was manning that would get the Congressional Medal of Honour. The AC had switched to routing the running troops until he started unloading on it. A lucky ricochet and the AC gunner went down, it was immobilised, then abandoned. We held on by the skin of our teeth until our mortar, spotted from a HQ in a building behind the lines, started dropping along the approach to our position suppressing the enemy who he was preventing from getting into the Railway station from storming us.

The squads that had abandoned the HTs either died or surrendered but crucially, we could get a HQ to them to stop them disappearing off the map. We saw two of our guys drop their weapons, we were looking at them when another guy raised his rifle and was instantly shot, falling backwards dead.

Then we saw the other AC. I thought we were toast. But two Greyhounds appeared and they looked better than the 6th Army to us – now we’d rule the battlefield. Take out the remaining AC and pound from distance. We stood them a couple of hundred metres back from the front line, grouped to give firepower superiority. At that point they were the queens of the battlefield – until the AI started dropping mortars on them.

In the space of a minute we had one immobilised, then as the time ticked down with a second left the other took a direct hit on the top – boom.

Where was that damned mortar – it must have LOS to have taken them out so quickly – must be – suppressing fire into the farmyard over the road.

To and fro we went until we got more reinforcements in the shape of a platoon of infantry in HTs. Feed them into the grinder or..? The left hand side of the map was pretty open but sunk slightly compared to the road down the middle where all the fighting was, so we shot them down there dropping men off to walk up the hill into groups of trees as we went, letting us bring fire into the enemy farm complex and the churchyard. There was also a copse of trees on the left that looked empty so we could – no. As we set up we saw enemy coming into it. We used the HTs and a squad to area fire into the copse so they were walking into fire. Then we had a 60mm mortar drop all along the front edge. That blunted that attack and let us concentrate on the main enemy groups.

We got more men, coming in from our back right – perfect. We walked them into contact. The left hand side and these reinforcements making a long “L”. We rallied our centre and took the Railway Station. From there we were clawed our way back. Eventually groups of Germans were streaming from their strongpoints. We felt we were about to move to the pursuit stage – if I was the German commander at that point I'd be throwing in the towel.

And that’s what happened – Major Allied Victory.

Through most of the game that result was not foreseen – if that guy hadn’t manned the HT MG we’d have been coming up against entrenched men in good cover. I don’t think we’d have made it.

Intensity? Oh yes. It’s got it.

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This sounds amazing, but I have to say: Pictures or it didn't happen!

I don't suppose there'll be any previews in London then, right?

Oh, it happened alright. I was there to see it.

As for a London preview, I would be surprised. You should have come to Liverpool and had a great time in that remarkable city.

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Oh, it happened alright. I was there to see it.

As for a London preview, I would be surprised. You should have come to Liverpool and had a great time in that remarkable city.

Yeah, unfortunately 'long established and impossible to extract myself from' real life plans got in the way, otherwise I'd have been up there like a shot - it's only 2 hours by train (my in-laws live in Chester, so I even had a ready made excuse to dump the wife off for the weekend!)

It sounds like you all had a great time - I'm thoroughly jealous! I'll just have to suck it up and wait for a few months before I get my hands on it.

Any further details any other attendees want to add to help ease the wait?

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