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Is this the game for seniors?


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Yeasterday at dusk we were all camping in Perthshire having a BBQ looking out across fields and hedges to a wooded hill beyond. My brother handed me binoculars while I looked at the lengthening shadow and said "Do you want these to look at the Osprey nest" to which I replied.... " No I am trying to work out how to take that hill".

He was enjoying the evening and the kids were talking about FPs's and the next transformers movie, but me well like you since I was the same age and my nephew and son have been programmed to try to take that hill.......

Peter.

That is wonderfully funny! My wife will be glad to know I'm not the only nutcase in the world...:) Every time we go on a drive in the country and I'm in the passenger seat, I'll be looking at the beautiful scenery...my wife will ask with a smirk..."You looking for a reverse slope or hull down position again?" She knows me only too well.:D

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If you are interested although I was much higher up than road level this is the Google street view of "That hill"... a lot of open ground.

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?ll=56.38229,-3.939843&spn=0.006059,0.01929&t=h&z=16&lci=com.panoramio.all&layer=c&cbll=56.382287,-3.939576&panoid=y5NgmVfMcCGCLAHLXwYIsA&cbp=12,157.23,,0,0

This is partly why I am so keen to start modelling the area around my own house.

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That is wonderfully funny! My wife will be glad to know I'm not the only nutcase in the world...:) Every time we go on a drive in the country and I'm in the passenger seat, I'll be looking at the beautiful scenery...my wife will ask with a smirk..."You looking for a reverse slope or hull down position again?" She knows me only too well.:D

Ha, ha. I do the same with wife my wife and kids in the car. I keep asking my kids, "So, if you had a platoon of infantry in those woods and a heavy machine gun for support, how would you get you guys over that open field and take that farmhouse."

My wife just rolls her eyes.

Yet my kids always respond with something like ... "Well, fire-fix-flank-finish, dad. Pin them down, and then maybe move two squads along the fence and hedges in the back there and assault the farmhouse. Are there any mortars for support?"

I can't tell you how proud that makes me feel. :D

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I'm glad that you guys are out there. It makes me feel less alone in my odd weirdness. Don't know when it all started, but it might have something to do with dad's stories about WWII and him watching defecting German soldiers getting cut down by fire from their own while swimming towards freedom over the bordering river which he guarded.

I'm close to 54 now and I'm wondering how some of our generation became like this. One of my favorite movie quotes is that of the dying replicant in Bladerunner:

"I've seen things you humans wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I've watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time like...tears in rain.

Time... to die."

Reading Peter Cairns' post about "that hill" I can feel a kinship to that replicant. So many memories from things that never happened in real life and that ordinary people don't know about; That lone Flammpanzer making the wheat files burn that fictional August that never happened - driving the overwhelming Brittish forces out of their hiding and making me win that hybrid DIY Squad Leader/Cross of Iron/Crescendo of Doom scenario so many years ago. I can still can almost reach out and touch those wheat fields. It's like that scene in the Gladiator movie with Russel Crowe and the wheat fields of home.

Like the uncertainty in Ambush! back in 1983 where you never knew whether your troops would trigger an event or progress another hex towards their goal. Things you share with nobody except those who have "been there".

The slowly progressing agony of Campaign for North Africa. Would the logistics guy manage to bring enough water to the front for the Italian troops to cook their pasta?

Twirling burning fictional deaths of WWI fighter aces in Wings. Plotting movement in Sniper chucking nades through windows or spraying apertures in rooms with virtual smg fire in hope of disabling any enemies there. Jagdpanzer IVs in narrow streets in Dutch Close Combat II towns - luck making them the heroes of internet games rather than dead headless chickens.

That evening when CM:BO almost burnt my apartment down due to a bit too much WEGO immersion. Vacations throughout Europe where a bullet hole in a wall of a non-descript building made more sense to me than the normal tourist attractions.

Once upon a time when that still almost usable WWII trench was just 25 years old and my dad's stories sounded like an exciting adventure and the realities of war was something I didn't at all comprehend.

Memories of that old "War Department 1944" jerry can I used a a teenager and still keep around. We're freaks. Gotta live with it. I wonder what ordinary people think when they see *that* hill or *that* sunny wheat field...

Eagerly awaiting CM:BN.

-----

Greup

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Ha, ha. I do the same with wife my wife and kids in the car. I keep asking my kids, "So, if you had a platoon of infantry in those woods and a heavy machine gun for support, how would you get you guys over that open field and take that farmhouse."

My wife just rolls her eyes.

Yet my kids always respond with something like ... "Well, fire-fix-flank-finish, dad. Pin them down, and then maybe move two squads along the fence and hedges in the back there and assault the farmhouse. Are there any mortars for support?"

I can't tell you how proud that makes me feel. :D

Awesomeness! It think that's why my son went into the Army after me. You never know they might one day, god forbid they have to use that knowledge you parted with them. Especially the day Terminator 6 comes out?

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Signs you may be an old wargamer...

You always try to park your car hull-down to the threat axis.

You have that moment of worry about being caught by artillery at a very long traffic light.

You examine roadside scenery for tactical opportunities(a lot of us seem to be coming out of that closet)

You watch more History and Military Channel than all other forms of passive media combined.

You keep old war games that niether you nor anyone else will ever play.

You have punished a cat for running across your battle space and ruining 2 hours work.

You can stack tiny cardboard counters 6 high with NO LEAN.('don't block my LOS string')

etc etc

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Awesomeness! It think that's why my son went into the Army after me. You never know they might one day, god forbid they have to use that knowledge you parted with them. Especially the day Terminator 6 comes out?

If they did, and they have inherited even a small part of my late-father-in-law's courage (8th British, 2nd Polish Corps, 5th Kresowa Infantry Division ... awarded the Polish Cross of Valour for an act of outstanding bravery on the field of battle in late 1944 Italy), they might manage OK. I hope they never have to prove themselves though, except with a second copy of CMBN in the house against dad.

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.... but me well like you since I was the same age and my nephew and son have been programmed to try to take that hill.......

Peter.

Nice !!! I know what you mean ...

Always looking at terrain , wondering what it would look like as an ASL map , or , as a Gamers TCS tactical game with the contour line maps ...

I'm still 18 ... with 30 yrs experience at being 18 :cool:

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Indeed, life is short, you could die of old age any minute! :P

Thanks, LemoN. :) As my favorite pol says, "you bet'cha." Really. It's important to take/make the time to smell the flowers, even if they have to be mod'ed in. :D

I'm glad I've returned after all the years; still appears to be a great bunch of guys here.

cheers

skip

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It would be sad to die just before CMBN came out- but if that happened I'm sure we'd like to be buried with our copy of the game!:)

I'm sure that you'll still be able to open the box, install it and then launch it. But after placing your forces in the first scenario and you hit the red button on the bottom right corner... well game over. faceg.gif

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We went from Toy Soldiers to Solider war games and it stuck, so that when BF produced a computer game that fitted the bill it was all our Christmases. For thirty years or more we have all been programmed to like this game it's why we love it and why BF loves to make it.

The problem is that so many young people now are being brought up on youtube and Portal, iPods and halo so will they in future get it when we show them CNBN or will it be the game of our generation with no one to follow in years to come.

Peter.

I've thought about this as well, most of the players here seem to have a background in model building and board and table top gaming. Hopefully 10 years of internet expansion should allow for greater exposure of the Combat Mission series and will bring in new blood.

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Well CM is about the only RTT on the market that is almost 100% tactics and very little speed. Most games these days rely very very heavily on reflexes and player speed (I'm talking about "strategy" games here) so new players will come, the ones who want to think anyhow.

Although I'm still pretty young at 22 that's what drew me to CM, I was eventually disillusioned with all the other strategy offerings out there.

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It is really nice to meet you all war game ner^H^H^H folks. I am 46 myself and have never been better. :)

I started with plastic soldiers as soon as I had a small budget. At 16 I moved on to SPI War in Europe, when a friend bought it. I have mainly stuck with strategy games, like the Europa series, of which I have a stack at home. I liked playing all sorts of war games, but primarily liked WWII games. SPI's Atlantic Wall being one of my favourites, which means CMBN is highly anticipated. We actually set up Atlantic Wall at the officers college and played it there at the back of the classroom for most of my time there. I got started with CM with CMBO which I really liked.

Over the years I have spent quite a lot of time studying WWII (like most of you) and was relatively recently honoured by my grandma when she handed over grandpa's Winter War medal and other bits from the war in Finland. He served as a volunteer in the Swedish Volunteer Corps as an aircraft mechanic at the 19th Flying Regiment, where they operated twelve Gloster Gladiator II fighters and five Hawker Hart bombers, lent by the Swedish. During the flotillas brief time in Finland (62 days, the war ended on the 13 March 1940 with the Moscow Peace Treaty) they shot down twelve Russian aircraft and lost two to enemy action and four to accidents.

Anyway, I am looking forward to get beat up by many of you in the hedgerows.

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relatively recently honoured by my grandma when she handed over grandpa's Winter War medal and other bits from the war in Finland. He served as a volunteer in the Swedish Volunteer Corps as an aircraft mechanic at the 19th Flying Regiment, where they operated twelve Gloster Gladiator II fighters and five Hawker Hart bombers, lent by the Swedish. During the flotillas brief time in Finland (62 days, the war ended on the 13 March 1940 with the Moscow Peace Treaty) they shot down twelve Russian aircraft and lost two to enemy action and four to accidents.

Nice to have the medal and the contact through to an important event. From my point of view also a little bit more history learned : )

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I am 48, and yes, life is short and unpredictable. I had a severe heart attack about a year and a half ago, you really can go at any moment, without warning. So enjoy life! Not all of us get a second shot at it.

I started with Squad Leader, back when it was new :) I lived in a remote area, so could not do much more than dabble with it, and honestly have been a dabbler ever since.

This game looks like one I could really get into in a lot more detail. I am one of those who doesn't like the RTS games and feeling rushed, and the reflexes aren't what they used to be :P From what I saw of the videos, even in the RTS setting, it wasn't so fast paced, I may give it a try once I get comfortable with the game mechanics.

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I am 48, and yes, life is short and unpredictable. I had a severe heart attack about a year and a half ago, you really can go at any moment, without warning. So enjoy life! Not all of us get a second shot at it.

I started with Squad Leader, back when it was new :) I lived in a remote area, so could not do much more than dabble with it, and honestly have been a dabbler ever since.

This game looks like one I could really get into in a lot more detail. I am one of those who doesn't like the RTS games and feeling rushed, and the reflexes aren't what they used to be :P From what I saw of the videos, even in the RTS setting, it wasn't so fast paced, I may give it a try once I get comfortable with the game mechanics.

Welcome to the BFC Borg!

Steve

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I was 35 the last time I posted in one of these threads - we'll just leave it at that...

Went through most of the AH catalog in my youth, but mostly SL/COI/COD and Third Reich. After college it all went by the wayside until CM:BO came out.

TT

Sounds very familiar. Started off with Panzerblitz and 1776, then graduated to Submarine, Bismarck and Gettysburg '77. Then, SL came out and I was hooked.

Of course, this didn't take away from my time playing AD&D and Chaosium's Runequest, Feudal, The Russian Campaign, etc., etc.

Then college hit, and the games slowly but surely hit the storage shelves. Until CMBO. Now, I'm 44 (was I really on the better side of my 30s when CMBO came out? Wow!), have four kids (including one in college), and have been married for nearly 20 years.

CM takes me back to my misgotten youth. Thanks Battlefront!

Steve

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I have died and been reincarnated a couple of times while waiting for CMBN. However, this time I am a Gerbil and am concerned that it will be hard to play CMBN without opposable thumbs. Can anyone help delay the release date so that I can complete my next reincarnation cycle and come back as a human? Thank you...

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