John Tiller's Latest; Panzer Battles 2 - Normandy released

[Grim.Reaper]

Very nice write-up....certainly has me close to purchasing.

[-budd-]

Yea nice write up. I'm defiantly considering it, just want to know if there are a bunch of medium to small scenarios. I'm not into moving hundreds of counters anymore, but it does look nice and i like the scale.

[Grim.Reaper]

Yea nice write up. I'm defiantly considering it, just want to know if there are a bunch of medium to small scenarios. I'm not into moving hundreds of counters anymore, but it does look nice and i like the scale.

Good questions...I prefer smaller as well.

[panzerde]

Yea nice write up. I'm defiantly considering it, just want to know if there are a bunch of medium to small scenarios. I'm not into moving hundreds of counters anymore, but it does look nice and i like the scale.

Good questions...I prefer smaller as well.

There is one monster scenario - basically the complete landings and airborne ops of June 6, a handful of Corps sized scenarios, such as the complete British landings, a number of divisional scenarios, and then a bunch of regiment and brigade sized. A pretty nice mix. If you like Campaign Series (and I know you do Budd) I'm guessing you'll like this. This is really the direct descendant of Campaign Series. Same scale, very similar mechanics, even a virtually identical Op Fire dialog.


Best bet is to take a look at the Designer's notes at http://www.johntillersoftware.com/PanzerBattles/BattlesOfNormandy/Notes.pdf. Scenario descriptions start on page 50. The Designer's Notes alone are nearly worth the cost of the game: 149 pages of detailed information, and that doesn't include the separate Visual OOB document.

[-budd-]

Yea nice write up. I'm defiantly considering it, just want to know if there are a bunch of medium to small scenarios. I'm not into moving hundreds of counters anymore, but it does look nice and i like the scale.

Good questions...I prefer smaller as well.

There is one monster scenario - basically the complete landings and airborne ops of June 6, a handful of Corps sized scenarios, such as the complete British landings, a number of divisional scenarios, and then a bunch of regiment and brigade sized. A pretty nice mix. If you like Campaign Series (and I know you do Budd) I'm guessing you'll like this. This is really the direct descendant of Campaign Series. Same scale, very similar mechanics, even a virtually identical Op Fire dialog.


Best bet is to take a look at the Designer's notes at http://www.johntillersoftware.com/PanzerBattles/BattlesOfNormandy/Notes.pdf. Scenario descriptions start on page 50. The Designer's Notes alone are nearly worth the cost of the game: 149 pages of detailed information, and that doesn't include the separate Visual OOB document.

Do you have the Kursk game? Same question regarding scenario unit count. I just have so many good wargames to play right now, since its not on sale i don't feel the rush to buy.

[panzerde]

Do you have the Kursk game? Same question regarding scenario unit count. I just have so many good wargames to play right now, since its not on sale i don't feel the rush to buy.

Yep, I have Battles of Kursk as well. It's the same way: a few really large scenarios, quite a few divisional and a similar number of brigade/regiment sized scenarios. I find most of the scenarios to be playable in an hour or two.


Same deal on the Designer's Notes: http://www.johntillersoftware.com/PanzerBattles/BattlesOfKurskSouthern/notes.pdf


Both games have great planning maps, too.


Dave Freer and team really have just done an amazing job on the research for these. The engine is also very flexible: my friend Chris Maiorana just did a set of three scenarios depicting Crimea 1941 as described in the book Where the Iron Crosses Grow using the Kursk game, with Dave & team doing the OOBs and TO&Es with 1941 equipment.


Personally I'm finding I like the Normandy game more than the Kursk game. I think Normandy presents more interesting tactical choices. Kursk is a big tank battle, but the Soviets just prepared such extensive fortification belts that a lot of the scenarios have you spending a lot of time trying to punch holes in bunker lines. Normandy is a lot more fluid and interesting to me. Chris' scenarios do that for East Front with the Kursk game, and I'm hoping we'll see more like that.


As for sales, I'm not sure I've ever seen a JTS sale. It appears they've done very well with the Normandy game sales-wise, but you're right: the games are going to be there if you come back in six months.


Still, Normandy is a hell of a lot of fun. I'm really very happy with it.

[Barthheart]

Does the game play feel  substantially different from the Panzer Campaigns series?

[-budd-]

thanks for the links. Just read the notes on Normandy....who am i kidding i'll be getting this. There's a lot of interesting engagements at a scale i really like. The price is fair, i just tell myself to wait because i don't need another game in the que. I played the crap out of CSME for about 3 weeks, jumped into FP reforged and finished most of the NATO scenarios and now i'm knee deep in DCB, which is great and completely playable for me at the Division scale. It almost sounds like i'm complaining about having too many good wargames to play ;D. No work until January so i'll be filling time with some good wargaming. You know once upon a time i could play the same game for months...AAAA the good ole days.

[panzerde]

Does the game play feel  substantially different from the Panzer Campaigns series?

The basic UI is the same, with a lot of the same mechanics. It's the same basic engine, so it uses the same means for movement and firing, etc.

OTOH, with the scale being very different, the actual game play is very different. Where units need to be adjacent in Panzer Campaigns to attack, for example, units in Panzer Battles can fire at range - and will definitely need to to avoid getting chewed up on the attack. Tactical use of terrain features is important. Fire and maneuver is a necessity. Artillery is used for tactical support, smoke is important, and it's often smart to hold some back to plaster a target of opportunity. Air strikes are not instantaneous like they are in Panzer Campaigns, but are called for in one turn and arrive the next - provided they aren't intercepted by enemy air.

So, it isn't substantially different in that it looks very similar, unit details are in an infobox and not immediately visible on the counters, etc. Losses are by manpower and not by steps, like all Tiller games. Tactically though it plays more like Campaign Series than Panzer Campaigns. It's a step up in scale though from games like ASL or LNL Tactical, so it isn't brief and fast-moving firefights, either, though it probably feels closer to that than an operational game like Panzer Campaigns or Decisive Campaigns.

[Barthheart]

Hmmmm... sounds interesting.... just don't tell Cyrano that...  ;)

[panzerde]

Hmmmm... sounds interesting.... just don't tell Cyrano that...  ;)

Amazingly, he hasn't bought it yet that I know of. He's whinging about the maps not being the right color palette or something. Apparently JTS needs to include a free bottle of Peach Schnapps with every purchase.  >:D

Honestly, the entire time I was playing the Le Mesnil-Patry scenario I kept thinking "Vance should play this, they've done such a great job with the Canadians in this!" To have even included that particular engagement in the scenario list is impressive in my book.

And if the Canadians aren't enough, they have the Poles, French, Dutch and Belgians covered too.

[Richie61]

Personally I'm finding I like the Normandy game more than the Kursk game. I think Normandy presents more interesting tactical choices. Kursk is a big tank battle, but the Soviets just prepared such extensive fortification belts that a lot of the scenarios have you spending a lot of time trying to punch holes in bunker lines. Normandy is a lot more fluid and interesting to me. Chris' scenarios do that for East Front with the Kursk game, and I'm hoping we'll see more like that.

This. I have both games and was a beta tester for Normandy. Dennis and myself played lots of the scenarios. All were well designed and played great. We played the 170 turn scenario in like
2 weeks - LOL!

[Strela]

Yea nice write up. I'm defiantly considering it, just want to know if there are a bunch of medium to small scenarios. I'm not into moving hundreds of counters anymore, but it does look nice and i like the scale.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words.

Here are two of the three Infanterie Regiments from the German 352 Infanterie Division. You can see the size of each of the battalions here is about 16 units. Please note that many of the 'components' can combine to make bigger units such as full companies. This drops the total unit count down to about 8 or 9 per battalion.

A Regiment/Brigade is either two or three battalions with one or two supporting companies - see below for the supporting infantry gun & AT gun units.







The full 352 Infanterie Division is three of these regiments (you can see two of them above) as well as the divisional assets. Here are the divisional support battalions - again many of these can combine into larger units. For example all the guns in the Artillerie Regiment could combine into just 5 units by type from the original 22.

There are not a huge number of pieces when running even a full division.






To answer the question on size of scenarios - here is the scenario names and size. Battalion level is small, Regiment/Brigade are small/medium, Division is medium while Corps is large and Army is huge.

Normandy scenario list;






And for comparison the equivalent list from Kursk;






Hope that helps,

David

[-budd-]

  a picture is indeed worth a thousand words, thanks for putting that together. It's only a matter of when at this point, thanks again.

[Cyrano]

I am sitting...right...here...

Of course I bought the damn thing...day it came out.  My will to resist was not helped by the fact that I had just hit the Overlord section of Hastings' "Inferno" a few days before...or that my son and I are now two weeks into our "D-Day Landings" Memoir '44 game...

I do prefer the PzC color palette, but it is a remarkable game.  Particularly notable is the insane level of research they put into this thing...a valuable resource for students of the period, providing even bibliography for the lest trusting.

Golden age for us...

Best,

Jim
"Cyrano"
:/7)