Combat Mission Final Blitzkrieg

[Grim.Reaper]

I haven't played a ton yet, but enjoying what I have seen so far....just something about battling in the snow that keeps it interesting for me. Scenarios also seem interesting and glad there are about 8 small/tiny scenarios included, which are my favorite.

[Michael Dorosh]

Review posted....screenshots not that well done, believe the reviewer mentioned something was wrong with his screen capture software, but some of those pictures tough to look at.

http://www.wargamer.com/reviews/review-combat-mission-final-blitzkrieg/

I posted a brief preview video in the videos thread if anyone is still curious about what the game looks like. I think they got the autumn colours just right, and the winter stuff seems good too.

There doesn't seem to be much that's actually "new" other than the units/maps/scenarios. Not to diminish that, but would have liked to see, for example, hasty roadblocks and engineers who can clear them. I wonder if one couldn't do a workaround in the editor using Low Bocage to represent felled trees?

[MengJiao]

What do you mean playing in the editor in "real time"?

   I just revise things in the editor and then play in real time.

   Doing a modified Hofen (the second attack) based on half of "A Day of Atttrition"...It's really hard to come close to the actual US defense there since it
inflicted 600 killed while losing 5 men killed.  One stray mortar round or two and you can be 7 men down.  Plus the AI seems a lot sneakier than the actual Germans were.

[sandman2575]

There doesn't seem to be much that's actually "new" other than the units/maps/scenarios. Not to diminish that, but would have liked to see, for example, hasty roadblocks and engineers who can clear them.

Very much agree, which is why I've been surprised how much I've been enjoying FB. I'm surprised I even bought it, to be honest, since it really does seem like 'more of the same,' and not cheap either.

But for whatever reason, I'm having a really good time with this and am glad I purchased.

If there were ONE THING I wish to God they'd change, it's the absurd lethality of unbuttoning. Unbuttoning, without fail, is like a fusillade magnet. Every AI enemy within shooting distance and beyond immediately trains their sights on the unbuttoned commander, who will often then sit blithely exposed while bullets ricochet off his tank's chassis. Ditto for the poor sod who decides to man a halftrack's machine gun -- that guy is essentially doomed. 9 out of 10 times he doesn't survive to the end of a scenario.

Drives me insane. Not saying unbuttoned commanders or gunners should be invulnerable. But it's just ridiculous how deadly the mere act of opening the hatch and taking a peek is in this game -- and I'm not talking about close quarters where you'd expect it to be dangerous, but in broad open fields where you're fairly confident there are no enemy contacts. (Indeed, one of the surest ways to lure enemies to expose their positions is to, you guessed it, unbutton your commander.)

End rant.  FB is good.

[Sir Slash]

Agree with the above rant. Especially the vehicle commanders not 'buttoning-up' on their on with the exception of very experienced commanders. Didn't they teach that in Tank School?

[Elvis]

This is kind of a fun looking little review/AAR/DAR thang:

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/04/15/the-flare-path-welcomes-combative-commenters/#more-360249

I don't think I am going to suggest any moves but I will follow the battle.

[Father Ted]

This is kind of a fun looking little review/AAR/DAR thang:

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/04/15/the-flare-path-welcomes-combative-commenters/#more-360249

I don't think I am going to suggest any moves but I will follow the battle.

I saw that, but was too late to say, "Keep the Tiger back", and also "Don't unbutton" - as per the above "rants".  The unbuttoning thing is quite interesting.  When I played a lot of Darkest Hour, one of the most satisfying things to do as an infantryman was to off the unwise tanker who popped up to have a look around.  Also, half-track MGers were pretty vulnerable.

As far as CM goes,   I recently learnt the hard way about the dangers of unbuttoning.  I had a US armoured car which was doing a great job of suppressing and killing some distant Germans  with its 37mm.  However,  it ran out of HE ammo and refused to use its .50 cal on the same target.  I quickly realised that it needed to unbutton to use said weapon and ordered it to do so.  As you've guessed,  the commander had barely got the hatch open when he was plugged by some hitherto unseen Kar 98-toting pixeltruppen.

[sandman2575]

As far as CM goes,   I recently learnt the hard way about the dangers of unbuttoning.  I had a US armoured car which was doing a great job of suppressing and killing some distant Germans  with its 37mm.  However,  it ran out of HE ammo and refused to use its .50 cal on the same target.  I quickly realised that it needed to unbutton to use said weapon and ordered it to do so.  As you've guessed,  the commander had barely got the hatch open when he was plugged by some hitherto unseen Kar 98-toting pixeltruppen.

I'm convinced the 'vulnerability' of being unbuttoned or of manning an external MG is something in the game that's completely broken. You see thread after thread in the BF forums about 'Sighting is broken!" and the like -- and admittedly sighting can be pretty wonky and unrealistic at times. But man, I can live with all that just fine. The unbuttoning problem is like I say the single thing I wish they'd fix.

In a recent Red Thunder scenario -- I had a Tiger sitting (relatively hull-down, reverse slope) on a hill crest, several hundred meters behind the front-line fighting. He was sitting there for several turns in overwatch, just observing. Attracted no enemy fire. I did a little experiment. I had the commander unbutton, making sure to save before giving the order. Sure enough, a maxim hidden in a tree-line some *600 meters* away immediately opens up, and in three bursts kills the unbuttoned commander. Unfortunately that's not even remotely an exaggeration of what happened -- which is why it's so damned infuriating.

In any campaign I play with persistent units, easily half of my tank commanders are dead before the campaign ends. For my half-tracks with a 2-man driver-gunner crew, most of the gunners are dead too.

Elvis, do you agree this is a problem? Is there any hope of it getting addressed?

[Elvis]

Elvis, do you agree this is a problem? Is there any hope of it getting addressed?

Yes and yes.  ;)

[sandman2575]

Elvis, do you agree this is a problem? Is there any hope of it getting addressed?

Yes and yes.  ;)

That's excellent to hear - thank you good sir  O0

[Elvis]

Elvis, do you agree this is a problem? Is there any hope of it getting addressed?

Yes and yes.  ;)

That's excellent to hear - thank you good sir  O0

I didn't mean to be short or glib. I hope it didn't come off that way....I was running out the door.

In one of the threads Chris said:

We are looking into it, thanks for bringing it to our attention.

I can confirm that he meant it and we are....actively. Too early for any more detail than that and making public announcements about changes is above my pay grade.  :)

[sandman2575]

No worries, I didn't take it as glib at all -- and truly I'd be hugely grateful if this got fixed.

[sandman2575]

Btw, check out what a new modder has done to enhance FB's winter landscape -- really amazing work

http://community.battlefront.com/topic/122613-winter-bulge/?_fromLogin=1

Will install this for sure when released.

[Elvis]

I had the commander unbutton, making sure to save before giving the order. Sure enough,

a maxim hidden in a tree-line some *600 meters* away immediately opens up

, and in three bursts kills the unbuttoned commander.

Nuts....I meant to comment on this too......

Some may disagree but I don't think the bolded part is wrong. It doesn't seem out of line to me that the Maxim gunner fired immediately after the TC popped up. I think a case can be made that the Maxim had the tank spotted but didn't fire because there was no reason for a MG to fire at a buttoned Tiger, regardless of the distance, but, as soon as someone became exposed, immediately opened up on it. It's "success rate" is something that I might question.

[sandman2575]

Nuts....

Keeping with the Bulge spirit of things, I see    ;)

I see what you're saying and had not thought of this before, though it seems like this may be the crux of the problem. In my view, the AI over-reacts to unbuttoned tank commanders or hanomag gunners, and perhaps does this precisely because they suddenly present a 'soft' target that their weaponry can tackle, as you say.

The thing that I think badly needs fixing is threefold -- (A) the precision with which the AI seems to be able to take out tank commanders with uncanny accuracy from *long* distances, (B) the way unbuttoned tank commanders seem to be highly prioritized as targets by the AI, even preferred to easier targets, and (C), the tank commanders lack of responsiveness to being under fire. It's an all-too common occurrence to see tank commanders under fire and taking *way* too long to respond but buttoning up. And say what you will, but an MG taking out a tank commander in his cupola from *beyond* half a kilometer in a couple of bursts strikes me as far-fetched to say the least.

My argument is not that tank commanders should be invulnerable. If you unbutton in unsafe close quarters, then yes, you're asking to get killed or maimed. But in CMx2 as things currently stand, it's essentially unsafe to unbutton *anywhere*, which is why I most often follow a policy of never unbuttoning. It's just not worth the risk, esp. since tanks seem to be able to spot pretty well even when buttoned up.