Dipping a toe into the Dark Side.

[Westmarcher]

Pray for me, fellow miniatures wargamers. For various reasons, I've not found the time (or the mojo) to pick up a paint brush or set down my brave wee men (and horses) on to the tabletop for some time now. Still managing to read (and visit some battlefields lately) and, of course, waste enrich my life away by dipping into The One True Scale Forum and various wargaming blogs, courtesy of course of this wonderful invention (the computer / the www).

Which brings me on to the subject. You see, whilst I will always be a miniatures wargamer, I've also recently ventured into the Dark Side  - computer war-games! Specifically, I'm currently nuts on a game called Combat Mission. It suits me because it takes almost no time to set up (or halt and save to continue with the game later) and I have a ready made opponent.

Its a strategy game set in WW2. You can play it in 'real time' if you wish or 'turn based.' I opt for the latter as I don't have the reflexes for an arcade game. You command regiments, battalions, companies, squads, individual vehicles and so on. You give orders to your units, click on the red button, and for the next sixty seconds, you are powerless while the men and vehicles on screen fight it out. You can then replay the action, following the fortunes (or misfortunes) of different units all over the battlefield. Some of the action is just astounding. Very entertaining but also very tense at times as you try to outguess where the enemy is and order your men forward. You can play against a human opponent or the AI (artificial intelligence) - in my current circumstances, the AI suits me.  If you play against the AI, you have a mission which you usually must complete in a set time frame - e.g., 45 minutes. However, using the turn based option, that doesn't mean to say the game only takes 45 minutes to play - by the time you try to find out where the enemy is, work out your strategy, 'give out orders' and watch the action, 1 minute's action can take any amount of time, meaning a mission can take hours, days, weeks.

Various versions of the game are available covering the campaigns in Normandy, Holland, Italy and on the Eastern Front. Being a cheapskate, I'm only playing two of the free downloadable demos, Red Thunder and Fortress Italy (actually, its also because I'm a computer dummy and I'm not sure if my laptop can cope with the full game).  Now, this might sound dangerous for the miniatures industry (and yes, it is competition) but actually, its given me (a Horse & Musket fan) a greater interest in WW2 vehicles with the result that I now find myself browsing through the appropriate section in the Pendraken catalogue to see what's on offer. 

Does anyone else play this game? For those who have never heard of this game, here are two of the many videos available on Youtube. Note in the first game (human v. human, turn based), the battlefield is shaped like a war-games table! (What chance have I got!). Please note, the first one is over an hour long. The second video is only about 8 minutes long and has been "cosmetically enhanced" by some computer buff but illustrates how close you can zoom into the action if you wish (hence, the sometimes almost endless replays of some of these action minutes).

[Ithoriel]

I have Combat Mission, Steel Panthers, Close Combat, Theatre of War, Blitzkreig and Company of Heroes, though only the last runs on my current PC the others have to be fired up on the oldest of my working machines.

I played many games of Combat Mission by email with a couple of friends, whole new game playing  against real people. I recommend it.

[bigjackmac]

I was a huge Close Combat guy!  "Close Combat: A Bridge Too Far" was an incredible game that gave me countless hours of joy; later volumes were pretty cool, but none matched up to CC:ABTF.

But I'm scared to mess about with any computer games.  I keep looking at this (relatively) new series called "Battle Academy."  But the problem is, every minute spent on computer gaming is a minute not spent on (miniature) wargaming, and I don't have very many minutes available these days.

I'd never seen Combat Mission, and I'm scared to look at the videos

V/R,
Jack

[Ithoriel]

Combat Mission is arguably the most accurate of all the computer games of it's type.

I've looked at Battle Academy but it's a little pricey for something I know next to nothing about.

I have the Eastern Front mod for Company of Heroes which I preferred to CoH2.

Tried World of Tanks but it didn't grab me.

As to time lost .....  ... EVE Online (overall favourite), TERA (current fix - free to play which is handy!), Runes of Magic (also FTP but not as good an implementation as TERA imho) eat up far more time than military themed games for me. Thank goodness for retirement!

[Ithoriel]

Just bought "Heroes of Normandie" on Steam for £15.17.

I love the board game but it's not always easy to get an opponent so the PC version will fill a gap.

HoN, as it is known, is very much Hollywood History but but fun and playable, IMHO of course.

The conversion is proving fairly straightforward to play, though if you've never played the board game it might take a little longer to get to grips with.

[Westmarcher]

Ithoriel, I might have known you already had one foot on the Dark Side!    

Seriously, very impressed with your wargaming catholicism (miniatures, computer and whatever else) and worthwhile to read your opinion on CM and how it stacks up with other games of its genre. I would imagine after exhausting all of the missions and campaign scenarios in all 4 (or is it 6 now?) fronts/theatres/game versions, an actual human opponent would be a welcome change. When you PBEM, how does that work? What is the process?

As for you, Bigjacmac - watch the videos ..   .. watch the videos .. .. watch the videos ... *


* It seems to have worked for me in a crazy alternative universe way in so much that I am now looking at the WW2 vehicles in Pendraken's product list and wondering how to paint rust and camouflage, etc.!

[Ithoriel]

I play, mainly eurogame, board games with two different groups on Tuesday and Friday evenings though we do occasionally dabble in the odd Ameritrash game from time to time. Last game played was "Churchill" which models the conferences involving Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin but usually it's something a little lighter like "Settlers of Catan", "Russian Railways" or "Castles of Mad King Ludwig."

Small group of us - usually two to four - play miniatures games on a Sunday. Mainly BKC and CoC recently.

Other than that, if I'm not at the cinema or visiting my folks or out for afternoon tea, I'm playing EVE, TERA, Ascension, Ticket to Ride, Smallworld or Company of Heroes: Eastern Front on the PC.

Well and truly ensconced on the Dark Side

In Combat Mission PBEM works by one person issuing their orders for the next turn, emailing the file to the second player who adds their orders for the turn and mails the file back. Both players can then run the action segment where things run around, fire (or get shot!) and so on. Rinse and repeat.  The game manages vehicles particularly well taking into account range, angle of strike, type of ammunition, armour quality, armour thickness and type of armour when evaluating hits, for example. Infantry tend to be rather more generic.

Off to have another go at retrieving the colonel's dog in HoN

[Westmarcher]

Thanks, pal.

[petercooman]

I have both combat mission and close combat (I have the first 3)


I have played Close combat a lot when i was younger, and now and then i put it on to play out a campaign. The first one i didn't like, a bridge too far is a very good one, and the 3rd one (eastern front) is great too, but different. A bridge too far can get really tense, especially when fighting at arnhem. I once had a piat team which took out 9 tanks (including a few panthers)over the course of the campaign. It was things like that that made it cool, seeing those guys do extraordinary stuff and earning their medals.

The russian front ones usually didn't last long enough to gain rep 


I then bought combat mission 2 and played it twice and never touched it again. Games were way to long for my taste.


Westmarcher, since you are a horse and musket fan , did you ever try cossacks?

[Ithoriel]

I found Cossacks fun to begin with but got bored with it fairly quickly. I preferred Total War, which I could play against friends, to Cossacks which no-one else had.

Sid Meier's "Gettysburg" was another multi-player favourite which, as with so many of my games, won't run on my current desktop or laptop because they are too old

[Westmarcher]

Westmarcher, since you are a horse and musket fan , did you ever try cossacks?

Cossacks? I loved that game!

First saw it in a computer games shop in Brussels, Peter, and had to have it. Although I still have it (and the expansion), unfortunately, because it runs on Windows 'Obsolete,' I can no longer play it.   My old computer died years ago and my (wife's) laptop can't play it because it runs on a more up to-date version of Windows.    
But I live in hope that one day ....  

Ithoriel. Total War. Was that the engine they used in Time Commanders (a TV show)? I liked that too (even though, in a formation of horse, the horses all wagged their tails in the same way at the time)..

[petercooman]

I found Cossacks fun to begin with but got bored with it fairly quickly. I preferred Total War, which I could play against friends, to Cossacks which no-one else had.

Sid Meier's "Gettysburg" was another multi-player favourite which, as with so many of my games, won't run on my current desktop or laptop because they are too old

Cossacks? I loved that game!

First saw it in a computer games shop in Brussels, Peter, and had to have it. Although I still have it (and the expansion), unfortunately, because it runs on Windows 'Obsolete,' I can no longer play it.  My old computer died years ago and my (wife's) laptop can't play it because it runs on a more up to-date version of Windows.   
But I live in hope that one day .... 

Hah the feeling of getting your ferry full of men to the shore and the enemy shooting it down Seconds before it hits the beach... I'll never forget that.

I've never bought another strategy game of that kind after that, why change if you like it 

[Westmarcher]

Hah the feeling of getting your ferry full of men to the shore and the enemy shooting it down Seconds before it hits the beach... I'll never forget that.

Yep! Been there! If you saw the ferry/troop transport heading for the shore and managed to get an artillery piece within canister range just as the ramp fell down and they charged out ....... carnage!

[petercooman]

Yep! Been there! If you saw the ferry/troop transport heading for the shore and managed to get an artillery piece within canister range just as the ramp fell down and they charged out ....... carnage!

Quite nice!

I really liked that game. Formations were cool too, i was very fond of a formation of pikemen 

[Westmarcher]

That game also taught me the value of Hussars for raiding deep into enemy territory and destroying their means to wage war, i.e. economic targets such as mines, windmills (and other agricultural assets), ship yards, etc.