What a pleasant surprise!
The Market Garden module for Combat Mission Battle for Normandy has been released. Just in time for the weekend …
Main attractions for this module are: greatly detailed maps (including "master maps" covering a great portion of the main historical battles), some tweaks in game play (for urban warfare), bridges like we have never seen before (yeah, the famous big ones off course but also check out the new overpasses), included scenarios are bigger (a continuation of a great trend we started seeing with the Gustav Line module), new building types and ...
... Crack parotroopers against elite panzer divisions! Do I need to say more?
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| Chaos at the Arnhem bridge. Best urban map I ever seen in a 3D tactical war game. |
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| Frost on the run. The complexities of urban warfare will be both highly demanding and enjoyable. |
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| With the Arnhem bridge in the background, these British paratroopers scan the street ahead before tugging that AT gun into the inner resistance perimeter. |
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| The Son bailey bridge. This scenario is played in an expansive map and what awaits these American troops is an armored counter attack. |
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| In these scenario the Germans have pushed some of the British paratroopers back from Arnhem and now are moving for the kill in hot pursuit. |
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| There is no shortage of bad-ass looking uniforms and gear in this module. |
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| Playing as American or British paratroopers, I thought that German armor was my main concern. The almost ubiquitous presence of heavy machine guns in the German formations should also be added to the list of worries. |
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| Armor of any type, unsupported by infantry. Bad idea even for these open top AAA support vehicles. The urban battles play a lot different than before due to the armored vehicles' new situation awareness penalties |
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| Rushing my German infantry into cover after a nasty encounter with very a aggressive British patrol. |
Off to play, folks. Enjoy!
Cheers,
What are these "armor SA" penalties exactly?
ReplyDeleteLooks awesome. too many games and not enough time
ReplyDeleteHi Chris,
ReplyDeleteI know! :) Good times!
Hi Shawn,
From the manual:
"buttoned up armored vehicles suffer the same penalty if they attempt to attack point-blank range targets, such as infantry swarming around the vehicle"
and, also from the manual:
"tank periscopes and vision ports had their spotting capabilities further reduced, making it more difficult for buttoned tanks to spot enemy units"
Cheers,
From the BF forum:
ReplyDelete1. Crews of heavy weapons are now even more reluctant to use their sidearms than before. No more 500m potshots from mortar ammo bearers or the like!
2. The optimal SMG engagement range has been reduced across the board, but especially for the Thompson (which was incorrectly further out than it should have been). This means your SMG guys conserve their ammo better for when their weapons can really do some damage.
3. All types or rocket based AT weapons can be fired from within buildings given certain conditions and certain caveats. Those conditions and caveats are as you expect... the bigger the bang, the more confined the space, the more potential problems. Problems = suppression and/or injury.
4. Vehicles trying to engage targets at point blank range have their time to target increased. This helps the system better simulate the problems AFVs have in seeing/engaging targets that are almost literally on top of them. Like assaulting infantry, for example.
5. Similar to #4, vehicles that try to engage targets beyond their realistic elevation restrictions have further targeting delays. Yes, yes, yes... we know that this isn't the be-all-end-all solution to the forever (i.e. since 1999) problem of not explicitly simulating elevation restrictions. But at least there's now something whereas there wasn't anything other than whatever game variables happened to be in play (which usually solved the problem anyway). We had a very, very, very long discussion about this and it was decided that the new feature works pretty well and is certainly better than nothing. And nothing was the only other viable choice for us, so that's that
6. Vision blocks and periscopes have had their capacity for spotting knocked down a bit more, thus making it harder/slower to spot things than before.
I want to get this but i have barely scratched the surface of Battle For Normandy..............i'm gonna get it.
ReplyDeleteIt gives me a ''bridge too far' feeling, which is good I guess...
ReplyDeleteWhen I get through the CMBN and the other modules, I'll get this one. This module finally give me the push to the Combat Mission world :)
ReplyDelete