Slitherine

Believe me, so long as the hedgerows stop Tigers and Panthers training their 88s on you from range, they are your friend... Repeat after me? Hedgerows are my friend

Arctic would have kicked my ass to Kingdom Come without 'em... He's going to anyway... But with the hedgerow, it's marginally less shameful...

Remember to use your Arty & Typhoons tho (just not in the games versus me, ok! )... Those narrow approaches you don't like concentrate the German response... Arctic has taken out a Tiger and a Panther with one Typhoon strike, and a mortar, a Wirbelwind AA, a 251 and a Waffen SS platoon with a single splutter from HMS Rodney... Argh!!

GL you are not giving yourself enough credit. Most of the damage I've inflicted has come from the Typhoon and Artillery. But how it occurred has made me see a couple things not to do, and one particular trap you laid was so effective I'm stealing it.

I've found things not to try as Germans due to your effectiveness as Allies in exploiting some errors and I know there are plenty of units left for you but I'm really interested in watching your next wave unfold. I think I have you bottled up...for another turn or two if I'm lucky.

Jon, here's the strange 88. But after we talked about the hedgerow issue I think that's what happened. I think the SS had fired so it stayed visible even to my Sherman and Kangaroo two spaces from the hedgerow. The 88 did not so it disappeared. But now that the MG has move to the hedge the 88 is visible again.

Oi. Sorry about my poor photo crop east/west.

jcb989 wrote:Time to get Merr's Rhino sherman out and running through some of those hedges.

I second that! a couple of rhino's would be great

Sigh. GL laying the smack down. Whupped my Allied army and just lay down a beautiful turn making my ability to hold as Germans in a lot of doubt.

Single shot takes and my 88 a few grids from his Sherman bouncing off the extra plate that enterprising tank crew must have welded to the front.

Gents - I haven't played this at all yet as I've been interstate. However I'm concerned about comments suggesting the Allied initial staging area is not only known, but will be pretty congested.

Does this give the German players an initial advantage, in that they'll know where to direct arty, etc before the Allied player has had a fair chance to disperse?

Hey Colin - have posted two challenges for you. Password 'arcticpost'

Btw, please appease my curiosity. Why do you go by 'arcticpost' ?

johntindall wrote:... the Allied initial staging area is not only known, but will be pretty congested. Does this give the German players an initial advantage, in that they'll know where to direct arty, etc before the Allied player has had a fair chance to disperse?

Yes this is fairly true. Particularly if the jerries come stand on the wall with MG42's and 88's and fire into the masses lol.
I saw one of GL88's 88's fire a single shot that went through 3 of my Shermans, destroying them all! Or at least that's what its like lol.

One other thing I did notice was, after playing a couple times 5+ turns into it, I have ideas of improving my initial deployments for Allied side, to better take advantage of the sneaky secret passageways on the map the ones that go through the woods single-file. Did not know either of them were there on any of my deployments so far, only found them 1-2 turns into things. Poor map scouting I guess. =/

Not sure if it will make the difference to improbable victories, but it would give my boys something to try rather than be the object of the "Great Normandy Turkey Shoot"!
=)

jcb989 wrote:

johntindall wrote:... the Allied initial staging area is not only known, but will be pretty congested. Does this give the German players an initial advantage, in that they'll know where to direct arty, etc before the Allied player has had a fair chance to disperse?

Yes this is fairly true. Particularly if the jerries come stand on the wall with MG42's and 88's and fire into the masses lol.
I saw one of GL88's 88's fire a single shot that went through 3 of my Shermans, destroying them all! Or at least that's what its like lol.

One other thing I did notice was, after playing a couple times 5+ turns into it, I have ideas of improving my initial deployments for Allied side, to better take advantage of the sneaky secret passageways on the map the ones that go through the woods single-file. Did not know either of them were there on any of my deployments so far, only found them 1-2 turns into things. Poor map scouting I guess. =/

Not sure if it will make the difference to improbable victories, but it would give my boys something to try rather than be the object of the "Great Normandy Turkey Shoot"!
=)

The staging area is pretty known but there is a lot of it. The killer see is the only way in are through small channels and trying to get something onto the airfield will be a feat of Medal of Honor proportions! I knew about the secret ways in but GL also hinted to them (4 passages in) but, my opponent also knows about them and we are having a killing spree in them. I have actually taken the flag in the passage on the Allies left (the L shaped entrance) but...Panthers, 88's and mortars are preventing me from getting much further. And any thought of a decent airstrike goes down in flames between 4 88's and 2 Wirblewinds.

I think the Germans may have a bit too much firepower in this one. I think this one needs to be better balanced, remove about 10-12 German units (especially 88's, Panthers and Tigers) and maybe give the Allies a few Rhinos to cut their own paths in. This would allow for more flexibility in trying to enter the airfield. Right now, all I have to do is position my units split between the 2 main entrances and effectively keep the Allies out.

Jon, love your battles and will keep playing but, this one went a little over the edge.

morge4 wrote:maybe give the Allies a few Rhinos to cut their own paths in. This would allow for more flexibility in trying to enter the airfield. Right now, all I have to do is position my units split between the 2 main entrances and effectively keep the Allies out.

I had made this same type of suggestion to Jon. Why not simulate this idea on the map by having a couple pass-throughs from each "cell area" on the allied side into the German side. That way the allies can come across in more areas and get into a big fight in the airfield. I think the whole wall should be passable by infantry to try to help the playability. Tanks would only be able to pass through narrow gaps but there should maybe be as many of those as staging fields.
If these maps changes were made, I think only a minor tweak to German forces would be necessary.

P.S. to Al, we let you take that flag, hoping you would come down that road to your complete slaughter when you step out into the open. lol...

OK... Carpiquet Diem...

Sharing some ideas for those still in play, having a tough time as Allies... Stick with it. Consider why it's going wrong. Try something different... I didn't quite make it as Allies, but I reckon that I could have won with one turn more (yup, seriously! ). Honestly, I got closer to winning Carpiquet as Allies, in my first game this map, with more than the usual number of spectacular first play errors like you wouldn't believe (shame! ) than I ever got to winning as Allies on Hillman (double shame, lol!! )

Yes, it was PAINFUL... But actually enjoyed playing this one MUCH more as Allies than Germans. For Germans, it's too predictable. For Allies, it's a nightmare, deathwish, bloodbath... And then, suddenly, about halfway through... little chinks of light begin to filter through (mostly enabled by HMS Rodney's naval arty and some well placed Typhoons, but the landlubbers played their part).

Ok, here's my first Carpiquet in pictures...

1. To paraphrase the 1990's ohrwurm... Death is all around us, I feel it my fingers, I feel in my toes... Carpiquet was one ugly SOB. It's messy. GET ME OUTTA HERE!!... As elegant warfare goes, this was Stalingrad. With runways...



2. The home flag is easy to hang on to, so long as the Germans doesn't come out (more on that later; but to feel more comfortable as Allies, it's wise to keep some Fireflies and scouts/engineers behind the hedgerow)



3. Carpiquet's Main Gate is a tougher ask, but it's do-able. Knowing what I know now, I'd have run all of my 20+ infantry at his walls, and punished anything that dared show its face with tank fire, but this was my first attempt, so consider it a painfully Spartan learning experience... Notice the decimation? Main Gate gets bombarded by Allies, then arty dropped by Germans, then bombarded by Allies... This is BA's version of Dresden... So, as Allies, you've got to take it, use smokey mortars to hide, stay mobile... Do you attack from the obvious places? Do you sneak off somewhere unexpected? Or do you hide in the obvious places as a double bluff, lol? For my games still in play, I'm not sayin'!



Succeeding at Carpiquet depends on making a breakout and getting your runners in. In this instance, I got a mission critical Typhoon kill one turn later than I needed it. And I got an Arty strike to weaken two Panthers enough that I could Firefly 'em one turn later than I needed... SIGH... But, MAN, this was a close run thing... This would have been winnable with 1-2 more turns on the clock...

4. At the final turn, a scout and an infantryman were 2-3 turns from the Kommandant's privy. Better put down your Suddeutsche Zeitung, Herr Oberst!



5. At the final turn, a Vickers MG was two spaces (one turn for an MG) from the Runway flag... AAARGH!!



6. At the final turn, an infantryman and Roo were 1 turn away from the Hangers... Chocks away? Sadly not this time TinTin

Just in case the Krauts were planning something devious, the Roo brought some friends along... 2 Shermans and a Croc, to handle any unruly natives (numerical superiority plus some angel dust from Heaven, in a pilot's suit, had by then helped to anaesthetise the 3 Tigers and 5 Panthers)



So, yup, Carpiquet is do-able... I'm not sayin' it's easy. It isn't... And it might require 25 turns rather than 20... But, wow, I feel the Adrenaline, just from getting this close to gold


Good luck Gentlemen!

johntindall wrote:Gents - I haven't played this at all yet as I've been interstate. However I'm concerned about comments suggesting the Allied initial staging area is not only known, but will be pretty congested.

Does this give the German players an initial advantage, in that they'll know where to direct arty, etc before the Allied player has had a fair chance to disperse?

Welcome back, Traveller...

Allied starting area is known, but it's 40 squares wide by 3 deep... ie. all of the north side of the map... so, although it's known it's pretty flexible.

Suggestions, plan ahead. Think where you want to go. Scouts/recon cars are useless vs hedgerow (not just on the airfield's wall, but the hedgerow that protects the Allies too) so you have to chuck expendable grunts right up against the wall to see. Flipside, so does he. And if you have a grunt, and he has a grunt, "Hi neighbour", you'll see each other. Allies can afford to lose (throw away) infantrymen more than Germans can waste their Waffen SS. Tip no.2. Shermans have incredible HE firepower versus grunts that show up on walls. And you have 20 of 'em.

The problem with Arty is that there are only four access points, so it's reasonably easy to guess where your enemy will be; but slightly harder to guess when they'll be there, if you're playing somebody sneaky (Jcb ). Enemy force concentration is handy for Naval Arty (brutal) and Typhoons (astonishingly effective, if you look before you fly, and target units at least 4 spaces away from an 88 or Wirbelwind).

All of the above said, Carpiquet is proving to be The Ball Breaker. Sorry to say it, but some of us won't win this one as Allies (like me as Allies at Hillman, oh, the shame of it! )

Am in discussions with my current two opponents on how to soften the scenario, to perhaps make it easier so everyone could win... Gotta run, but more thoughts tonight... Would be happy to see AARs from you, publicly or privately!

Hang on to your hats (helmets?), Gentlemen...

GJS'44 Carpiquet may be about to receive an injection of Amaris' magic code...

Maintaining the challenge of Carpiquet (guys, I want this one to be tough, possibly the hardest map on BA v1, and very probably impossible for newbies as Allies) but keeping our tourney playable so that everyone is happy to experiment and have fun... Guru-developer Amaris and I have swapped some messages... And he's conjured up some wonderfully clever code that...

(i) permits engineers to blow up hedgerow walls (just like those around Carpiquet )
(ii) permits engineers to cut paths through forest (just like those inside Carpiquet's walls )
(iii) permit engineers to remove tank traps
(iv) permits engineers to construct tank traps

With Amaris' "empowered' engineers, sneaky Allies will be able to blast their own paths into Carpiquet, which will be unpredictable and different for every game (rather than having your rather useless map designer bump up 4 access points to 6 or 8, which would always be predictable and well defended). Of course, this does make engineers very high value targets... so try not to run them into MG42s.

If Amaris might permit us to play with his code soon, I'm hoping to beta-test it this weekend... with a revised Carpiquet that also includes the following modifications...

(v) Allies get +2 more mortars (the smoke is desirable, even more than their kill/suppress function)
(vi) Typhoon recycle time reduced by -1 turn
(vii) Number of game turns increased from 20 to 25 (so if you lose it's not because the clock ran out, lol )

Jcb, Arctic & I have examined all sorts of other options, including giving the Allies on-board Arty (but that feels almost too powerful, while mortar smoke is probably more useful versus the heavy panzers), removing all of the walls/hedgerow around the airfield (but that should become an easy slam dunk for the numerically superior Allied force), deducting a Tiger and/or a Panther from the German starting line up (which we still might do, if you miserable little maggots still can't win this one!! )

Thoughts and comments welcome (so long as you've played >10 turns on at least two Carpiquet games as Allies!!)

See here for more info -> viewtopic.php?f=104&t=41339#p388207

Terraforming? Battle Academy on Mars. Awesome. With 4 Engineering units would you bump up the number of them available to the detriment of say Infantry? Or add another Engineer unit to the 64 units? Or leave it at 4?

Note to self: don't lose your freaking Engineers.

What about that early Arty strike? And I'm still against a Tiger or Panther removal I must admit.

Haha, yup definitely don't lose your freakin' engineers Arctic!

Can't add more because BA restricts each side to max of 64 units, so if I add say 2 engineers, 2 mortars, you're going to lose 4 of something... Am considering what's most fair to lose...

Amaris has made amazing progress with his mod, which is beginning to look pretty darned slick

Gentlemen,

Has anyone else nearly made it (or even actually made it) as Allies in Carpiquet???

As folks are saying, we're hitting some 'fish in a barrel' situations in other games... so, some of you, may be pleased to hear that Amaris (of Ortona fame) has developed a very cool mod that dramatically enhances what engineers can do... finally making them worthy of their name...

See here for more -> http://amaris-games.com/ba-amaris/improved-engineer/

I will work this code into Normandy Ninjas this weekend (for better or for worse, I can't add the new mod to just Carpiquet, so 'real engineers' are being rolled out across the full tourney).

Specifically for Carpiquet:

1. Engineers can demolish hedgerow/walls in front of them (1 turn)
2. Engineers can clear trees on their own space, to leave a foliage 'marsh' that is still impenetrable to vehicles (1 turn)
3. Engineers can then clear this 'marsh' to create open ground (1 turn) - 2 & 3 combined clear trees to open ground that vehicles can pass (2 turns)
4. Engineers can remove tank traps on their own space (1 turn)
5. Engineers can construct tank traps on their own space (1 turn)

This should make it more achieveable for the Allies. Is anyone available to beta-test with me this afternoon?

If you'd like the current version of Carpiquet, pls download asap, because it will be replaced with the new one, probably later today...

Sorry guys,

The Carpiquet 'fix' is taking longer than planned... Something about the way that BA handles MP data is causing it put demolished hedgerow/walls back in place, during the opponent's replay... Groan!

Amaris believes that he has discovered a solution, and is working that in for us... but it requires some significant new coding... Please bear with us... Apologies...

While I've been 'grounded' on GJS'44, I've been experimenting with Amaris' new Naval Academy campaign, where he has added various ship types to the standard BA engine... If you're interested in a future Pacific WW2 campaign, aimed to release in the next 4-6 weeks or so, take a look here -> viewtopic.php?f=87&t=40351&p=389549#p389549

All feedback welcome... It will stop me making terrible errors... of geography, of history, or of gameplay...

Pacific Campaign - When the time comes, I'm in.

Pacific sounds great!