Matrix Games Forums

Here's a great resource for anyone who might want to create a short/small scenario for BftB:

http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/ ... ntent.html

It's chock full of maps and OOB data for the fighting in the fall of 1944. It's largely contemporaneous to the Ardennes Offensive (all the old German equipment has been destroyed in Normandy), so the aspiring scenario designer wouldn't have to do much, perhaps nothing, in the way of building weapons or units.

I have often thought a series of small scenarios like this would be great for demonstrating the intricacies of the engine.

One mission might start by demonstrating how attached tanks can aid infantry in an assualt on a posn which resists indirect artillery fire. The second phase of the scenario might be against a feature which prevents this armd support, but demonstrates that the mobility of a small force of armd cars or armd infantry equipped only with mortars can have an impact uot of all proportion to its size.

The scenario might culminate in a set piece battle between two identical force, which has reached stalemate, and challenges the player to break into the enemys rear with a small force and disrupt his artillery, command and logistics and therefore allow the mainforce, now no longer impeded by orders delay, to attack successfully.

The hypothetical maps might start in a linear way, say 10's of Km long but only 2-3 wide, or bounded by impasssible terrain, so as limit the players options, until the finale when multiple routes are offered, only one of which is feasible given the force mix offered by the particular random reinforcement schedule.

PS. One thing i hate about most contour maps, like the one above, is that unless contour labels are placed frequently you can sometimes mistake a hill for a depression, unless there's a river or some other feature giving it context. If, in addition, a hillshade or coloured layer background is used like in AA/Command Ops the contours are given alot more immediate effect. I love the new feature in BFTB mapmaker letting you cut and past terrain shapes from one altitude layer to the next, otherwise i'd never get anywhere with a map!

P o E,
the book you speak of is £75.00 ($118.00) for a used copy on Amazon.

Alan

It looks like it's all available online.

Hi Franklin,
Yes I already have it,but it somehow isn't the same as sitting down in a nice armchair & reading a book.

Alan

For $118, I can pull any chair in the house up to my computer desk.

I didn't mean I had the book,just the download.

The Lorrain campaign would be ideal for scenarios for BFTB. As PoE says, there would be little in the way of estab work required.

Osprey also published a book called Lorraine 1944 (part of the Campaign 75 series).  I have long thought it would be fun to play this in a game and thought about it for TOAW III but never committed to the editor to build it.

You can pick up the whole WW2 Green book archive on disk from Paperless Archive for $99. They have very frequent sales of it as well, just get on their mailing list. It seems like they run the sale every other month from the amount of email I get.

I agree it isn't the same as having the books and more importantly maps where you can hold it in your hand, but it is a close second. Especially if you want to carry Normandy, the Bulge, Lorraine etc all with you when you travel. [;)]

ORIGINAL: sburke1959

...Especially if you want to carry Normandy, the Bulge, Lorraine etc all with you when you travel. [;)]

The green book hard copies do come in handy. Here is your's truly at the Ouren Bridge on the Our River with Cole' Bulge book in hand[:D]

e on the Our Riv

He, nice to see you studying for our enjoyments.

BTW, cool AFV.

Yes and I can tell you from personal experience that he drives it on the one hand like a rally car and on the other like it was armoured and he has nothing to fear.[:)]

This is a very interesting situation for several scenarios. How easy is the mapmaker to use?

It's easy enough but it does take time to develop the contours. So you need to be patient.

I can second that. I took me a while to make a "ghost" of the map to load into the mapmaker but I am progressing slowly.

My struggle at the moment is trying to get the roads to join together nicely and look right.

Is there some some sort of attach point to a line function that I might be missing?

Nope, everything must be "connected" by hand (i.e. overlap it nicely manually).

Well finally aquired physical copies of the Lorraine campaign by Cole and the Siegfried Line campaign by McDonald. The maps look fantastic! Too bad this forum is on its last legs for CO.

Is it my pc or what ? I can no longer get into www.history.army.mil/books !!!

Alan

You are correct I get a 403 forbidden warning that I don't have access to view books on this site when I try and look it up.

Any comment on the Lorraine campaign by the way?

remember Prince EKKmul posted that link in 2010 some 4 years ago now. small wonder the link no longer works.