Combat Mission : Red Thunder - Goon vs Goon open thread.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > Combat Mission : Red Thunder - Goon vs Goon open thread.

the JJ: Mar 31, 2011

Last time I was in on a match my boys bagged a Sherman and a bunch of kills, then our arty we fired off sort of randomly killed a whole bunch of Allied infantry and we called the match. Good times.

# ¿ Jun 26, 2014 17:24

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 19:23

the JJ: Mar 31, 2011

Readingaccount posted:

German infantry commander please.

Just a heads up everyone who wants to sign up or vote, there's a spreadsheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1osLfdVOv9yIFhlN9BglH0PTl8SU03WFNIBfpbNJX22s/edit#gid=0

# ¿ Jun 26, 2014 17:45

the JJ: Mar 31, 2011

Fangz posted:

Signing up to be under the command of Herp. Low ranking, no command responsibilities please.

the JJ posted:

Just a heads up everyone who wants to sign up or vote, there's a spreadsheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1osLfdVOv9yIFhlN9BglH0PTl8SU03WFNIBfpbNJX22s/edit#gid=0

# ¿ Jun 26, 2014 21:56

the JJ: Mar 31, 2011

Cthulhu Dreams posted:

I would also like to play Russians. Last time I played combat mission I had a terrible disaster where I let my recon unit get pounded, so tradition states I should be manning ~~support~~, but let's not repeat that and go for Platoon or Co infantry commander because why not eh?

You need to put yourself in the spreadsheet.

# ¿ Jun 30, 2014 15:56

the JJ: Mar 31, 2011

Well since I've gone and peeked at the other threads...

Okay, sum up time:

I think I have a slightly more positive view of command than this thread, for a few reasons.

Yes, the all out deployment in the south was dumb, but I don't think, given the fire we took from those IS-2's, the concern about that treeline was unwarranted. It's just that the response to it was, um, put a lot of men towards that area because... reasons.

Speaking of those IS-2's, without those we were doing okay, despite our pixelmench being all in the South. We bloodied the Russian infantry over the fords (I wasn't even aware that our MG's were doing anything more than putting rounds waaaaaay over the heads of those blitzing to the near ford, instead they were eating up quite a few, including a Company HQ. Also we had no way of assessing the effectiveness of the far side arty which was not as good as it could have been, but definitely worth it.) So say, hypothetically, that our Panzers didn't decide to waggle their asses at the IS-2s and we're free to put HE into a few of those infantry occupied buildings. That and a slightly more organized infantry advance could have made those casualties we caused in transit mean a lot more.

But I think overall our biggest problem was a lot of the little things. Holy God am I jealous of the Red's photography and mapping divisions. A lot of little things like 'how're the sightlines from here?' and 'this is what it looks like from here' were super valuable to the soviet side and we definitely could have used it. Someone posting 'here's what can be seen from the treeline' (which we all knew would be a huge problem) would have greatly a. helped us not overcommit to that because we knew we'd have a good shot of getting over the ford but b. helped us be more cautious once we were already over the ford.

Aside from a shaky initial selection and a slightly off opening gambit platy's failures in command were not active, simply in not acting enough to diagnose these sorts of issues and directly delegating or filling in those gaps. Button holing one of our pro-CM dudes to answer some really obvious questions would have gone a long way.

Lastly, my 'most likely to be cheating award' goes to Barracuda and Herpederpsicle.

And that's all I have to say about that.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2014 13:53

the JJ: Mar 31, 2011

Mans posted:

So why wans't Unwantedplatypus told to gently caress off when he said he wanted to be commander while having zero experience with the game?

Because no one volunteered. I put in a 'only if no one else wants it' deal but my only previous experience comes from a previous Grey thread. (My platoon bagged a Sherman though. :clint:

) Mostly though that shouldn't have necessarily been a problem. Grey let us take a mulligan on the forces we deployed and we didn't really make any unsound decisions based on lack of experience per say, more lack of specifics (e.g. 'what can and can't be seen from the treeline?') which the Russians had answered not by their CO's infinite wisdom but by someone firing up the game and checking. The failure in command there was not the lack of knowledge but the failure to address that lack.

Gamerofthegame posted:

Experience or not, I'm not sure how much Germany could have actually done that round. The IS-2s had a commanding presence on the entire map right out of spawn and were made of heavy stuff - the panthers would have had trouble penetrating it from the front and that's about the only angle they'd get. If those IS-2s were another platoon of T-34s this battle would have been a lot more even and Germany wouldn't have a significant amount of points to explosion-snipers.

Also this. I have no idea what we were supposed to have done about those aside from avoid them. A few mortar rounds would have maybe forced them to button up but... that's about it. We lost this at unit selection and I'm not sure, based on some discussions in here, what else we could have brought. Last time Grey ran this the Germans got a lot of poo poo for loading up on armor (after a legendary Pointless LP Shitfit the dwarfs even Herpiderp here) though I think that armor all threw their tracks in like the first minute.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2014 22:54

the JJ: Mar 31, 2011

I don't see what's so unsporting about that. Put TRP on likely choke points is super logical. Would you have preferred an honorable charge, bayonets fixed and katana drawn, at dawn, after the ritual Hakka dance?

# ¿ Aug 16, 2014 12:26

the JJ: Mar 31, 2011

SkySteak posted:

Out of interest, what positions are left to take, on both sides?

How about... no.

# ¿ Aug 17, 2014 03:20

the JJ: Mar 31, 2011

Valiantman posted:

After reading both threads, I'd like to gove some feedback to Grey regarding the videos. I know it's a lot of work and you're bound miss stuff and I do interpret it as a fog of war of sorts but two things could probably stand to be better shown in the videos:

1) You focused a lot on casualties. It's good. We need to know in what shape our pixelmen are, exactly. However, we didn't much see what our own troops were actually doing. An example from both sides: German (our) machine guns were shooting, apparently pretty effectively, at one of the fords for almost the entire time it was being crossed. I barely even noticed they were doing it. Granted, I was more focused on what my company was doing but even when they started having firefights, I couldn't figure out who were shooting at what, exactly. In the Soviet thread there was barely any recognition that their T-34s were shooting at us, to the point that someone wondered what the explosions in the village were.

2) Enviromental damage. A small detail but I was somewhat annoyed that there was a pretty good zoom on a couple of Soviet videos about the damage caused to one of the buildings some of our guys were hiding behind. I had no idea one of the only major cover providers of our otherwise scantly covered positions was about to fall apart.

e: Anyway, congratulations for the Soviet officers. We had no idea you could reach the village or the objective area that fast. I was really taken aback when the first 5 minutes had passed and our tanks, pressing pedal to the metal, had barely started fording and we already had sightings of you guys digging in.

To be fair, our CO wanted to take halftracks and trucks but was talked out of it because those were too wasteful point wise. :iiam:

# ¿ Aug 17, 2014 13:11

the JJ: Mar 31, 2011

Fangz posted:

We still have about 3 spare slots for Soviet commanders.....

EDIT: VVV Okay...

And of course in my damnable sense of loyalty I've already clicked over the German thread and seen their (mostly full) OOB.

# ¿ Aug 18, 2014 23:17

the JJ: Mar 31, 2011

Bacarruda posted:

Check it again, you're in.

And with that I'll leave this thread.

# ¿ Aug 18, 2014 23:32

the JJ: Mar 31, 2011

Leif. posted:

Hi new thread!

It may not have been clear if you weren't keeping up with the Roll 20, but morale hasn't been great on the Russian side for a long time. We started off strong, but the combination of gently caress-ups beyond our control (ORBAT mistakes, the mortar debacle, orders not being performed, turns going on longer than intended, bad camera angles and lack of clicking through to show where our units were, CM:RT bugs with pathing and units simply not doing what they're supposed to) wore a lot of the commanders down very quickly. The map is far too big, for far too short of a time limit, with far too restrictive of a format for people to give orders without messing up with interpretation -- and that's before things get messed because Grey is overwhelmed. It's great that he's taking the time to do this and all, pretty much everyone in Roll20 that I talked to was saying "yeah, this was biting off way more than he can chew, and it's making it not fun".

Combine that with leadership problems - FangZ is not a very strong commander and is being utterly trampled all over by his subordinates; TMM has been second guessing and trying to countermand his orders from the very beginning and simply took over control of my rifle company without so much as a hint of coordination with me about it; and gently caress it. I'm done. I was going to stick it out, since my plan all along was basically "Give broad orders, let the platoon leaders have fun with the tactical aspect because otherwise this won't be a very fun game for them" but that went to poo poo when my command elements sat in the back of the map jacking off for 15 turns without explanation (not that we were getting any clickthroughs at that point to make it identifiable who was where, anyway) and TMM unilaterally decided to start ordering my guys around for ~reasons~. So I'm happy to turn it over to Comstar and not deal with this clusterfuck anymore.

Our strategy was actually pretty good and I maintain that it would have worked had we not had certain players unilaterally deciding to change the plan and issue inconsistent orders, attempt to direct units not under their command, and generally steamroll all over Fangz. I'm looking at the tanks in particular -- the tank commanders (Hob excepted) basically completely ignored the whole idea of what we were supposed to be doing: quickly getting into a commanding overwatch in the north, from which we can shell everything; and support the attack in the south with T-34s, which we care less about if they die.

The one thing that amuses me is that the Germans seem to think that we had plans to do stuff in the south. I don't think we ever once considered going any further south than we are now. I can't remember a single suggestion in Roll20 that we do that.

This is basically why I dropped. (No warning, sorry about that German folks reading this in the future.) There were a couple of turns when I couldn't figure out who was who and then my guys started following orders I didn't give them and then everyone was like "they're facing the wrong way" and I was like "I didn't even tell them to go there so don't look at me."

Pretty frustrating since the last game I "did well" by, uh, keeping all my dudes intact and alive, despite the incredible fuckup that the German side was that game. And the time before that my dudes bagged a Sheman and shot a bunch of guys, then we won because we dropped a TRP and a preplanned barrage right on the forest the rest of their pixelmens were running through.

e: Anyone have a link to the old playlist for those battles? I checked GH's channel and they're not there.

the JJ fucked around with this message at 18:38 on Oct 23, 2014

# ¿ Oct 23, 2014 18:34

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 19:23

the JJ: Mar 31, 2011

Affi posted:

ahahahahhahaha

that was beautiful

And looking at that ISU that got its commander killed it just turned to rpesent its flank to anything panther like.

Yeah, that Panther needs to drive up a few feet more, eliminate that last tank in the north, then swing south while his buddy in the town pokes out. Remaining Soviet tanks are going to have to show their rear end to someone.

# ¿ Oct 31, 2014 18:24

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > Combat Mission : Red Thunder - Goon vs Goon open thread.