T
Talespin Jim
Guest
"...I want you to kill the other guy. Let him die for his country." Patton's speech to the 3rd Army, if I remember right.
Hi, I'm Talespin Jim. I've been known to spin some tales of my great exploits, but in truth I'm usually in a tailspin.
I need your help. Not only to learn this game well and have some fun together but to maybe save an old friend. Let me explain...
I'm new to the forum. In fact, I've never been part of any gaming forum like this where you go to challenge opponents. So I don't even have a clue as to where to go to get a game going or the proper etiquette for a challenge. So when it comes to figuring out my way around this forum, I'm also in kind of a tailspin.
In time, you'll find I'll make a challenging and fun opponent. However, at this point, I could really use some mentoring on how to play this blasted game (Combat Mission 2--Red Thunder--But I bought the whole CM2 tamale, so any of the modules is fine with me).
I'm an aging gamer and I'm primarily a strategist, not so much a tactician. I always wanted to serve in the military, but never got to. So I'm just a gamer, not a vet, though I find a lot of my friends nowadays are retired military. We get together from time to time and play Napoleonic era miniatures.
I could play chess before I could remember my birthday or read and in the 6th grade won a series of tournaments including regionals to go to the Oregon State finals, however, my Dad had a business and felt that was more important than taking a day off to take me to the tournament. As luck would have it, in the 8th grade, the California State chess champion moved to my town and we became best friends, so I had someone very good to play with.
One day, I discovered a game in his closet called Kriegspiel. Maybe that will bring back memories for someone here. It was a basic blue and red counter wargame of a hypothetical war. I loved it with a passion. My friend knew I was the type of person who'd love such a game and he had deliberately kept it secret from me, hoping I wouldn't find it, because he knew I'd make him play the games. Which I did, even though I had to beat him up to make him do it.
I've owned several hundred war games from companies like Avalon Hill, SPI, Steve Jackson Games (remember those old pocket war games?) etc. The majority of the collection burnt up in a house fire.
We started a wargamer's club in our town, from which I have lifelong friends. We also got into Dungeons and Dragons when that first came out.
When I was in high school, I used to go to Oregon State University, in the nearest city, which had a strong ROTC base at the time--that was in the late 70's. The ROTC guys used to go to the large wargamer's club there to learn some skills. We enjoyed beating the pants off of them. In fact, I can't remember ever losing to one of them. I think they got some kind of credits for it.
But of course, they were playing strategy games, which is something I tend to be very good at. Tactical games would have been a completely different story. At the time, I had no idea about small unit tactics and still am relatively ignorant.
I've moved around a lot and wherever I've lived, back in the old days, there was always a wargamer's club and for the last 35 years or so, you could generally find me there, making friends and having a good time.
I used to play a lot of Squad Leader when that came out, along with all the expansions. I loved that game. I bought Advanced Squad Leader when it came out (waited anxiously for years) and virtually memorized those massive tax form like rules where you had to learn thirty some pages of acronyms and abbreviations just to study the rules, which if I recall, were 128 pages, plus however many more for the designer's notes. I could only ever get one person to play that version of Squad Leader with me, and only one time. So that was a big let down. For a decade I searched for someone who would play the thing.
Then computer games emerged. Civilization was great. As was Master of Orion and many others.
But they killed the board game. Instead of getting together with my old buddies to play a board game like Squad Leader, we were getting together to hotseat the latest strategy game. As far as I'm concerned, it ruined gaming. We used to get together and play face to face and taunt each other and jest. Now we interfaced with a computer.
But, computer games are lots of fun. I just miss the human interaction. And you know, I kind of miss the hours spent reading the rules to games like 7th Fleet and spending all weekend learning and then setting up the game. God knows why.
As far as computer games go, when Combat Mission came along it was great. It was a lot like Squad Leader brought to life. But like I said, tactics aren't my main thing. I'm more of a Hearts of Iron guy (except I'm sick of Paradox putting out a game that is half finished and then using the gamers to help them fix it and an AI that is completely inept--still, I love that game). So I never played CM 1 that much and really never got good at it.
But then, a couple of weeks ago, I went over to a friend's house and we hotseated CM2, which, up to that point, I didn't realize they even continued the line after CM1. And it was awesome. They are making a real tactics game here, not a shoot em up, that allows you to direct your units practically down to a man--not just abstracted by counters. I mean, when you get right down there in eye level, close up and watch your squads, they pretty much handle their assigned maneuvers right, though they often do end up bunched up or facing backwards--still it holds promise.
So I'm really, really excited about it. In my opinion, it's far better than CM 1. So I went out and bought the entire line up through Red Thunder.
You see, there's another thing I'm out for. My buddy and I are aging and our health isn't as good as it used to be. I've come to the realization that the days of us getting together for a three-day weekend of gaming are over and because of his hatred toward setting up counters, we are probably never going to play a board game again.
To top it off, he's kind of fallen off the radar since his family has passed and he goes through long bouts of depression and isolation and his wife tells me she's worried about his heavy drinking during those times. So I'm thinking if I really get into this game, which he loves more than any other game, maybe I can draw him out and at least we can keep in touch daily by playing email games.
But I want to make this stimulating to him. It needs to be a challenge. He needs to have to find this a real challenge to win, to kind of pull him out of his slump--To give him something for which to strive. So I want to get really good at this game.
I need someone to mentor me to help me not just be good but to help me make him work to win. This game is fun, but to me it's about so much more. It's about rescuing a friend who might be going down a dark path. I need your help. I need you to teach me this game and beat the pants off of me and then tell me how to be better.
I should mention, I've watched the Armchair General training videos and I'm practicing moving infantry companies around in formation, with bounding movements, squads divided into teams--that kind of thing. It's actually harder than it seems. A lot of the difficulty comes from trying to figure out which tools will cause the units to act the way you want. Armor is pretty straight forward, much like Squad Leader. It's the infantry tactics I'm having trouble with. I'm not the kind of guy to take his time and to engage with the smallest unit possible. And once engaged, it is completely against my nature to break off contact if I can't muster superior firepower. So I need to create habits that are against my nature.
Let me know if you'd like to slap me around a bit and help me master this game. In the end you'll get a worthwhile opponent and friend out of it and you just might help me do a lot more good for an old buddy.
Hi, I'm Talespin Jim. I've been known to spin some tales of my great exploits, but in truth I'm usually in a tailspin.
I need your help. Not only to learn this game well and have some fun together but to maybe save an old friend. Let me explain...
I'm new to the forum. In fact, I've never been part of any gaming forum like this where you go to challenge opponents. So I don't even have a clue as to where to go to get a game going or the proper etiquette for a challenge. So when it comes to figuring out my way around this forum, I'm also in kind of a tailspin.
In time, you'll find I'll make a challenging and fun opponent. However, at this point, I could really use some mentoring on how to play this blasted game (Combat Mission 2--Red Thunder--But I bought the whole CM2 tamale, so any of the modules is fine with me).
I'm an aging gamer and I'm primarily a strategist, not so much a tactician. I always wanted to serve in the military, but never got to. So I'm just a gamer, not a vet, though I find a lot of my friends nowadays are retired military. We get together from time to time and play Napoleonic era miniatures.
I could play chess before I could remember my birthday or read and in the 6th grade won a series of tournaments including regionals to go to the Oregon State finals, however, my Dad had a business and felt that was more important than taking a day off to take me to the tournament. As luck would have it, in the 8th grade, the California State chess champion moved to my town and we became best friends, so I had someone very good to play with.
One day, I discovered a game in his closet called Kriegspiel. Maybe that will bring back memories for someone here. It was a basic blue and red counter wargame of a hypothetical war. I loved it with a passion. My friend knew I was the type of person who'd love such a game and he had deliberately kept it secret from me, hoping I wouldn't find it, because he knew I'd make him play the games. Which I did, even though I had to beat him up to make him do it.
I've owned several hundred war games from companies like Avalon Hill, SPI, Steve Jackson Games (remember those old pocket war games?) etc. The majority of the collection burnt up in a house fire.
We started a wargamer's club in our town, from which I have lifelong friends. We also got into Dungeons and Dragons when that first came out.
When I was in high school, I used to go to Oregon State University, in the nearest city, which had a strong ROTC base at the time--that was in the late 70's. The ROTC guys used to go to the large wargamer's club there to learn some skills. We enjoyed beating the pants off of them. In fact, I can't remember ever losing to one of them. I think they got some kind of credits for it.
But of course, they were playing strategy games, which is something I tend to be very good at. Tactical games would have been a completely different story. At the time, I had no idea about small unit tactics and still am relatively ignorant.
I've moved around a lot and wherever I've lived, back in the old days, there was always a wargamer's club and for the last 35 years or so, you could generally find me there, making friends and having a good time.
I used to play a lot of Squad Leader when that came out, along with all the expansions. I loved that game. I bought Advanced Squad Leader when it came out (waited anxiously for years) and virtually memorized those massive tax form like rules where you had to learn thirty some pages of acronyms and abbreviations just to study the rules, which if I recall, were 128 pages, plus however many more for the designer's notes. I could only ever get one person to play that version of Squad Leader with me, and only one time. So that was a big let down. For a decade I searched for someone who would play the thing.
Then computer games emerged. Civilization was great. As was Master of Orion and many others.
But they killed the board game. Instead of getting together with my old buddies to play a board game like Squad Leader, we were getting together to hotseat the latest strategy game. As far as I'm concerned, it ruined gaming. We used to get together and play face to face and taunt each other and jest. Now we interfaced with a computer.
But, computer games are lots of fun. I just miss the human interaction. And you know, I kind of miss the hours spent reading the rules to games like 7th Fleet and spending all weekend learning and then setting up the game. God knows why.
As far as computer games go, when Combat Mission came along it was great. It was a lot like Squad Leader brought to life. But like I said, tactics aren't my main thing. I'm more of a Hearts of Iron guy (except I'm sick of Paradox putting out a game that is half finished and then using the gamers to help them fix it and an AI that is completely inept--still, I love that game). So I never played CM 1 that much and really never got good at it.
But then, a couple of weeks ago, I went over to a friend's house and we hotseated CM2, which, up to that point, I didn't realize they even continued the line after CM1. And it was awesome. They are making a real tactics game here, not a shoot em up, that allows you to direct your units practically down to a man--not just abstracted by counters. I mean, when you get right down there in eye level, close up and watch your squads, they pretty much handle their assigned maneuvers right, though they often do end up bunched up or facing backwards--still it holds promise.
So I'm really, really excited about it. In my opinion, it's far better than CM 1. So I went out and bought the entire line up through Red Thunder.
You see, there's another thing I'm out for. My buddy and I are aging and our health isn't as good as it used to be. I've come to the realization that the days of us getting together for a three-day weekend of gaming are over and because of his hatred toward setting up counters, we are probably never going to play a board game again.
To top it off, he's kind of fallen off the radar since his family has passed and he goes through long bouts of depression and isolation and his wife tells me she's worried about his heavy drinking during those times. So I'm thinking if I really get into this game, which he loves more than any other game, maybe I can draw him out and at least we can keep in touch daily by playing email games.
But I want to make this stimulating to him. It needs to be a challenge. He needs to have to find this a real challenge to win, to kind of pull him out of his slump--To give him something for which to strive. So I want to get really good at this game.
I need someone to mentor me to help me not just be good but to help me make him work to win. This game is fun, but to me it's about so much more. It's about rescuing a friend who might be going down a dark path. I need your help. I need you to teach me this game and beat the pants off of me and then tell me how to be better.
I should mention, I've watched the Armchair General training videos and I'm practicing moving infantry companies around in formation, with bounding movements, squads divided into teams--that kind of thing. It's actually harder than it seems. A lot of the difficulty comes from trying to figure out which tools will cause the units to act the way you want. Armor is pretty straight forward, much like Squad Leader. It's the infantry tactics I'm having trouble with. I'm not the kind of guy to take his time and to engage with the smallest unit possible. And once engaged, it is completely against my nature to break off contact if I can't muster superior firepower. So I need to create habits that are against my nature.
Let me know if you'd like to slap me around a bit and help me master this game. In the end you'll get a worthwhile opponent and friend out of it and you just might help me do a lot more good for an old buddy.
