I pretty much suck at this game with the exception of infantry defense... I think I do decently with a few guys and a medic, dropping the enemy infantry as they come in range. A tank shows up, though, and that's pretty much it for me. :p I do enjoy snipers, though... at least in my offline games, I tend to have a few around to pin down an wipe out enemy infantry while they can't find me. Maybe using a few snipers to spot for our AT guns would help?

Mm that may be a good idea yeah. Problem is that that may be a lot of microing, but we could try if you feel comfortable doing it.

As for your performance, it's more than admirable given that Derf and me pretty much threw you in the thick of things on normal (with mods and everything). Normal is already pretty brutal. And even I don't know what exactly every unit in the modded maps does after playing for so long, since they offer a massive list of units...the vanilla missions tend to be more limited in unit choice. The mods also restrict you to the available units at that time and/or in that battle, so no Tigers in the first year of the war or anything. In the regular maps you can buy the heaviest, newest tanks on each map. Which, as we saw on the ardennes map, can be a real pain when playing against the Jerries since their early war armor is absolutely superior (Panzer III's, IV and Stugs).

I know the feeling of seeing a tank (or even an armored car) roll into your infantry defense and fuck you up. I can only recommend to order an AT guy (bazooka or AT rifle) or two and position him in a cover position near a main road or where you expect a tank may roll in. Preferably a little ahead your actual line/trenches. Say you have a house in front of the trenches next to the road, i'll almost always have an AT guy lie in waiting there. You'd be surprised at how incredibly effective they in surprise attacks like that - pop up out of cover, release a rocket in the tank's side or rear and 8 out of 10 it'll be a knock out for the tank. It's one of my favorite parts of the game. I had one guy take out 3 tanks on his own last game, lying in the central trenches waiting for tanks to pass. Remember, if you can surprise a tank...it has to turn its entire turret around to actually shoot you. It takes practice and generally speaking the bazooka type weapons have awful aim at medium range, but it's worth it for the points they cost. (The AT rifles have great aim and range, but are shit at penetrating armor at anything but close range).

You could also do like Derf and have your regular infantry go wild on AT grenades in the supply truck the moment the game starts, of course. That way you can take out almost anything once it's actually riding around in or behind your lines. Cheap and effective. But a lot of microing to pass stuff around I imagine. Maybe Derf can shed some light on it.

On an unrelated note, don't be afraid to just run and get the hell out of there when a tank or armor is threatening your infantry-only position. We do it all the time. If I got a flag, a trench and 2 MG's guarding it I'll often unman the guns and have everyone either take cover behind a house or in the trench. No use letting good men die (and have eprfectly fine MG's get trashed) without a reason. Tanks are really shit at clearing out trenches anyway - by the time it gets to that, there may be assistance from another player there or one of your infantry guys lobs an AT grenade at the tank once it gets near the trench/cover.

P.S. My ultimate AT infantry kill was disabling a Tiger from point blank. Derf actually repaired it after that I think.
P.P.S. I hate snipers so much
P.P.P.S. Maybe we should provide you with some additional support when we're playing instead of assuming you'll swim. Like just keep an eye on it from time to time.

Thanks for the info and suggestions. If you guys get breathing time and have suggestions, feel free, but I don't mind figuring it out on my own. I figure as long as I'm holding my part of the line, I'm doing a good enough job. I let you guys lead for assaults and crap, though, and I typically hide from incoming tanks unless I happen to have an AT gun or something.

I'm pretty anal about losing men, so if at any time the odds stack against me considerably, i'll pop a couple of smokes and sound a tactical retreat, even at the cost of losing the flag.

As for my personal AT style, I rely heavily on 1-2 well positioned and hidden AT guns to deal with enemy armour as it tries to target my entrenched infantry. At the start of every mission, I take my men to the supply truck and stock up on AT nades. I dislike using them but I realise that 7 times out of 10, if used correctly, they do the job well. I will only use them as a last resort however. Bazooka infantry I don't like using for the same reason. I realise they're effective but don't like risking the men if I have an able AT gun crew lurking and spotting armour from a safe distance. There's just something totally awesome about watching an AT gun crew behind the front line, spinning like madmen to slam as many rounds into an oncoming enemy tank. "CONTACT! target panzer III! range 400! elevation zero-one-five! AP charge one! FIRE!!!!"

Perhaps i'll add one more thing to our experience last time. Perhaps we under-used heavy anti personel weapons. I know Rinox had a Maxon, but IMO nothing clears trenches quicker than a 50 cal mounted on a half-track. Easier said than done though because you can't purchase them individually, and with Rangers, aint exactly cheap. But I think that's what gives us a decisive edge over entrenched infantry. Tanks have HE rounds, but they are very hit and miss. They also only have light machine guns, which don't compare to the 50 cal at all. Plus the half-track has a high profile so is well adapted to firing down on targets. The only issue is as I say, the price but also the high profile renders it vulnerable to light tanks, so you just need to make sure you clear the area of tanks / At guns first.

I think Satis did fine. Heck, it was me and Rinox that lost the line.

I STILL BLAME SATIS!!!

I still don't know why all those tanks attacked at once...but whatever.

Good call on the heavy AP guns. It's true, they can shoot really far and punch right through small fortifications (wood, sheds, sandbags even). They're even decent to damage a tank track once in a while.

I think the half-tracks are available on their own in the mod we were running Derf...but I'm not sure.

I appreciate the positive feedback... I don't feel like I was pulling my share, though I don't think I was useless, either. I'll try better at keeping my men alive and running from armor. If you guys will cover me from armored assault, I think we'll do well. Most of the time my guys don't even have AT grenades, unfortunately. I need to get better at antitank, for sure, but I don't want to pull resources from you guys, who know how to do things better anyway.

At any rate, I look forward to another game. If it's not going to bore you, I'll like to play some easier maps, just so I can get a better handle on things. It's all you, though... even when getting pummeled, I still enjoy the games.

Yeah that's the thing with MoW, even losing can be glorious. I should have some time this weekend, we'll see about you peeps.

P.S. oh and Peltz should check his PM's

oops: i posted a 75% off link for MOW but this conflicts with something already in the works

ok, so I've been playing this on my own to try to get a bit better. It's a fun game. I'm in the Kraut Kampaign, and man, I really love the Sturmtiger. Awesome, massively destructive... I love how the wave of destruction rolls out from the impact.

At any rate, a few problems I run into regularly that I'd like input on:

1. Rearming is a bitch. Rearming artillery and such basically requires me rolling the ammo truck over, then having a soldier go back and forth transferring about 6 shells at a time. Any way to automate this?
2. Rearming soldiers... if I have an entire squad that's run themselves dry, or almost dry, how do I re-arm them? Running them over individually, holding x and clicking on the truck, then trying to figure out the right type of ammo is a HUGE pain. Ox mentioned that squad leaders will distribute ammo... any advice?
3. I'll often have entire squads slaughtered and incapacitated holding a point. I'm cool with medics... love them, actually, but is there a way to get them to resuscitate all my soldiers without having to manually do it?
4. Selecting a single soldier out of a squad... like if I accidentally group up a sniper or a medic into a squad, any easy way to find them without zooming in and looking for weapons or medic armbands?

I guess any other advice on automation would be interesting as well. the microing is cool to a degree, but there are times I'd rather just control the battle in a more general fashion, especially at the end when I'm running 4 squads at the final flag from different directions while trying to shell em with my Sturms.

1. You can drive the supply truck close to the gun and click X on the gun while the truck is selected. That makes ammo transfer happen directly from the truck as opposed to doing it via a soldier.

2. You can select all the dudes that need rifle ammo and position them close to the supply truck. Once there, press X and select the ammo truck. You can then double click on the rifle ammo in the truck to grab it all. It will be distributed evenly among the men you selected. The problem is that if you select a few (2-3) men, ALL the rifle ammo will of course be distributed, meaning that they will probably end up carrying way too much. Other than that, there's no other way other than selecting one man at a time and dragging over the ammo one by one.

3. No way to mass-rez.

4. nuub lol. I think this will come with experience. I pick out specific soldiers without zooming in.

As for another tip: I'm always pressing C and V. C reveals dropped items highlighted red. This makes spotting loot easy, like stray MG's or bazookas. V highlights corpses, which makes re-arming easier, but also helps you spot any fallen comrades (highlighted yellow as opposed to red).

Protip: just send your infantry into the meatgrinder non-stop, and use the ones that survive long enough to use all their ammo as a human shield/bullet distraction for your new conscripts to move up into even more dangerous positions.

hehe, yea, I've done hand-to-hand combat charges of squads that're out of ammo. Not very effective most of the time, though.

We kinda threw Peltz in the deep end today, but it was good to have him on board. That mod is pretty ridiculous...let's do a few other maps and mods to get a feel of each others' style and strength and to allow Peltz to get his groove back, then we might come back to the Battle of the Bulge.

Also, again really shitty aim from heavy AT guns and bazooka infantry. I swear, at one moment I fire 6-7 rpg rockets into a Panzer III's side from a trench...nothing. Like 5 steps from the damn thing. The fuck? And then I had a guy fail to shoot a tank because it was on a molehill or something (derf took it out with an AT nade in the end). All those god awful misses by my AT infantry were seriously pissing me off. They're fucking 5 metres off, tanks are about the size of a barn. How hard can it be to actually hit anything?!

Also, heavy AT guns should punch through Stugs and Panzer III's like wet bags. Instead they need a few shots to actually hit the damn tanks and then they need 2-3 to finish them off. Pff. And I won't even start about the Bugged Stug.

It was great fun actually. Since all of you had your own little front i could move my troops around without getting immediately raped. I was working a medic and a AT gun near ox's position, had a machine gunner and some riflers on the left flag, AT in the middle. All in all i think i should have focused on Ox's side but the left flank was fun too, kinda lost focus there . I wuv mortars.

Hehe, you all have a love for mortars. I'd make do with 1-2 machine gunners.

Yeah, that was a fucked up game right at the end there. I was watching that Stug III take multiple rounds from my 76mm AT gun to its side and only cause "Crew Injured" time and time again. I can only put that down to a bug, which seems comically similar to what happened last time.

I thought at one point we were doing well. The left was secure, the centre was thinned and the right was busy but contained. By that time I was manning a well hidden 76mm AT gun a couple of machine gunners and two 105mm howizers that took out an 88, a PaK 38 and a PaK 40. Sometimes I would swing them over to hit some clustered enemy infantry. But I had no real infantry so could only support until I got rangers. Then when I got rangers things started to get weird (Stug III etc).

I was also kinda bummed that I lost 2 tanks that I captured without really putting them to good use. They simply got spotted and taken, even if they were positioned behind my infantry. Perhaps I didn't hide them well enough. Should'a maybe given them to Peltz.

Still smirking over the truck driving madness from Peltz in the first game. I was like ....... :O "i don't believe this, what the fuck is he doing?......OMG whatever he's doing, its working!"

I thought Peltz did fine. I had a peek at the scores one time and saw his numbers were quite respectable.

Yeah, we should try some other maps to ease Peltz in (and maybe to some degree Satis since he mentioned it). It's just really tempting for me to jump into those modded maps because I love the units you can recruit.

Can't wait to jump into another game to be honest. I think 4 is the magic number for MoW. 3 guys hold a front while the 4th guy is the "freerole" to act as support / attack / reinforcement whenever needed.