I thought I might show a few shots from a WIP campaign Ive been working on. The campaign is based on the 43rd Wessex Division in Normandy. AFAIK the action this unit saw was seldom matched & not exceeeded in terms of intensity taking on not 1 but both of the premier SS Panzer Corps in a month long pitched battle. This by pinning the I SS Panzer Corps (1st & 12th SS Pnzr Divs), & II Panzer Corps (9th & 10th Pnzr Divs) in place around Caen, allowed our colonial allies to get on with their push south towards St Lo in operation Cobra without major interruption.

The Initial map is a heavily modified version Caen, with more tha 1000 extra objects. So far I've addded at least 1000 new objects, mainly trees & bushes to recreate the Normandy countryside as I remember it, but also a few farmsteads & an expansion of the village on the map to similate Maltot. I've also trying to make the campaign more replayable by randomly generating enemy force structures, you have a 30% chance of getting 1 of 3 variations & a 10% chance of really being in the sh!t & getting everything thrown at you! The whole scenario is loosely based around the unit's battles 30/6/44 - 30/744. I'm currently planing a 5 - 7 mission campaign loosely baseed arount Operation Jupiter set in July '44.

Some Pics from play testing ( Hardest bit of mission making is to get good Winable & Looseable gameplay. )

12th SS Forward Defense Line




Same defense line seen from above (LOS etc works, just fine!)


Broken Bristish tanks in FDL




1st Btn 12th SS Panzer Regt Counter Attack


1st Btn 12th SS Panzer Reg couter attacks wit all their histrical feroucisity



The support Regt takes a kicking



British Infantry in the fields



Fighting to defend the German's Initial defense line



There is a concerted counter attack u must beat off


Next mission

Cromwell advances past Panther trashed in 1st mission



Stugs advance



Archer noses through the wrecks



Thommies defending



I'm currently trying to save embarrasment by playtesting this lot. More later!

BTW Random unit generation works brilliantly, just takes an age (& many, many tests) to get balance right.

That looks cool Gnasher!

Some of your screenshots remind me of classic battlefield photographs from Normandy.

Hey, if you don't have HILL 112, Cornerstone of the Normandy Campaign, by Major J.J. How, I'd recommend it for your scenario work here.

Looks superb! I guess your back from your holidays now

I used to live in Nomandy (Caudebec) - in my BFC signature my blog has quite a few pics of the Normandy and Bocage battle fields.

Your 1st and 2nd pictures remind me of the (german) Brecourt positions. Athough if you visit there now you can not see anything (and if you walk around without permission you will get arrested for trespassing as it is private poperty), if you get a 'tour' they go over the terrain, point out the criticial features, the approach direction of the americans, etc. Anyway, it looks excellent.

I am really looking forward to playing this - do you need any help with testing it?

When I have something ready to test you'll get a copy, be sure!

I will probably wait until I can use FinnN's camo & Oudy's Firefly, they're both needed really badly for this campaign to work properly.

Gnasher

The mods are finished. I'm just waiting on them to be tested to make sure I didn't make any silly mistakes. Assuming no problems, they should be released in the next day or so.

Oudy

Cool!

Mods have been uploaded to cmmods.com

Oudy

My full infantry mod is still a little ways off as I've been away for 2 weeks and also need to get ready for moving house, but if you can let me know what you need I can probably put together something for the scenario in advance of that. I can also tweak the British uniforms and ranks sets if that's helpful, but I'll need references.

Have fun
Finn

I can wait m8 no worries. It's taking longer than I thought to code up the missions anyway mainly because they need extensive testing.

A small update

5 missions done so far 3 - 4 to go. I won't release until FinnNs camo mod is available, coz this really needs it to work properly.

Here's some pics: -

AT Gun in action


Sherman Fireflys in action



Tank wrecks in no mans land




P47s over trenches (using these - they look less crap than Hurricanes in 1944, Ooooh for a Typhoon!)



Shermans manouvering with P47s in background



Panthers & Tigers counterattack



More of same


Churchill moving up to face the treat



Lots more work to do I doubt I'll have anything out before the patch arrives which will probably give me more maps to play with!

More later........

Looking very good!

Has this game improved since the release? It seems to be growing more and more dust...

looking very good... let me know when you have a final "product" and I'll get it on our front page, I know alot of people (including me) don't visit the ToW forum much anymore... hopefully with work like this it will become worth it again.

Definitely; needs a patch for TOW...The game has potential, don't know if the damage charts are realistic though

ToW has the best damage model of any game that I've seen & the visuals when tanks get hit are just outstanding. What is basically a very solid game has suffered some very bad press through IMHO bad mission building. The stock missions go from very hard to near impossible & for many proved too much like hard work. Many missions pit outnumbered rookie troops against more numerous veteran or elite troops. The good news is the missions can quite easily be fixed in the editor, often by simply upping the number of credits used to buy equipment. The editor is very powerful but not that intuitative & easy to learn, however the tutorials are very good & I highly recommend them.

There are at least 2 patches in the works one for release in the very near future & a new German campaign based around Panzer Lehr in Normandy. There is also an addon currently being developed.

Sneaksie has been doing an excellent job of engaging with & informing the community of up & coming developments here

Thank you for the information Gnasher, and I must take into consideration the "Half-Full/Half-Empty" point of view.

Talking to numerous fans of CMBB/CMAK; my old group in particular, the taste of this game was sour, and due to my purchasing, I was left in the cold with it. I never considered it to be the way it was out the box, and for the first day and a half I grew impatient with controls, and pause/play type of movements. I am not a huge RTS fan, so the problem I had was trying to acclimate myself to the game-style. One thing is certain, the stock missions were crap, so the community has to build, and at the same time, stay afloat.

There is a patch supposedly floating into our hands in the coming week or so, I am assuming the deadline was for the Dev's to Publisher(BF) to go over with Western release...Possibly in the coming week is my assumption.

As for mission building, and familiarization with the game's damage, the weaponry, and AI....I am somewhat confused, I read the forums regularly, and after playing a few times I assumed the damage charts/models were fantastic. One question: Are they as perfect as can be? Or as close as it could get?

Mission building/learning curve, it seems that the Builder is powerful, and packed with info. Maybe I should take the time to reinstall the game and toy around this winter season, maybe after this patch my sentiments for this game will change...Nonetheless, your contributions to the game will not go overlooked, I'll definitely playtest/download whatever it is you're creating.

Thanks for replying, and if you could if there are any resources you prefer to look over other than their forum (That i may not find in the next hour or so) can you post them?

-CSG_Enven

It's a great game if you like playing with editors etc & its very modable.

After the upcoming patch which will address MP issues this game will totally rock!

Well I finally have some clear time so I'll start polishing off my German Infantry project later this week. However, if you let me know exactly what you want in terms of German infantry units I should be able to easily produce a small subset before the whole thing is finished. Let me know if you want me to do that.

Screenshots looking great btw!

Have fun
Finn

Hi FinnN,

I need summer 1944 field camo for the 1st & 2nd SS Panzer Corps elements. Later on, I was planning on using the default skins for the 272nd division which replaced the Hohenstaufen & Frundsberg allowing them to shift west when the threat moved.

I really could do with some extra units though, historically the RAF aircraft stink.

I NEED A TYPHOON WITH ROCKETS SNEAKSIE!

Also it would be cool if I could get some authenic custom vehicle skins made up to represent the Allied & Axis divisions in the battle.

What I'd really like is to be able to use custom maps of the area made from RL period maps.

Some campaign projects I'd like to explore in the future in no particular order are: -

British 6th Airborne Pegasis Bridge, Ranville & Merville battery
Canadian battle for Carpiquet & Tilly
101st Airborne D-Day to Carentan
29th Infantry Omaha to St Lo
101st Airborne Hells Highway - Market Garden
LSSAH Karkov spring 1943
6th SS Panzer Corps Spring Awakening