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Feature: FIN
When it comes to scenario durations, CMBO is as pedantic as a parks department pedalo führer. Unlike its successors, it always halts battles at precisely the advertised time. Overlordy will have no false dawns... no painfully extended death rattle. The defence of Caent will end in exactly sixty seconds' time. (Overlordy is a 20-turn open-to-all game of Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord in which German forces…
Feature: Brenner pass
Of all the German units involved in this turn's tussling, none makes a more valuable contribution to our questionable cause than the PSW armoured car. Which is a trifle odd considering the PSW was slain by a Stuart back in Turn 6. (Overlordy is a 20-turn open-to-all game of Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord in which German forces are orchestrated by commenters while British units are…
Feature: Typhoon season
During yesterday's minute of mayhem the unsporting Brits sprung an aerial surprise on the Comment Commanders. A Hawker hoodlum rustled treetops with its slipstream and slew Soldaten with its bomb load. As the Tiffy was probably after our precious Hetzer tank destroyer, there's a chance it will return for a second attempt before Overlordy is over. (Overlordy is a 20-turn, open-to-all game of Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord…
Feature: No such word as Caent
Outnumbered and facing fearsome Allied siege engines like the Churchill AVRE and Wasp flamethrower, Caent's dwindling band of German defenders is beginning to give ground. Or perhaps “relinquish ground” would be more accurate. The behaviour of our forces during the last couple of turns has been anything but acquiescent. (Overlordy is an open-to-all game of Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord in which German forces are orchestrated by…
Feature: Western wobble
Combat Mission's WEGO turn structure (Battles are delivered in sixty-second bursts with leisurely order sessions in between the intervention-free 'action phases') might have been designed with play-by-comment one-turn-per-day play sessions in mind, but that's not why I rely on the series for these mob-handed martial marathons. I keep coming backing to CM, and the CMx1 titles in particular, because I don't know of any other…
Feature: Infiltrators
Your requests for turn reports incorporating moving images have been noted. While Overlordy will remain an exclusively words and jpegs affair, reportage for next year's communal CM marathon will, touch wood, incorporate some video highlights. If I'd had a cine camera during the complicated, chaotic turn recounted below, I suspect it would have spent most of its time ogling the action swirling around Larcher, our…
Feature: Pluck and pyrophobia
Thus far the Comment Commanders have sustained very few infantry casualties. In the west the bulk of Lt. Nerbul's rifle platoon, together with a flamethrower team, wait patiently for the Englanders to emerge from 'West Wood'. In the centre, Larcher's pioneers are in the process of evacuating the blazing hotel, while, close-by, the lion's share of Schenck's recently arrived paratroopers endeavour to influence the furious firefight…
Feature: Unfriendly fire
There's a firebug loose in Caent. Last turn it torched the village's oldest/holiest building. This turn it... well, if you heed the red recommendation below, you'll find out. (Overlordy is an open-to-all game of Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord in which German forces are orchestrated by commenters while British units are computer controlled. There's a scenario outline plus summaries of earlier turns here).
Feature: Fierce FIBUA
Operation Overlord's rising tide is lapping against the ivied walls of the hotel in the centre of Caent. Though every room is occupied and the sign on the door clearly says “COMPLET” the British seem determined to stay there. Perhaps a blizzard of Maschinenpistole fire laced with the odd Stielhandgranate will persuade them to look elsewhere for accommodation. (Overlordy is an open-to-all game of Combat…
Feature: Liquidated leaders
“If you want something done right, do it yourself!” mutters Unteroffizier Stein as he snatches the bag containing C Squad's last demolition charge and darts out of the door of the hotel. Seconds later he scampers back into the lobby without his burden and with a seething cloud of dust and smoke in hot pursuit. (Overlordy is an open-to-all game of Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord…
Feature: Midpoint mayhem
Things are really hotting up in this year's communal Combat Mission clash. During the weekend, the British stopped probing and began pushing. When the clock froze yesterday, our Pak 38 AT gun had a Cromwell's rump in its sights, the Hetzer was disentangling itself from a dispiriting duel with a Churchill, and our off-map mortar battery was doing its best to break up a worrying enemy…
Feature: Excrement-fan interface
After a slow start the Allied juggernaut is now within spitting distance of Caent. Turn 9 promises to be eventful. Can the Comment Commanders' thinly spread anti-tank assets blunt the British spear? Can their off-map mortar battery splinter its human shaft? Let's find out. (Overlordy is an open-to-all game of Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord in which German forces are orchestrated by commenters while British units are…
Feature: Here they come!
The warm glow of satisfaction generated by Turn 7's successes (One slain Stuart and two seen-off Cromwells) begins dissipating thirty seconds into Turn 8 and by the sixty second mark is a distant memory. It looks like the daring sally that cost the British one light tank and bagged them an armoured car and a halftrack was just the prelude to something much more concerted. (Overlordy…
Feature: Do or die
For the last 24 hours nothing has moved on the Overlordy battlefield. Bullets have refused to leave barrels. Flames have refused to writhe. Sweat and blood droplets have hung grimly to nose ends and fingertips. One dab of CMBO's 'GO' button will restart the clockwork... sanction another sixty seconds of savage clamour. Are you ready to re-enter the maelstrom? (Overlordy is an open-to-all game of…
Feature: Tank rush
You know that nippy 8WD armoured car of ours? The one that was going to spend the battle keeping tabs on British tanks, and punching neat holes in British APCs and infantry with its garrulous 20mm autocannon? Bad news. Its keeping tabs and punching holes days are over. Sixteen seconds into Turn 6, with a little help from a bold-as-brass blighter called Stuart, it morphed from scrapper…
Feature: Church of England
What are those two cocky Cromwells up to? Where's the British infantry? Why did the Stuart stop? Yesterday's turn posed more questions than it answered. Surely the fleecy fog of uncertainty currently blanketing Caent can't survive another sixty seconds of battlefield developments. (Overlordy is an open-to-all game of Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord in which German forces are orchestrated by commenters while British units are computer controlled. For a scenario outline…
Feature: Cocksure Cromwells
The sight of British armour beetling towards the central beach exit has prompted some hurried defensive reconfiguration from the Comment Commanders controlling German forces in this year's communal Combat Mission game. When the clock stopped yesterday morning, the “unbuttoned” (hatches open) Stuart tank leading the exodus was seconds away from an encounter with a man armed with a scoped Kar98K rifle. (For a scenario outline…
Feature: Shell hell
This year's communal Combat Mission scenario (click here to catch up on the story so far) incorporates a deadly version of the shell game. The computer-controlled British have a choice of three routes off the beach and the short-of-resources commenter-controlled Germans realistically can't picket them all. Judging by the distribution of Axis units at the start of Turn 3, the players believe/hope the enemy will favour the…
Feature: Where are they?
In turn 1 the comment commanders had a chilling glimpse of their adversaries. British landing craft have deposited an intimidating array of tanks on the beach south of Caent, and, doubtless, the armour is accompanied by an equally intimidating infantry force. With their two pillboxes neutralised, the players now have no way of knowing what's happening on the sands. Will a cagey bit of scouting…
Feature: Pillboxes perish
This year's communal Combat Mission game utilizes the series progenitor – Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord (2000). Over the next twenty days, using orders issued via comments, volunteers will attempt to prevent British troops freshly landed on the shores of Normandy from taking control of a village close to the coast. The size and composition of the Allied force is a mystery at this point, but…
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