The version of cult war movie Colonel Croesus that went on general release in 1970-something, ends, as Comment Commander khamul pithily pointed out last Sunday, with the gold-stuffed getaway sub “holed and taking on water, but Steiner opening the gates and taking her out to sea anyway, purely to spite Croesus – not knowing he was already dead.”. The final scene in our Combat Mission-powered…
Posts tagged “communal Combat Mission”
The Comment Commanders have a mere minute left in which to convince me that they control the soggy end of the subterranean submarine base (My verdict, along with sundry stats, will appear in tomorrow's epilogue - ETA midday). They choose to use that minute aggressively. While Crabmeat 2 ventilates the U-boat and 3rd Squad occupy the two-storey GOLD HQ, almost everyone else left standing is…
Last year's conflab of Comment Commanders almost committed a war crime. This year's actually commit one, albeit accidentally.(Colonel Croesus is an open-to-all game of Combat Mission: Fortress Italy in which Allied forces are orchestrated by commenters while German units are computer controlled. Each daily turn covers one minute of WeGo action. For a scenario outline and accounts of earlier turns, click here).
Last turn the Comment Commanders flushed out a Tiger with a Sherman-tipped pitchfork. This turn they transform that pitchfork into a trident in an effort to finish the ferrous feline.(Colonel Croesus is an open-to-all game of Combat Mission: Fortress Italy in which Allied forces are orchestrated by commenters while German units are computer controlled. Each daily turn covers one minute of WeGo action. For a…
Today's header image has been redacted in the interests of Suspense Sustenance. If you've been following this year's experiment in co-op comment-driven wargaming, or are familiar with the star-studded, possibly fictitious 70s war movie that inspired it, you can probably guess what's behind the spoiler Schürzen.(Colonel Croesus is an open-to-all game of Combat Mission: Fortress Italy in which Allied forces are orchestrated by commenters while…
Turn 11 in freeze-frames: Sergeant Nemchik (Charles Bronson) hosing a halftrack with Crabmeat 2's .50 cal. Captain Lynch (Harrison Ford) wriggling through a hole in a brick wall. Sergeant King (Carl Weathers) on his knees, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. Hauptmann Steiner (Wolf Kahler) sprinting down the gangplank of the getaway U-boat, Schmeisser in hand.(Colonel Croesus is an open-to-all game of Combat…
The Crab Club, Wikipedia informs me, is a bally exclusive establishment. As the taxonomists on the door are reluctant to admit hermit and king “crabs”, the pair of mine thrashers currently leading the Comment Commanders' subterranean gold rush, have precious little chance of gaining admittance.(Colonel Croesus is an open-to-all game of Combat Mission: Fortress Italy in which Allied forces are orchestrated by commenters while German…
The scene in 70s war movie Colonel Croesus where 1st Squad get ambushed by the flak halftrack made a big impression on Master Timothy Stone Esquire. Me and my friends re-enacted it countless times in a local pedestrian underpass. Invariably there would be multiple Private O'Rourkes. All of us wanted to be the selfless BAR gunner who tries to distract/suppress the German death spitter while…
ZINC, the rough-hewn chamber with the shack in its centre, has already cost the Comment Commanders Robert Duvall (Colonel Croesus) and John Nettles (Corporal Wood). Will it also claim the life of Charles Bronson (Sergeant Nemchik)?(Colonel Croesus is an open-to-all game of Combat Mission: Fortress Italy in which Allied forces are orchestrated by commenters while German units are computer controlled. Each daily turn covers one…
Chance of The Flare Path appearing today: 0-5%*. Chance that you'll nod off while reading the following turn tale: 40-50%. Yesterday's wanton bloodletting seems to have satisfied Connor's bloodlust for the time-being and cowed the Comment Commanders somewhat. In the sixty seconds of CM combat footage I've just watched, little ammo was expended and no-one - well, almost no-one - got hurt.*Roman has promised me…
My favourite Donald Sutherland performance has to be either 'Kate Bush's dad in the Cloudbusting video' or 'Éamonn Connor in Colonel Croesus, the 1970s war flick that inspired this communal Combat Mission scenario'. I know some critics felt he played the Irish nationalist turned Waffen-SS tank commander turned renegade treasure hunter too camp, but for me he was the highlight of the movie. I still…
The paths and waypoints assigned by the Comment Commanders this turn, radiate into the darkness like a toadstool's mycelium. Conscious that the clock is ticking, Croesus and Co. are out to secure one subterranean chamber ('LEAD') and inspect/subdue another ('ZINC') from multiple angles.(Colonel Croesus is an open-to-all game of Combat Mission: Fortress Italy in which Allied forces are orchestrated by commenters while German units are computer…
The clumsy fliers currently inspiring piscine aerobatics down at my local chalk stream live longer than the average friendly in a game of communal Combat Mission. Usually by this point - turn 4 - the Comment Commanders have managed to lose at least one tracked, wheeled, or booted asset. The fact that Colonel Croesus' swarm of goldbugs have yet to sustain so much as a…
Clambering over rubble that, moments earlier, was a stout brick wall, Sergeant Nelson's squad find themselves on the ground floor of a windowed two-storey west-facing storeroom. To the south the coast seems clear. To the north, in the chamber codenamed 'LEAD' by Colonel Croesus, a sandbagged Pak 40 anti-tank gun waits patiently for passing trade. The gun crew are expecting dawdling side-on Shermans 50 metres…
This turn's butcher's bill:211 mosquitos, 104 wood ants, 1 long-fingered bat, 1 Italian cave salamander.(Colonel Croesus is an open-to-all game of Combat Mission: Fortress Italy in which Allied forces are orchestrated by commenters while German units are computer controlled. Each daily turn covers one minute of action. For a scenario outline and accounts of earlier turns, click here)
I did mention yesterday that Sherman Crabs were horribly vulnerable while mine flailing, didn't I? I'm fairly sure I probably pointed out that, in order to protect their relatively vulnerable main guns from flying debris, they reversed their turrets before venturing into devil's gardens.(Colonel Croesus is an open-to-all game of Combat Mission: Fortress Italy in which Allied forces are orchestrated by commenters while German units are…
Feature: Colonel Croesus commences
Peter Peiper picked a pack of pickled Panzergrenadiers. A pack of pickled Panzergrenadiers Peter Peiper picked. If Peter Peiper picked a pack of pickled Panzergrenadiers, Where's the pack of pickled Panzergrenadiers Peter Peiper picked?Apologies - you've caught me limbering up in readiness for the exertions to come. For the next fortnight I'll be chronicling, with daily battle reports, The Flare Path's sixth experiment in co-op play-by-comment wargaming.…
Feature: A Quitting Qatab epilogue
The NATO peacekeepers might have failed to keep the peace in make-believe Gulf state, Qatab, but judging by the comments generated by my daily sitreps during the past three weeks, they did manage to keep some of you entertained and on the edge of your seats, so perhaps their deployment wasn't a complete waste of time. Yesterday morning, dislodged by the shockwave from an exploding T-72, the curtain fell on…
Final turn! The big-boned diva warbles in precisely sixty seconds' time. Can the peacekeepers' rearguard - a rearguard without anti-tank munitions of any kind - survive another minute of MG abuse and high-velocity HE? Let's find out.(Quitting Qatab is an open-to-all game of Combat Mission: Shock Force 2 in which NATO forces are orchestrated by commenters while Qatabi units are computer controlled. Each daily turn covers…
According to Wikipedia, AT4s and M72 LAWs are “generally ineffective against current modern main battle tanks”. Thankfully, Mortensen's squad rarely consults Wikipedia before ambushing MBTs.(Quitting Qatab is an open-to-all game of Combat Mission: Shock Force 2 in which NATO forces are orchestrated by commenters while Qatabi units are computer controlled. Each daily turn covers one minute of action. For a scenario outline and summaries of…
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