CW Ubique - Combat Mission: Battle For Normandy

The Allied player should expect a different type of challenge and will have his hands full. Organization is the key.

A very different scenario where you have to think outside the box pretty much all the time.

Great fun for the Germans blowing up the British but did seem a bit unbalanced.

I liked the unique mission of the scenario but it does involve a heck of a lot of micro managing and considering I successfully evacuated about 95% of my forces (as ordered!) I was pretty miffed to end with a German victory for not destroying enough German forces when the whole mission order priority was to keep my artillery regiment from harms way.
Great map too.

One issue I had was the issue off board artillery. As the German player I did not use up all of off board mortars at the beginning of the scenario. The briefing said that it was recommended to do so. The word is recommended. rather than following that plan, I planned on bombing the British exit point towards the end of the game when (I hoped), it would be in my sights. What the designers did not say was the off board mortars would not reach the British exit point. In the rules of CM it says off board artillery will hit anywhere on the board unless the scenarios says differently. I feel this is an omission in the scenario briefing that should be corrected.

A very well put together scenario.
If you enjoy fighting withdrawals,lots of route planning and a tight schedule then this one is for you. I enjoyed the game but not one I would like to play again as the British.

I'll have to try the battle from the British side but it appeared grossly lopsided in favour of the Germans

Would be better balanced if the UK forces had a few mortars, I think.

The victory conditions for the British are almost impossible to achieve unless the German player is very passive. The alpha strike alone with mortars at game start with fixed positions for vehicles can easily achieve half the casualties necessary to deny achievement of the casualty level. Still a very entertaining and challenging scenario but three changes I would make to balance are:
1) German mortars not available/allowed until 5 minutes in.
2) British casualty achievement objective be lowered in points and the percentage raised to ~35%.
3) Create a German objective to keep casualties below a certain level as the battle is currently set where 90% casualties has zero impact on German victory conditions.

My second attempt as the British defenders and confirmed that it is very tough to win from that side. To balance the sides, the scoring for the British needs to be more points for inflicting damage and far fewer for achieving the friendly casualty condition.

Great challenge for the defender but the VPs need to be tweaked for balance as it is incredibly difficult to win for the British player. If the British VPs were 80%/20% for destroying enemy/exiting forces, this would balance the overall battle.