UKRAINE STORM CMBS TOURNAMENT!

[PoorOldSpike]

The neat little 6" Trophy is on its way to Raz (below), I posted it a couple of hours ago and the Post Office quoted a delivery time of "4 to 5 days"..:)

[Tumatauenga]

Great job organising this Spike. The AAR are great too. I agree a bigger map would give more options but also something nice and simple and fast about the format.

[PoorOldSpike]

TRP's
If I had to single out one factor that helped Raz achieve his victory, I'd say Artillery!
He placed TRP's in all the objectives, waited til I'd occupied them, then dropped devastating barrages to chew me up!
For example here's his TRP (arrowed) in the West Rd objective..



And here are my units getting bombarded after they went in later, my infantry survivors are auto-retreating in blind panic.
My tank stood its ground but I reversed it out shortly after because it was too hot in there. I tried to send it it back in late-game when the arty rain had stopped, but its speed had been reduced to a crawl because of damaged tracks and it couldn't make up the lost ground quickly enough to get back in before game end..



Noob note- TRP stands for Target Reference Point, you buy them in the Formations > Fortifications listing of the purchase screen. Prices vary between countries and they're bought in batches of 5. You place them on the map at the start of the game and they can't be moved. Your opponent can't see them and won't know where they are until the Game Over screen.
They allow you to drop artillery barrages on them (or within 50 metres) any time you like, even if none of your units have LOS to them because you don't need a spotter.
Below- TRP's look like orange crosshairs, this is one of Raz's in the central village near my burning T-90.


PS- speaking of noobs, a guy in the tourney told me afterwards that he didn't understand how to get points for occupying objectives, and also said he didn't buy any tanks because he didn't know how.
And in a non-tourney game, a guy told me he didn't know why his on-map 120mm mortar wouldn't fire. (targets were inside its minimum range)
I explained it to them and also suggested that they and all other newcomers could ask questions in the Black Sea Discussions thread so everybody can give them advice, and if I don't know the answer somebody else will..:)

[raz_atoth]

I pretty much buy TRPs in every game. They are cheap as dirt and can easily win the game for you if properly employed.

For those of you who don't yet know it, here are the advantages of using TRPs:

• Your spotter doesn't need to have LOS to the area. You can fire your arty pretty much anywhere on the map
  
• The time delay is halved. If your spotter needs 8mins to tell the 82mm mortars where to fire, he'll only need 4mins if a TRP is used.
  
• There are no spotting rounds to potentially tip off your opponent that an arty strike is incoming