Kill Points or VP Points

[Marquo]

Trust me it is not easy and having points that challange the elite player maybe enough to put off the novices we need to attract to our hobby.

Dave,

So the flip side of this reflection is what happened (is happening) to me: I am getting bored with predictable nature of the game play. I went cold turkey about 6 months ago while playing a Minsk Campaign. As the Soviet all I was doing was slaughtering Axis units with no real sense of direction or purpose; I started to dread getting the move from my opponent as all it meant was more hours of pointless mayhem - not so much fun at all. TOC is graphically great, dependable, reliable, get's the job done on a tactical level, but I can't expect much more out of it. If it were not for Ed's alt scenarios, I would probably never fire up a PzC Campaign again.

Why? Because under the current static paradigm of VPs TOC frustrates as an operational level game. As I have already mentioned, IMHO campaigns degenerate into a series of disconnected tactical engagements. And in it's stock form, as a tactical simulation, TOC does not engage me as well as Ed's awesome alt masterpieces with ranged fire, better consideration of assaults, ranged fire, etc, - a huge boost for a tactical wargame.

I agree with the comments about the smaller scenarios; the time limits of the smaller engagements do much to inspire players to go after objectives, rather than simply turn into mindless pyrhannas.

Most of the Campaigns are set up in a manner such that the units of both sides are spread across the entire map, and there are enough units to adequately "cover" the entire map. The only manouver is the attacker and defender trying guess where each is weaker/stronger and then a punching match begins. The reason why I and others like the FSR campaign is that there are not enough units to cover the map: there is an element of uncertainty as your flanks hang in the wind and are not anchored to the edge of the map; so at least in this campaign manouvre of forces to defend/attack in 360 degrees adds an element of spice and the game is not a simple grind along one axis.

Ed's suggestion about going to the Tillercon is spot on: I had been posting frustration about AT units serving to pin entire battalions for quite some time on the message board; at the first Tillercon we had an open forum during which this was discussed, and now ATs now longer able to serve as prision guards ;)

Marquo