K'talan WF Mod final release

[Jim von Krieg]

I find the game entertaining and interesting, though I think there may be some Win7 issues or maybe just my impatience with ending a scenario in the campaign. At the end of the campaign game, it cycles through to restart the game. It isn't fast and if I hit a key the game locks up. Either way, hit the key or don't hit the key, I have to hit the Windows key and restart the game. No problem, but it is a tad bit annoying.

I read a book or two of the Turtledove series, but they weren't all out and I ran up against the wait until the next book publication date and getting busy. I never did follow-up.

I chose the armor campaign to start out with to see the biggest mismatch, but I'll follow up with the mech infantry version as well. In my initial run through with one of the scenarios and not the campaign, I noticed that the Pak 40's were dangerous to the K'talan forces. I also had a friendly fire incident with arty landing on the tanks. K'talan arty is an armor killer. I haven't found them quite as dangerous to dismounted troops. As to an armor on armor fight in '42, it's like a very HOT knife cutting through soft margarine. The German armor just vaporizes when hit by the K'talan heavies. German armor never survives first contact if the K'talans have enough tubes to engage.

One of the tactical problems for the K'talans in the campaign mode so far is to cover the terrain with enough firepower. Too much ground to cover with the strong individual units, but they are few in number. Human forces are vast in number; however, a few K'talan units can slow any human push. K'talan's must use recon to the maximum extent possible to see the ground in front of them.

So far, the offensive is a difficult proposition due to the lack of numbers. If you spread out to cover all the objectives, you get overwhelmed by the numbers. If you concentrate, you won't get all the objectives. It's a balance of objectives, SP points and on occasion exit points.

You have to think about what you want to do, apportion your forces and hope you got it right as you charge forward. Enemy arty and the small AT guns are dangerous. You can do all the right things and still lose a tank to the stray enemy arty round or the hidden AT battery that pops up. I always cringe when the arty rounds are landing close. I've had a platoon go from three to one SP. You definitely want to keep moving quickly to dodge the enemy arty plots. However, in the thick of things with a time crunch you just have to grin and bear it.

So far a good game that is somewhat different. Its sort of like having Panthers against waves of '40 allied troops. There is lots of carnage for the human player, but as an old saying goes, quantity has a quality all its own. If the K'talan player doesn't fight with a style to live another day he slowly bleeds out to the point that they may be overwhelmed down the road.

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2012,

Jim