The Sharp End

[TheBigRedOne]

Inspired by the magazine The Armchair General’s short tactical vignettes, scenario designer Ozgur Budak brings you a collection of scenarios that are loosely based on historical military skirmishes or hypothetical tactical situations. What is for sure, he brings his formidable scenario design skills to play to give you a completely new set of combat problems to solve. It is Task Force Echo Four’s privilege to welcome you to The Sharp End.

This will be a project that Ozgur plans to add scenarios to as he has time to fit them in. If you have a tactical problem you'd like to see represented, go the main page for the Sharp End and leave your suggestion for Ozgur.

Huge thanks to Oz for proposing this project and his continued work on the Squad Battles series. I look forward to seeing more of his Sharp End scenarios in the future.

Eagles Strike: 10 new tactical problems to sink your teeth into.

Pacific War: 3 brand new combat situations to chew on.

All available over at Task Force Echo Four.

[Mad_Dog]

Thanks Oz! I don't know how you make so many, but I'm glad you do.:)

[Nikb]

Thanks Oz! I don't know how you make so many, but I'm glad you do.:)

He is really cranking them out alright. What I like is that Oz can reflect his excellent knowledge of the engine in his scenario design. I find in most cases his scenarios to be well balanced and always posing tactical challenges. I very much enjoy them. It is a real skill to design scenarios in such a way.

The SB series is very lucky in that regard as it has some pretty talented scenario designers that are putting out very good scenarios/titles.

Thanks Oz :)

[TheBigRedOne]

When Oz came to me with this idea, I was more than excited with the prospect of what we'd see.

It's a great concept, one that frees him up to create some really nice tactical problems to solve without having to spend a large amount of his time on the historical aspect of things. Sure, we all love playing these games for the history angle, but we also play because we like the challenge of a tough tactical situation. Now, the terrain can be pretty much anything of his chosing, depending on what title he decides to work with. The possibilities are endless, although his time is not unlimited!

Anyone notice that a few of the ES scenarios are seemingly based on the hit series Band of Brothers?

That being said, Oz does want to hear from the troops about potential scenarios. Come up with some ideas for a tactical situation you'd like to see represented and fire him a line.

[Outlaw Josey Wales]

I had an idea today that I would love to think it would be easily possible. Take scenarios from Campaign Series West Front and recreate them at SBs scale. Of course the map scale would make for large maps and the oobs are basically at platoon level in CS, so you recreate the platoon with squads from SBs and I suggest West Front because that is the only SBs ww2 title I have at the moment :smoke:.

I will eventually get my hands on AotR and then there are the scenarios that haven't been covered by SBs, but it sure sounds very enticing to be able to play something large at this scale. I think it would be great and be more team game friendly to say the least.

Anybody else interested in something like this?

I don't have the CS series yet and have yet to have the patience to figure out the scenario making thing. It sure doesn't appear to be very user friendly.

[Mad_Dog]

Josey: I don't usually like big scenarios, (what you are talking about sounds HUGE), but in a team game it sounds like fun. Give the scenario editor a try, its intimidating at first, but it's actually pretty easy. Just make sure to save often, and backup that save just as often, one mistake can screw stuff up.


Alan and Oz: How about some scenarios dealing with the early American halftrack tank destroyers, when they first met the Panzers in Tunisia? Anything to do with the inexperienced US Army is usually very interesting.

[Ozgur Budak]

As you mentioned Campaign Series have a different scale and do not provide good insight for small tactical setups. The Sharp End series focus on even smaller tactical situations which are most of the time smaller than company scale.

Early American battles, especially Tunisia, could be a really fertile ground for the series but we have to wait for a title covering that topic.

[Outlaw Josey Wales]

I know CS is a different scale than SBs. I was suggesting taking WF scenarios and scaling them to SBs. If an inf unit in CS represents a platoon, then in SBs it would be three squads plus leaders and whatever platoon support. A tank platoon with strength point 4 would be 4 tanks in SBs etc etc. I figured if it was interesting enough, try doing one of the smaller WF scenarios and post it up to see how players like it. And if well liked, I would think the rest would eventually done. Using the oob from CS, wouldn't render much to research, if any. And the map is there, but would take work to rebuild it to SBs scale. Look at all the games people at the Blitz are playing, I'd bet people would play those as well.

[Outlaw Josey Wales]

As for small tactical setups, it would be larger battles full of lots of small tactical situations while adding an overall operation flavor to it.

[Outlaw Josey Wales]

It would also be nice if SBs had a random battle generator like CS or SPs or both even included someday. Creating a random battle by units size or points system sounds good here too.