The NEW Combat Mission. What's to love?

Rejoice for after all this time we finally get to see what the new updated Combat Mission will look like. I must admit it looks pretty slick but I have been less than enamored with Battlefront lately. The CM fan deep down inside of me though wants to see this game be good. I used to be the ultimate Combat Mission nut back in the day. I had mods to make my tanks look better, I had mods for explosions, I had scenarios, I even tried to refight all of WW2 in Europe using the engine and inventing a turn based game using CM to resolve the battles.

So this comes as a happy announcement from the BF crew. I knew it was coming out soon but to see the first screenshots makes me warm up a little inside. So what is new and what is to love about this revamped version?

First you may want to visit the website:

http://www.battlefront.com

Well what isn't new is the setting. Back to a post Normandy invasion scene and I do wish they had done something different like start at the beginning of the war and release expansion packs to add to it. While I am sure we are all sick of fighting post D-DAY battles at least there is hope the the features will make it interesting:

Replayability

Unlike many other games, CM:BN offers far more than a limited handful of maps and missions. In fact, CM:BN delivers endless replayability, just like the first Combat Mission games did. Besides two semi-dynamic campaigns, one from each side's perspective, you will find dozens of standalone missions, full two-player capability for both online play as well as Play-By-Email (PBEM), and an innovative and almost entirely overhauled QuickBattles system including troops purchase, "cherry picking" and map selection and preview.

And that's just what comes with the game. Players have full access to a full featured Mission Editor to create their own maps, missions, and campaigns. If making new battles isn't your thing, then simply enjoy what others make by downloading them for free. There are more Combat Mission scenarios to download than any person could play in several lifetimes.

That is one feature that will be good to see. There are more things added that caught my eye. I will these below:

With CM:BN, we can now do things like purchase a US Medium Tank Battalion and see how it is organized and what it has for unique Battalion level support forces. You can keep, reduce, or delete units from the Battalion until you have just a Platoon on its own, a partial Company supported by a Battalion recon element, etc.

In CM:BN, the player is given a Rarity Pool to draw from. Each unit has Rarity Points assigned to it, which are deducted from the Rarity Pool when purchased. The base price of the unit is unaffected. What this does is allow you to purchase something like a very rare, but weak, armored Car Platoon without compromising your ability to purchase things like infantry, artillery, or more capable armored vehicles.

So besides the update in graphics and the replay ability they are also tweaking the AI:

The new improved Tactical AI ensures genuine battlefield behavior even at the smallest scale, no matter if you play a small platoon firefight scenario, or a large battalion sized engagement.

That is about it in a nutshell and there you have it Combat Mission fans. Lets hope this one turns out to be polished and raring to go right out of the box and not a heated mess like Theatre of War 2.