Monongahela, the TSA French Indian War big battle

The past saturday TSA organised it's first of the bigger daylong battle events of 2018, and the war of choice was the French Indian War (or Seven Years War).

The battle that would be recreated was Monongahela, a disasterous expedition for the British forces in the Thirteen Colonies...

Historical

The British where en route to a french fort in a heavily forrested area.  In order to bring up their baggage train, including their cannons, they had to hack themselves a road through the woods.  However, about halfway to their destination, the British force was ambushed by Native Americans and annihilated, making it an immense defeat for the forces of the crown.

Set up

The table recreated the feel of woods, by limiting the movement of the troops in wooded areas.  The whole british force started on one side of the stream, that could only be crossed by a single bridge.  On the other side of this bridge, a small outpost manned by French marines guarded the crossing.

Along the length of the table, various markers (represented by canoes and wounded counters) contained french troops in the form of native american troops and coureur de bois, all pretty elite forces.

The british had mostly line infantry regiments, but also a few native american allies, provincial forces, a small squad of rangers, and a regiment of grenadiers.

The rules we would use where the Ganeesha Games "Song of... tomahawks".

The Battle

And so the forces faced each other, 6 british officers facing off against 5 french ones.  We knew that actually reaching the fort on the day itself was sheer impossible, as that would mean 19 turns of 3 action movement, without any delays.  However, if we could defeat over half the french forces, a minor victory would be scored, so that was our aim.

My own regiment, 24 strong, was bringing up the rear of the army to mop up any stragglers and guard against encirclement moves.  Lord Basil von Blaffington the Second as such patiently waited at the head of his regiment until all the other troops crossed the bridge.

Which, due to French delaying actions, took a very long time (5 actual hours that resulted in moving a full 18 inch) as not only did the french marines hold out wonderfully, their native allies fought a delaying action to prevent the british to bring their numbers to bear.

This worked well, but eventually, as unit after unit got off the bridge, the defenders where overwhelmed and the fort fell to the rangers, mohicans and line troops.  Now the british could bring up their forces... and create a new bottle up on the flank as the front regiment managed to get no actions at all 4 turns in a row.

In the meantime, Coureurs and more natives arrived to try and delay the british more, fighting out firing duels with the front regiments.

My own regiment then decided to no longer hold their place in the bottled up line, moving over to the flank of the Grenadiers and highlanders instead.  While they arrived just to late to actually participate in the action, they did manage to get into a fighting position by the time the game ended.

The british now kept pressuring both the center of the french line by their overwhelming numbers, and the grenadiers kept pushing away the native forces on our right flank, opening the line towards the fort... though that was still a loooooong march away as we where at about 1/3rd of the distance by then, but the french had revealed all their reinforcements and ambushes... and lost quite a few.

The british now formed a solid frontline from left to right over the table, and had suffered minor losses.  Opposing them where shattered and decimated french units, as they had lost over half their fighting strenght already, and the units that where underway would be arriving piecemeal, ready to be blasted to pieces.

It was decided then to call it a day, and the british claimed the minor victory on number of casualties.

Conclusion

Although my own role was very, very limited and I didn`t fire a shot, this was a great event as a lot of laughs where had.  The rules might need some tweaking to accomodate for the large numbers of players and figures in what is essantially a skirmish ruleset, but all in all it went rather smoothly.

Thanks Patrick and Eddy for putting this together!

But also...

With the event, the club was also open for the members to do other stuff, and some took this opportunity.

Two other games where played, in the form of a Team Yankee game, and an AWI game with papercraft models and scenery.

The "fantasy division" used the time to start airbrushing a large amount of the terrain for the 40k big battle in may, as Noshi was assembling even more buildings for that event.

And of course, the inner person was strengthened as well...

Well, that`s it for the first of the big battles of the year.  The next one is in march, with the large annual two-day Naval game (if you want to join in, go to the TSA facebook page on how to register, there are still spots available) of which I`ll be reporting as well when the time comes.

Hostage Raid, a Dux Britanniarum campaign report

The final struggle for this month for surviving in the campaign, and hopefully it would go as well as the previous two...

And in order to do that, I needed to face off Joeri, who raided my lands and tried to take one of my Nobles hostage.  To add to my problems, most of his army (6 out of 8 units) would appear right next to my noble, accompanied by his bodyguard warrior units.

So this would mean I should try and goad his army while the rest of my force races from their encampment to free him... let the battle begin.

My noble, appearing at the far side, immediatly formed his 8 warrior unit and his 6 warrior unit in a Shieldwall, which would then slowly back away a few inches at a time.

My Lord at the meantime, joined by the second Noble to grant him some protection from being taken, rushed with the cavalry and the missile troops to relieve his subordinate.

The enemy army started appearing, joined by two units of Raiders whom both showed up for the battle, to add insult to injury, so that is a true mass facing my force.

My small cavalry unit is the first to reach the clearing though, and threaten the back of his far larger force of riders.

As his warrior and levy shieldwall charges my cavalry, they evade, and instead my lord with his elites and warrior troops bash in.  Unfortunatly, mine aren`t in Shieldwall and are thrown back a few inches.

On the other side, his cavalry is charged by my noble and his wall, in order to prevent him from doubling his attack dice.  This battle goes amazingly well, as his entire unit of warriors is wiped out and the elites are thrown back.

His noble and raider allies then throw themselves on my battered shieldwall... and then they are soundly trashed, one unit of Raiders wiped out, the other fleeing, and his noble seemed to be captured before making good his escape with his Athlete skill.  Seems the wrong side's noble was about to be grabbed...

On the otherside, both Shieldwalls are facing off, with his cavalry now behind them and making ready to support his infantry.  Luck activated my Lord first however, and my wall crashes into his.

Soundly beating his force, the levy leg it, while his warriors fall back through his horses and causing a great amount of shock on them as a result.  This makes them unable to charge and Joeri offers his surrender before he would loose more of his force.

Being the benevolent warlord that I am *cough* I accepted this, nailing the battle with a +3 win modifier, and having survived the campaign round with 3 wins out of 3 battles... and now comes the big joke.

While being as good as out of the campaign after the first round disaster, I now find myself ranked on the second place of the campaign ladder with a prestige of 8, only one point behind the current leader.  Clustfeinad isn`t just out for the count yet it seems!

Epilogue

Noshi came asking if I would join in a fun little boardgame afterwards, where you have to take out the ducks of your opponent.  I was the first to fall... because Noshi had been saving a Quick Draw card "just for me" when my last duck would be on the board...

Oh how did she laugh...

Opinion: Thoughts on YouTube

There have been some changes on YouTube recently, and a lot of channels have been voicing over this, not all that well in most cases.

Of course, it's all about the moneytizing programme that has changed, and now proves an insurmountable cliff for many smaller channels.

Even though I have my own small channel, I never much cared about that part.  Heck, at around 120 subscribers at the time of typing this, it's a very, very small fish in a humongous pond, but I just like to do the occassional vlog instead of blog, most notably the weekly painting desk update.

But I can understand that for some, it was a welcome bit of pocket money and they see that dissipate from one moment to the next.  I believe (for Belgium) it now has to be 1.000 subs and 4.000 clicks or something in order to be able to apply for the partner programme again; no need for me to lie awake of that anyways.

But this also got me looking through the channels I subscribe to, and their numbers of subs and views, and some odd things caught my attention.

First of all, there are barely any succesfull historical wargame channels out there, most hovering around the 500 subs.  On the other hand, often GW channels are going in the thousands of subscribers, and I must admit I find a lot of them "odd" to have that number.  Most of those channels are lore related, and while there are some great ones that lay down possible connections, hypothesise on facts and how they would be able to expand and the likes, there are many others who are just, well, not on that level.

These are channels that do literally nothing else then quote the lore from the novels, codex'es and other official sources, dry and like it is written down.  Add some picture footage of the GW site, and your done.  Originality and creativity zero, yet the amount of subscribers keeps rising.  Are people getting to lazy to even read something for themselves?  This is double sour for those who do create thoughts based on official content in my opinion.  Because hey, this piece is my completely subjective opinion and my youtube tastes...

What I personally do love watching, apart from big guns like Beasts of War 'The Weekender' show on saturdays or the newest build tips from TheTerrainTutor, are battle reports.  And preferably of the not 40k variation, but not so popular game systems like Blood and Plunder, or the Let's Plays from BoW that introduce new games often and you get an idea of how a game plays.  For example, TheMedievalWargamer once did a whole series on how Mortem et Gloriam works and plays, including a solo game battlereport.  I am very intrested in that game system since then, and the fact they literally have a gazillion of free downloadable army lists is a welcome bonus.  But I never would have found that out without watching the first of his series...

A very intresting video I watched a few weeks ago, and set my YouTube related intrest rolling on thinking over channels I subscribed to, was by an australian bloke called Macca.  He talked about "clickbaiting" on YouTube, and how some channels, just to attract more views, literally quoted everything that appeared on the Warhammer Community site.  This allowed them to make 6 to 9 videos of nothing new in the time of a few weeks, and get huge amounts of clicks even though in essence they presented nothing new.  I scrolled a bit through YouTube after seeing that... and he is bloody right.  Out of the top of my head, at least seven "established" (aka, more then 10k subscribers) channels do this.  With something that is perfectly watchable on the official site, and even sooner then they can make those (admitted, often very short) video's that in two cases at least are just the image or text that appeared on the Community site overlaid with the free to use YouTube music.

Logical, because otherwise they would be demonitized for author rights on the music... so see those screaming daemons slaughter all on a tune of a rabbit hopping through the verdant green grass...

Another sort of YouTuber channel that I quit following are those with the god-complex.  They think they just know everything about every army in every gamesystem and any other way is wrong.  Yeah, "That Guy" has discovered YouTube.  These channels often say what you MUST play in order to win, and what they think is the only way to go.  Though after a bit of research, I never see their names in the top spots of big tournaments, so they are probably the king of the local hobbystore, and only if the really good players, that can create win opportunities with even a "basic" army (yes; the fluff armies, on how they should look instead of min max forces) are on holidays.  The tone of those channels, in all their patronizing, quickly turned me of, yet those are the guys with the big subscriber numbers.  So apart from reading, has humanity also stopped thinking for itself?

So yes, YouTube might be a bit of a very, very mixed candy these days, and unfortunatly, the change in the programme might actually be the downfall of the smaller channels out to earn perhaps some sidemoneys.  Because in our capitalist world, this IS a motivation to do such things after all.  They might either try to boost their numbers with becoming yet another clickbait or lore reader channel, or they might quit making the effort to remain on YouTube.

Or they stoutly sail on and keep giving us original and fun content!

The Haul Report 119

A lovely week this time around, as I received my two small outstanding orders.

Nothing big or spectacular, but essentials none the less...

From GMB Designs, my flags arrived for my ACW Corps, including the 5th Irish Brigade regiment that I was missing, the 116th Pennsylvania.  The other ones are the Corps flag and the Divisional ones.

Another small order where two small buildings from Warbases, for use with the Dark Ages.  Both a small hut and a stable, these will be assembled and painted by Noshi actually.

Nice little nick-nacks for my army as such :-)

On the Painting Desk 32

Well, as I said last week, the desk wouldn't remain that empty for long...

It's been a calm week on the part of finishing models, but I have been assembling, priming and putting on the first base colour on the next AHPC entry.

And that will be a regiment of ACW soldiers.  Normally, I had hoped to paint 2 full regiments of 24 strong for the coming week, but I'll actually be glad if I get even one finished.  If not, that one will be entered the week after and I'll have to do with the few command models I did finish.

And that includes that Hancock model at last...

Stein's Gate: The Movie - Load Region of Deja Vu

Set after the events of the series (which I haven't watched yet) the film takes place in one of the alternate universes the anime explores.

But both me and Noshi liked this film a lot, and are curious about the series so that will be tackled in the not so far future.

In this film, Rintaro Okabe has arrived in a timeline where he doesn't lose his friends Mayuri and Kurisu, and prevent SERN from rising as the time machine no longer exists.  But when he is discussing deja vu with Kurisu, he suddenly disappears and no-one seems to remember him.

A mysterious visitor appears a day later, and explains to Kurisu how she can make a time machine that will help her influence the timeline.  In order to bring Rintaro back, she has to give him a strong memory that will make him hold on to the timeline, aka his very first kiss ever.

This was a very intresting anime movie, and as stated above we both are eager to have a look at the series somewhere down the line.  It's very well drawn and animated, and the "adorable ass" personality of Rintaro, while being actually heroic and selfless in his own way, is a very nice character arc.

My curiosity has ben tickled for sure!

Dusting of the Gundam Project

Okay, the Tau are getting their new Codex...

There is the free downloadable Mobile Suit Gundam skirmish game rules on Facebook...

And I still have this guy... the first of a planned project from years ago (as in, with the second version of the Tau codex)...

Apart from him, I still have "a few" GunPla kits in my storage space... like about 24 of them, over which half are rank and file mobile suits like Geara Droga's and Zaku's in scale 1/144, which is when I want to introduce the Gundam game to the club, about equal to 15mm so I might be buying some scenery in that scale in the future.

So yes, perhaps it IS time to finally make work of the age old plan of building them all and use them as a Tau army.  Sure, the GunPla models are bigger then the regular Tau battlesuit (well, if they are on their flying bases, not so much actually) which is slightly gamewise a penalty.  Because of the (clusterf*cked) line of sight rules for 8th edition.  But that doesn't bother me one bit, as it won't be a competitive force in any way.

Instead, the goal is to create a force made for the occassional fun game and change of force from my Heretic Astartes.  See, I like two things in life, anime being one of them and the Tau with all their mecha suits are a force that always had a big appeal to me.

I do realise I'll need to create a printed out visual recognisition guide for my opponents, but that is a small effort and a single printed copy of about 7 - 9 different mecha pictured on it and what they represent should be sufficient after all.  The 'hardest' part is probably how to equip all the battlesuits to accomodate the GunPla models.

As it stands at the moment, the Tau have 4 "main" battlesuits on which variations are build.  The huge Riptide and Stormsurge, and the basic XV8 and Broadsides.  Apart from the ForgeWorld ones like the immense KX139, or the XV109 and the likes, as well as the XV9.
My idea was generally for the Broadsides to use 'ranged' Gundam models, like the above HeavyArms Kai, the Dynames, the Buster, etc.

The basic line troop suits, being the venerable XV8, would be represented by the most basic and noble of mobile suits, being both the GM and the Zaku models with a variety of weapons.

For the bigger suits, "legendary" Gundams will be drafted in, those main suits of series.  My Freedom for example, the most gorgeous Gundam ever made, will be a Riptide! 
Should I decide to take stealth suits, I still have two boxes of "balls" who would suit that job excellently, and any flyer support can be represented with flyer packs like the Aile or the Raizer kits...

And for that Lord of War KV139, the Psycho Gundam will make an excellent alternative!

I won't be fielding any infantry, though drones are possible in the form of the "funnels" weapon systems that some of the Gundams have.  I know that for a logistic sense, a lot of the suits will have only a single weapon system as a result (one gun models) but will have more of their support options as a result like markerlights and things, but for that I'll need to study the upcoming codex first... in due time, because I will have a lot to paint.  Not in model numbers, but those 12 cm high mechas take more time then your average 28mm infantry figure after all.

Uchiage!

Protectors of the Pretzel

After painting up the Alpine Gnomes crossbows and mage earlier in this challenge, I managed to complete my full Kickstarter bundle, adding to the ranks.

Now, the models aren`t perfect, like the elongated arm here and there to accomodate their weapons, but as they paint up very well this tends to "blend in".  

However, the Halberdiers are another matter, standing a full head taller then the rest of the models in the deal... so I better put them far apart on the battlefield (think of the difference between a 28m  and a 32mm heroic to get an idea).

The set consists of two combat regiments, in the form of 15 spearmen and 10 halberdiers.

Accompanying them are three heroes, of which the female hero is a truly magnificent model in my opinion.  The others are a loose champion and the battle standard bearer.

Also in this set are civilians and a casualty, stretch goals from the campaign.  I especially like the partying gnomes, with the one being held off by the not so impressed lady.

Though perhaps the hardest part was drawing and painting some banners to go in the force...

As with the rest of my Empire army, the models have been based in the Plane of Fire style, making them run around on the lavaplains of Aqshy.

This was a fun Kickstarter from OS Models as such, and adds a nice little (pun intended) variety to my forces...

All in all, this is 38 infantry models, at 5 points each as they are 28mm scale, this makes a nice 190 points extra and putting me really close to reaching the 750 goal I had set myself for this painting challenge, huzzah!  And the judges awarded a sweet 2 extra points for the banners as well, nettoing 192 points and pushing me to 732 in total now... with the bonus entry this weekend that will net 65 points, the objective has been reached!