Long time gone - time to Go

Ice Hockey stole my life for a few years which really put a dent into my time budget.  Sadly, gaming suffered most out of the 'other things' in life (eg. family, work, gaming).  First to go were board games.  Next, online games dropped in frequency and then almost out of the equation (limited to World of Tanks).  And then I took a redundancy and moved to the country so everything got packed and stacked in boxes and still pretty well remains there (not sure if you'd call my present state one of semi-retirement or not, but I sure have kept busy).  And before you know it, the years have rolled by (take note, young ones).

There was the odd game in the past few years, but very few.  So few, I can recall them!

Condotierre - against the nephews, winning two out of three.
Settlers - against the nephews, winning none, losing two.
Ticket to Ride - against the daughter and grandson, miracle victory as the cards fell my way.

And, recently, Go.  This one has really taken my attention for a couple of months now, playing or studying it for a minimum of an hour a day.  I use an online go site and it has started refreshing my mind back into the gamer's mindset.  Very enjoyable, and a great relief for someone who is hours away from all known gaming opponents!

But, my gaming related interests have continued.  History, and anglo-saxon / viking / early norman periods in particular.  And rules get looked at.  And armies get planned in the spare moments while chopping wood etc.

And I've even had a look at Alcazia again.

And thus it continues...

AAD and other things

Well, I hope all those who read this had a safe and fun silly season. We at Adelaide Gamer did, most certainly. Not much in the way of games though, except for a bit of Tanks. And a recce on some modelling, for when I get the chance.

In the World of Tanks I have seemed to shift up a gear in my playing style, although it isn't necessarily immediately obvious when viewing the stat pages I think I am playing a lot smarter than I was a month ago. This is reflected in steady kill ratios of 1 per game or higher, and climbing averages for experience across my stable (T34, T34-85, IS2, SU-85, MS-1(!)).

I have also joined a clan, the ANZAC Armoured Division (2nd Battalion) - or AAD2 for short. The core of the clan consists of committed long term WoT players, it was formed in April 2011. The original AAD is presently 89 members, the 2nd Battalion has 30. The 1st Battalion is the gang who will provide the armies when Clan Wars finally starts up a Asia-Oceania server and fighting the daily round of battles in the quest for World Domination at a time more suitable for oceania timezones than does the present North American based server (early afternoon aussie time).

When you realise the First Battalion is composed of those with top level tanks waiting for the clan wars to start, and that the Second Battalion is for the more relaxed, less developed Tanker, then you'll probably understand that I give no secrets away when I say that the plan is to hit the ground running when Oceania opens up for conquest, grab territory and hang onto it. Apparently there's some well established russian clans with the same idea, so it will be interesting.

On a more mundane level, the AAD runs a basic forum and Team Speak set up which, when combined with a little message discipline and the ingame information streams in WoT, provides good forums, meeting points, communications networks and information storage to run a pretty major operation. The TS server set up is good, with channels for individual platoons, companies, training ground players and miscellaneous use, as well as main lobbies. Very functional and focused, without being neurotic about it. Kinda like us ANZACs (Australia New Zealand Army Corps, from WWI and Gallipoli) like to think we are.

Oh. And I'm chasing down some putty for the T34-85 model, and eagerly awaiting the end of silly season so I can set up and use my new air compressor and spray gun.

And there's a Knizia game of the Hobbit to learn and play.

And S&T is releasing its Germany-Russia 1920 hypothetical game in a couple months.

2012 looks like being a very good year.

Six hours tankin' it

Just ended what was about a six hour World of Tank session with the Lizard King. My prime tank was initially a KV13 (Tier 7), while he had a T44 (Tier 8). We were striking pretty well, but in the battles where our platoon got knocked out early we then filled the time with our reserve vehicles (T34-85 and M4A3E8 'Easy Eight'). At about H+5 I had achieved the necessary credits to trade in my KV13 for an IS Heavy Tank (Tier 7).

Much as I was a bit sad to sell my KV (over 170 battles I had become quite attached to its nifty combination of speed and heavy armour, albeit its relatively weak 85mm gun was irritating at times), it was nice to move into a heavy tank for the first time in WoT. And I'm within a handful of games of being able to research the T43 from the T34-85, which will make it 'elite' and allow me to hopefully get 100% camouflage ratings on the crew while I accumulate the necessary credits with which to trade it in and actually purchase the '43.

But for now, I love it when a good plan comes together.

Two new old blogs on my list

I've added Winter of '79 and Клементи Ворошилов ('Klementi Vorishilov' - thanks Ralph) to the blogs I follow. The first is imaginations in a thatcherite UK after the coup, the second is an ASL inspired rave with a bit of attitude. Sadly my own imaginations project stalled part way to first base (ah, the fate of a million projects) and I have never played ASL (being an unregenerate Squad Leader fan), but love both blogs. Worth a look.

WoT update

I've been playing World of Tanks (wikilink*) for just over two months now (seems like forever) and have some decent vehicles in my garage. I have just fought my 100th battle in my KV13 Medium Tank, and hope to change that for an IS Heavy sometime in the coming week. I've been in over 500 battles in my T34-85, and am within about a hundred battles of being able to begin production of the T-43 (which line of development will eventually culminate in the T-54). For a bit of light entertainment I also have an SU85, armed with a 107mm tank killer, which I may or may not decide to upgrade to an SU122 sometime in the future.

I have of course kept my T34, and still enjoy charging around with it and its rapid firing 57mm gun. One can almost sense the surprise of some of those I bump into when I seem to pour shots into them twice as rapidly as the more normal 76mm armament would!

And I still have my MS-1, though hardly ever drive it now (these days getting my lower level kicks from driving my level/Tier 5 T34). It won't last much longer though, as after I replace the KV13 with an IS, I will need the 'slot' presently occupied by the wee MS-1 for my T43 unless I wish to sell off either my T34 or T34-85 (which I don't), or stop developing my line of tank destroyers.

All good fun, and all free. What more could one ask for?

*Updated 'wikilink' to wikipedia link (18 Dec '11).

Can anyone here help Ralph?

Ralph, over at Клементи Ворошилов (how do I pronounce this?), is doing some really interesting stuff with Advanced Squad Leader. After reading this post, outlining some of the travails of one dedicated to simulating obscure yet important campaigns (in this case, the Brit-Soviet invasion of Iran in 1941), I wished that I knew more of the campaign, or that I had (or had the time to play) ASL - as Ralph was looking for playtesters for his project.

If you can help him, perhaps let him know.

Tanking It

For the last month or so I've been busy playing World of Tanks. You might remember that I first mentioned this game in June when I found out that my (then) computer didn't have sufficient guts to run the program. Since then I had a birthday, and on my birthday (besides the amazing cake) I got a new computer. And, on that computer, had been conveniently loaded the client program for the online megamulti player game of World of Tanks. Seeing as the machine runs on Vista, most everything else I have doesn't work on the new machine, so guess what I've been doing for the past month when in front of the screen?

I'll post a pic of that birthday cake just as soon as I get this vista worked out.

Trivial Success Pt II

You might remember that on The Blitz online wargaming site I had been posing a question in the twenty question competition, in the nature of a 'who am I' query. Finally, after several weeks and sixteen questions (well, seventeen, but I was generous with a whinger) someone finally guessed the answer ... Tom Wintringham. Below is my final post on the thread, with a snapshot bio of this fascinating person.

I am so glad someone could get to this fellow's name. He lived an amazingly full life, of which below I only ramble off some of the more public dimensions.

- An able mechanic/despatch rider in RFC in WWI (served with the baloonatics). Notably, convicted of mutiny and returns to front.
- Founding member of Communist Party of Great Briton, editor (Daily Worker), journalist, (Picture Post, etc). Imprisoned on conviction for sedition in late twenties.
- Core influence in the founding of the International Brigades upon Franco's rebellion in Spain.
- Captain, Machine Gun Company in the British Battalion.
- Acting Commander of the Battalion at Jarama, wounded, hospitalised for two months.
- Return to the front, wounded again, two more months in hospital.
- Convalesce to Britain, anti fascist sympathies have him propagandising to a broad public during Chamberlain's appeasement.
- In the phony war and the dark days, is one of two major voices in public inspiring resistance and preparation (his arch enemy Churchill being the other). Heard by millions.
- Founder and chief instructor (with his old spanish civil war comrades) at Osterley House, in the Irregular Warfare Training course for the Local Defence Volunteers. (5000+ trained here).
- Refuses to join the Home Guard while running Osterley House as the bureaucracy and MI5 move in - eventually closing it down. By this time has left communist party, so joins for a few weeks the Home Guard as an ordinary volunteer before resigning.
- Founds 'Common Purpose' political party in latter stages of the war, party wins seats.
- Dies and buried at Grimsby, some of his books being published well after his passing.

Trivial Success

Over at the Blitz there are a selection of ongoing forum based military trivia games of the 'twenty questions' variety. Until recently, I'd never really taken much notice of them. For some reason (idle surfing in safe waters?) I recently checked them out. To my own amusement, one of the current questions was of the 'what famous general am I?' variety, and I pretty well had it pegged after reading the third or fourth question. By the time I read the last (15th) question, it was certain, so I wrote in my answer (Jan Smuts). Which was right. So now I get to pose the 'who am I' question.

I won't, of course, say who it is I am thinking of here until they've worked it out there (or used up their twenty questions).

PS if you're interested in my Alcazian project, check out the comments in the post preceding this one, where John asks a question and gets a flow of consciousness reply (in three parts, no less!) outlining the process whereby is produced part of the history of Germania and Ruska.

Interbellum Imagi-Nations?

This picture is of the last occasion that my combined 6mm Spanish Civil War armies paraded before their commanding officer. You'll know that they've been at peace ever since and are presently ensconced in their 'barracks', still awaiting the call to duty. I was beginning to despair when that day might come, or how it might come about, as every time I felt the urge, something in 'real life' seemed to intervene. It was getting very frustrating and, grumble as they might, the troops remained at peace. That might be about to change.

"How is that so?", the reader may well ask. Well, I'll come to that, but please first bear with me as I work my way from then to now.

Miniatures wargaming was not the only thing that took a hit as I lived my life over the past few years. Adelaide Gamer, for instance, took on a torpor often associated with death in the blogosphere. East Front and Renaissance Kingdoms were put into minimalist mode. Hardly even any boardgames and, even then, none of the hardcore ones. Something has changed recently (moved through the midlife crisis?) and I now find that Adelaide Gamer has more and more to talk about - I have probably a month's worth of posting materials lined up with more materiel arriving almost daily.

"All very good," the reader might rightly say, "but what's the relevance to the mustered 6mm armies?"

An bonus side effect of my prolonged absence from the scene was that there were lots of nice surprises when I returned, including the growth of the gaming blogosphere and many of the amazing blogs that I have since found. A 'new' subspecies of gaming blogs are those of the 'Imagi-Nations', a concept which I immediately found fascinating, if obscure in its meaning.

For several weeks I was looking around the web for a definitive guide to what this whole concept of Imagi-Nations is, and was beginning to get frustrated when I couldn't find any location. Eventually, it dawned on me that the whole concept was one whose philosophy and 'rules', such as they are, is actually contained in the accretion of sites forming the imagi-nations network of blogs and related activities. In a sense, a non hierarchical and non centralised game of games. Very philosophical, but it did make a lot of sense to me then.

After this realisation, I went back and had a look at two 'hubs' of imagi-nations with fresher eyes, Emporer v Elector and Interbullum. Now I think I get it. I like what I see. I am thinking that my armies might find their place again in my active gaming universe if I become an active player.

I love the worlds and spaces and writings created for the EvE set of Imagi-Nations, even though 17th century is not really my scene. So, when I came across Interbellum it didn't take long for the thought bubble to form, why not create my own imagi-nation set in between the two world wars? Afterall, I love a bit of history and role playing and I have a set of armies of the period, and the creative bug has been attacking me quite strongly recently...

So, I've written off to the Interbellum mob and asked if its worth the investment of time and emotion that a worthwhile imagi-nation will deserve. I think the answer will be 'yes'. If so, I'll set about creating my own imagi-nation (probably on its own separate blog) and working out some sort of campaign / battle system to take advantage of the online tools I've come across over the last few years, just in case it takes a while to sort out some space and time for the 6mm panoply.

So. Another project beckons. I'll of course keep you informed how it goes.

I think my diary is getting full!

Have added four more sites to my followed blogs:
Interbellum - hub site for interbellum imagi-nations
New Byzantium - a gamer/imagi-nation blog of interest
Battle Game of the Month - imagi-nations active, classic wargamer, philosopher
Mort's 1938 Scrapbook - a great imagi-nationesqe campaign set in a 'fictitious' English Civil War in 1938. The history of the Anglican League in particular is an interesting thread!

Quick Hexographer Link

Grognardia recently posted a reference to the online hex mapping resource, Hexographer. Although I don't have time to play around with it at the moment, between the Grog's commentary and what I see at the linked site I can already see a number of uses for the application. And I know that some of my regular readers will appreciate it also!

I really will have to sort out my label categories and go through this blog with the edit post feature. Another gaming project to add to the list...

WoT? Whoops!

World of Tanks was recently recommended me by a friend. I had recently also been reading about it (on one of Mitch Williamson's sites, can't remember which), after hearing of it for a couple months (in a Renaissance tavern!). So, as I occasionally do when the gods of synchronicity roll a double, I went to have a look at this free-to-play online MMO. Not much luck.

The download of the client onto my machine required 1.8 Gb so it took a couple hours to get ready. Installation took awhile also. Right at the end of the process (just before it asked if I want a desktop icon) a windows message flashed up on screen telling me that the program's needs exceeded my system's capability and that the installation was thus aborted.

I'm not used to seeing messages like that, so went to the FAQ on the forums. System Requirements: 2 Gb RAM. Check my system specs: 1GB RAM. No dice. How sad. I haven't been so disappointed since I found out that Conan Online wanted my credit card number after downloading the 4Gb client ('play for free' promotion (for which I'd bought a magazine I normally wouldn't, all because I dig R.E.Howard))*.

At one level, WoT appears to be a pretty standard shootemup, (excepting the premise that you are a (upgradeable) tank amongst other tanks rather than a psychotic killer amongst other psychos). It operates the way a lot of games do these days, with a free player able to grind their way forward just at a slower rate to payers. You can join a platoon, even a clan. There are clan wars.

This is where it gets interesting, as there is another 'level' of game set on a provincialised map of europe, with warring clans struggling for world conquest by taking over one province at a time via a formalised 'tournament style' scheduling of battles. This in turn creates a long term persistent 'story arc', and opens up a whole 'Risk' style of strategic meaning to interclan battles, with a bunch of live players rather than lifeless drones as one's opponents in tactics as well as strategy. And that, to me, was and is interesting.

Alas, I'll just have to read/hear about it as I'm not planning to upgrade my RAM anytime soon.

* Over at the Blog that Time Forgot, Big Al is in Howard Country. He's made the trip to the grave. Reading that, I had to work in a Howard allusion somehow for the link! Also ... if I find the link for Mitch's article on WoT, I'll let you know.

Thanks Mitch!

A Shed Circa 2001

While looking for a picture of a shed on the web (chasing down a witty idea for a post) I came across one of Mitch Williamson's websites and got diverted. He has created and built a number of websites with a whole heap of stuff on a whole heap of things of interest to wargamers (and others). He's collected a lot of information and links and made them available in useful format. A grand service indeed. Casting my eye down one of the lists of sites on one of his sites, for example, I see the following niche sites on subjects which appeal to one of the various gamers in me...

Broch, Crannog and Hillfort - the centrepiece of an idea for my RK 'other' life ...
Jacobite Rising - ... where I am a scot royalist.
Spanish Civil War - a Military Legacy - a couple armies of 6mm waiting to play.
Malvinas Conflict - long held desire to create a TOAW III scenario based on this.
Best Mods Central - frontpages a mod for TOAW III at time of post, need I say more?
Minor Nations' Militaries 1914 - 45 - mmm, the 'interwar' years.
World War I in Africa - again, a minor theatre of major interest to me.

The above is a sample only. There are others. Well worth checking out the links from any of these sites, something will grab your attention. I'm not going to nominate a single site to go see for this dude, but have included one on my blogroll to make access easy for me - Warfare and Wargaming.

If you ever read this Mitch, thanks!

WOW - online grind by real life slaves

You might guess from my past posts that I'm not into the style of online gaming exemplified by World Of Warcraft, Lord Of The Rings Online, Guildwars, etc. You'd be right. But that doesn't mean I'm not interested in them (in a sociological kinda way). Especially when I come across news items like this, reporting on a disturbing practice developed by chinese prison guards who make a nice little bit on the side by forcing their charges to 'play' at such games as WOW, generate ingame credits, and then sell these credits to consumers for real currency which they then pocket. Yet another example of how the intersection of online games with real life can lead to serious problems. It's not all glitz.

World Day against Cyber Censorship

March 12th is the World Day against Cyber Censorship. The fact you are reading this says that you enjoy the benefits of access to the web. We use it to pursue our passions, our hobbies, our games. The community we forge is real. In the broad community of netizens around the globe there are growing numbers of people locked away in countries throughout the world for online reportage and networking activities. Not that that will likely involve the readers of this blog in the foreseeable future, but who knows what the future holds?

In Australia we are about to get a government run filtering system to block sites the administrators deem 'unsuitable'. No choice. And in South Australia we will be losing access to many games as our Attorney General refuses to participate in a national classificatory scheme for the hardcore games (the 'R' rating). Not that I particularly like most of those games, but if they get away with this, what next? Social networking sites? Militaristic hobbyists? Who knows? If you recall the various panic waves and crusades against Dungeons and Dragons you'll know that the most innocent of activities can lead to crazy situations if the censors move in.

To show how ridiculous it can get even in this 'civilised age,' in an election campaign occurring here and now our Attorney General has been publicly grabbing headlines saying he is more at threat from 'gamers' than from 'bikies' (against whom he has passed anti-association laws). The logical next step would be to stop gamers from associating, and then what would we do?

Anyway, to break the non political nature of this blog for this one day of the year, I just wanted to spread the word and ask everyone to think for a moment of the joys we have with a web on which we can write what we want and read as we feel. And to cherish that.

If you're interested, check out the site of Reporters without Borders (Reporters sans frontiers).

If you wonder why I'm posting this, my beloved country is now being ranked with various totalitarian states such as China, Iran, etc because of the internet filtering 'service' our government is about to ram down our throats. It has me rather upset. Back to normal transmission after this post...

Dice Roller

As we draw to the end of the game in the Marching to the Front scenario the mind turns to the next one. In choosing the next East Front scenario, we have a list of them in historical order and are playing through from the start, randomly selecting the next from the list according to a 1D6 roll (re rolled if it is too one sided, too big, played before, etc). So, here was I, sending of the last turnfile to my opponent looking at the list of scenarios in late 1941, and I couldn't find a dice. Shame on me.

So, I used this handy dice roller. I've put in my sidebar for easy reference.

Ubergeek

I've just added Lair of the Ubergeek to my blogroll. Great miniatures wargaming site by a dude with a sense of humour. Terrain, models, after action reports, nice photos, enough personal posts to humanise the author, and not too highly stressed.

While I'm praising blogs, check these cartoons out at Iron Mitten, 'Judgement Day' and 'Brits Abroad.' Excellent work!

Blitzin'

I've joined The Blitz Wargaming Club, an online community which has been helping fans of various combat strategy games (eg. Campaign Series (East and West Front, Rising Sun) and The Operational Art of War, etc). It has 'ladders', and seems to neatly link up players for games against each other by PEBM. It's been going over 10 years in its current guise and has some very dedicated gamers. A lot of scenario design, and history stuff in the background. I actually joined a few days ago, but only just started my first actual 'ladder' game.

It's a 1941 East Front scenario, 'Marching to the Front' (complexity of four). Late October and Barbarossa is running out of steam as winter approaches. It's the grab to secure the food and position in open cultivated plains scarred by small ravines and state farms, before the snow closes in. I won't say too much more here about the game until the scenario is properly decided for fear of giving too much away.

Sorry, lizard king :)

Secondary MMPORGs

Besides playing Renaissance Kingdoms, I also am active in two other MMPORGs. The site owners of RK have started a new world called Shogun Kingdoms, in which I have a humble buddhist peasant who spends all day in the temple, regularly starves himself, and whose only present ambition is to own his own rice field in the not too distant future. I'll put a link on my sidebar to the site very shortly.

The other MMPORG is the Tribal Kingdoms, where my Aztec peasant continues to make obsidian clubs in his home village towards the day when he too can have an army and devestate neighboring tribes. Recently they upgraded the site so that I now can visualise what I look like (these are all text and menu driven browser based games).

All three of these 'Kingdoms' games are run by the same crew with the same game engine. I'm not sure what their business model is as they seem to have backed off of advertising in outside sites and cannabilise players from RK to these other new worlds they have set up. This is not a long term proposition, i suppose, but then again, RK is going strong into its fifth year so who am I to criticise?

My dedication to RK varies between fanatical and keen, spending between 20 min and 5 hours per day on it still, after two years. This is not an unusual pattern. As to the Aztec and Nippon characters, about five minutes each per day. In regards to these later, I see my participation as being somewhat of a public service as the Kingdoms need peasants and 'commoners' to go about the daily grind while those who get into the running of the world manipulate and scheme to determine our futures.

It's kinda relaxing after the intensity of RK.

Holiday Gaming - online GRAW, EF, RK

Over the past two weeks I've dabbled a bit in online media for gaming. Surprise surprise.

Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter - classic shoot 'em up for the thinking player. Have had it for a year or so and played single player on desktop, not the best at it (still haven't finished the programmed scenarios). High tension game, however, big maps and difficult scenarios with good sound and graphics. Here is the link to a user video on youtube which shows someone playing through the mission I have gotten stalled on (in the mass fire fight at the end). This dude makes it look easy.

Anyway, after maybe a year of having the game I finally 'patched' the game with the official patch and had a look at the multiplayer function. There seems to always be a dozen or more games going on online at any time, most of them being cooperative games on usergenerated missions. It's a game of small interlocking fire teams and rests a lot on observation and tactical movement. Good fun. Also of some interest is that one can make one's own machine act as a server. This is especially useful here in Australia considering the usually high 'ping' penalty we pay for living here (most game servers being on the other side of the planet).

East Front II - continue into turn 3 of the 1941 scenario of what looks like a russion cavalry brigade and tank regiment attacking a string of isolated german company's at a number of crossroads etc. The russian tanks appear poised to 'overrun' in the next turn.

Renaissance Kingdoms - Since I last wrote of this here I have done a stint as Field Marshal of the Royal Scottish Army, backing on to a term of about two months as Deputised Field Marshal while my predecessor underwent court martial procedures. My own time as Field Marshal was marked by a Court Martial of none other than my ingame wife, with me having to determine penalty once the Military Council had determined guilt. My penalty managed to upset nearly everyone to some degree for some reason. That was before Christmas. After Christmas I faced a vote of no confidence amongst the army as a result of the High Command being mighty upset at what they saw as the leniency of the penalty I had handed down in the court martial.

The no confidence vote was taken in each of the three regiments, the officer corps and the high command. These five results were tallied, equally weighted, and I ended up losing my job by one vote. The High Command voted against me and the officers did, but galloway and glasgow regiments supported me. There was only one vote cast in Ayr Regiment and it was against me and effectively determined the whole show. Ironically, this voter made clear that he thought the decision was fair and just but that I shouldn't have been the one to make it due my relation to the accused. I won the majority of the votes but lost in the tactics of it over the xmas new year break. So my character gets to live a normal life again after over a year as general of a regiment and then effectively as a warrior lawyer in the military courts as field marshal.

An unexpected turn indeed.