MINI WARGAMING: "Battle of Basrah" (24 July 2008)

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TOP: Turn 1: An aerial view of the Battle of Basrah 1914-15...

...with Allies on the left and the Ottomans on the right.

Hi All,

Last Friday on 18 July 2008, a number of gentleman got together to play a colonial game, although a late colonial game from World War I. Mark Steinberg and Mike McGraw hosted. The game was loosely based on the actual Battle of Basrah from 1914-15 although the results (an allied defeat) much more resembled the Siege of Kut, the battle that followed Basrah in 1915-16. For those readers still gaining proficiency in geography, Basrah is located in modern-day Iraq.

It was a great game with lots of beautiful terrain, a host of 28mm figures, a British armored car, several light artillery pieces, two massive river boats, the French Foreign Legion, plenty of Brits, plenty of Scots, Indian troops, Arabs, Askaris, Boers, and everything a colonial-minded gamer could adore. I had a fabulous time and it was a great way to spend a lazy evening.

Mark's notes:

Here are some photos of the BASRAH 1915 game. Players were Maksim, Tim, Mike McGraw, Mike O., Hal L., and Nils. I took the photos. Observers included Carl O., Jim C. and Mark Cuomo, Mikos, Mike S., Marcus, and George G.

And the photos:

TOP: By turn 3, the Allies (left) had taken considerable casualties.

TOP: One of the mighty riverboats, that arrived too late!

TOP: The other mighty riverboat!

TOP: The two boats heading upriver to Basrah.

TOP: The mighty river itself!
Ottoman lines on the right.

TOP: The Ottomans had the advantage of holding the town...

And the Germans had vowed "...to fight to the last Arab."

TOP: Maksim's Arabs set up in a strong town building...
The fellows out of cover were quickly routed.

TOP: The British forces were bolstered by an armored car (left).
It's machine gun tore up Ottoman lines.

TOP: The brave Scots troops charged Basrah with valor in their hearts...
...to no avail!
TOP: A set of ruins in the foreground saved the Allies from a worse defeat.
TOP: By turn 2, the Allied ranks had been decimated by rifle fire.

TOP: But the Allies still held the rocky outcrops outside Basrah.

TOP: Part of the motley crew of Colonial heroes!

The game itself went well and all had a good time, but the scenario was, perhaps tilted a little in favor of the Ottoman side since by turn two, the allied lines had been considerably thinned. In fact, the game was an absolute bloodbath with both sides taking roughly 40% to 70% casualties within just three turns! Next time, the Allies will receive more troops and the Ottomans less and we can see how it turns out!

Link to Battle of Basrah (1914-15):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Basra_%281914%29

First Link to Siege of Kut (1915-16):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Kut

Second Link to Siege of Kut (1915-16):

http://www.1914-1918.net/meso_bat3.htm

Have a great Thursday!

And good gaming to you!

Shalom,

Maksim-Smelchak.

Notes regarding photos / pictures / videos: These are not all my images and videos. I am using various images and videos from around the web, mostly from public sources and/or private sources used with permission. I have tried to include only images and videos under public domain, creative commons, or fair use. If I have inadvertently violated any copyrights, please inform me and I will remove your image/s (...if it is indeed an infringement).

COOL NEWS: The King & I - Renn Faire 2007 Version!

.The King & I - Renn Faire 2007 Version!

Hi All,

As previously mentioned I attended the local Renaissance Faire this past weekend (23 June 2007), which I found rather unexciting this year... maybe I'm getting old, jaded and cranky?

I summed it up as thus:

- Lots of cleavage in tight bodices...

- Overly fried foods guaranteed to give indigestion...

- Including just about "anything on a stick"...

- As well as hunks of mutton...
Come on? Everyone loves a Henry the 8th impression!

- Lots of folks speaking with fake-o British accents...

- ALL of the fired cast extras from every Highlander movie including the bad ones...

- Some dude looking for meaning in his life by pretending to be a knight and yelling out "Fie, poxy upon him..." or something like that...

- Every woman ever who wanted to wear a furry barbarian costume with a brass brassiere...

- Including a very small number of women who can actually wear tight leather pants, furry bikinis, brass brassieres AND get away with it...

- Did I say lots of cleavage in tight bodices?

- And you pretty much have the Faire summed up.

On the other hand, there's something to be said for lots of cleavage in tight bodices... LOL ;o)

Not ALL women can get away with the "Furry Barbarian Bunny" look...

I ran into all kinds of folks I know... from Kevin E., who can actually make English Country Dance NOT seem completely pansy ...to Doug the Cool Costume Vendor ...to great swathes of the ConQuest gaming conventions staff. There's a definite correlation between gaming RPG nerds and Renn Faire geeks.

For more information about the Fair Oaks Tudor Fayre, please check out this link:

http://www.pirateproductions.com/tudorfayre.htm

Or here:

http://www.renaissance-rose.org/

However, the highlight of the weekend for me (...besides all the cleavage) was seeing THE KING! This fellow had the great character and mighty stones to actually wear an Elvis sic Burger King outfit to the Faire. May he go down in the annals of infamy! I say Elvis sic Burger King because I wasn't quite sure which theme was dominant.

On the Elvis side he had:

- Sideburns...

- Rhinestones and glitz...

- Funky glasses...

- Good "Elvis the Pelvis" poses...

On the Burger King side, he had:

- Fake plastic hair piece...

- Red crown...

- A somewhat commercial-like dialogue...

- A somewhat fast food like odor... (The "fry king?")
(Or maybe he'd had a grease appetizer at the food court?)

(Mmmmm! Congealed potato-flavored grease ...on a stick!)

So to end this post with a thought-provoking question:

*** Which do you think he resembles more? Elvis or the Burger King? ***

Have a great Tuesday!

Shalom,

Maksim-Smelchak.

P.S.

Thanks Marcus for taking the GOOD photo! And a "double thanks" to my buddies, Vynnie, Mikos and Marcus for being such great company!

P.S.S.
A special shout out to my friend and fellow geek, Rivka!

Notes regarding photos / pictures / videos: These are not all my images and videos. I am using various images and videos from around the web, mostly from public sources and/or private sources used with permission. I have tried to include only images and videos under public domain, creative commons, or fair use. If I have inadvertently violated any copyrights, please inform me and I will remove your image/s (if it is indeed an infringement).

GAMING NEWS: The Road Warrior in Washington...

. Hi Everyone,

You ever have one of those friends who is simply car-obsessed? Someone who not only enjoyed the "Road Warrior" AKA "Mad Max," but can quote entire lines from it... with even the tone of speech right?

Well, I have such a friend only he's sort of the Christian high Octane version of the Road Warrior. His name is Joel and the poor guy's not been too high on his luck until just recently... He just got a job in Washington and has hit the road again...

Hiya Maks!
Great to hear from you guys. You wouldn't believe how busy I've been. Somebody finally decided to give me a job in Washington last month, so here I am. I'm in a town called Port Ludlow. I've forwarded some E-mails to you that I sent to my mom, "Grizzly Tim" and his squaw. The "Job" was kind of a rush thing. They needed somebody right now like RIGHT NOW so I packed up the Pontiac, added on the Nitrous injectors and hit the road. I'm also sending some photos I took out the window of my battlewagon and will send more whenever the heck I can. I'd love to see some more of the local gaming scene and even ol' Leopold. I've been enjoying the game coverage on your blog. Talk to you soon if the buzzards don't get you. Shalom!

Tiny disclaimer: This E-mail may have been slightly modified by Maks under the cover of bad humour.

Joel is a very talented mechanic and I'm sure that he's already began to acquire grease, oil and other unidentifiable grit under his fingernails while turning wrenches in Port Ludlow, Washington... whereever the heck that is. And I can certainly empathize... you see, I used to be a bit of a mechanic myself... turned wrenches on I don't know how many Volkswagens (The "buggy" types) and even rebuilt an ol' Harley Sportster back in the day...

But back to gaming, Joel was one of the cornerstones of the local gaming community at one time... ran our Necromunda campaign, played the near hopeless Orkz in our Epic-40k campaign, ran one of the best BFG (Battle Fleet Gothic) campaigns I've ever enjoyed, and never gave up on Starfleet Battles even when the rest of us gave up after having found ourselves lost in the umpty-zillion three-ring binders of the old SFB... good guy and great gamer! We'll miss him much.

Well, one of Joel's other great loves were the old big-gunned naval warwagons of W.W.I and W.W.II. There were times it seemed as if Joel knew every nut and bolt of those old warwagons... I know I always looked for battlewagon swag for Joel when I poked my way through used book stores. There was many a time I picked up a W.W.I dreadnought book for him when I had the chance...

Well, luckily for Joel, Mongoose Publishing is getting ready to come out with their WWII naval clash game:

Victory at Sea!

Bill over at TMP was good enough to publish an announcement of the upcoming game over at TMP:

Victory at Sea is the game of naval combat during the Second World War. Throughout 1939-45, the nations of the world duelled across the oceans of the world, only to discover the fundamental nature of naval warfare changing in the face of developing technologies. Now you can play out these confrontations on the tabletop with entire fleets drawn from the Royal Navy, U.S. Navy, Kriegsmarine or any one of the many other nations featured in Victory at Sea.

From skirmishes involving single destroyers hunting down merchantmen to the clashing of allied fleets against implacable enemies, Victory at Sea is your ticket to exciting battles that take place in the oceans of World War II.

Victory at Sea will be available in your local stores from December 11th, but you can grab a short preview from our website!

Many thanks to Bill and his excellent site, TMP, which I have linked here at my blog. I also have some experience with Mongoose Publishing and can highly recommend their fine product.

You can check out Bill's original post here:

http://theminiaturespage.com/news/787737

And who could bring up "Mad Max" in conversation without sharing a few choice links:

These guys are THE source on the muscle machines of the Road Warrior:

http://tinyurl.com/du6yq

This guy built a rock'in model of the Road Warrior Interceptor:

http://tinyurl.com/y3of8d

Check out some fine 28mm Road Warrior vehicles from Second City here:

http://tinyurl.com/v7apn

And who wouldn't want a remote-controlled Interceptor?

http://tinyurl.com/y4p6j9

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Have a great Friday!

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

P.S.
Check out this piece of miniatures cheesecake from my friend Marcus at http://www.skankgame.com/:


Notes regarding photos / pictures: These are not all my images. I am using various images from around the web, mostly from public sources and/or private sources used with permission. I have tried to include only images under public domain, creative commons, or fair use. If I have inadvertently violated any copyrights, please inform me and I will remove your image/s (if it is indeed an infringement).

MINI WARGAMING: Warlords Of the Wastelands: 2085 (18 March 2006)!

Hi Everyone,

Yesterday, I had a cool opportunity... to hang out with the bunch that hosts the very well-known Zombie Town games held at Great Escape Games every year on Halloween weekend.

We all met at Vynnie's place and the following were present:
- George
- Maksim (me!)
- Marcus
- Mike
- Vynnie

Poor George and I were both pretty exhausted though. George didn't get enough sleep (working too much) and I had done a graveyard shift the evening before with overtime so I had only gotten home that very same morning. Luckily the game didn't begin until around Noon so I took a good nap before heading over to Vynnie's place. George must not have had the same opportunity for a nap because he nodded off several times during the day. Poor guy.

Vynnie has been documenting our games for ages over here at his web site:

PUBLIC DISCLAIMER:
Vynnie is a bit of a Libertarian and doesn't beleive in the concept of "political correctness" so please be warned before you check out his site. He doesn't have any language or thought filters on so, as a result, his web site is most likely banned in neighborhoods of "emminent sensibility" like Berkeley, Davis or San Francisco. Be careful!

http://www.recon-in-force.com/index.html

And specifically here at his "Wastelands and Trailer Parks" page:

http://www.recon-in-force.com/Skank/index.html

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Yesterday, we got together for a post apocalyptic game using Marcus's little-known rule set:

"Warlords Of the Wastelands: 2085"

...and it was a hoot! Yes, I did use the word "hoot!"

Mike had thought out a relatively simple scenario set in the RIFTS world in which a group of Coalition forces would attempt to rescue some scientists who had sent out a distress call earlier. The distress call came through garbled, but we were able to make out the location of the scientific outpost and that part of the distress call resulted from some sort of biological experiment gone horribly wrong. And with such scanty information, we "law men" set out to find us some scientists.

Mike acted as the game's GM / referee and the other four of us ran different detachments of Coalition forces dispatched to the rescue.

Much like all games that Mike and Marcus are involved in, they never take their gaming very seriousy and no matter how well the background is thought out, we always end up with a bad "B movie" plotline anyway! And yesterday was no exception!

I think that Mike had watched "Aliens" one time too many because it quickly became apparent that massed numbers of bugs versus high-tech marines along the lines of "Starship Troopers" was the order of the day.

The four Coalition detachments had barely ambled on to the field in view of the scientific outpost when we were assaulted by wave after wave of bio-bug nasties. Our line initially caved in until we retreated a bit, at which point, we stood our ground and let firepower do our talking. Casualties were heavy, but we left bug guts spread across the fields.

Finally, we hit a pause inbetween what we thought would be the next wave, but it never came. We administered to our wounded, regrouped and began to advance on the scientific outpost again. Marcus had his robot scout advance far ahead of the combat lines and when he entered the villiage, he found the scientists and their rsearch robot (who looked a might bit like Twinkie from Buck Rogers) ambling out of shelter. The robot began to converse with them and received nothing but grief for its efforts. The scientists were acting strangely and that funky research robot kept walking out of edge of the robot scout's photo receptors.

An instant later, the three scientists and the "Twinkie" lashed out at the bot utterly destroying it. We, in the Coalition forces, were confused, but consistent with our mission directives, we had a newly indentified enemy and set out to destroy them, the traitorous research bot and scientists. Our forces used what remained of our artillery and fired a rocket barrage at the scientific outpost. That gave "Twinkie" what for, but...

It also roused the beast.

A gigantic floating biological "brain beast" burst out of the ground and all hell broke loose. Ugly cockroach-like things came bustling out of the ground from every which direction and the skies filled with the buzz of entomological monstrosities. We almost broke from the sheer horror of that ugly horde.

However, the RIFTS Coalition doesn't breed nambie pambies so we figured to die standing our ground and...

We nearly did.

We unleashed everything we had and our troops were slowly but surely falling as we failed to destroy wave after wave of bugs. Suddenly some underappreciated NCO got the bright idea to target the "brain," so we did. And a half hour or so later, the "brain" fell and the waves stopped coming. In fact, the bugs seemed confused and ambled around mindlessly. We mopped up and called it a day.

Hey, the RIFTS Coalition may breed fighters, but we're not known for being the most clever lot! That NCO received a big fat promotion and a huge bonus.

End of story. Amen!

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If you've never played out a game based on a really bad "B movie," I recommend the experience. It's good-hearted no-brainer fun and is a welcome relief from folks who take themselves way too seriously. And the truth be told, every once in awhile I'm one of those folks so the light-hearted fun is a good reminder to loosen up, stop and smell the roses.

And for those of you interested in playing on some of the beautiful terrain sets featured on Vynnie's web site, check out ConQuest Sac coming very soon to Sacramento on April 7th to 9th, 2006. Mike and Marcus will he hosting a special edition of their Zombie Town game series there. Here's a link for more information:

http://www.conquestsac.com/

Just make sure, you don't things too seriously... LOL

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We also discussed getting a group together to see one of the latest films from Russia:

"Night Watch (Nochnoi Dozor)!"

"Night Watch" is a sort of vampire film along the lines of a long series of American vampire films and has already received some acclaim. Unfortunately, when we checked, "Night Watch" has already left the Greater Sacramento area. I guess we'll have to wait for rentals.

I found a few links about "Night Watch" here:

http://www.nival.com/nightwatch/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0403358/

Apparently, "Night Watch" is the creation of a certain "modern yet already classic science-fiction writer Sergey Lukyanenko," whom I have never heard about despite reading Russian science fiction as often as not. I'll have to look him up. There are a few Russian book stores in town and I'll probably only find him there as I'd be greatly surprised if Lukyanenko is available in English translation yet.

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I love this beautiful weather we're having.

Everyone, have a great Sunday!

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.