Motosada Mori in MGS 2
we know that mercenaries are mostly puffy narcissist cow shit all the time. So his half-fiction knowledge fits Kojima style quite well in game.
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I saw a thinly-disguised ad for this on the BGG news feed. a commercial adaptation of a British army training game that reads like a WW2 eastern front game. rather than shitting up the replies there, I thought to vent here. I’ll assume the internal game is slightly more grounded in reality (generous, probably just as blinkered)
Contested airspace: At least in the early stages of a Russian invasion of the Baltics, the air space will be highly contested. Hence air and aviation do not feature in the game.
a weird choice, Russian AA would be a big problem for UK air (where would it even base from, Poland?)
but! this also means: no MANPADs so nothing to shoot down drones, no helicopters, no cruise missiles, no AA pieces repurposed for anti-infantry/light armoured roles
In the Scenarios represented you have the cream of European NATO fighting against poorer trained, motivated and equipped Russian forces. Hence the NATO forces have greater resilience and troop quality. However, the Russians have greater numbers and are better at drone and electronic warfare
sounds just like what you’d tell the Großdeutschland division, pre Barbarossa, thawed out of cryogenic storage
4.4.1 DANGER CLOSE
Mortar and Artillery (but not FPV) are subject to Danger Close restrictions (except if Firing Smoke (4.4.3)). These prevent enemy FEs from being targeted if they are within the following distance of any friendly FE:
• Mortar - 250 meters
• Artillery - 500 meters
lol. no smart rounds, no cluster munitions. you have smoke fire missions, but units don’t have smoke? good thing no one has missiles
A [Fighting Element (FE)] may begin the game with an Anti-tank Guided Missile (ATGM), represented by a triangular marker placed on top of or adjacent to the counter of the FE that possesses it. The marker is double-sided. The non-striped side represents a ‘Full’ load, meaning it can be used twice. After the first shot it is flipped to its reverse ‘Depleted’ side. An ATGM on its Depleted side can only be used once, then it is removed.
2 shots?! look, I can understand not wanting to deal with your UAVs being shot down by Iglas every 5 minutes, but this seems wilfully avoidant. the smallest unit size is a section, maybe they have only 2 NLAWS (so 6 in a platoon). but a Kornet-D can launch 4 ripple-fire attacks before needing to rearm. the designer leans on the Scenario background above, but I reckon the short supply lines would heavily benefit the Russian forces. I suspect they would send T-90s, BDR-90s, and Terminators, and NATO would bring every AT-4 they could
I don’t like the NATO symbols here for such small elements, it smooshes down the actual unit differences. the highest-statted Russian armoured unit, this is probably a platoon of 3 T-80U, with attacks [2] antipersonnel & [3] sabot (extended range of 3000m (lol)), and [T] reactive (gold) armour. almost exactly the same as the best-statted NATO tank (a Leopard 2?), which has [4] sabot & otherwise identical stats
this sort of chessfighting makes people think that the secret to a good outcome for an engagement is managing range & positioning, when it’s much more likely to be “did you forget to set up an infantry screen? congrats, 500 RPG-7s blew your optics and treads off”
RIVERS AND BRIDGES
A River of any size is classified as No-Go for any FE
no marines/coastal?!
HQs
Each side has two HQ FE counters, Main and Tac, with a C2 Rating. The C2 Rating applies a DRM to Initiative tests and Assaults.
lol x2
overall a dumb fantasy, ignoring anything that would make it harder to re-enact engagements from 50 years ago. ignore how Russia can’t support another action, and that combined arms trounces modern armour
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Lol yet another wargame where elite technologically advanced NATO troops must hold the line against the savage russian and his primitive armies. how many of these could we possibly need. doesn’t anyone like peer to peer conflicts anymore
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NATO Horde Mode
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they released a paid dlc for combat mission shock force 2 in such a way that the game is unplayable unless you buy it and has been for over a week
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I found that game designers who promote their wargame by flaunting ties to the military are mostly untalented, and depends on dog whistle politics for marketing.
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Wargaming often hides behind the claim of “political neutrality.” It’s the “I just like the history” defense. But choosing what history to simulate & how to market it is an inherently political act. I want 2 talk about how “Héroes de Baler” (NAC Wargames) is sold vs. what it actually simulates 1/n
NAC has a history of “questionable” marketing. From the crusader-heavy imagery of La Carga de los 3 Reyes 2 the imperial nostalgia of Héroes de Baler, their brand often feels designed to appeal 2 a specific, “patriotic” sentiment, currently resurging in Spanish politics (& yes the iron cross) 2/n
The marketing for Baler is a masterclass in Banal Nationalism. It uses words like “honor,” “gesta mística” (mystical feat), and “eternal spirit.” It sells a myth largely constructed in the 1940s to provide a model of “sacrifice” for a struggling regime. 3/n
But here’s the irony: the game’s own rulebook—the actual simulation—is a brutal deconstruction of that very myth. 4/n
Marketing: “The honor does not surrender.”
Rules: Desertion. Under Rule 11.1.2, if morale drops, your “heroes” defect to the Filipino side. The game admits the “spirit” was a fragile thing held together by officers who wouldn’t let their men leave. 5/nMarketing: “Mystical feat of resistance.”
Rules: The biggest killer in the game isn’t the enemy; it’s the Wear phase. If the infirmary is full, new sick soldiers “push” the old ones into the Cemetery. The game simulates a supply-chain disaster and logistical abandonment, not “glory.” 6/nMarketing: “The Last Ones of the Philippines.”
Rules: The Territorial Map. While you’re “heroically” trapped in a church, the Filipino player is winning the actual war. The game shows that Baler was strategically irrelevant—a tactical stalemate in the middle of a total imperial collapse. 7/nThe commander, Martín Cerezo, is praised for “duty.” But the rules show a man in denial. He ignored official newspapers and his own government’s emissaries. In any other wargame, we’d call this “Disobedience” or “Loss of Command Control.” Here, it’s sold as “Spirit.” 8/n
To “dismount” this nationalism, we have to look at the “Other.” The nationalist myth needs a faceless, barbaric enemy. But history—and even the game’s background context—mentions the Aguinaldo Decree. 9/n
On June 30, 1899, Filipino President Emilio Aguinaldo didn’t treat the survivors as losers. He issued a decree calling them “friends”. He was building a modern, civil Republic. The “rebels” were often more “civilized” in their chivalry than the Spanish command was 10/n
We should play wargames for the tragedy and the systems, not the hagiography. Héroes de Baler has the mechanics for a great story about institutional failure and human stubbornness. It’s a shame the marketing tries to hide that under a layer of banal nationalism.
#Wargaming #Baler1898 11/11
PS: Ultimately, a more interesting game wouldn’t focus on this “incident” at all. A truly bold simulation would focus on the Filipino Struggle for independence—managing a multi-front war against Spain and the US, state-building, and the logistics of a whole new nation.
PS2: I’d love it if in the Spanish wargaming community we could have this kind of discussions instead of suppressing for fear of what they could do to our community in a polarised context.
via: @ps1971mer
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After Kim Jong-un came to power, not only executed others like all dictators but also order by promoting himself on western online platforms, clear that the staff lazy as heck are just finish the task by uploading clips and movies they can find. So a strange thing happened, now you can find an introduction to the first North Korean all women tank crew drive T-34-85 model named 530 tank crew which fought in 1953 on the YouTube. All of this was previously just a myth photo.
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TIL Onoda was a big fan of Shoonen Club magazine during his childhood, it published by Kodansha publishing which also the reason why Onoda choice his memoirs published by them. Above is his model handwork to present his absurd wasted life to the kid readers (this is just my opinion, Onoda and many wargamers believe that period of life was a fulfilling life with certain purpose), he sent it to the Chief Editor of Shoonen Club magazine.
And this editor included a paper model of the Dornier Do X for the first time in a magazine in 1931.
Unfortunately, the magazine integrated war propaganda in line with the imperial and market soon. Its iconic Mikasa is not only a legendary creation in paper models (with 500 parts and no glue required), but also marks the period when the magazine fully embraced war propaganda to kid. Like today, the impact of war-related hobby on children is always dangerous and ambiguous.
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The ASL has released the latest issue of the Winter Offensive Bonus Pack, and the cover shows a strange sense of tidiness.
Comparing with the original photo or the colored version by Royston Leonard, that ASL cover is very likely colored by AI.
AI first repaired the ruins and added an something like shining exhaust pipe.
Due to the lack of combat aftermath, and considering the structure of the smooth surfaces, the AI confidently added doorways.
Thought there’s no combat, AI decide to added a sunflower-colored decoration to this tranquil house.
For the unclear Korean font, the AI decided to invent some letters itself.
After blurring Kim’s face, AI placed a stand in a style completely different from that of Stalin photo to highlight the red color.
Who doesn’t love a blue sky? Let’s remove that building that AI can’t imagine.
At the same time, to ensure a good drainage system, AI added a drainage pipe to the house.
Finally to maintain consistency, the AI covered the tiles.
Considering that the human eye receives more information than the brain can process and you can’t research every image by this way, so the future of wargame communities are must to be even ridiculous and funny. You may have opportunity to hear a babyboomer describe the drainage pipes of houses during the Korean War, claiming this came from their fathers.
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Stunned that Bobby Kotick, friend of both Mossad and Jeffrey Epstein, and his company would attempt pressure developers into making an Israeli propaganda Call of Duty
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i have played ten hours of MENACE. still not a huge fan of the alien colonial marines x gwot aesthetic but i have almost 300 hours in battletech which also does not particularly look pleasing or readable to me. what can you do I guess, consequences of having a brain thats like the milsim version of a superfund site
things i like:
- ACTUALLY HAS COMBINED ARMS GAMEPLAY UNLIKE BATTLETECH
- Doesn’t run on a version of Unity with the worst fucking performance and memory management a tactics game has ever had somehow
- a lot of the squad leaders are designed with a strong enough personality + interesting starting trait/stats that you can get attached to them ja2 style. I will turn Marta Carda into a battle hardened, cigar chomping dealer of death à la Gumpy or die trying
- you can still customize the names and nicknames of squaddies battle brothers or xcom style
- despite their stats or starting trait, every SL I’ve used has been versatile enough that you could build them all sorts of ways, including incredibly stupid ones. One of my SLs has 8 disposable anti-tank launchers in her pocket
- the random nature of equipment acquisition, along with the strict supply system, means you have to really strategically think about what you can bring and what you can afford from the black market
- Carda yells ROOOCKET!! every time she fires an RPG like she’s Megumin
things I do not like:
- the devs are really treading a delicate line with ethnic/racial caricatures in this game in classic “Europeans want to make their own Jagged Alliance” style, though luckily it’s a handful of the characters and not all of them
- the AI is extremely, strangely cowardly, to the point where up until a patch a few days ago the enemy would regularly bunch up in the very corner of the map forcing you to hunt them down
- the enemy seems to be fairly static until you uncover them and they always know where your units are but have been programmed to try and play fair. this still does lead to situations where they can decide to retreat based off a threat calculation that takes into account information their units should not have, which when compounded with the previous issue made the game unplayable without mods for like two weeks
- Telling me when someone I can’t see can see me, plz do not leak LOS info to the player like this in a tactical game. Commit to the rules you have made or don’t bother.
- the random nature of equipment acquisition in this game is totally fucked. the way campaign progress works is that the more operations you complete the higher quality gear shows up in the black market, and the lower quality stuff gets filtered out. the problem is there is no higher tier equivalent for basic stuff that always has value like NVGs or binoculars. functionally this means shit like shotguns, camo kits, recon drones, AT drones, etc simply disappear from the game entirely after a certain point, and you may have never had an opportunity to buy any of those items to begin with.
- strategic layer in general is obviously not finished or balanced. as a result I’m not sure if it’s intentional that you can stack AI Logistics over and over again on the ship to completely negate the interesting supply system. same thing with the recruitment office, which makes casualties functionally never matter again.
- The trust system is a linear path per faction that unlocks upgrades. Nobody seems to get mad if you work with anyone else in general, you seemingly can only lose trust through random events. I dunno if reducing this to purely numbers go up is the best use of the idea
- the random events and associated choices on the strategic layer are skeletal, the presentation kind of makes it difficult to follow what you’re actually deciding on sometimes, and some of them are complete wastes of space like the pulp fiction opening the briefcase ref one. battle brothers had a similar system that was fairly well written so I’m assuming this is just unfinished as well
- SLs need to yap more with each other and in general. it’s like on the road to capturing the ja2 shit the devs have talked about, not quite there yet, but there is a “character interaction update” on the roadmap
- They really gotta decide if the Major (the player) is a real character or not
- Need more narrative in this game in general honestly
I really do like the tactical battles well enough okay?? I don’t hate EVERYTHING about it!!!
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The mere idea of effectively using combined arms in an UFOlike has me salivating. The dream is something with the personality of JA2, maybe a dab of Valkyria, a halfway decent story to uncover as you do research, and we’ll be like pigs in shit running these missions.
One of the most fucked-up things I’ve heard in a strategy game, completely unintentionally: Your enemies do not take up arms against you, and yet, must be slaughtered as they huddle in the corner of the map to move forward.
This one drives me up the wall a little bit because games have been trying to do something like X-Com Apocalypse’s abandoned, unfinished faction system since they saw the potential, and I can’t recall it ever having been legitimately implemented. Maybe in Xenonauts 2? The notion of having to make alliances and gaining enemies in the process is really cool. I’m a little tickled by how many times these games have resolved to do it, then never got around to doing it.
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This is exactly why I am willing to hold out for a year to see if they can pull it off once the game is finished. All the parts are there, it has the sauce, it just needs work…
with patch 6 and this mod
https://www.nexusmods.com/menace/mods/34
the most noticeable problems with the AI are gone. they’ll still retreat but it no longer feels like they’ll avoid making contact at all, and the devs fixed the corner issue themselves
this other mod goes even further and fixes my issue with the static enemies. rogue army units will find fix flank and finish your ass with this shit and those guys are already real motherfuckers with ATGM indirect fire, mortar teams, and concealed jaeger marksmen. I forgot to mention it in my post but I also like how each faction operates at a different level of capability, from the beastial bugazoids to the slightly more tactical pirates then the near-peer capabilities of the rogue planetary jingwei units.
https://www.nexusmods.com/menace/mods/36
there is also a mod to fix the LOS player info leak I was talking about lol
Xenonauts 2 has more of an intelligence system than factions I’d say. The game takes place in a world where the Cold War never ended so the aliens are subverting national intelligence agencies to get the West and East to nuke themselves into oblivion instead of having to do a full invasion. Like, the actual full scale alien invasion starts months after the beginning of the game. It’s the only X-COM type I’ve played with such a sense of enormous pressure. Anyway, you spend influence in the different nations to secure extra funding, combat alien infiltration etc by getting operatives in place. You can also use them to uncover and assassinate compromised officials to lower panic in those countries.
The one interesting wrinkle in MENACE right now is that some late game activity can completely take factions off the board if you fuck up too badly but it’s not tied to the trust system at all.
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I said a short while ago that Saigo Takamori’s portrait was drawn by Chiossone. However, Chiossone had never seen him and did not have his picture, so how did he draw his portrait? He got an advice from Tokuno Ryosuke he is nepotism of Saigo. And he made the image based on the model of Saigo Jyudo, Takamori’s young brother, and Oyama Iwane, Saigo brother’s cousin. And his most famous portrait is Meiji Emperor’s one.
Saigō Takamori (seated, in Western uniform), surrounded by his officers, in samurai attire. News article in Le Monde illustré, 1877.
He needs some beard in game.
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