Friday, May 24, 2019
A Bit Of Work
A few things I finished off recently, mostly things for Frostgrave
A neat little cottage, one of the few not ruined
A long forgotten king?
Witch for Frostgrave
The Witch's Apprentice
Old GW Trollslayer
Frostgrave ruins. I used GW's Valhallan Blizzard on the snow.
Duff-up In John's Shed: The Austrian's First Outing
Things start to go wrong on the Austrian right- the line is in the process of being shot to bits
I slipped up to Cambridge to John's shed for the day in order to get the Austrians actually on a table for the first time. There wasn't a massive amount of thought put into the game, it was just a bit of an excuse for a duff-up. John is easing his way back into Napoleonics after a lengthy lay-off so we wanted just a quick, low intensity game that wasn't going to tax the brain an awful lot.
Close up of the attack columns on the left. Everything fine at present (sausage roll in support)
It was a pretty straightforwards set-up, a village complex on the (Austrian) right, some skirmish buildings and walls on the left, a few woods in the centre. No big artillery platforms anywhere, French defending. We didn't have a huge amount of time so the French deployed quite far forwards,which didn't help the Austrian cause much. In retrospect we probably could have been a bit cleverer with the terrain,
Panorama of the early stages
The only decent area for cavalry was in the centre which unbalanced things somewhat. I concentrated the Austrian's new shiny hussar brigade there and the French had a regt each of Chassuers, dragoons and cuirraisier plus a horse btty. Each flank had an infantry division to take the respective village areas. The one on the right had a dragoon regt attached.
We used a variable morale system for the infantry, all btns were treated as 1st class line until they took their first morale test,where-upon they rolled to discover their true class: Austrians: 1 to 3- 2nd class line. 4 to 10 1st class line.
French: 1 to 4 -2nd class line 5 to 7 1st class line, 8 to 10, veteran.
French young guard: 1 to 5, veteran. 6 to 10 Elite.
All cavalry was line and all artillery was 1st class.
The Austrians fielded 1 infantry division of 2 Grenzer, 5 line btns with a 6lb btty and 18 skirmishers, these took the left flank. In the centre was a hussar brigade with 14 squadrons of hussars each of 6 figures.
On the right was an infantry division of 6 line btns with a dragroon rgt of 6 x 6 man squadrons plus a 6lb btty and 12 skirmishers. All btns were 48 man strong.
5 battalions: should be enough to take a village, surely?
Connoissuer French attempt to outflank the Austrian left
The French had a 2 infantry divisions each of 6 x 36 supported by a 6lb btty, 24 chassuers and 18 skirmishers. One of each occupied each flank.
In addition they had a young guard division of 4 x32's plus a heavy cavalry outfit with 1 x 32 of dragoons and 32 cuirraisier with a 3 gun horse btty.
All in all, I think the French were too tough for the poor old milkshakes.
The Austrian right develops
The Austrians trundled forwards, because of the speed of our set-up it meant the Austrians couldn't really get any artillery preparation, however they manfully pitched into the attack against each village. They actually did ok, they got forwards,got the guns into position and started to work towards their objectives.
In the centre the massed hussars nullified the french cavalry, a typical ding-dong Grand Manner cavalry scrap continued through the whole game. A lot of folk can't cope with the cavalry system in ITGM but the more I read of historical accounts the more they turn out like ITGM battles. Units go forwards, battle it out, retire, new ones go in, the original ones rally, go back. Its all about having local reserves. Both sides (typicaly) won the combats they should have lost, and lost the ones they "were certain" to win. The rest of the cavalry was squeezed on the extreme Austrian right, and this went a bit more to the script, with the Austrian dragoons making short work of a chassuer regt, which forced a couple of French btns into square and took them out of the fight for the village.
A recent new acquisition: Classic Connoissuer infantry painted by Doug Mason, skulking in square.
On the left a grenzer btn waddled in line through a wood on the the extreme flank, it never got anywhere for the whole game but it did tie down 2 French btns (a bit) so it wasn't a total waste of time.
Meanwhile the asault against the skirmisher buildings and the walled compound went in. John concentrated a lot of fire on one unit (always a mistake in my book) but the size of the Austrian units allowed it to be shrugged off. I had some success at first and things were looking rosy.
6lb battery supporting the Austrian right
The French artillery btty retreated when charged and the lead 2 Austrian units crunched into a lone French btn manning the wall. In fact I had a bit too much success. The French btn routed after the first round of combat, with relatively light casualties. I would have much preferred for it to have stuck around for at least a second round of combat as I had 2 more btns to re-inforce with and the French had one. This would have allowed me to ruin 2 French units, as it was it meant the French just pulled back a bit, I couldn't exploit, and the 2 units I had in the front line were badly shot up. They took more and more fire from the flanks and that was about it for my attack on the left village.
Hussars and Grenzer demonstrate in the centre
The right hand flank told a similar story, despite the dragoon's success I couldn't get sufficient force to bear on the village, I was reasonably successful at clearing the walls but couldn't find room to deploy those big Austrian firing lines. When I finally did, it being Austrian, it took so long to deploy that it was shot down before it could do much damage. Again, the Austrians after initial successes just couldn't finish off those Frenchies.
High point for the left. The Austrians couldn't get over that wall.
Things were coming to close, dinnertime was approaching, and the Austrians had run out of steam. We called it a day.
So in the end it was a suitably inauspicious start for the Austrian army, but then, as we all know, all troops get beat the first time out!
(Good Lord!! I've just noticed...60,000 hits!!- does that mean I can have drink?)
R.B.I. Baseball 19 Available For PS4, XB1 & NSW Beginning Today
NEW: LIMITED EDITION R.B.I. BASEBALL 19 TOPPS CARDS AT WALMART
This year, for the first time ever, Major League Baseball and Topps have partnered to offer a limited edition R.B.I. Baseball 19 Topps gift baseball card pack, available with purchase of this year's game at participating Walmart stores. The packs will be included in specially marked boxes of R.B.I. Baseball 19 for Xbox One andNintendo Switch only and will feature Bregman, Lourdes Gurriel Jr. (Toronto Blue Jays, R.B.I. Baseball 19 Canada cover athlete), Ronald Acuña Jr. (Atlanta Braves), Khris Davis (Oakland Athletics), Jack Flaherty (St. Louis Cardinals), Gleyber Torres (New York Yankees), and Justin Turner (Los Angeles Dodgers). Available only while supplies last.
XBOX ONE X SWEEPSTAKES
To commemorate this year's game launch, the earliest launch date since the franchise was returned by Major League Baseball in 2014, fans will have the opportunity to enter a sweepstakes for the chance to win custom R.B.I. Baseball 19 Opening Day Xbox One X consoles and matching Xbox Wireless Controllers, specially branded for all 30 MLB Clubs. Fans may follow @RBIGame for the launch date and complete details.
THE R.B.I. GAME EXPERIENCE
As developed exclusively by the award-winning MLB Games & VR team, this year's game builds on its original foundation of matching arcade baseball action with an incredible depth of features, including hundreds of new animations, updated player models, official MLB uniforms for every team, additional gear and equipment options, improved ball physics and amplified ballpark environments. Each feature and functionality added to the game improves the fan experience, bringing them closer to the game of baseball in new ways, while remaining true to the franchise's core identity principles loved by millions –easy-to-use controls for fast-paced and fun gameplay.
2019 GAMEPLAY FEATURES:
- Your Franchise with Total Flexibility: Develop and manage your MLB squad across multiple seasons by adding at the trade deadline, signing free agents, calling up prospects and even taking advantage of newly added two-way players.
- Fashion Sense: Every official 2019 uniform for all 30 teams and more gear & equipment options than ever before.
- Authentic MLB Players: Updated player models including over 350 redesigned likenesses, hundreds of new animations, more realistic player movements and reactions to deliver a whole new level of authenticity.
- Revamped Physics: Reengineered ball physics bring realism to every pitch, hit, and play.
- Legends & Legend Teams: Play as 165+ all-time greats. All-new Legends Teams available for play on Exhibition Mode and Friendly Online matches.
- Stunning Environments: Amplified lighting, textures, cinematic sequences and 3-D crowd system in all 30 ballparks.
- Home Run Derby, Your Way: Pick any MLB player or MLB Legend, compete in any MLB ballpark and customize a bracket for the ultimate Derby showdown.
- Online Multiplayer: Play ranked and friendly exhibition games with friends and the rest of the world.
- Bigger and Better Soundtrack: A new soundtrack with music from popular artists including OneRepublic, CHVRCHES, Greta Van Fleet, and many more!
- Weekly Stats & Roster Updates: Stay up-to-date with weekly roster updates throughout the regular season with performance-based statistical tuning.
R.B.I. Baseball 19 is officially licensed by MLB and MLBPA. A mobile version of the game also will be available via the Apple App Store and Google Play. Specific launch dates for mobile will be announced when available. The game will retail for $29.99 (U.S.) on consoles and $6.99 (U.S.) on smartphones and tablets.
If We Don't Save History, No One Will
The only surviving recordings of long dead indigenous tribes. Numerous Egyptian mummies, including an unopened coffin. Frescoes that survived the eruption of Vesuvius. Artifacts from the Nazca and Inca cultures, including a 3,500 year old Chilean man. An impeccable fossil record that boasted of 110 million year turtles, the nation's largest sauropods, and its most unique carnivores. The biological collections of hundreds of diverse insects and birds. An invaulable record of our global heritage, the fruits of 200 years of labor, were in one night baked, burned, and broiled. Brazil's independence day, for many, came not with cheers, but with weeping.
Brazil is far from the only place where history is threatened or destroyed. The Taj Mahal is now so discolored and degraded by air pollution that an Indian Supreme Court has suggested either shutdown or demolition. The Notre Dame de Paris is falling apart and is in need of a $114 million restoration, which currently relies on foreign donations. 2,000 kilometers of the Great Wall of China have disappeared since the Ming Dynasty, with only 8.2% of it in good condition according to a 2014 study. The Colosseum is routinely vandalized by tourists. In 2014, the beard on Tutenkhamen's mask snapped off during cleaning and was crudely glued back on, but thankfully repaired with beeswax by professionals in 2015. Consider too our natural history. The Great Barrier Reef is being bleached into ruin by rising ocean temperatures. Everest, our highest peak, is accumulating trash and human waste. Severe droughts influenced by climate change are degrading the Amazon rainforest. Floating islands of garbage are filling our oceans and farm pollution has produced an oxygen-lacking dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. Will Venice, New Orleans, or the Maldives still be above land when the seas rise? How much access to their history and culture will be lost as a result?
This century alone has seen incalculable loss to the greatest treasures of history. In 2007, IKEA destroyed ten ancient tombs dating back 1,800 years to make room for construction in China's Nanjing province. Greenpeace lost much of its credibility as a conservationist movement in 2015 when its activists illegally crossed into the Nazca Lines and permanently damaged the soil. In 2013, a 2,300 year old Mayan pyramid was bulldozed so its limestone could make new roads. That same year, a 5,000 year old pyramid was bulldozed by construction companies in Peru. In 2014, a 5,000 year old rock painting in Quesada, Spain was destroyed by thieves who tried to steal it. ISIS, ravaged the glory of the Middle East in Mosul by destroying statues that date to Assyrian and Akkadian eras, blew up the tomb of Jonah, and brought ruin to Syria's historic Palmyra. Meanwhile our "ally", Saudi Arabia, continued its rape and pillage of Islamic heritage in Mecca by building a garish clocktower over a historic Ottoman fortress. Never mind the botched art "restorations": The Roman mosaics in Turkey, a 500 year old St. George statue in Spain, and new concrete was slapped onto the Spanish medieval castle of Matrera. On and on and on it goes, where it stops, nobody knows.
We lament the burning of Alexandria's library by Ceasar's army, the destruction of Baghdad by the Mongols, the smashing of Qurayshi idols by Muhammad, Napoleon's army using the Sphinx for target practice, Heinrich Schliemann's careless erasure of Troy, the Crusaders who sacked Constantinople and melted bronze Roman statues into coins, the carzed hammer attack on Michelangelo's Pieta, the Taliban's literal "defacing" of Buddhist statues, Saddam Hussein's crude makeover of ancient Babylon, and the current idiot-in-chief's demolition of priceless Art Deco sculptures to save money on phallic tower, but we are not far from the mistakes of history, and history has all too often repeated itself.
We are grateful to the Irish monks and Muslim scholars who kept the wisdom of the Greco-Roman Ancients alive, to First Lady Dolley Madison for rescuing Stuart's portrait of Washington from the White House fire, to Secretary of War Henry Stimson for knocking Kyoto off the firebombing list during the Pacific War, to the Malians of Timbuktu who saved their ancient manuscripts from the Turaeg rebels, and many others, but such heroes are few and far between. History always has so very few heroes.
The greatest threats to history are war, greed, dictatorship, vandalism, and negligence. The latter was what struck Brazil's museum. Brazilians have complained of austerity measures that cut funding to the musuem's upkeep. A situation so terrible that the museum did not have fire sprinklers, that even my college apartment has, nor were firefighters able to access hydrants to put the fires out. Brazil could apparently afford to host the World Cup in 2014, the Summer Olympics in 2016, but not to install fire sprinklers in its national museum. This is what happens when profit is put over people. If our history isn't even safe in musuems, among the curators, then it isn't safe anywhere. We must redouble our efforts, all of us, as global citizens, so that access to the treasures of our heritage, the lineage of our ancestors, the very stuff that makes us human, is never again erased from the modern memory. Even here, there is hope. After the tomb of Jonah was destroyed, archaeologists discovered an Assyrian palace not seen since 7th century BC. There's a lesson in that, perhaps.
Thursday, May 23, 2019
Days Gone | PS4 Release Date, Gameplay | Everything Pro-GamersArena Knows.
Days Gone | PS4 Release date, Gameplay & more...
Days Gone is one of the greatest PS4 special features set to develop in 2019 as it has been the most anticipated game for a long time, lastly, it will release on 26 April 2019. Created by Sony Bend, Days Gone is an action-adventure survival game created by SIE Bend Studio. This apocalyptic open world experience makes them play as a rebellious biker in a society where people are equally as deadly as the undead prowling the lands.
Quick Facts :
- Initial release date: 26 April 2019
- Developer: SIE Bend Studio
- Platform: PlayStation 4
- Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
- Engine: Unreal Engine
Trailer Impression: How is it?
It's an activity stuffed trailer that duplicates down on exactly the amount of a recluse and limited armed force hero Deacon St. John.
Days Gone Story – What's it about?
Deacon St. John is a man who wants to live in the unsafe outside world than the bounds of non-military personnel places to stay, regardless of whether it implies managing crowds of tireless tainted and frightening zombies. Occurring two years after a worldwide pandemic overpowered progress, transforming millions into mindless zombies known as 'Freakers.' They're quick, constant and apparently relentless. Which is really very cool actually, as these do not seem like the regular zombies.
As per the designer, Deacon St. John is 'heartbroken and angry' and 'he lost everything' and Bend truly needs to investigate how that influences his activities.
"We haven't said excessively in regards to the story yet, yet the story is going to be an immense piece of the game," Bend's studio delegate disclosed to me.
"We begin the game with Deacon, and he's experienced a great deal of hardship, he's lost a dreadful parcel, he's a heart-broken, irate individual. What's more, the story will be tied in with investigating him and how he changes as he travels through the world."
What About The Gameplay?
Days Gone is set in a huge open-reality where the player is allowed to approach areas and targets in a large number of various ways. You can approach foes utilizing animosity or stealth relying upon your present conditions (Whether you are irritated or you are quiet), impacted colossally by assets, wellbeing, and capacities.
The land is huge, and along these lines regions will be loaded up with various varieties of 'Freakers (F**kers),' Days Gone's phrasing for zombies, so you'll should be acutely mindful of swarms sneaking about the place, You can utilize these to trap adversaries in case you're sufficiently brilliant, drawing their consideration before releasing hellfire upon the majority.
Conveying two weapons close by an assortment of gear, for example, Molotov Cocktails, recuperating things, and tomahawks, your loadout is fit for handling most situations easily. They likewise allow a strategy for novel innovativeness in case you're anxious to explore different avenues regarding diverse ways to deal with homicide.
For more details here's the gameplay you can watch.
That's all the main things we know about Days Gone so far, but as soon as any new updates come to us we will let you know. Till then keep sharing and stay in touch with the "PRO-BROS ARENA"
UCLAN Games Student Selected As A Winner Of The Women In Games Student Competition 2018.
GREAT NEWS FOLKS!
UCLan Games Design are pleased to share the news that one of our recent graduates,
Judith Ormerod, has been selected as a winner of the Women in Games Student Competition 2018.
As a result, Judith has won a free ticket for Tuesday and Wednesday 11th/12th September
2018 to the European Women in Games Conference 2018 at City University, London,
this also includes entry to Trapeze Nightclub.
WIGJ are delighted to be able to support Judith in attending The European Women in Games Conference 2018. They are including reimbursement of travel expenses and an overnight stay!
There will be an awards ceremony at 3.30 pm on Wednesday_ where she and other winners will be asked to the stage to publicly receive recognition for their work.
After the conference WIGJ will continue to support Judith by promoting her website through the main WiG Website.
https://www.womeningamesconference.com/wigj-student-awards-2018/
Huge congratulations to Judith.
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