Computer game Review DCS

 

So I know its been quiet of late on the blog. Bur I am working on this, a couple of Napoleonic units, but it's slow going as I've been completely hooked on DCS.

When I wrote a review of IL2 flying circus, I said DCS was too complex for me, and it still kinda is. But I hunkered down and really studied the stuff, I also jumped through a million hoops to get the game to run ok, I fresh install of Windows, and various other tricks did the stuff, and I finally got it playable. 

I've been completely absorbed by the game, since I wrote the IL2 review I've played DCS for over 100 hours.


So what is DCS?

DCS(Digital Combat simulator) is a "free to play" game, not really free as I'll explane.

The base game is free, you get 2 maps, Caucasus, a big map of Georiga, and the black sea,  the oldest map, now almost a decade old, it had gotten plenty of updates since then, but graphically the simplest map. You also get the Marianas map, which just came out a few weeks ago, mostly water designed for carrier operations, it included the islands of Guam, Rota, Tinian, Saipan, It will get a WW2 version. 

Also with the free game comes to planes, but before we get to that, a short explanation of the planes in the game. 

The game comes with 2 types of planes, the "low-fidelity" or Flaming cliffs 3(FC3) planes, these are actually from an older game, that has been ported over to DCS and given a physics and graphical grade, they use the same flight model as the newer planes, but the cockpit is static and the graphics are a little lower in quality. You can still fly and shoot and bomb etc, but everything must be done with button presses on the keyboard to joystick, etc. 

The other is the "high-fidelity" planes, these are all the newer stuff made for DCS, the graphics are better, they are far more complex and every button, knob, and switch in the game is clickable, not everything works, but in most planes, 95% of the systems are there. Here you can dive deep into all systems and subsystems of the plane.


So the free game comes with two planes, one is the Su-25T one of the FC3 planes, so it's simpler in operation, but all weapons, etc work, I believe you also have a campaign and various missions to play, this is the best taste of the game you get for free, and you can use this playing online.

The other plane is a TF-51 Mustang a none combat P51, but this one is high-fidelity, and so will give you a taste of how the proper planes are, you can click and manipulate all the stuff in the cockpit, you can start it up from cold, turning on the engine like in the real mustang, etc. You need to control the power of the engine during flight to avoid breaking it. But it has no weapons or gun sight. 

You also have full access to the mission editor. 

That's what you get for free, everything else cost money, sometimes quite a lot of money. 

Other maps avalable for purches is

Nevada test and training map, a map of parts of Nevada, Utah,  Arizona and California.
Persian Gulf, a map of well Persian gulf, centered on  Strait of Hormuz., with UAE, Iran and Oman, with cities like Dubai etc. 

Syria, one of the newer maps, I'll quite directly from the store page what this map has.

This 900x500 km map covers most of the eastern Mediterranean, and it includes the island of Cyprus, Lebanon, a large part of Syria up to the border with Iraq, parts of Israel, Turkey, and Jordan. The cities of Damascus, Nicosia, Tripoli, Latakia, Tartus, Homs, Aleppo, Hama, Palmyra, Haifa, Acre, Beirut and Adana are simulated, as well as unique constructions of world famous landmarks and historical monuments.

You also have two WW2 maps.

Normandy, as you'd except covers Normandy, Cherbourg peninsula, and the land behind the beaches. 
With airfields in England and France. 

The Channel, also deals with Southern England and Northern France but further east with Dover and Calais, this is a fantastic map with the town of Dover looking fantastic. 
Each map cost around $50


Then you have all the planes, too many to mention them all but Mig21, Viggen, F16, F18, F14, F5, Mirage 2000 to name but a few, you also have helicopters like the Huey, Hind, Ka-50 "Black Shark, and soon Apatche. 

WW2 is covered with P51 Mustang(the one that got weapons) P47 Thunderbolt, Spitfire IX LW, Messerschmitt 109K4 Kurfyrst, Fw190A-8 Anton and Fw190D-9 Dora, and in about half a month the Mosquito FB VI. 

The planes cost between 40 and 80 dollars, depending on how new they are, each plane is made with input from the makers of the plane, technicians, pilots, etc. There is a lot of work going into each plane. so don't think of it like spending $80 on parts of a game, if you spend $80 on the F16, you got a full-blown super-accurate F16 simulator, each plane is a simulator in on itself. 

Besides the planes and maps, you also have "asset packs" like the WW2 asset pack, which adds WW2, infantry, tanks, planes, guns, and ships. And these packs continue to be updated with new assets. 
You also have Supercarrier, a fully working American supercarrier with a working deck crew. And you also have combined arms pack that lets you control ground and sea units. 

And finally the campaigns, these are more in the $10-15 range and worth it if you like well-made missions. 

It's hard to explain just how fantastic this game is when you get the hang of it. A so-called "study sim" where you spend a lot of time just learning the systems. 

I keep jumping between modern and WW2. 



I spent quite a lot of time on the F18 but found its systems confusing, I then spent a lot of time on the F16, making my own super simple missions to learn one and one system, while watching videos on youtube showing how to do it. 

I play exclusively in VR but you don't need it to play, it just enhances it soo much.

I'll let videos do some of the talking, here I am on the deck of a supercarrier in my F18, sitting there in VR seeing those F18 taking off right in front of me is probably one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had. 

After getting too confused by the F18, I went back to the F16, as a Norwegian it holds a special place for me. 

I made a series of "training missions" A trilogy, where I pretended to save my Friend Sven who lives on Cyprus from evil Russians. 

In the first missions, the evil Russians have stopped right outside of Limassol, they have plenty of trucks full of chemical agents. I need to take them all out, And this shows the effect of dropping 12 250lb bombs in ripple mode. 

In the second part of the "Save Sven" trilogy, the Russians have snuck in armor and infantry, since they are within his neighboorhood, I must use "smart bombs" 

And finally, the Russians have gone full out, a full platoon of infantry, and armor are about to attack his house, and this time they have a SAM site ready to try and stop me from saving Sven. 
Let's just say, this time I made absolutely sure they would not come back by going totally overkill with 6 CBU-97 bombs. 

I played with the F16 a lot and got decent at it. Starting to understand the systems, But playing in VR I have a hard time using the keyboard, I needed more buttons. So I've invested in the full Winwing system, It comes with a 1:1 F18 stick and throttle, as well as man buttons on the throttle part, I also got the Take off-panel and combat panel, giving me easy buttons and levers for landing gear, laser etc. Even though the panel is modeled on the F18 it works fine on the F16 or whatever else you want to use. 


I also spent 8 bucks on Voice attack, letting me control stuff with my voice, in theory, you can use your voice to activate any system in the planes, but I only use it for communicating with ground and wingmen, and for controlling menus and views and map. This means I can no completely forget about the keyboard when I play. 

I have now gone back to WW2, I wanted to wait until I got my spitfire flight controls, but I couldn't wait. So I jumped back. 

Making some fun missions.

Like attacking a German airfield, The editor is incredibly powerful letting you do so much. 

This video shows how I've managed to program 12 B17s to fly and carpetbomb. 

And of late I've been practicing dogfighting in WW2. 

After trying and trying to get the hang of the P51, I just can't fly it the way I want, its style of flight doesn't match what I want to do. 

So I went back to the good old Spitfire. not as fast as the P51, but the Spit lets me do what I want it to do(most of the time)


Here I am in the most classic of all of history's aerial duels, the Spitfire vs the Bf109, the Bf109K-4 is very very late warplane and actually superior to the IX spitfire in most ways, only the ludicrous turning rate is better in the spit. You can also download missions, skins, and even planes for free made by modders. I've naturally used Norwegian skins on my F16 and on the Spitfire. 

Another dogfight this time 3 vs 3. I end up cutting the 109 in half, I still stuck at Aerial gunnery, it just takes a lot of practice. 

I recommend this game to anyone interested in WW2 or modern(or cold war) air combat. It's not an action game, this is as hardcore as a simulator you are gonna get outside of actual airforces. 

A few warings-

1: you need a HOTAS, (stick and throttle) playing this with a mouse and keyboard or a gamepad is technically possible but just no, even a $100 one will improve the experience enormously. 
2: Even without VR the game demands a lot of the computer, a 5-year-old family computer won't do it, And in VR we are talking $2500 level computer.
3. STEEP learning curve, if you are a bit more technical in the head than me, it will go easier for you, but I'm "easily confused" by complex systems. So while I can keep an aircraft in the air without much difficulty, actually controlling the systems is harder, if you keep to WW2, a lot of this goes away, the most complex part there is the start-up(which you can skip) and a little when it comes to managing the engines, but the warbirds are much harder to fly, I mean you can't do what you want with them, A spit will blow its engine if you fly straight up for 10 seconds, a Fw190 or P47 will stall its wings if you do even a half hard turn. But they are a joy to fly. And if you like systems upon systems, you have the F18 or F16s, Or maybe you want to jump into the 50s nostalgia with the Mig 15 or Mig 17. 
4. This is a hobby by itself, As of now, this is the only game I have installed on my computer. 

I haven't been this hooked on a game since my early teens(which is now over 20!!! years ago) this is really the flight sim one dreamed of when you played games like Microsoft combat flight simulator or F16 fighting falcon. 

If you are interested I recommend you get the free game from https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/ 
You have a lot of good deals there, like the ability to try any plane or helicopter for free for 2 weeks, after two weeks you can try any other plane for 2 weeks, that way you can try them all before buying. 
They also have a loyalty thing, where each purchase gives you credit, that you can use later, so if you buy 3 plans, the 4th one will be at a decent discount. 


Buy Buy!!! 

I'll try and get back to the scheduled programing soon.

Computer game Review IL-2 Sturmovik-Flying Circus

 I've been playing a lot of flight sims of late. Microsft flight simulator 2020 is a technical marvel, flying over your own house and seeing it. just flying everywhere. VR has rekindled my love of flight sims. Just sitting there in the cockpit, looking around. Far more immersive than any other setup you can get.

I flew Oslo Trondheim in an F15 in about 20 minutes, flying through the Norwegian valleys.
I then started up DCS again, this is the most complex flight sim you are gonna find outside of actual pilot training sims. Almost all buttons in the cockpit are working and do what it's supposed to do. 15-minute start-up of aircraft. Really too complex for me. I never got the hang of even using the weapons on my F16.  I did slightly better in the P47, but the major problem with DCS is ut runs like a 250-year-old rusty steam engine, especially in VR. This annoyed me and kinda ruined the fun, even though it's a fantastic sim. 

So that leads us to IL-2 Sturmovik-Flying Circus. Flying Circus is a WW1 DLC for the WW2 game IL-2 Sturmovik, not only does Sturmovik fantastic even in VR, I can crank all up to max(except shadows) and it runs silky-smooth even with my 4k VR headset. And I think I will try and crank up the shadows from medium to high next time as this game is very well made when it comes to optimisation. 

Flying Circus Vol. 1 deals mostly with 1918, you have a 10 000km2 map based on the Arras sector. 
You have the typical 1918 planes like Camel and Fokker Dr 1. It's fantastic flying 2km above the french countryside then seeing that big brown belt of no mans land. You see fighting going on down there, tracers and shells going off. The meat of the game besides multiplayer is the Kaiserschlacht campaign, originally started as a community campaign, it's now officially part of the game. The german campaign puts you as a flight leader in a Fokker DR 1. You do basic scouting or you hunt observation balloons to name a few of the missions. 

It's fantastic taking part in these big aerial combats, a dozen German and British planes duking it out 1500 meters above no mans land. Getting behind an enemy and firing your Spandau's into the plane. And seeing the long slow dive as the enemy plane breaks up. 

And in VR you are throwing your head all over the place, seeing if the enemy is behind you or above you, No more having to use buttons to move the view around. Fantastic imersion. 

I'll let the videos do most of the talking. 

The first mission is to take off from an airstrip and land on one closer to the front while doing a patrol. Not much happened here. So just enjoy the flight. 

Mission 2 has everything. My plane gets riddled with bullets, I get riddled with bullets. I shoot down 3 enemies. And an evil balloon. Before my engine dies from damage and I have to glide into a crash landing. 

Mission 3, has lots of action, it took over 50 minutes so I cut down most of the to and from flying. 3 more enemies shoot down, including a poor soul who caught fire. I also killed another one of those evil balloons, even though that wasn't an objective. And I saved one of our balloons. (the HD version of this mission isn't ready yet. Wil lbe a few more hours after posting this)

It's literally been decades since I've had this much fun in a flight sim, and VR is the best gaming technology there is for flight sims. 
I recommend you get flying Circus, and get some VR googles, the best for the buck today is Quest 2, some $299 and another few bucks for a good USB C cable. I use a Logitech X52 HOTAS flight stick, another $130 So much cheaper than buying 3 full computer screens that has been a standard for both car and sim racing for years. 

Preview/Review: Ultimate General: Civil War

What a fun game!

This is the second  game in what is now a series, called Ulitmate General.
The first game dealt  only with Gettysburg, it had a series of battles that got affected  by how you did,  like if the union held on the first day,  the battle would be different  from how  history recorded the second  day  of Gettysburg.  

The game  was fun, nice to look it, and the selling point was the ease  of control and the AI

Now this second game, will let you play the entire civil  war! (when it's done, as it's in early  access, and the game ends after  Antietam)

You start with creating  your general, through a sort of "light RPG" character creating screen,  You create a general, You choose  which studies you had at West Point  and so get various  points.

Here we meet the first problem, the nr 1 skill  you  have to put points  in is; Army Organisation. This skill is needed to get; more brigades, bigger brigades,  and more corps. You just have to dump  your skill points as much as possible into it. This kinda defeats the purpose of having a choice in  your character creation. The second skill you need  to dump stuff  into is reconnaissance, so you'll be able  to see at least some info on enemy strength. The other skills seem much less important  and you simply fill up some of them  after getting as high as possible in Army Organisation.

The first screen in General creation process.

You then do small battle, where  you have  to  take  a town with  a few thousand men at your disposal. Then hold the town against a counter attack. After this you'll start to build  your army!

After you win the battle  you  get a new skill point(which  goes straight into  army  organization.

And you get; money, manpower, and reputation. Money  is spent on creating  brigades and buying  weapons, manpower is how many recruits  you   have available. And reputation is a sort of political  currency. It  can buy used to "buy" more men, weapons or  generals. But it's also your life-line, if you loose to much reputation you will be fired! 

To start your army  you'll have whatever is left after the first battle. You'll need  to add brigades and divisions as soon as possible. It's relatively cheap to make a new brigade, as  long as  you have enough weapons  in your armory.  However adding veteran reinforcements to brigades you  already have is extremely expensive.  When I neared the battle of Antietam, it cost me some 50 000 to  add 500 veteran reinforcements to my best brigades.  Because  you do get best brigades. Not only can you  buy better weapons to them, But they level up, a  Level 3(the max) Brigade is  a monster compared to  a level 0 brigade. If you got a level 3 brigade with 2500 men(the biggest you can  get a brigade) You can count on them standing under extreme pressure. 

But as I said it's extremely expensive to reinforce them(you can reinforce them with rookies, but then the quality  of the brigade goes down) 

You  move your brigades by simply dragging the mouse from the unit to where  you  want to  go.

You have 4 types of "brigades" Brigades in  this game is a sort of generic term. First and most important is the infantry brigade  which is a proper brigade. They can  be up to 2500 men strong. 

You also have Cavalry brigade, which  can be up  to 750 strong. You have artillery brigade that can be from  a small battery in size(4 guns)  to 24  guns.  And finally you have skirmishers, that ca be up to  500 men.

Each brigade is added  to a division, in the start  you can  only have 3-4  brigades pr. division, but when you have upgraded your army organization   you can  have 6 brigades per. division and  4 divisions per corps.

For  my first proper game, I mostly had 4-5 infantry per division and a battery. Some of my divisions  had cavalry and some had Skirmishers. But at Antietam where I had 65 brigades, I  only had 3 cavalry units, 3 skirmish units, The rest was  regular infantry  and artillery.  

While  you only spend 20% of the game in the Army Organisation screen, I'll  make the claim it's actually  40% of the game,  A badly made army will make it impossible to win.  You'll spend a lot of time taking care of your army. You'll need  to  find officers for your units,  you'll see   both officers and  units level up(promoted for officers) You'll spend a lot of time  finding the right weapons for them. You have many weapons  to choose from,  but availability is a pain. Not only do  you need  the money  for the guns, But there might not be enough guns to supply your brigade. 

And the guns got stats of course, very broadly speaking, the short  range smoothbore have higher melè, while the rifled-muskets have  better range and accuracy.  Why exactly  a  musket is better in melè  then a rifled-musket I do not know, But it's a game. 

But it dosen't help having super fancy guns  if  you can't resupply them after a battle. So often you  end up  using weapons  you captured  after a battle.  

You also  have supply you need to look  after, Each corps have a supply wagon, that resupplies  your army  in a battle.  It will run out! You  can max have 25000 supply. If  you  got 30-40 guns going off and a 20  000 soldiers firing  of  their weapons, those  25000 will go in minutes! You  can capture the enemy supply wagons, these can be used  in the battle,  but if you don't use them up in that battle the remaining supplies  will be added to yours after the battle. 

From the first battle asUnion

I  will tell you, you  will be attached   to your units. For simplicity's sake, I made each of my divisions  "state divisions"  So my   first division was  a New York division. With 1st New york Brigade, 2nd New York  Brigade, 1st New York Artillery etc.  My Second was a Maine division. 

I also  had Rhoad Island, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio etc.

Two units I did get very attached  to was 1st New York Brigade and 1st Maine Brigade. 

1st New york, had been with me since  the first battle.  And my 1st Maine was my Killer Angles and  had been  with me since my second battle. After  Antietam, they had like 12000 kills after  over a year of campaigning, I   almost lost them  twice, at Shiloh  they were down   to 350  men and at Gains Mill they  were down  to 240 men, At Antietam, they lost  1300 men. 

The screen  you get  after winning the first battle.

When you've  finished  playing in the army organization screen it's time to do battle.  Before each major battle(1st Manassas, Shiloh etc.)  you have optional  battles, smaller actions  that will let  you get experience, money,  and manpower.

The battles play  out mostly like the first game, they  have  improved stuff, making it easier  to create cohesive  battle lines. They have also   made artillery  much easier to   handle, no need to micro them, simply put them  some place, and the rest is automatic,  the guns unlimber and they also choose  the ammo them self. So  they automatically go for canister at close range. 

But the battles are also  the biggest problem so far in the game. They are not dynamic. 

So  if I loose 20 000  men in a  battle, I'll need to reinforce my army with  whatever resources  I  have.  This does not  apply to the ai. You can almost wipe the ai   army of the face of the planet, and the next battle it's at full strength. It's a shame, it would be very cool if   you could win the game by simply destroy  the enemy army in a giant battle. But you can't and  I guess they won't add it,  As  the campaign  will be many hours long, but if   you win after 4 major battles the campaign will be 4 hours  long not 25 hours long. 

My Army  early in the game.

A little later,  with  a 2nd corps added.

And the second big problem with the battle is the scripting.

One of the more dramatic examples of this is at Shiloh, At the start of the  battle,  you need to  hold Shiloh Church and the  Hornet's nest. And I did, I held them both. Yet in day 2 my entire army gets magically  transported to Pitsburg landing. And I have to retake  both these places. I had by the 2nd day almost destroyed the  CSA army, I   had probebly a  5:1  advantage in  forces. So  I why would I pull back?

Other   then these  problems, there are just some bugs here and there(again not a finished game)

The rebs throw them self at my lines, you see all those brown/grey corpes in the stream? Yeah a dozen 12 pdr Napoleons will do  that over a few hours.

After doing two smaller actions, I  have only 1st Bull  Run left,  and I need to do it, to continue on.

There is also  the problem  with the difficulty, I played my first  proper campaign as Union  on easy, I won every single battle(  you aren't suppose to win  all battles)  While I was challenged  in the battles and needed   to keep on   my toes. I still won them all. I'm  going to try now on Normal, But I'm afraid Normal will be too  hard  and I'll never reach Antietam. Because I played on  easy I  had 25% more manpower and money. So I could have 5 brigades I always filled with veteran reinforcements. This gives me an edge. 

How it looked before Antietam. 

The game is extremely fun, I spent almost 15 hours on this first campaign, so a full one  with all the battles will  last at least 20 maybe close to 30 hours.  I have laid out the things I'm not a fan   of, I doubt most of them will be changed. As I said,  it's a bit frustrating destroying  an enemy army just to  see it complete and intact the  next battle but if  you don't do it, it's perfectly possible you'll never see  half the battles as  you  destroyed the enemy army early in  the game. I  mean I lost 18 000 men at Antietam, the south lost 24 000 out of 46 000. I still  would have over 60 000 against their 22 000, So I  would most  likely have won the war after the  next battle.

 Now again I played on easy, this would be much harder on  normal or hard, but then some people are much  better than   me at this, and so even on  hard some players would destroy  the enemy early on. The one thing I  hope they  do change is the scripting  of the battles. We might not get a dynamic  campaign, but dynamic  battles would have been nice.

I recommend the game as it is now, without hesitation , but if you want  to wait a few months, you can do  that,  the game is on early accsess, but the game is quite complete, so it won't be years and yeasrs in  early accsess hell.

The game is out on steam  now, and when  done will also come to Ipad.

The Death of the confederacy? Kemper with his back  to the river getting shot up by  30 canon and thousands of soldiers.

Review The Battle of Minden 1759: The Miraculous Victory of the Seven Years War

I  decided to  do a review of this book, because frankly  I was disapionted. 

I  want to be carefull  when reviewing something dealing with the SYW, while I'm  FAR from  an  expert in Napoleinc history, I  do  feel much more comfterble saying stuff about that period. Simply  because I have studied  as a hobby  for  some 13 yerars. Which not that far from half my life.

But with  the exeption of on online soures and discussions  I have only  read one book about this war, And it delt with the Prussian  battles of 1757.

So I'll try not  to make any judgment on the history of the book. 

So I orderd   this book because as far as I  know, no book  deals specifically with Minden, The battle is part  of other  books, But no book deals  with this battle as  a main topic. Not even a  Osprey tittle deals with  the  battle.

It was 203 pages long.  So  that  should be a big nice detailed  description of the battle. 

Now  this is my fault for not checking better. But i was quite disapointed when I got the book and read  the index, In a book  of  203 pages, only 20 pages deal with  the battle.... frankly  I  feel this  is  false  advertisment. Calling a book the battle of minden when only 10% of the book is about  the actual  battle?

So  what does the book deal with?

First the book it self is just 119 pages(in in reality  20% ish  of the book deals with the  battle) 

Another 80 ish  pages are OOBs(more on that later) transcripts of parts of  Sackvilles Court Martial,  and general info on  the armies inolved

The main book really deals with  two things;  first  it deals with the war in western Germany,  You  get a description of  Hastenbeck   and everything ells that   happens in   estern Germany up  to and including  Minden. Second  part is  the  British  involvment in the  war, The political and military, it deals with the costal raids in northen france  ect.

Now  these  parts  are fine, I liked this part. I did learn alot that I did not know. (and some  things I allready should have known but didn't) 

From  the start (in the introcution)  the author makesit clear he  feels Sackville  got shafted by  history.  While he is not pro Sackville , and makes it clear he is at best  a competent general. He clearly feels  Sackville  was not a coward,  did not act out of jealousy  ect. Simply he become a  scapegoat. He makes a good case  for this. But again, this deals with the history  and I don't  feel I  can make  a judgment on history. 

But Now comes Minden, as I said it's 20  pages long, and atleast 3 pages  deals  with  the deployment.

Now why is it short? It's possible becasue nothing happend in the battle. The book and other sources all seem  to  agree  that those  6  British battalions, with support  of two  Hannoverian  battalions  won the enitre  battle. And everything ells that happend  didn't do  much.

Ok, I can kinda buy  that. So I can buy  not having 70 pages devoted  to the battle. 

But one of  the  reasons for the short description of  the battle is the dry way  it's writen. I'ts consice to a fault. I've read three  paragraph long miniature AAR with love  lively language.

There are a few first hand acounts put in  the battle.  Two of  them basicly descibe the  same thing.  There are almost no descriptions from the french side.(except for the two French  commanders) 

Lets for instance take  the big show down, The British murder the french cavarly. This is  given in a short  descrition and then comes a first hand acount(by an  officer that  seem  to have problems keeping track of  when and how   thnigs  happned. ) And thats it..

Where  are the first hand acounts from the french? I'm sure some  french officer  or trooper wrote about riding  into death?  How about more acounts from the british? I'm sure other officers, NCOs and even some privates did  write  letters or  diaries of this climatic happening?  What about french infantry  that too   got malled by the British infantry and Hanoverian  Guard?

Sure you might not  get 70 pages. But for crying  out  loud, try and  get 30  pages  out of a  battle that  is the title of the book.  

How about when  the  prussian  dragoons charge  inn, sure the battle  was won, but I'm sure some dragoon  wrote  about riding over and cutting down the  enemy. Yes half the allied castualites where british, what about  the other half? You don't  really get a feeling where that other half got killed and wouned?  Did  they all just get hit by long  range  cannon fire  from the  french?

Except for the defence of Sackville this book did not tell me much  new about  the battle  that I havn't read  on kronoskaf or other online sources. 

Now what about  the the other half of the book that is suplimentary?

It's actually very good. It got a  detaled OOB for both Allies and French. Not only that, but uniform info  on  every regiment. This  I feel can  only be valueble  for us Wargamers. Sure some people are just intersted in  uniforms, but would they care about a  list of facing  colors? Who except Wargamers and mabye reenactors need  to know this? This is   by now means a complaints. It's wonderfull.

I'm doing Minden  with Might and  Reason, and  the OOB  needs a converged Hanoverian  grenadier battalion. But kronoskaf dosn't list what regiments those gernadiers come from, so I didn't know  how to paint them.  But  this OOB   does. Now it turns  out that they all came from  those  Hanoverian battalions in  the same division,  which mabye I should have guessed. But it's still nice.

It also  have a  descirption of the inner working  of the armies invloved,  Their regimental structurs,   national  diffrences in cavarly types ect.  I  knew most of this. But still nice to have. 

And the book  also have  a transcript from parts of the  Courts Martial of Sackville, specificaly the questining of  british artillery officers. Not suprising  from the rest of  the book,  this  transcript backs up the authors opinion that Sackville got a raw deal.

This I do find intresting, actually dealing what a person said in a court of law some 270  years ago is very cool. 

So for  me the  book is a mixed bag,  I actually  enjoyed almost all of it, except the actual Minden part. It takes you just a few minutes to  read   through the battle.  And I  find that  disapointing.  

So this is my opinion,   take it for what it  is. I will  recomend  it, I'm  far from sorry I  bought  it. But I   guess I'll have to wait for another book to  deal with the battle of Minden  in  more detail.

Review Ebor miniature French/Spanish cavalry

So there are  people out there that wonders about  the newer Ebor Cavarly. As   many people either feel   or  have heared that some of the Ebor cav ain't  that good.
This  is partly  my fault, becasue I've been vocal   on this(I do  hope I'm the sole person  responsible for this "fact")

Anyway here is a review of French/Spanish Cavalry, these are newer.

I do not like saying bad things about ebor figures, as Ebor is a great company, with unbeatable prices and very good customer   service. (he is bad at answering  mails tho)

So lets start with the old figures(I  have painted 3 of  them, but apperantly I have no  pictures of them.
My problem with them  are; they simply don't look  good, they are stiff, the coats look like this.

And in the Center of the rider, it's simply a flat empty  space.  Sure this part is mostly coverd by the horse  head. But it's disapointing.


Now on to the good stuff, I can from the  get go say these cavarly figures are superiour in every possible  way.  Infact  not only are they better, They  are very good figures period.

They are much more animated, much more natural possion, Better  detail, easier to  paint. (still not sure I'm a fan of ebor  faces)  They are just lovely miniatures.

There  are many things I  like, 

One of my favorite parts  are the  gloves. A big problem with Cavarlyof this period is that some lack color,(danes are  90%  buff leather, much of the  french cav are  grey/white  ect) Often the only color is the horse blanket and the cuffs. BUT the cuffs becaue the leather gloves cover much of the cuffs.

On these(and I have no  idea if this  is correct for French cavarly or simply artistic license) The gloves are"open"after the  hand,  the lower part of the  glove is open, leaving  much of the lower parts of the  cuffs exposed. While the upper part is coved  by the glove.  This helps alot to bring color to otherwise boring  uniform.

Also big cudos to the  horses, this  isn't really fair, as last   time I painted standing  horses,  and those are  automaticaly more boring. This time I have "charging/galloping" horses, Great  animations,  they are BIG and POWERFUL, infact there might be some Bizon  blood in these. They might  be  a  little  over the top in animation and mucles. But they do look  good!

You get 3 diffrent horses, and 3 diffrent troopers(two of  them are very simular but only slight diffrences) While  the other is more uniqe.  You  also   get 3  of  your standard command, (officer, standard barer and trumpeter) I had not  gotton  my Robert hall   plates  yet, but googles showed me a trumpter from the  Lorrine regiment from 1695, so  I tried to  copy it.

I choose  the pack with pistols, you can get them  with swords too. 

at  £29 for 12, The price is unbeatble.

I still do  prefer the warfare  cavarly,  (even tho   I  do love those gloves  on those ebor figures)

Warfare is simply more slim and more my style anatomicaly.   But I will most likely do all my  french(and mabye bravarian) cavarly with these figures! Because I do like the figues alot, it  will also be a nice break(as they are  very diffrent to  paint  from  warfare) AND the  style  is diffrent enough to simply make it easier on the table to see(ah those are french and  those are the allies)

But  they styles  aren't that  diffrent that it will look totaly off to have them on the same table. 

I do recomend them wholehearteldy!  They are easy to  paint, I  think  they look good(oh and those wonderful  gloves!!) So if  you are building  a french cavarly force  for the WSS,  don't hesitate to buy the  French/Spanish  cavarly for Ebor  miniatures, 

Flags  are  again Maverick Models on cloth!

Review The Kings Choice(Kongens Nei)

On the 8th of April 1940,  sightings of  war ships close to the Norwegian waters were reported. For some reason the Norwegian armed forces were not put  on alert.

The movie starts with King Haakon VII of Norway at Skaugum, the loving grandfather playing hide and seek with his grand children. King Haakon started life as a Danish  prince. choosen by the norwegians to  become their king in 1805. He arried with his son  Olav. Now 35 years later, he is a widower, feeling his age with a bad back.

As night falls on the 8th, more sightings  happens. The commander at Oscars Borg fortress, Birger Eriksen puts  his men on allert. With out  orders from  above.  He gets reports of german  ships fireing on norwegian ships.  He orders his troops to train  and make  ready.

At the same time, a  german diplomant gets sent to the Norwegian  foregin minister. Germany is only here to protect Norways neutrality from the British.  The cabinet is asked  to sign a  document  that would more or  less  agree to ocupation of Norway by Germany. This poopr diplomat  didn't know  anything about this before this night.  He honestly  wanted Norwegian   neutrality.

At around 4 AM search lights light up a siluet of german  Cruiser heading straight for Oslo.
The commander gives order  to fire, when told he has  no  orders from above   he simply states.
" They have fired on our ships,  they are moving in our waters with no  lanterns, these are enemies, we fire on enmies. They fire of two  28cm costal  guns, Both score a hit. The weapons  on the other side of the  sound fires of everything they got, At the last  moment, Two tropedoes also hit the enemy cruiser. Fires spreads and  sevral  hours later the German Heavy Cruiser Blücher sinks,  With   the loss of up  to 900 sailors and soldiers.

The  28cm  guns going  off

Blücher was at the head of a task  force, tasked with   taking Oslo,  the cabinet and the royal family.

The sinking means, the cabinet,  royal family and gold reserves escape.

We now follow the king for the next few  days, The german dipomat tries  to secure a peaceful solution,  not  easy with warmongering german officiers trying to capture the king.

The movie shows  the king as a very  human character. He misses his  wife, He learns  his brother the king of Denmak has submited  to  the germans.  He is in constant pain from his back. And all  the while he is hounded by the fact he can't do anything to  stop all this from happening.

Even after  the escape, the cabinet still wants to negotiate with the invaders. They hope to get the same "deal" as Denmark. The Crown prins, a man trained in military matters, But not only  trained, he is skilled,  having the respect of  the army  and even foregin leaders.  He want to take an active role, And have been advocating  for making Norway ready  for war for months.

Royal family taking cover under a railway brigde as German warplanes fly over.

His father, has another view of it. He strongly belives in the constituion, He has no  real power. He does not want to meddle with the democraticly elected  goverment. But in the ned,  it comes down to  him.


Besides showing the battle of Drøbak  Sound(a battle that has facinated me since I almost lived at the armed forces   museum, it had a diorama of  this battle. Watched it for hours.  Now I have seen in in a big budget war movie,  And I can die happy.) It also show the battle of Midtskogen,  where about 100 Norwegian  royal  guardsmen and some voulenteers hold of an attack by about 100 Fallsjermjeagers.

Battle of Midtskogen

There  aren't that many norwegian wars movies,  And those we have, have consentrated on the resistance movment, the Heavy water sabotage  ect. This is  the  only one I know of that  shows full scale open  warfare. The Battle for Norway lasted  62  days, Making Norway second only to  Russia  in holding out againt the invading Germans longest.(with  Russia never being conquerd)

The effects are great be they from a  buring Blücher, to Colt machinegun fire. Most impressive is how  they made Oslo ca. 1940. This must have been  done  with heavy use of CGI, As no   way could this have been done by simply closing down some streets and putting some old cars on the road.

Having grown up in Oslo and lived my first 29 years there.(now  at a ripe  old age of 31)  It was wonderful to see my  Oslo  from  the past come  to life.

But what drives the movie is the great acting of Jesper Christensen  as King Haakon VII and Jesper Christensen  as Crown prince Olav.

The king  is shown as loving father and grand father.   And  the Crown prins  as a  enegertic  and profesjonaal man,  yet also  a loving father and son. The both have great respect for each other, Even   tho  they disagree on how to "rule"  The  dynamic of  these too  are really what drives the movie.

Olav ended up as a great peoples king, Many  stories about him exist.
One of my favorites is from the Oil crisis of the late 70s, Driving cars was banned on the weekends. And so show solidariry, instead of taknig his   car(which he could have) He got his skiis. And took the train   into the forest. When asked if he  wasn't afraid to go out with out his body guards, he simply replied  "I have 4 million body guards"

So it was great seeing this man  potrayed in the big screen.

King and Crown  prince running as bombers and fighters attack.

I'm embarrased by not knowing sevral  things   that happend those 3 days in April. I  didn't know just how damn  close the  cabinet  came to accepting the  german proposition. I didn't know the  King met in private with this german dipomat.  I didn't know just how close the king and crown  prince came  to be killed in those early days.

I think its great to have  a movie that shows and honours not only the king, but the norwegians that fought those 62 days in 1940. These men and  women  have in many ways been forgotton, Instead  concentrating on  hour resistance heroes.   This is a movie that needed to be made, and  I'm very glad it was.

I recomend everyone  to  see this movie, It's not a your typical WW2  movie(it got princes and princesses)  It's a vital part of modern Norwegian histroy, that has not been told in this way before.

Review Warfare Miniatures Model Cavalry Regiment

This deal gives you 18 troopers and horses as well as any two cavalry standards.


There is a huge number of cavalry troopers to choose from. If I counted correctly there are 50 codes just for the cavalry, with unarmord cavalry, cavalry with armor under the coat, just brest plate, or front and back plate. As well as "enthusiatsic" cavalry. Also two types of helments, English and German, and the the codes come have tricrone or floppy hats. Standing and running horses(with 3 sculpts pr mode of movement). Add to these "generic" you also have swedish spesific(with new codes comming soon) And soon russian as well as totaly new dragoons. All with new horses.  This means you can create almost all types of cavalry for all countries from 1680 too 1720.

Togeather with the 18 troopers and horses, you get enough arms and scabards to all troopers swords or all troopers pistols. there are 3 sword arms and 2 pistol arms, togeather with the 3 diffent troopers and 3 diffrent horses. The unit will look very varied. I personaly choose to mix pistol and swords. I also choose to mix the floppy hats and tricornes as the saxons took their while to totaly go tricorne.

6 of the cavalry are command, so 2 officers, 2 standardbareres and 2 trumpeters, Poles are also in the pack. The officers got sevral arms to choose from, the tricrone officer, can get an arm hodling a tricrone. As well as poiting arm, arm on  the waist, Or you can just use one of the sword arms.

The figures them self are wonderful, the are definatly in the slim category, and very animated. A joy to paint. I've now painted 36 Swedish and 18 of these Saxons and I've never enjoyed painting cavarly this much.

When it comes to value, the price pr trooper and horse is £2.5 and you do get over double sets of arms, as well as standard pole and two standards. Which is a very good price.

To compear we can look at too other companies that deal with the same period.

Both these companies have regiment deals, but they are 12 not 18 strong. So it won't be totaly acurat. Becasue I simply do 1.5 in the price.

Company A wants £29 for 12, thats £43.5 This company generaly has very good prices!
Company B wants £36.70 for 12, thats a wopping £55.05.


So on value it's also a good deal. Neither company A or B has as much variation, Company A might get there as it expands it lines, Company B has not added any codes for this line in a long time that I know of.

I wholehartedly recomend this pack, good value, fantastic options for customization.

Review Great Northern War Comendium

So where to start?

Lets start with what you get for £115 pluss shipping.

You get to Volumes each about 300 pages long. They are both filled with lots of illustrations, maps, pictures of uniforms, drums, cannons, muskets and swords. All of which are great help for wargamers. A very good picture of a Swedish grenade pouch helped alot!

Besides all the viusual goodies. You have various articles places more or less in chronolgical order.
In between the articles dealing with what happend, You have articles dealing with armies, uniforms and the players in the game.

The books has around 20 comtributers, ranging from amateurs like us that has delved into the subject. to acedemics with lots of letters infront of their name,

There won't be much pictures in the reivew sinply because in theory they might end up random places online and people use them for references with out paying!

I'm dividing up the review into the diffrent types articles that is in the compendium

Part 1: Army/uniform info.

All major armies in the war gets their own article, Naturaly Sweden gets a big one, And Denmark, Russia and Saxony are all there. As well as smaller players like Polen-Lithuania, Cossacks ect.

The articles are some 5-10 pages long for the "formal" armies there is atleast 2 pages of uniform plates one for infantry and one for cav/dragoons/artillery. For army with less formal uniforms like Cossacks and polish hussars and light cav, There aren't plates as such but lots of texts and other illustrations. As well as photos from museums showing for instance Hussar armor.
They also deal with organistation, and recruitment for the countries and armies. This does not only give you lots of info but also really lets you compare armies. There is a striking diffrence between how the armies of Sweden was made and trained and equiped vs say Saxony. More then you would think since they where both modern European armies.

Allready I have gotten quite a bit of good info from these Army/unifom pages. I learned that Provincial regiments in sweden, did not have all their grandiers in a single company like most countries did, but spread them out! This was great info to get!
Also the very fleshed out Swedish article have lots of photes of drums, grandiers equipment ect. There is a great photo that shows a grandiers grenade pouch. This was very helpfull when painting grenadiers.

I should note that even with all the info you can't get it all in the volumes. Like in the Swedish article they do point out the Karpus was used at times by some swedish regiments. But if you want to know which regiment used the karpus in which battle. You still need to go to Tacticus.nu (if you see that page as a reliable source) The man that runs Tactics.nu is also a contributar to the compendium.

Part of the Swedish army article. The Swedish article is very good and filled out!

Not suprising as they are the stars of the show!

Part 2: Campaigns/battles

So there is alot of info here, Some of these articles are purely a campaign/battle desicription, while others like the one dealing with the Polish-Lithuanian civil war, has a broader scope to.

Some of the campgains/battle articles about eastern europe are very intersting, a period i personaly knew little about, Ofcourse others will know much more about this then what is coverd in the volumes.

This is where i feel the books lacks the most, tho it's purley my subjective opinion!
General a campaing/battle articale is less then 10 pages. The part leading up to the battles are generally very good, They are clear, gives you a great view of what lead to the battles.
How ever quite a few of the battle descritions are very short(almost all are 2-4 pages long) And they are often very dry. I can best describe them as wikipedia style. Very clear and good in info. But also dry. There is nothing that pulls you into the action most of the time. It's simply this happend, then this and it's over.

This might be because I'm used to reading books of 350-450 pages dealing with just one campaign/battle mostly Napoleonic period. In these books there is alot more personal stories descriptions. They help to paint a vivid living pictures of things.

Now I get you can't spend 30 pages pr battle in a compedium. I get that. But even a single page more pr. battle would help if that mean it helped paint a vivid picture. They might have choosen to to keep it this way for space? It might be the authors they don't normaly write that way? Not sure.

I'll give you two examples. One will be the most disapointing battle description and one will be the best. And the diffrences aren't that big.

The worst is Narva. It was short and very A-B-C. It made is sound like the Swdes just walked up and the won. Yet they did loose about 1800 dead and wounded. Granted thats not a lot for a battle that size. But still I did not get drawn into the battle. I'm painting Björneborg regiment now and I knew it took part in the battle. I was hopeing to know what that regiment did in that battle. But no. None the wiser.

The best so far has easly been Fraustadt, I dont't think its actually that much longre. But it paints a much more vivid picture. About how the Saxons fired to soon and the Swedes run up place their muskets on the chevaux de frises and fire point blank into the Saxons. (yes I'm a warmogorer) It little things like that that help. It also mentions regimental names more. who fought who ect. I want to know which Saxons or Swedish regiment that did what ect. As I said I don't think the battle description is any longer. Just much more enganging.

Poltova is ofcourse a biggy, it gets two articles with slightly diffrent angles on it. It's quite good stuff. but still Fraustadt is my favorite.

Don't get me wrong. the campgain and battle info you get no mater what battle you read in these volumes  are the best you are going to get. Nothing online comes close!
Also all articals have a list of other sources to read. So those sources might very well have more detailed info on battles.

Each Campain/battle article starts with a great piece art!

Part 3: Miscellaneous articles

So these are the type of articles like Siege warfare during the great northen war, or how chaplins worked in the Swedish army.
They provide a good insight into the period, fleshing out the parts that don't get mentioned in to much detail other places. The one on siege warfare is quite straight forward, most that will read this book allready have a good grasp on how this worked in this period. But still it has lots of illusrations and pictures of siege cannon, mortars ect. And ofcourse like all wars there are slight variantions from GNW or say NYW or WSS. So there is always something to learn. It also explanes in breif how many of the the sieges in the war played out. And how most of them in one or more ways where diffrent from the "classic Vauban" siege.  Another one is about the plauge that hit Sweden.
There are many more, about what ifs ect.
The articles are well writen and lovely to read.



Part 4: Biographies 

Many of the big names of this period gets a bio, So far all of them have been very good. Peter The Great bio is not so much a bio of him, more what he did during the GNW not much about his early life ect. I'm glad to see that Tordenskiold got his own bio, me being a Norwegian patriot! I also very much enjoyed the bio of Carl Gustav Rehnskiöld. And I now what to paint his Swedish volunteer regiment that fought against the french!
Another one is Poul Vandelbo Løvenørn(Poul Vendelboe de Lovenorn in he book) A Danish soldier, minister and diplomat. He had the honor of overseeing three Swedish surrenders. I also want to do his regiment now!


Part 5: Finaly thoughts/is it worth it.

So I have added 3 points here to judge if it's worth it. Because I want this review to help people decide if they want to buy it.

1: Is it worth it for me?
Yes it is. I do not regret getting it, It has been great inspiration infact because of reading this I've decided to change my GNW project focus from Sweden vs Russia. To Sweden vs Saxony.  Partly becasue of many of the articles about the Saxon war are very well writen. Also it will let me do a brigde or so of Russian in suport. There was even a battle where the Saxon had Polish hussars on their team(so finnaly an excuse to paint this iconic soldiers) And as mentioned I want to paint sevral regiments what where the regiments of some of the people that have bios. Not only inspiration but great info on uniforms and organistation.

2. Is it worth it for you!
I think I can say yes! Infact I would not only recomend it for those very intrested in GNW but all that are intrested in late 17th cenutry/18th century warfare. Yes it does have a high price but some of the info you get get here, you can't get any other place in english. Just one example is Poul Vandelbo Løvenørn. This man does not have an english wiki page, so unless you can read Norwgian/Danish/Swedish or Polish you are out of luck. It's perfectly possible you can find some info on him in english some strange dark place of the internet. Or a book writen in english. So even those with just a hint of intrest in ther period should get it, if they have the money.

3. Did the compendiums forfill the auther/editor goal?
From reading the introduction, Reading just how monumental the task of making this project happen. And the goal of the project. To bring the most comprehensive english source of the GNW  I would say they deffinalty succeded. Yes some wikipedia aritcles might be longer. There might be more words on Peter the great in wikipedia then in this compendium. But I would say 80% of what is in this book is not avalable for free online. Atleast not in english. And a decent part of it is not even avalable in english even if you pay for it. And honestly I can read swedish, but I do find it tiresome. Hell I find reading danish tiresome and that basicly bad norwegian. And so I will probebly not read swedish books on the GNW, Reading sevral 100 pages in swedish not enjoyable for me.
And i can just forget to read German, Polish or Russian. So even for me that is capable of reading Danish and Swedish this is a great thing!

This is a book that is a must for any GNW wargamer or 18th century wargamer. The book even mention miniatures at the end, as well as list of museums that deal with this period. All in all stop reading and buy these two volumes.

"Swedish" "cuirassiers"

 So long ago   I orderd some empress miniature ECW figures, mostly because of the figures looked great, As I excepted they did not get painted. As I have ZERO intrest in that period. Sadly they have been spread to the winds. Me being totaly unstructured plus the move. Ment that all my Empress ECW figures got devided into half a dozen boxes with no contol of where.

But I did find 10 of the ECW armored cav. They have have comanderd them tobecome late war cuirassiers in swedish service!

The figures are fantastic, The reigns are actualy seperate not "melted" into one that they so often are under the head of the horse. The brindle and other leather things are also much thinnner and more realistic! The horses them self are fantastic too!

To bad they are so expencvie, but I'm  still thinking  my late war cuirassiers and some of the swedish horse will be these figures. Sadly infantry is not usefull at alle for TYW. My infantry will probebly by 1st corps. I do have some, I'm test painting now. to see if I can get them well enough for me to be willing to use them. They are quite diffrent from the style and detail I'm used to. Which means I general can't paint them well enough. Also verious other makers will be used like TAG and warlord(for fully armored cuirassiers)

 I painted them in the classic swedish blue. 

 They will not be a historic unit as the figures are not 100% right for TYW, 

I also reviced my birthday gift from my Fiance, The Great Northern War Compendium, 

I'll post a propper review of it (which seems to be all the rage for us doing GNW) 

But I'll give a very brief first impression:

I've not even opened the 2nd vol. The first day I only tok a tiny lookie(I couldn't get to inspired as I still have 2 cuirassiers to paint)

I have red alteast half of the articals of vol. 1 now. So far very very good. I do have some nit picking to do. But I'll save that for full review.
What I can say if you want info on GNW this is the stuff for you. I've tried hard to find info on this war for many months and honestly the info you get in this book can not be found on line not even close! So if you want this info you'll have to sell your soul/first born/car becasue this thing is expencive!

Also info on the uniforms are great. Not only general uniforms, all the info you would want on the armies, recruiting, organisation ect. How ever, The uniform plates are generic for the whole of the war in general. If you want more spesific(especaly when units used karpus or not(for the swedes) You still need to look at tacticus.nu The owner of tacticus has contribiuted to the compendium.

I want to write more, Because I allready have alot to say about it and I'm very excited about this! But it would not befair untill I have atleast read quite abit of vol. 2. I will not wait for the review untill I've read every single artical tho!

I will say one last thing about the compendium, I was reading the rather hefty artical about the swedish army. And I read that in the provincial regiments(Those with place names in their name, So like Jönkøping ect) Spread their grenadiers out among the companies. Which came just in time, I'm about to start on some old Musketeer/footsore swedes and paint them as Björneborg. And I had planed to put my grenadiers at the right most place in the battalion(which was standard practice then and well into the 19th century) So that helped me alot! So Björneborg will get grenadiers everywhere!