Wargaming Recon | Longest-running tabletop wargaming podcast on the planet!

Chester French She Loves Everybody Music Video

Chester French, the famous Harvard duo we first shared with you back in December 2006 with Local Band: Chester French, has released their first music video. The video, which we’re sharing below, is on MTV heralding their first major label album due in stores March 31st.

The dynamic duo has turned music on its head with their ironic and inspective lyrics. Nothing about their music, their songs, or them is what it seems except one thing. They’re both incredibly nice guys. I’ve spoken with them through instant chat and e-mail and they’re truly delightful. They’re friendly and appreciative of the success they’re attaining.

Just recently I read an article about Peaches Geldof in Hello! magazine, which naturally discussed Maxwell Drummey, her husband. It is nice to see people grabbing onto love and not letting go like they have. Their music video addresses love and relationships in an interesting way. The lyrics to She Loves Everybody are innocent enough on the surface but the video provides a dichotomy listeners don’t get from the song alone.

At the start we see DA in almost cherubic fashion singing about his girl. This girl, the one he loves, then proceeds with masochistic actions. She pummels DA, she busts his lip, and gives him a thrashing. Nothing is safe in the video as even Maxwell, on guitar and drums, is assaulted resulting in the dismemberment of the drum set. Through it all DA manages a smile as his bow tie is violently askew and his brutalized body crumples to the floor. Yet, there is more than the literal meaning in this video. It symbolizes the damage we all inflict and receive in any relationship with the one we love. It shows that through it all love empowers us allowing us to smile through the pain.

This message is made more powerful by the minimalist set, which places the focus on Maxwell and DA and the girl. The video culminates in a cacophony of deconstructionism punctuated with a look of unadultered joy on the girl’s face. “I know she loves me; she loves everybody.” You can read another great review of Chester French’s first music video by Lindsay at the official MTV blog.

[quicktime]https://wargamingforums.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/chester-french-she-loves-everybody.m4v[/quicktime]

War at Sea: Battle of the Bahamas Photo Gallery

At Battleground Games in Abington the Bahamas were invaded by the Axis powers in War at Sea on October 1, 2008. They maintained a tentative hold on the island and desperately needed to usher reinforcements to solidify their gains. The United States, leading the Allied powers, sent an invasion force to free the island. The photo gallery below is their story.

The Goal: Hold the main island featuring a 1 strip airfield and shore battery.

Points: 1 point per transport that unloads its forces by ending its turn in the same square as or adjacent to the island. Whomever has the most points at the end wins.

Force Composition: 200pts per side utilizing 2 players as a single team per side.

Did I mention I’m wearing the brown shirt?

Flames of War: Panzerkompanie Journal

At Battleground Games in Abington the historical gamers have been taking a break from Axis & Allies and War at Sea. The store has at last begun stocking Flames of War.

This is a great WWII miniatures game put out by Battlefront Miniatures in New Zealand. I’ve had some stuff floating around my house for several years but have never spent any time on it. There is a solid group of gamers collecting armies and I took this as a sign to pull out my stuff.

Each week I try to spend a few hours working on my models and am hoping to chronicle my progress on the blog. I’ve already completed several weeks worth of work.

I am playing a Mid-War Panzerkompanie. The standard size force is 1,500pts and with that in mind I’m expanding what I already own with a few purchases. After much searching in my basement and closet I found a sizable tank force.

Closet Loot

1 Tiger 1E
5 Panzer III G
1 Panzergrenadier HQ blister
1 Panzergrenadier blister
Sdfkz/70 trucks and other assorted trucks

All I still require are some BMW motorcycles and I should be all set. In addition to the above I purchased a Panzer IV H thinking it was a Panzer IV G but the H will serve as my company HQ.

I’ve assembled all of my tanks and even my trucks. The assembly has been quite easy because the models have no more than five pieces. The body is one piece and each tread is a separate piece. The turret for most of my tanks was glued on and only required my adhering the muzzle and machine gun to the turret and chassis respectively.

After assembling all of the tanks I began to paint them. For anyone who knows me the idea of my painting anything will elicit rounds of laughter. I am not a good painter. In fact I am quite horrendous. I also do not enjoy painting, perhaps because I suck, resulting me to often play with assembled models minus paint. The remarks about my bare plastic and metal models continue but I refuse to paint until I began work on my Panzerkompanie.

War at Sea: Flank Speed aka Set 3 Confirmed Releases and Box Art

We have absolutely wonderful news to share. War at Sea has a new set, Set 3, which will officially be released on June 9, 2009. The set is titled Flank Speed and will feature 40 new models. Most models, 31 in fact, will be brand new sculpts while the remaining 9 will be repaints of existing sculpts.

The set will be a booster only release meaning new players still need to purchase the original War at Sea Starter Box ($24.99). Each booster will cost $14.99 or 17.50 CAN. There will be 12 boxes per case meaning a case will cost gamers $179.88. The ISBN for the new set, so you can search for it on Amazon, is 978-0-7869-5255-7.

Wizards released all of this information in their 2009 product catalog sent exclusively to retailers. We managed to obtain this information from a reliable source. Additionally, we have 4 officially confirmed releases along with the entire set list (unofficially confirmed). More on the set list later but the four official releases are:

Germany – Schlesig-Holsten battleship – Rare

United States – USS Arizona battleship – Rare

Japan – “Jill” Torpedo Bomber – Common

Russia – October Revolution battleship – Rare

The 2009 Wizards product catalog had this to say about the new set.

All hands on deck for the second expansion [third set] to the War at Sea naval miniatures game. Flank Speed will contain 40 authentically detailed miniatures that war gamers, WWII enthusiasts, and collectors can use to assemble fleets with which to do battle on the seas of WWII. Battleships, cruisers, submarines and aircraft will help you bring the battle to your opponent. Flank Speed will let players add to their existing navies to recreate historical battles that rage across massive 30″ x 40″ battle maps.

This is exciting for a variety of reasons. Of course there’s the standard excitement over any new release. The confirmed releases are also exciting and discussion provoking. But, this is the first time that Wizards has put so much emphasis on the historical gamer for this game. The game has walked a very thin line between historical game and beer & pretzel game. It has managed to perform as a quick, fun and social game that also strives to be historically accurate.

War at Sea Flank Speed Booster

I know many historical gamers who have held back from War at Sea because they viewed it as simply a beer and pretzel game. It seems that with Flank Speed the tide is turning and the game will delve into more historical waters.

In addition to the confirmed releases, the excerpt from the Wizards 2009 Product Catalog and our above banter on the meaning of the excerpt we are proud to share more exclusives. The first is the official box art you can see at left. We are the first place on the web to have this and share it with everyone. Not even Amazon or BoardGameGeek have this on their websites. Yes, you saw it here FIRST! This is a 600dpi hi-res scan of the actual box art. This is confirmed, official, and will be produced as such. The box art tells us a few things. First it is the same shape and size as the Task Force booster. This means Flank Speed will be a rectangular booster. It features new art, which looks wonderful, and says on the bottom of the box that the booster contains 5 random miniatures.

Additionally, the box shows the insignias for all the nations in this release. The box for Task Force showed no insignias leaving customers to guess at the nationalities of the set. The original set showed 7 insignias (Australia, France, United Kingdom, United States, Germany, Italy, and Japan). There are 9 insignias on Flank Speed’s box. Starting from left we see Australia, Russia, France, Netherlands, United Kingdom, United States, Germany, Italy, and Japan). This tells us that Canada will not have any new units despite its inclusion in Task Force. Most likely Canada was dumped to make room for Russia’s two ships.

Lastly, we have the unofficially confirmed set list. This comes to us straight from the wonderful people at Axis & Allies foruMINI. NeuralDream, the forum owner, in particular deserves a round of applause for compiling all the leaks and rumors into a single list (excluding Australia). Please be sure to give him a pat on the back along with your gratitude. We at CWF are eternally grateful to him and the entire Axis & Allies foruMINI team for everything they do to support and promote War at Sea. If you join their community you can find us as a member under the name cwfgamecast. We have reformatted the list to follow the order of nations from the Flank Speed box art.

Combat Storm Free Download Sandbag Terrain

Last August we shared information on a new FREE building pack for Combat Storm. We even shared a video tutorial, crafted by Dave Reiter, to show you how to construct the buildings in the pack.

Today I received another e-mail from Dave Reiter, one of the geniuses at Strategy Wave Studios that makes the game, about a new FREE download. You heard that correctly. Combat Storm players and would be players can download the free building pack. This pack lets you make sandbags perfect for any location.

Before you download the building pack be sure you have Adobe Acrobat Reader as the pack is a pdf file. You can get Acrobat Reader, for FREE, at Adobe Acrobat Reader. I have version 8.1.1 for Mac OS X Leopard and the building pack shows perfectly!

combatstorm_papercraft_sandbags_free

According to Dave

I just wanted to let you and your site know that we’ve released another free papercraft terrain pack on our website. We decided to make sandbags, this time around, due to popular demand. Also, the Official Combat Storm Online Store is back up and running with a new storefront. We currently have some really nice Green and Tan Army Tanks in stock and are waiting to receive some new Plastic Army Men in the near future. Shipping is flat rate ($5 for U.S, $6 for International) and each additional item is $0.99.

The new Tanks are in limited supply. Check out the product pages below to
orders yours before they’re all sold out:
https://combatstorm.com/store/products/green-plastic-army-tank.html
https://combatstorm.com/store/products/tan-plastic-army-tank.html