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You know, we really ought to make "Defeatian" a mainstream term for the Vicks. I don't think there's anything else that would get more under their skin. :drevil:
 
Question: What, exactly, is Victoria's standard service rifle? On the one hand, AR-pattern rifles were most common in the US pre-Collapse, but I can see RumLind having a major hard on for the "rugged, reliable" AK over the "Mattel death trap". Hell, I can see him giving his troops battle rifles.
 
Question: What, exactly, is Victoria's standard service rifle? On the one hand, AR-pattern rifles were most common in the US pre-Collapse, but I can see RumLind having a major hard on for the "rugged, reliable" AK over the "Mattel death trap". Hell, I can see him giving his troops battle rifles.
The M-16, because that's what California makes, and California's where Victoria gets most of its non-T-34 hardware.
 
Question: What, exactly, is Victoria's standard service rifle? On the one hand, AR-pattern rifles were most common in the US pre-Collapse, but I can see RumLind having a major hard on for the "rugged, reliable" AK over the "Mattel death trap". Hell, I can see him giving his troops battle rifles.
The M-16, because that's what California makes, and California's where Victoria gets most of its non-T-34 hardware.
They also use the M14 as a DMR.
 
Question: What, exactly, is Victoria's standard service rifle? On the one hand, AR-pattern rifles were most common in the US pre-Collapse, but I can see RumLind having a major hard on for the "rugged, reliable" AK over the "Mattel death trap". Hell, I can see him giving his troops battle rifles.
The shitty original cover art for 'Victoria: A Novel of Fourth Generation Warfare' had a guy in flannel carrying an AR-15 variant, so it was canon-ish.
 
I wonder what side he's supporting in the Victorian Civil War. To what extent did his actually believe Rumsford's ideology and to what extent was he collaborating to get a good position post war?
Hard to say. The only publicly available records are Rumford's memoirs, as Matthews is otherwise infamously reclusive outside of CORN. To hear Rumford tell it, Matthews is, "one of the good ones," to the point where he can be trusted with responsibility over others of his kind. Ugh. Reading between the lines, Matthews is probably some mixture of pragmatic and vile, but the mixture is hard to tell.
...by AR pattern, we are talking about AR-10's, not AR-15's right? Or is it both?
I mean, they don't use actual civilian-pattern ARs anymore; they use M14s and M16s, as used by the US military at varying times. They did arm some units with actual ARs in the early days, though.
The shitty original cover art for 'Victoria: A Novel of Fourth Generation Warfare' had a guy in flannel carrying an AR-15 variant, so it was canon-ish.
That picture, along with Lind's searing contempt for logistics and organization in all its forms, is actually why I wound up concluding that his ultimate army had no forms of body armor. He's got nobody but himself to blame. :D
 
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Hard to say. The only publicly available records are Rumford's memoirs, as Matthews is otherwise infamously reclusive outside of CORN. To hear Rumford tell it, Matthews is, "one of the good ones," to the point where he can be trusted with responsibility over others of his kind. Ugh. Reading between the lines, Matthews is probably some mixture of pragmatic and vile, but the mixture is hard to tell.

I mean, they don't use actual civilian-pattern ARs anymore; they use M14s and M16s, as used by the US military at varying times. They did arm some units with actual ARs in the early days, though.

That picture, along with Lind's searing contempt for logistics and organization in all its forms, is actually why I wound up concluding that his ultimate army had no forms of body armor. He's got nobody but himself to blame. :D
Didn't someone also wear a Grenade as a Pendant on that Cover or am I imagining thinks?
Also, while I'm typing: I know the Commonwealth Army is standardized around the same Ammo the Victorians are using; but what kind of Gun is the CA using as their Main Rifle(or are they just using whatever they have lying around shooting the desired Caliber) .
 
Didn't someone also wear a Grenade as a Pendant on that Cover or am I imagining thinks?
Also, while I'm typing: I know the Commonwealth Army is standardized around the same Ammo the Victorians are using; but what kind of Gun is the CA using as their Main Rifle(or are they just using whatever they have lying around shooting the desired Caliber) .
You are presently standardized around a set of cartridges; standardized firearm production is still in progress.
 
Hard to say. The only publicly available records are Rumford's memoirs, as Matthews is otherwise infamously reclusive outside of CORN. To hear Rumford tell it, Matthews is, "one of the good ones," to the point where he can be trusted with responsibility over others of his kind. Ugh. Reading between the lines, Matthews is probably some mixture of pragmatic and vile, but the mixture is hard to tell.

I mean, they don't use actual civilian-pattern ARs anymore; they use M14s and M16s, as used by the US military at varying times. They did arm some units with actual ARs in the early days, though.

That picture, along with Lind's searing contempt for logistics and organization in all its forms, is actually why I wound up concluding that his ultimate army had no forms of body armor. He's got nobody but himself to blame. :D
They really are just a very very very large army of bandits and thieves and highwaymen arent they?
 
Hard to say. The only publicly available records are Rumford's memoirs, as Matthews is otherwise infamously reclusive outside of CORN. To hear Rumford tell it, Matthews is, "one of the good ones," to the point where he can be trusted with responsibility over others of his kind. Ugh. Reading between the lines, Matthews is probably some mixture of pragmatic and vile, but the mixture is hard to tell.
I now picture Matthews as looking and acting just like this guy:
 
You know I just realised something, Victoria only really functions because of the rail network that moves supplies and troops around. Now each town and village might claim self-sufficiency, but I find it highly doubtful, especially when they're forced to raise civil militias (which I view as little more than experienced hunters which are much different to the task of waging war) to fight the CMC taking away farm-hands and blacksmiths and every other little profession that keeps a community running. Not to mention the fuel needed for Rumlind's favourite mode of transport, the Steam Train, can't really work if the coal from the mines doesn't get to the supply depots.

Now because of the disruption to the railway, Victoria is currently little more than a mass of villages, towns and hamlets all isolated from each other. Sure radio still works, but radio only works until the radio tower get cut down or the station is stormed or the broadcasts giving false reports because information or lack of it is a key proponent of Fourth-Generation Warfare. So with the country in civil war and Blackwell broadcasting that it's bad enough that Victoria wants to sue for peace, do you know what happens next?

Every independent border town that they stomped on, every client state they bought off, every two-bit bandit living in the hills or in a cave, whether out of greed, opportunity or just good old fashioned revenge, are going to descend on Victoria to sack, pillage and/or liberate all that they can like the vikings that we like to believe existed in history. And the two sides are going to be too busy fighting each other to notice and if they do, it's the barbarity of the other side.
 
Guys, things seem pretty bad for the Vicks, but don't cry victory too soon. They ain't gone 'till they're actually gone.

Remember how people mock Hitler for thinking the Soviet Military was like a house of cards - one firm push away from collapsing in on itself?

Everyone else thought that too at the time* - and Soviet performance during the Winter War was bad enough for that belief to be entirely reasonable.

*Well, maybe not the Japanese. Or at least those aware of Khalkhin Gol/Nomohan.

Hopefully Victoria will self-implode but until it does or Russia writes them off as a lost cause, best be prepared for them coming back for round 2 as soon as they are able, and having learned of their errors.
 
Well, Rumford got shot by his masters, but Gunny Matthews, chairman of CORN, is still alive, somehow. Ancient old fucker.
I wonder what side he's supporting in the Victorian Civil War. To what extent did his actually believe Rumsford's ideology and to what extent was he collaborating to get a good position post war?

I think that what judgement we can pass on him depends on what exactly the status of the blacks in Victoria are. I see basically three options, from what I think are the best case to the worst case:

1. Bantustans. Basically the black population is forced to live within designated areas, said areas are either completely rural or else the only towns are all black. Travel between such areas is merely difficult (requiring de facto permits) but possible. Getting to live and work outside these areas is very difficult and often exposes the people to a great deal of potential abuse.

However, as long as the agricultural goods are sent out no one really cares what is going on inside these areas. Indeed white people are strongly discouraged from going there. As a result being in such an area is merely like living in a rather poor and massively corrupt city or county.

2. Jim Crow. Basically second class citizenship and banned from living in cities. I think we all know roughly what this entails, the supposed independent black settlements are de facto serf villages and subject to potential mob violence.

3. Effective slavery.

I would suggest that #1 and #2 are what are actually most likely.

If we pick #1 then Gunny Matthews becomes a far more sympathetic figure, despite it all he has provided his people with some safety and independence. I like this for two reasons: First it is most in line with the book itself, second it makes Gunny Matthews a far more morally grey figure. It is much easier for him to argue that he took the best choice available.

EDIT: Also with #1 it explains why he is still around: He wisely decided to keep a low profile, go to one of the new homelands and stay put, only coming out for photo-ops. Being rather pragmatic etc would also mean that the Russians would not want to remove him, nor would anyone else see him as a threat.
 
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My impression honestly?

It's going to be bad whichever side wins the civil war.

The 'Loyalists' win? The last remaining thing that's stopping them from getting the job done correctly is gone and purged, and he has a free mandate (And the known infinite morale powers of the Victorians) to modernize their military to something dangerous without opposition.

The 'Crusaders' win? They conscript everyone and blast out in an all-or-nothing onslaught, ruining everything before they burn out.

I imagine that interfering will just result in them setting aside their differences and reuniting in the face of an external threat. Don't forget, they're doing this because they feel nobody can actually hurt them on their home soil, they're not used to being anything but the attackers after all. Let's not disabuse them of that notion.
 
Impis that just gotten themselves Rourke's Drifted rather badly to boot, as they inevitability would have been

I mean Rourke's Drift was a near-run thing, but I take your point. Mostly it's like... Impis were citizen soldiers who were disciplined, organized, excellent at skirmishing, are famous for surprising and destroying a supposedly superior force with access to state-of-the-art technology and were reputed for being incredibly swift on the march which seems to be exactly what Lind was going for.

Also I just read How Can Man Die Better? and am starting The Wolf in the Fold by Mike Snook which cover both Isandlwana and Rorke's Drift so they were on my mind.
 
Hopefully Victoria will self-implode but until it does or Russia writes them off as a lost cause, best be prepared for them coming back for round 2 as soon as they are able, and having learned of their errors.
I think everyone is pretty much expecting this to happen.

If we pick #1 then Gunny Matthews becomes a far more sympathetic figure, despite it all he has provided his people with some safety and independence. I like this for two reasons: First it is most in line with the book itself, second it makes Gunny Matthews a far more morally grey figure. It is much easier for him to argue that he took the best choice available.

EDIT: Also with #1 it explains why he is still around: He wisely decided to keep a low profile, go to one of the new homelands and stay put, only coming out for photo-ops. Being rather pragmatic etc would also mean that the Russians would not want to remove him, nor would anyone else see him as a threat.

Honestly, I believe this is the thing he tells himself. But, as others have pointed out Stephen is a good comparison, plenty of people have been willing to sell others to get a place at the top.

Another possibility is that if we can arrange some immediate benefit from something the Victorians give us (e.g. free passage for a few freighter-loads of supplies up the St. Lawrence Seaway), we might ask for a concession that we know they'll cut off later.

I honestly like that. Getting foreign-sourced economic equipment, such as computers to build a database (proper taxes, efficient bureaucracy, catalog our library) or any number of industrial equipment would be huge. While the Mississippi is the better long term investment, getting that stuff early means we can squeeze the ap bonuses earlier. It's also a concession that doesn't cost them and given their current situation, they just don't have goods or cash we can ask for. The only other concession I'd focus on would be an agreement to stay out of the midwest. It isn't worth the paper it's printed on, but we can wave it around, and gives us an excuse to go hunting when they do. Ditto asking for war brides back. Sure it's not likely to work, but honestly, Blackwell already didn't care for the practice, and most of the army is dead or arrested, so he might decide he has nothing to lose.

One big thing for me is the Survivors of Leamington. @PoptartProdigy (and feel free to correct any of this) mentioned tenish thousands (many MIA), with actions to potentially (harass and/or hunt down). Pre-civil war I was somewhat mixed on this pursuit. One division was not that large, and Victoria was going to rebuild a huge amount. It was up in the air if it was worth our limited AP next round. With the civil war.... this changed. Getting even on division worth of troops massive helps Blackwell, and given the need, I imagine the CMC (inquisitors) are willing to let them continue fighting to help destroy the Crusaders. With even some high-quality troops, he can use the militia in pinning assaults and then have a spearhead, and the irony of this should be appreciated by all. As such preventing these troops from returning is likely to make it much harder for him to win, and missions to capture or kill them is likely to prove very worthwhile. Might be worth agreeing to not if sufficient concessions are made, but otherwise, it's an action I think is worthwhile.
 
Sanity Check Requested
Hm. So, omake bonuses.

The present implementation is that every omake is worth a bonus, save where they give extra for one reason or another. Bonuses activate when a roll fails and add to the roll, whether or not that would change things.

I did it this way because I was trying to avoid a Sage situation, where a critical mass of omakes winds up meaning that I might as well not bother rolling at all. However, I've kind of gone too far in the opposite direction; we have so many omakes that I'm not confident we'd clear the stored bonuses we have now by the end of the quest. :rofl: Y'all are great, I've said once or twice. :D

So I've been trying to figure out a new system. I had an idea. Sanity check, please, everybody?

Basically: omakes pile up, and in a certain critical mass, make something happen. Like @clockworkchaos's omake series made an independent spy network happen. I could do something like that; if there's a lot of them on a topic, and all canon, they can lead to enduring, in-universe benefits materializing. Sanity checked, of course, and made setting-compliant, but that's the idea. And if there's no topical critical mass, I could hold regular votes to convert the undifferentiated critical mass into a fun bonus. Say, once you have ten in the tank, I hold a vote for if you want a) a minor surge in immigration, b) a clue in a frustrating mystery currently facing the Commonwealth, c) an entrepreneur scrapes together funding to launch a business you'd find valuable for one reason or another, or d) keep the bonuses.

Stuff like that. What do you think?
 
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