So I was stocking the dairy section the other day. I was doing a lot of work in the walk-in cooler and freezers so I had my old CAW logo'd black hoodie on (at least it's black). The boss comes up and hands me a spffy Buy Food jacket "Here, wear this. I'm worried if my boss sees you in that sweater he'll want to fire you."
I suppose I could have taken offence, but I figure if the company is going to give me clothes I'll wear them. I'll wear Buy Food underwear if they pay for it. I've worked in union and non-union shops. One place the company was pretty fair and I thought the workers didn't really need a union. In another, the company seemed to enjoy jerking folks around and they needed one. As long as the management are reasonable and treat folks fairly they don't have to worry about unions. After all I'd rather have the money for unionn dues in my pocket instead of the union's.
As an added bonus I've passed the three months mark at the Buy Food. The boss came up to me and said "Well if I wanted to get rid of you the deadline was yesterday, so fill this out and get it back to me ASAP." It was paperwork for benefits. Benefits! How cool is that?
It's not as great a package as I had at Cooper, but it's way better than I expected. Everyone here needs new glasses and a trip to the dentist.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Black Powder in Haributistan
For the mountains of Haributistan, it was a decently nice morning. The bugles from the Native Infantry were tootling away, the sun was shining and we hadn't been sniped at all night. I was doing my best to get on the outside of my tiffin while listening to Padre Peterson prosing on about some philosopical work he'd just read about in the Times. Dam'd decent chap the padre and useful to have about; saved the whole column a few years back, so I make polite noises and try to look like I understand what he's saying. I was just wondering where Radu was with some more tea when my Chief of Staff, Maj. Jeeves, bustled in trailing ammunition returns and camel inventories, saving me from having to make some intelligent comment on the transubstantiation of field mice or somesuch.
Gen. Wooster encourages the troops
"Excuse me sir, but the enemy has been sighted in strength blocking the pass. I've given orders to deploy as we discussed last evening, sir."
"Ah well, Jeeves. Jolly good! Let's go give that Wazir chap a sound thrashing!"
The Wazir of Pakora had been entertaining Russkie envoys, disguising themselves as fig merchants. But Calcutta got their wind up about Cossacks in the Khyber Pass so off we were sent to thrash the Native Johnnies, show the flag and levy a fine of rifles and sheep from the mountain tribes who'd been getting uppity of late.
This morning's objective was to force the Gates of Pakora; a nasty collection of rocks set in between even bigger and nastier rocks. But about the only place you can get through with a camel caravan. The Wazir had deployed his small army of medieval equipped troops around the Caravanserai where the camel wallahs stop for bhang and bints. On the mountains to either side he had Usman Khan the Hawk of Haributistan with his bands of Pathans occupying sangars.
Usman Khan, the Hawk of haributistan
view of Pathan lines
Pathans in sangars
the caravanserai
As I rode out on my horse waving my topi to encourage the lads I could see Jeeves had things well in hand. The Gordons and Gurkhas were on the left. In the center was my old regiment, the Blandingshire Fusiliers and the Madras Sappers. On the right we had the 21st Lancers and Hodson's Horse.
view of Anglo-Indian deployment
"Where'd those Guides chappies get off too, Jeeves?"
"The Guides are moving through the mountains to the north to try and turn the position, sir."
"Ah yes. Good show. Smart chaps those Guides."
A battery of heavy guns packed on elephants moved past, trumpeting away noisly.
"Right. Put those guns over on the right where they can shoot and move the 21st to cover them. In the meantime get the screw guns banging away and order a general adavance."
elephant battery advances
Jeeves gave the orders and sent gallopers flying hither and yon. Bugles sounded. Bagpipes squeeled and everybody started adavancing. From the rocks the pathans started banging away in fine style too.
In the center the Madras Pioneers were advancing on the caravanserai, one company out skirmishing. But a small cannon in the compound and some Pathan marksmen kept pinning them down and even made one company retire.
advance in the center
I galloped up waving my topi enthusiastically. "C'mon you lads! Don't let the side down, eh? Remeber the regiment and the Queen and there'll be extra chappattis for all." After a few minutes of this they got sorted and moved off again.
Meanwhile the Wazir had been pushing forward with his spearmen and Col. Bearsham brought up the Blandingshires to form a firing line. Arrows met Martini Henry fire. The spear chaps gave a jolly spirited charge but the good old Blandingshires held them and they broke.
Over on the right the 21st took a lot of stick fro the Pathan snipers and retired in complete disarray. I'm going to have to give them a sharp talking to tomorrow I'm sure. The elephant battery got fired on too and the padre had to bustle over and give them an encouraging sermon to buck them up.
Maj. Wentworth the cavalry commander noticed some tribal cavalry moving out from behind the mountain to turn our right and he quickly sent Hodson's Horse to block them. The Bengal Lancers charged in fine style but with disappointing results only managing to stop the pathan riders but not breaking them.
On the left there were mixed results. The Gordons kept tripping over their kilts and one company never advanced at all. I'll have to take away their beer ration for a while I think. The Gurkhas got stuck in though and charged up the mountain like a bunch of vicious goats driving off the tribesmen and exposing the Wazir's flank.
Gurkhas turn the flank
Highlanders don't do much except look pretty
After this the defender's spirits seem to flag and the pathans faded into the hills to send down a fine of rusting old fowling pieces and some scraggly sheep. The Wazir sent envoys to negotiate having a British resident in Pakora.
the Wazir
The above was a 28mm Colonial game we played using Black Powder. Since number of figures don't matter we went with 10-12 figure companies or 5-6 figure squadrons for the 'standard' sized units. A good time was had by all and three of the four players had no experience with the rules at all but we still managed to do a lot of gaming in about three hours. Plus I was able to put alot of my toys on the table. If we'd gotten started earlier then the Guides, Guide Cavalry and Sikhs would have been on the right flank, plus a few dozen more Pathans.
The Wazir of Pakora's troops started life as my Medieval Saracen/Moorish army but they've seen more action in Colonial wars than Medieval.
All in all, I'm quite pleased with the rules. They move quickly and allow for a lot of toys on the table. As you can see, I have a lot of toys and it's a shame to leave most of them in the box.
Gen. Wooster encourages the troops
"Excuse me sir, but the enemy has been sighted in strength blocking the pass. I've given orders to deploy as we discussed last evening, sir."
"Ah well, Jeeves. Jolly good! Let's go give that Wazir chap a sound thrashing!"
The Wazir of Pakora had been entertaining Russkie envoys, disguising themselves as fig merchants. But Calcutta got their wind up about Cossacks in the Khyber Pass so off we were sent to thrash the Native Johnnies, show the flag and levy a fine of rifles and sheep from the mountain tribes who'd been getting uppity of late.
This morning's objective was to force the Gates of Pakora; a nasty collection of rocks set in between even bigger and nastier rocks. But about the only place you can get through with a camel caravan. The Wazir had deployed his small army of medieval equipped troops around the Caravanserai where the camel wallahs stop for bhang and bints. On the mountains to either side he had Usman Khan the Hawk of Haributistan with his bands of Pathans occupying sangars.
Usman Khan, the Hawk of haributistan
view of Pathan lines
Pathans in sangars
the caravanserai
As I rode out on my horse waving my topi to encourage the lads I could see Jeeves had things well in hand. The Gordons and Gurkhas were on the left. In the center was my old regiment, the Blandingshire Fusiliers and the Madras Sappers. On the right we had the 21st Lancers and Hodson's Horse.
view of Anglo-Indian deployment
"Where'd those Guides chappies get off too, Jeeves?"
"The Guides are moving through the mountains to the north to try and turn the position, sir."
"Ah yes. Good show. Smart chaps those Guides."
A battery of heavy guns packed on elephants moved past, trumpeting away noisly.
"Right. Put those guns over on the right where they can shoot and move the 21st to cover them. In the meantime get the screw guns banging away and order a general adavance."
elephant battery advances
Jeeves gave the orders and sent gallopers flying hither and yon. Bugles sounded. Bagpipes squeeled and everybody started adavancing. From the rocks the pathans started banging away in fine style too.
In the center the Madras Pioneers were advancing on the caravanserai, one company out skirmishing. But a small cannon in the compound and some Pathan marksmen kept pinning them down and even made one company retire.
advance in the center
I galloped up waving my topi enthusiastically. "C'mon you lads! Don't let the side down, eh? Remeber the regiment and the Queen and there'll be extra chappattis for all." After a few minutes of this they got sorted and moved off again.
Meanwhile the Wazir had been pushing forward with his spearmen and Col. Bearsham brought up the Blandingshires to form a firing line. Arrows met Martini Henry fire. The spear chaps gave a jolly spirited charge but the good old Blandingshires held them and they broke.
Over on the right the 21st took a lot of stick fro the Pathan snipers and retired in complete disarray. I'm going to have to give them a sharp talking to tomorrow I'm sure. The elephant battery got fired on too and the padre had to bustle over and give them an encouraging sermon to buck them up.
Maj. Wentworth the cavalry commander noticed some tribal cavalry moving out from behind the mountain to turn our right and he quickly sent Hodson's Horse to block them. The Bengal Lancers charged in fine style but with disappointing results only managing to stop the pathan riders but not breaking them.
On the left there were mixed results. The Gordons kept tripping over their kilts and one company never advanced at all. I'll have to take away their beer ration for a while I think. The Gurkhas got stuck in though and charged up the mountain like a bunch of vicious goats driving off the tribesmen and exposing the Wazir's flank.
Gurkhas turn the flank
Highlanders don't do much except look pretty
After this the defender's spirits seem to flag and the pathans faded into the hills to send down a fine of rusting old fowling pieces and some scraggly sheep. The Wazir sent envoys to negotiate having a British resident in Pakora.
the Wazir
The above was a 28mm Colonial game we played using Black Powder. Since number of figures don't matter we went with 10-12 figure companies or 5-6 figure squadrons for the 'standard' sized units. A good time was had by all and three of the four players had no experience with the rules at all but we still managed to do a lot of gaming in about three hours. Plus I was able to put alot of my toys on the table. If we'd gotten started earlier then the Guides, Guide Cavalry and Sikhs would have been on the right flank, plus a few dozen more Pathans.
The Wazir of Pakora's troops started life as my Medieval Saracen/Moorish army but they've seen more action in Colonial wars than Medieval.
All in all, I'm quite pleased with the rules. They move quickly and allow for a lot of toys on the table. As you can see, I have a lot of toys and it's a shame to leave most of them in the box.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Black Powder at Soggy Bottom
Had a first go around with Black Powder last night, the hot new set of rules from Warlord Games that all the cool kids are playing these days.
We used some of Mike B's massiveFire & Fury collection; just made 8 stands (24 figures) a 'standard' regiment. He's really geeked out on the period and even gotten down to supply wagons and such which are always nice. Notice the reins on the 15mm wagon and team below:
I set up the town of Soggy Bottom at the convergence of some roads and littered the landscape with corn fields (made from artificial Christmas tree branches) and clumps of trees plus fences and a few stone walls.
Each army had 3x 4 regt. brigades of infantry and one two regiment brigade of cavalry. Each brigade had a battery of guns. Everybody was pretty vanilla and all the commanders had staff ratings of 8 since this was our first go at the rules.
But even with the inevitable chit chat, joking about (something my gang likes to do) and leafing through the rules to figure what to do we played to a conclusion with the Union cav breaking the Reb cav and starting to turn the Reb left flank while in the center after a titanic 4 round fight in the town three Union regiments broke two Reb regiments driving them out of the town. I tried over running a battery of unsupported Reb guns, but their closing fire drove me back shaken with three hits. On the right the Rebs (Mike B) were hampered by really crap command rolls. You live and die by your command rolls in this game and how you issue your orders is very important. It creates a nice amount of friction which I like.
It was a fun game, not too much unclarity we couldn't sort out by looking at the situation and as Walter observed "a lot happened" in a few hours. We played from about 8:30 until midnight with almost 600 infantry and 64 cavalry plus 8 batteries of guns (two models each, which was nice; they took up more room and looked prettier) on the table, did a lot of moving about and reached a conclusion.
Here's the Union left wing pushing through some corn after driving back the Reb advanced regiment.
Here's the view from the Reb perspective. Mike's finally gotten his brigade moving to get up and hunker down behind the railway embankment. Two regiments in line with one out front in skirmish.
Here's the after math of the fight in the town. Two Union brigades are pushing in while the remains of the Reb brigade hang on to the other edge of town.
This is the situation on the right wing. I started firefighting the Reb cavalry at the fenced road in the foreground and drove them back over the fields to turn the Reb left.
But the Rebs detached a brigade from pushing onto town in order to face left and make a new line along another fenced road. the battery of guns in the center are the ones that drove off my attacking regiment with close range cannister.
A longer view from the Union right down the battleline.
The fences, walls and buildings are Mike's. The buildings are paper models from the Fire & Fury rules. the fences and walls are scratch built. Mike also provided all of the figures (and we didn't use all of them either!). The trees are mine.
Ths gives me hope for playable,big horse and musket games.
We used some of Mike B's massive
I set up the town of Soggy Bottom at the convergence of some roads and littered the landscape with corn fields (made from artificial Christmas tree branches) and clumps of trees plus fences and a few stone walls.
Each army had 3x 4 regt. brigades of infantry and one two regiment brigade of cavalry. Each brigade had a battery of guns. Everybody was pretty vanilla and all the commanders had staff ratings of 8 since this was our first go at the rules.
But even with the inevitable chit chat, joking about (something my gang likes to do) and leafing through the rules to figure what to do we played to a conclusion with the Union cav breaking the Reb cav and starting to turn the Reb left flank while in the center after a titanic 4 round fight in the town three Union regiments broke two Reb regiments driving them out of the town. I tried over running a battery of unsupported Reb guns, but their closing fire drove me back shaken with three hits. On the right the Rebs (Mike B) were hampered by really crap command rolls. You live and die by your command rolls in this game and how you issue your orders is very important. It creates a nice amount of friction which I like.
It was a fun game, not too much unclarity we couldn't sort out by looking at the situation and as Walter observed "a lot happened" in a few hours. We played from about 8:30 until midnight with almost 600 infantry and 64 cavalry plus 8 batteries of guns (two models each, which was nice; they took up more room and looked prettier) on the table, did a lot of moving about and reached a conclusion.
Here's the Union left wing pushing through some corn after driving back the Reb advanced regiment.
Here's the view from the Reb perspective. Mike's finally gotten his brigade moving to get up and hunker down behind the railway embankment. Two regiments in line with one out front in skirmish.
Here's the after math of the fight in the town. Two Union brigades are pushing in while the remains of the Reb brigade hang on to the other edge of town.
This is the situation on the right wing. I started firefighting the Reb cavalry at the fenced road in the foreground and drove them back over the fields to turn the Reb left.
But the Rebs detached a brigade from pushing onto town in order to face left and make a new line along another fenced road. the battery of guns in the center are the ones that drove off my attacking regiment with close range cannister.
A longer view from the Union right down the battleline.
The fences, walls and buildings are Mike's. The buildings are paper models from the Fire & Fury rules. the fences and walls are scratch built. Mike also provided all of the figures (and we didn't use all of them either!). The trees are mine.
Ths gives me hope for playable,
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