War With A Mate - Episode 34: Trains, Planes and Automobiles

Episode Date: July 25, 2025

The resolution of air missions over Fort Maddelenna leaves more questions than answers when it comes to the next steps of engagement, with both sides reeling from strikes. The guys traverse a time-trials episode by reminiscing on icons passed; some modern, some Māori. All this before settling on a Common Ground that sees the world living the quiet life - wouldn’t that be nice?

welcome to war with a mate it's me it's james it's me andy here we are both of us just like you asked you said just bring the two of you along we don't need anyone else's company we just need you guys we heard you we listened and to be fair it's all we ever really do we've had guests like twice so i don't even know why people said that that's wild i don't think they did oh no sorry i'm listening to the voices in your head again i am i am and you know what i think it was very sound advice because today that's all we needed you me the campaign for north africa what else is a better recipe for an episode of war with a mate that is the recipe yeah it is mix in a bit of a sprinkle of time sensitivity because i've got a train to catch okay remember that i've got

a train i need to catch so we can't fluff this up with pointless conversation that just kind of drones on and on that isn't about the game i mean okay i'll let it's you're missing the train how you been andy i mean you literally can't complain but fine i've been good it's been good it's been a it's been a i've had a busy week work has been it's been wild and i've i came here a little bit buzzed today because there were some uh some work festivities some drinks flowing and i uh popped around left that very early because you know i don't have time for that i've got the campaign for north africa to play and how'd it go uh the game itself was um oh mixed bag i would have to say because today we brought about the the bombing the bombing of upstage three

the bombing over fort magdalena and the somewhat surprise bombing maybe of my fourth black shirts and your fourth indian division fourths we're getting it it's the fourths all the fourths they've all been forthcoming when it comes to bombing that was a play on words was it yeah i said fourth several times and i said it in a funny voice oh okay so we we played out that bombing and i got some results that i would describe as mixed primarily because i got all my bombs off and i managed to pin everyone i was trying to pin didn't do it to the full extent i could have pinned up to six battalions per bomb or per bombing hit instead i pinned four at most yeah four and three and then the other three were just individual infantry units they were

essentially auto pinned yes turns out i maybe over committed some bombs but i'd rather over than under commit yeah so i definitely pinned some of you guys and the other ones i managed to pin to an extent however you also took on some of my fighters because one of your bombing runs intercepted one of my bombing yes so my close yeah fighters split off and hunted them down so we had another dogfight we did we had a dogfight and this time i was the one who was massively outmatched yes i had 18 planes 18 fighters i had 21 and you won uh yeah i've got four you got one so that means you not only had the excess already but you also took out some of my guys yeah so i managed to get very lucky it was the very first yeah i thought that was gonna

set the tone i was it has previously i was not likely to win that but i did roll a 12 which was the highest i could roll and still win yeah i had an option of two dice results and that was the one i got so i shot one of your fighters out the sky i also thought that was going to set the the tone for the whole thing but turns out no that's that's a one-off that's a one and done because i for the rest of it either survived or was downed yes something we will have to roll next session is to see if those downed planes make it back make it back or rather the pilots make it back i don't think you've ever had any pilots go down no i guess it's more just the thematic no because if you get a one the plane limps back um oh yeah sorry yes and then the other one limps

back to the plane doesn't make it the pilot like ejects and walks yes so that'll be interesting to determine see if any of my pilots managed to make it back with a sense of vengeance in their heart i hope they don't i hope they do so that's where we differ and then i got through and had a very unsuccessful run on your bombers yes you you encountered my bombers you had six attacks on six individual bombers yeah not a single one shot down i think most of them i needed 30s uh yeah so it should have been about 50 50 in fact i believe one of my bombers shot one of your fighters down yes i think they did it was again the first one yes so the first fighter dog fight and the first bomber versus fighter dog fight yeah played out perfectly well in the second

one only a fighter went down no bombers yes so you didn't stop any of the bombers uh of my four bombing runs this was the only bombing run where there was a chance for you to um sorry a harder chance for you to tip the scale because for the other three if you'd intercepted them all it would take is taking out one bomber yeah and it would change the column that i was working off whereas with this one i had a good margin for error because these were a lot of smaller bombers they only had bombing capacity of four bombs each yeah so you'd have to take out a few of those in order to do that but it worked out in my favor you didn't take out any bombers anyway and i dropped my payload all went well there's a lot of pins in the fort magdalena region yes because you also

drop your bombs yeah i dropped them on your what number black shirts are the ones next to fort first so i dropped them on their first black shirt and my fourth are the ones who've run off into the desert yes uh and they got pinned i've did three on infantry units and one four in the other i think yes you've you've covered a few infantry units in each yeah so my thinking was infantry is the bottleneck on movement because if a unit's pinned by air bombardment it could only move half its cpa exactly which i'm hoping keeps those units to a sort of two or three square range as a hex range which is difficult because my black shirts are primarily made of elite infantry units so the fact that you've managed to hamstring them means that you've regardless

of the movement restriction you've taken out the combat capability yes because if i can't get them there i can't really fight effectively and if they're pinned they can't willingly engage in combat of their own volition yes they need to be on the receiving end and defend yeah and that's not great for anyone tactically no if you can only defend quite the opposite so i think what we have done with this bombing run is effectively delayed the battle of fort magdalena uh yeah i mean i i think it's it's definitely pushed it back a bit i don't think it's going to play out the way both of us thought it would no it'll be a different beast um it's no longer the overwhelming encounter where i rush you and destroy you at fort magdalena and then the

fourth black shirts fuck around on the flank yeah now we're looking at how these units maneuver a very tough situation because this also changes their supply functions because realistically if my guys can't move around very well that changes how well they can get supplied

because the fourth black shirts are in the middle of nowhere I was kind of depending on picking off some of your trucks to supply them yep also I think they shouldn't be able to get to that supply dump they're near they i'll tell you now they can't yeah because it's their capability restrictions away from

it is and it's yeah they can't they can't do it so what you have done is you've stopped them from resupplying and as well as that you've restricted their combat capability massively what i am happy about is that your fourth indian division which were the closest division that was just solely near them, is also now pinned for the good most part. Yeah, that infantry is also pinned, so they'll be not moving very

far. And they have a long walk across the desert if they want to get to the fourth Blackshirts. There's no tracks. I was going to rush them over and probably push some of the infantry into a bit of decohesion. Which I thought was the plan. To try and grab those guys, but now

I literally can't. So I think I've saved them from an attack that they might have had a tough time with but they will maybe start to starve next turn yeah really seeing the value of because i think it was last top stage uh well it must have been because it rained on the first one um we dropped quite a lot of bombs on well you dropped a lot of bombs on a unit a shit thinking you were taking them out toe wise it was the coldstream guards yeah i was getting my revenge on the coldstream guards yeah but it seems it's less of a it's not about eliminating it's uh like a pin in place well you're given the pin

condition yeah it's really uh like a positioning thing rather than a damage thing yeah you keep them locked down you don't actually kill them off yeah um which is contrary to strafing yes which i only found out today when you were talking about your plan to strafe which we will resolve next session yes you are going to strafe some of my guys and that actually removes toe points that does if you yeah you can strafe various targets if you choose to strafe infantry you can kill them

and remove tow so yeah which is wild I think realistically we should probably just get rid of that rule no right well another situation where we're at odds and maybe we'll find some sort of like balance we can do common

ground now if you want actually it could be that let's keep doing the rule so my common ground this week is that we should get rid of strafing what do you feel about that andy i feel like if we can remove elements of this game it's a very slippery slope before it's essentially a game of snap uh oh right okay well we'll put a pin in that for now was it you'll be able to strafe me surely yeah but you took a lot of my fighters away remember when you did this at fort magdalena that's why we're here that's why we're fighting there yeah yeah you're a real son of a bitch

yeah I'm not strafing you with fighters though yeah you're strafing me with bombers which if anything I feel like is more insulting yeah I don't know why they're in the bombing table they don't have a bomb rating I'll tell you what Andy it's probably an error they should probably have bombs like 10 they should have been absolutely

smashing you well what was scary is seeing the massive the huge difference between the tack air and manoeuvrability of my bombers that you were up against with your fighters yes because fighter versus fighter the attack air rating it tends to sit anywhere between sort of two and five two and six i think is the biggest difference we've seen sort of without pilots yeah and then maneuverability for fighters

you're looking at 25 versus 32 is the biggest yeah stretch then when it came to the bomber versus fighters it was tack air of two base versus six sometimes for you so you had six versus my two the one of them was eight yeah so eight versus my two and then also uh maneuverability of 32 versus nine yeah the table caps out at a point where it's you get five five points adjustment so you can't go beyond that even if it's further but yeah um and you you hit that comfortably twice during that encounter and still didn't shoot down a single bomber no uh how does that feel bad yeah uh they i do think it's a cool thing the bombers get attack air rating improvement as they the more of them that are in a flight yes strength in numbers sort of situation yeah you

it bumped up two didn't it yes the scale i had i think it might be 18 where it tips over yeah i mean it might be 5 to 17 or something sounds about right and then 18 plus is two you don't get three or four though and i had 27 so that was a plus two which meant that my base two went up to a base four which was pretty good but again when they have maneuverability of nine doesn't really help means that i'm stuck up shits creek without a paddle because my paddles got shot down in this case they didn't enough of them got shot down the paddles did oh yes but the i guess what whoever was in the paddle matthew lillard um seth green okay from the film without a paddle i've not seen it ah well they're both in that oh okay so that sounds terrible that's

the reference i mean they're both great actors are they great actors seth green seth green yeah you ever heard of a little program called family guy yeah he's in that i know he's heavily involved buffy the vampire slayer yeah he's bad in that whoa hold the fucking horses there um what he's Bard and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Yeah, I highlighted that when we watched it. Right, first of all, you can't have. We watched one episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer for yet another failed pilot podcast that we were going to do.

And he's not in that episode. He's not in episode one. I've seen him in Buffy and didn't think he was great. Right, you haven't seen him. You haven't seen him. Not believable. What does that even mean? I just didn't believe him.

You didn't believe he was an actor? I didn't believe he was scared of vampires. He's not scared of vampires. He's doing a good job. Oh, okay. Maybe I misread it. So everybody who's seen Buffy the Vampire Slayer and knows Seth Green's character, Oz,

knows that he's the most sort of laid-back guy possibly in the whole show. So if anyone's not scared of vampires, it's definitely him. So thank you, Andy, for vindicating the listeners, for vindicating the fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It's fine.

Which is an incredible program, by the way. It's possibly one of the best television shows ever made. I'll remove the possibly. It's definitely up there, top five. Top five? Top five, comfortably. i mean you have a huge nostalgia boner for it but it's not top five programs ever made just because you're looking at my hard hard penis right now it's not that hard

just because you're looking at my kind of half limp penis yeah don't look at it all right this is a this is a podcast where we're talking about the campaign for north africa not what we're talking about how erect i can or can't get sorry that wasn't a multiple choice question that was me try oh sorry try to focus on the topic at hand we yeah try to talk about the game andy come on okay i'm you know i've noticed this about this uh this podcast you always go off on tangents yeah that's me you always derail the topic i don't know why you're doing that now i've got a train to catch and you're talking about my penis that's wild talk about your own penis of anything that's outrageous you've talked about it before i don't like that can't remember the

episode but you definitely have probably it's not a lot of bullshit we are quite known for it but overall this has set a an interesting groundwork we've we've only just dropped some bombs that's kind of been the whole thing today and we've got a little bit to resolve in terms of the strafing but all in all we've locked each other down pretty hard oh yeah i mean we both were successful in what we were going for so i think a big part of next session will be breaking down how the the close quarters combat looks the close assault is going to be massively changed if it happens it will happen to some extent i would imagine well it's up to you really if you're going to push in or not i've been i've been thinking about that the last sort of half hour

since we've been wrapping up and it has changed my mind on some aspects i'm gonna have to re-evaluate because there's there's some groups that are pinned which i can get to you yeah but i don't know i the cpa being halved means that i can't go all in i can still barrage you because you didn't pin any of my guns yep but i don't know i feel like the it could go bad it could go bad because if you go in for close assault with your guys and i want to retreat i can't You also might not be able to attack with your infantry. I can, because I can get through that hex. I just have to go one hex forward.

It's five CPA to attack. Yes. So if they have... If they're infantry, they max out at ten CPA. It's a clear... Oh, God, yeah. And you can only use half. Clear's a four.

Yeah. And even just with the attack thing, you'd have to be... No, clear's a two, sorry. Yeah, but of your ten, attacking is five. yes a seven and you can only use five yes so you can move up next to me and not attack and i guess be an idiot yeah oh hang on a minute but then you're pinned and you can't move if you run and and if you are in an enemy zone of control when you're pinned no i couldn't move yeah you i could lock you in you could delay it a turn and lock it in

wow there is there's a lot of thoughts to be had before the next session yeah i just realized that now that because of the way infantry works and the five attack if you pin infantry with a bomber it can't fight at all yeah you also can't choose to do offensive stuff but not with those guys anyway all in all it's it's changed it's changed yeah that was quite a lot i don't like it andy i don't like it i still think you're in a better position well that's an interesting point because we did put a poll up this week on the instagram we we put up a poll to see what the thoughts are and who would win the practice scenario the graziani offensive and two-thirds thought that i am going to come out victorious with this yeah and only one third in andy's favor however i don't

know that that's all there because i think i've one messed up my truck convoys massively and two stuff like this i think you are making the better tactical decisions i genuinely think that you've had a better handle on the tactician side of things it's just that i've got the the sheer numbers that are in the area i think maybe but i've only like little moves but what i've blown is ignoring siwa and the the initial move to drive forward with the seventh but ignoring siwa i overall for a win condition it's bad but if i just have siwa and everyone else is dead yeah it's not that beneficial of an area to have yeah i think really fort magdalena has become we've talked about this last time it's become the fulcrum in which the game is now balanced because

if one side is pushed away from there then that's kind of it we've both got units i've realized when i was looking at the map today rushing in that direction you've got the fourth indian yeah i've got another two divisions of black shirts that are also on route yes i've also got my first and second libyan divisions i mean yeah you've got a lot of stuff you can sort of bring a bear well my libyan divisions i think are the answer to your fourth indian division oh you're gonna send them along the top it's more case of i think they are the counterpart to your movement because they're also they're almost kind of opposite sides mirrored like up a bit yes so they're up towards the north they're on the coastline i've got two divisions is the difference but i'm also

still hesitant to throw them straight in there mostly because of stuff like today yeah where it can it can turn immediately and when it does it throws the plan out of whack and i need to think this through i need to think it through because i've not been doing that well if you can get with your planes uh a pin off on a unit you're about to attack it should it completely changed because they can't take part i'd love to get my pin off yeah but i mean you did i don't want to get my pin off all day every day andy um it's just not happening i need i need a plan and this has really fucked my plan so i don't know why you've done this well i know why you want like kinder bueno plan yeah you want like fucking kinder bueno at the end of the scenario all in all i think it's

it's been uh just terrible behavior on your part i'll accept the charge what what is the charge Eating a meal A succulent Chinese meal Ozzy Osbourne died this week Yeah Died yesterday I guess it's sad It's a shame

Prince of Darkness I'm a big fan of the Osbournes Yeah, all of them No, the show But they're all in there I know, I don't like any of them individually I just like the editing I saw Ozzy Osbourne at Download Festival

Quite a while ago A few years ago Was it 2017? 2018 I think it was At the end of each song He was on for three hours it's too long and it was about what halfway through the end of the song he started saying does anyone want to hear one more song well at least one more song buddy you got another hour

and a half and he started dropping that in pretty much every song that he finished did he want people to start going no because he was tired and then he played the song war pigs for about 20 minutes that's weird because it's not a 20 minute song it's not yeah you know you're correct it's about six minutes that would be good i do like so much stuff i'm not a big listener but well yeah black sabbath uh ozzy osbourne i mean i'm big into that kind of music and i think he was a i think he's a great musician and uh we talked about this a bit earlier uh one without massive controversy which you don't often have for someone with that tenure usually they aren't that like world yeah exactly you usually get you know some unsavory characters in that kind of area but from what i

know a lot of his controversies and this is probably where i'm going to get corrected and turns out he's this horrible man he's a monster but from what i understand his controversies are mostly around the sort of you know um obviously you struggle with substance abuse and you know he's uh being part of the sort of satanic panic yeah back in the day which i don't think is a controversy so much as a sign of the times no so overall yeah i'd say i think it's a big loss it's a weird thing where you're kind of rooting for like elderly people who's working like to like die before anything comes out well i i guess probably not that because that sounds like they get away with it that sounds like you've got a bit of a saddle situation you want them to be

like you wanted to find out you want to find out nothing you want everything to wrap up and then not to be a thing yeah you want to find out like after they're dead as well that turns out no they're actually fine yeah they've died and no one comes forward because nothing bad happened because that neil gaiman one upset me that's the thing like there's so many because i didn't know that he was behind stardust i don't know if you've ever seen that yeah with charlie cox yeah and it's got that it's got like a narnia style thing over the fence yes in like cornwall i think it is yeah i remember i've not seen that for a while i remember that being fun i loved that film growing up i thought it was an incredible film loved it to bits and to be honest hadn't really watched it

a whole lot in recent years but it had a special place in my heart so when it turned out neil gaiman was a a monster found this out at the pub around the time it happened and i was having the conversation at the pub and the stuff that i was hearing yeah oh it's just skin crawling sort of stuff it was also very horrible because it really adjusted a lot of the themes in his work which had been about like acceptance of jed or identity and stuff and then it's like oh no the guy who a lot of this is this in a new light like well yeah whenever an artist has something about escapism and inclusion and getting away from the horrors of reality and into a safe place and it's like but when you look at that through the lens of grooming and being a predatory

character all of a sudden the work is tainted and it's it's not very positive anymore yeah that's why i love terry pratchett he just wrote more books than most authors that were good and just was a bloody good guy by all accounts yeah i've not heard a single bad thing about him apart from the fact he had horrible health that's the only thing i can i guess criticize the guy for his health kind of fell apart oh well that's why that's why this is a safe place andy because here at war with a mate we lock ourselves away in a living room for hours at a time we play a bad board game the most controversial thing we do is common ground yeah and even then it's usually for the betterment of mankind so this place is a sanctuary so don't you guys worry when we die

in four years we'll have an untarnished legacy four years the tarnish will be that we didn't fit we don't have a legacy the tarnish will be i guess whatever happens in four years whatever horrible travis because we die in the same day i don't know if you know that oh i didn't i'm not into that i had a word with uh nostradamus he didn't know anything he knows about us he was just writing weird stuff to criticize the government that's kind of what common ground is oh yeah maybe future generations will think where troops is i don't think they will i don't think future generations know who we are they're not digging this up well i think that's probably for the best i think i think we just kind of accept this as being a a bit of a

crapshoot unfortunately it's it's not all there um however i guess if we were to try and build a bit of a legacy we need to see what people do think so maybe we should dip into the mailbag there it is he's holding his finger a bit of a delay oh and there it is oh god you've made me look a fool it's all right i'll edit it i'll edit it in thanks i have control over that i know that's why i think you're gonna make me look foolish i'm actually gonna put it in right there over you over that part there it's all right people already know when it's come in you guys have to sort of spoiled it for ourselves there because it's already happened at this point so you've been sending messages left right and center and we do first of all have a bit of a

an honorable mention in a sense because our dear friend matthew now matthew is a an avid listener of the podcast and we know that because matthew is a he's a real stickler for the rules and we love that because matthew listens to war with a mate and i think he's playing by himself he's definitely played parts of it yes because matthew sends in occasional addendas to rules and there's been some back and forth we've had with him very great guy very in-depth analysis of the game and matthew we know you're listening we appreciate what you do yes he will pick out some points there'll be some back and forth some um discussion and occasionally you point out some massive flaws that we've had and he's done that again very recently because we've got wrong the repair rules

for vehicles i don't know if i think i just ignored them or something but yeah we just completely we've both had it in our heads you had to have a unit go next to them to recover them yeah so whenever we've been having breakdown in the desert we thought we have to send guys out to get them turns out that's only the case if we're capturing enemy units but if you have a downed unit out in the desert that unit can actually just start making its way back and that's something we didn't realize until matthew sent in this message yeah because we were so scared of the notion of it i think i mentioned this last week about my convoys thinking that it's not worth sending guys out to go get the trucks however matthew has got in touch and explained that when it comes to

broken down units they can move three hexes during the the repair phase the sort of towing element of that is is self-fulfilling so you don't need to do that and matthew even talks about his own convoys in his game and that he has 32 italian truck convoys which makes me feel a lot better about my 15 truck convoys yeah so all in all once again matthew you've saved my bacon here because you were also the same person who pointed out i've got a lot of my airfields on towns and burrs so i can use the water there yeah so matthew is sort of the he's been helping you a lot yeah you need you need your own matthew because he's been saving me because i've been making fucking mistakes left right and center maybe we'll have to blacklist matthew from emails when we play the full campaign

no why we've just been talking about how useful he is and how it's good but at that point we're no longer practicing so we can't get in touch anymore matthew please keep going matthew you've got you're on a timer buddy um after a certain amount of time can't get in touch anymore uh same goes for everybody we might just shut down the emails what are you doing man it's called alienating the fan base don't know if you heard of it it's fine they love being alienated they love playing hard to get no one likes me it's hard to get listeners to this that's why they're hard to get no well let's go on to some actual mail apart from people who are just correctly correcting us shout out exactly so let's have a little look here who we got we have

first and foremost uh hayden do you want to take the reins yeah i've got that one up here i've just read his full name we're gonna have to bleep that remember to bleep that right okay james bleep that bleep that i'm gonna put a little reminder on for the editing i've just done an andy i've just doxxed somebody it's not an andy anymore now it's a nursey oh dear sorry about that hayden but it's okay no one will know no one will know because i'm gonna i'm gonna block it out this is what happens when you go to work drinks before you come for more with a mate so hello andy and james long time listener second time emailer here this summer i've been traveling throughout asia and europe uh for the summer while i've been uh

out of college for the summer uh the episode has given me something to look forward to on the long flights and train rounds around the world and i thank you for that i also would like to applaud james on your taste in books as house and leaves uh is one of my favorite books of all time surely the characters in the books uh would have enjoyed it more if they had spis the campaign for north africa to keep them occupied damn right anyhow i have a question for you all uh that is twofold can you tie at the end of the game and what will you do if it happens thank you both uh and i wish you the best of luck on completing the game certainly humbly and bravely hayden well thank you hayden i i won't talk to you again but i will say we appreciate the mail uh a second time

emailer as well we will happily take more than one email especially when it's uh one that i enjoy because it mentions one house of leaves which is again my favorite book you've heard about this last time and secondly it mentions the campaign for north africa which is semi-related to this podcast so the campaign for north africa is uh it's it's very important to us andy i don't know what your thoughts are on that game yeah i feel the same buddy you know i could have still been partying in the office right now could have been partying in the office i'm here uh when it comes to what happens when we when we tie because it can happen so if it gets to turn 111 of the full game there is a chance to tie yeah we uh tally up victory points and stuff yes if it gets to that

point we tally up victory points and there's a ratio of victory points and it's based on yeah a ratio of how many to what value sort of slight it's like a two to one to three to one kind of situation and it does actually have a little caveat in there which is for thai it just sort of says what a massive waste of time which is correct so there is actually a bit of a caveat in there for if it's thai richard berg thinks that we've wasted our time and we will also think we've wasted our time i don't know what happens at that point i think we just go out for the meal and we go dutch uh no we start again i'll be the italians you'll be the allies i see tiebreaker yes best of three well that is also the only way to find out if the game is balanced is we both play both sides

are you mendel you fucking insane they were doing this twice at least right best of seven right that's not no right everyone don't listen to him i'm also cutting this part out may as well be doxing this is just absolutely bad form bad behavior uh no if it gets to a tie then uh i i think it might be the funniest result it would be the funniest result you'll have uh i think a final episode of war with a mate where we smash in the background you'll definitely hear i don't know what is what is the sound of the campaign for north africa being ignited that's what you'd hear a gentle whoosh and then out my fingers yeah you'd hear that i guess some hysterical laugh some crying the sound of a tv hitting the floor and then it just sort of trails

out from there then you hear the the outro and that's it that's how war with the mate ends and fire so to answer your question aiden if um if we if we tie the game which we can do then it goes really bad for both of us very quickly i sure hope it's not a tie and the issue is we'll know if it's a tie in the last few turns we might actually not though because there's all the like guys who left and came back oh god there's so much stuff there's a bunch of i kind of hope it's not so we because if it is a tie it means we've had to work all that shit out it's not just your favor across than me we need to figure out the ratio yeah so yeah um that that's the answer to your question i'm afraid and um we we'll have a bad time if we if we tie but that's

yeah but also yes enjoy your traveling and um you say you're traveling through asia and europe for the summer um hopefully it's going well we've we've been to europe we live there right now oh sorry about giving away our location the secret bat cave in which we record everything sorry no we're in asia there you go that's bigger won't find us there well thank you let's go on to the next we have a message from greg what's greg gotta say greg is in arizona that's what he's put in the email greetings from the southwest corner of the u.s i've been listening to you guys for a few weeks now sorry just on episode 11 of the podcast and for the first time yesterday was listening while i was performing my own pointless endeavor and was struck by some similarities

okay well episode 11 that's before we even really played the game so let's see what the similarities these are. I'm about 99% done with replaying the 1986 baseball season with AH's Status Pro Baseball. Okay. I started in 2017. Each of the 26 teams play 162 games, so 2,106 games in total, and each game takes about 20 to 30 minutes to play. Baseball is a sport that tracks every little stat and then takes those to make new stats for example on base percentage equals hits plus walks plus hit by pitch divided by at bats plus walks plus hit by pitch plus sack fly all tracked by me in huge sprawling spreadsheets those spreadsheets are going to be glorious greg do you want to come work for us we can't pay you but you're welcome to come along all trapped with me in huge sprawling

spreadsheets i've learned not to bring this project up in polite conversation well you're better than me because i bring it up every chance i get even if it's tangential it ruins conversation so i just wanted to let you gents know that while the end is nowhere in sight you might get there and look back on eight plus years of playing with some satisfaction and honestly regret as it is part of my nearly daily routine that being said my commitment pales beside what you guys are doing perhaps by tenfold so don't feel bad if you eventually don't get to the end the journey itself will be of some reward by the way since i have to picture you guys somehow in my head i've chosen simon pegg and nick frost keep up the good work greg in arizona

well first and foremost greg wow it's such a beautiful experience putting this out there to hear about these people who are tapping into war with the may because they've got their own kind of psychosis going on because we've had people messaging that seem to be experts on heathcliff comics people who are playing the game solo for the fun of it to figure out the rules and now somebody who is for some reason torturing themselves through the medium of baseball replays so it's it's a beautiful little community we fostered here just all of us morons who've decided to play not even play just document things disguised as games it's genuinely confounding and it's really heartwarming as well and greg i really hope this goes well for you because

it sounds like you found your own little niche passion which is also spreadsheet based we can relate to that cool actually i think well it's i'd be interested to see the results of it like the breakdown of like who wins that season that's another good point every game because this is another alternate history thing yeah so if you can greg we'd love to have a bit of a follow-up to let us know what the what the sort of reality looks like 99.9 percent done or something didn't 99% done. So, if you could give us an idea, Greg, as to how accurate this is to real life. Who's going to the World Series?

Yeah, because presumably you've probably got the actual stats as well. If, based on the kind of guy I can gauge you are here, Greg, I think you also know the real stats. So, if you could compare those, fire them over to us, roughly, we'd be interested in seeing that. In fact, we'll take the stats and

we'll release them week by week as if the league's going and our fans can have a fantasy baseball league based on the results of this guy of his project uh while that does sound like a funny spin-off our plate's kind of full what to do a fantasy baseball league about about a fantasy baseball league oh it's just at that point annie it's a hat on a hat i don't think we need to do that we've already picked our ridiculous endeavor we'll leave this in greg's wheelhouse because he's the expert on this but if anybody else has any wacky side projects that are going on whether

it's something you've done or a friend has done please let us know because it's lovely to know we're not on our own here and i feel like stuff like this it doesn't get the airtime it needs yeah and it's cool to find out about because i would never have known a guy was doing this but it's cool that it is because what drives someone to do this we found out about this game it's a it's a fairly well-known game it's just there's not many people stupid enough to actually try playing it again anyone playing this you're not necessarily stupid but it's you you do know something's going on you've got something something on you it's a lot of time that could be spent elsewhere yeah you've got something wrong and the baseball thing is is it's beautiful it really is

and when it comes to how we look simon pegg and nick frost and it's actually a not a bad i think that's weirdly accurate yeah yeah well where's simon pegg and nick frost from wish yes i think that's yeah you've actually kind of sniped it there greg maybe we'll do we'll do a big face reveal shall we no i don't want a big face reveal when greg finishes his baseball series we want cards though you we want to we want to be put on cards baseball cards um by the way greg does follow up um shortly afterwards a couple of minutes after the first email adding that the regret that he mentioned with it being part of his regular routine it's regret that it's almost done not regretting doing it in the first place yeah and i will have

that because i'll be honest today i did leave that work event a bit early had a few drinks came here and i was looking forward to playing this to get away from the the downtrodden nature of work this week work has been a certified nightmare recently and it's weird that this is my escape so if anyone else has a weird escape that they get away to whether it's baseball or campaign for north africa anything else fire over a message would love to hear about it it's genuinely exciting to hear when other people have whatever's wrong with us wrong with them we don't feel alone the email address is info at war with a mate.co.uk the instagram is war with a mate and we are we have the website which is war with a mate.co.uk there's a web form on there

it's kind of broken a little bit we don't get many notifications from it it doesn't come through the same way yeah the notifications if you send it it will arrive i just won't get a notification so i have to manually check so yeah the email's the best way but fire anything over anything you want to you want to have read out or anything in general just yeah fire it over but that's it for the mail nice and with the end of telegram comes of course andy's history segment indeed and it is surely the 28th maori it is we're continuing with these guys oh come on lay it on me what are they up to now well we'll start off uh aki aki kai kai which is the unit motto in the maori language upwards upwards be strong oh god and they are they're always strong oh yes that's kind of their

thing so uh last time they'd been fighting as they pushed into uh as they pushed into libya yes end of 1941 uh well they got sent off to syria uh briefly in that time uh you know the captain love who was mentioned yes i remember love yep they got promoted to lieutenant colonel and placed in charge of the unit good on him becoming the first maori leader of the unit nice which was a promise that was made when it was set up that they actually kept internal progression better than most workplaces i've been in so they returned uh from syria after a while away came back in june so spent about six months ish away more like came back into the junes yes one of their yes indeed one of their first engagements when they got back um was the

new zealand second were encircled by the 21st panzer division okay only a desperate breakout saved the day uh after do you want to know what tactic was used um was it fixed bayonets a fixed bayonets the maoris the maoris led a surprise night attack breaking the encirclement leading to a 160 kilometer dash back to the ll main line and correct me if i'm wrong andy but the panzers are tanks uh yes and they bayoneted their way around this they bayoneted their way out yeah if it ain't broke don't fix it i mean it's not broke so the next three months uh the battles uh sort of ebb and flow it's a bit of a stalemate uh the maori are in reserve at the time and avoid a disaster that hits the new zealand second where the fourth and fifth brigades are um

destroyed but lieutenant colonel love was killed by shelling ah another another loss yeah their officers do not have long long shelf lives unfortunately you need to stay up front with your with your fixed bayonets that's how you get through the maoris yeah but it was now led by lieutenant colonel fred baker whose diary we've read about the 42nd street battle yes i remember baker yes yes okay so presumably he dies very soon uh so in august and september they're uh leading successful raids again very much the tip of the spear and during the second battle of el alamein a thrust that cost the maru battalion 100 casualties including fred baker who was wounded oh god was instrumental in that battle they basically looped around the line is this their

most is that the most losses they've had the most casualties uh in the war so far yes yes that definitely sounds like the most yeah in a single sort of day or engagement uh yeah so far because it ends about a thousand are injured by the end of the north africa campaign oh wow so this is this is a massive chunk a tenth of them yeah but they did a blunt they helped beat off a german counter-attack in tunisia and were sent to flank and seize a pass um their objective was somewhere called 0.209 uh and a foothill that the maori ended up calling hikarangi named after a sacred mountain in new zealand uh led by captain arapeta from the sea company who were the cowboys later seized it

on the 26th of March and held it throughout the night against desperate counterattacks from panzer grenadiers the point fell the next day and 231 prisoners were taken again the Maori suffered almost 100 casualties

including 22 dead now we're accounting for nearly a quarter of all of their losses I think they're starting to become a victim of their own success to a certain level where these guys are known to get results and known to be effective in the thickest of the fighting so it's no longer a case of they're a unit that have went above and beyond now they're being pushed forward as the forefront well it's like these guys get results that push them forward and yeah

so but uh one of them does uh receive the victoria cross for this uh the first maori what is the criteria for the victoria it's very high um i think it's the highest honor i i was thinking that yeah he got it for bravery and calm and a fire and essentially controlling that situation which very much sounds like their wheelhouse that's very on brand for them yeah um and now we're up to the final confrontation uh major confrontation they had of the north africa campaign okay um which happened on the 20th of april 1943 at a place called takaruna uh 180 meter high rock fortress held by the enemy on top of a very steep hill bristling with guns and surrounded by landmines okay nevertheless two sections under the command of hanny manohani

sorry about the names guys they managed to scale one side of the escarpment and gain a pin a foothold at the pinnacle on early dawn following heavy shell fire and hand-to-hand fighting against the italians they're forced to retreat off the pinnacle of this hill twice both times regroup and come back which ultimately leads to them taking the machine gun and mortar of positions which so the italians on the top of the hill become encircled because the back position that you'd have to normally go through the whole base to get to these lads have climbed up the mountain and coming from the back yeah because they've got bayonets and you get real close uh this is a quote from uh edwis dennis dundlan uh bring a uh brigadier major for the new zealand

second i recall takaroon and the fierce fighting there your battalion suffered heavy casualties including ceo charlie bennett and most of the officers yet as your history records there were many incredible exploits and bravery and initiative by ncos and other rank surely one of the finest chapters in your proud history i wrote a citation for a victoria cross for sergeant uh mahani and the rest of and like the rest of the division was disgusted when he was rewarded a dcm uh distinguished combat medal yeah uh which is still very high but but not quite the rank of what they were offered no uh i feel sure that here was an example that even in the realm even in the realm of bravery politics played a part and that the award to second lieutenant uh nagrimi who won it

previously uh only some weeks previously influenced the final decision for me this was confirmed when later at the sporting club in cairo our military secretary brigadier rudd asked me to tell the story to a senior british general the general's comment was what we did was a mistake um so they should he they think they should have um but for whatever reason politically he didn't get it i wonder what the politics are behind that then no i tried to look into it i think there's a certain amount of like racism there i was expecting it to be unfortunately they're one of the most decorated units in the war at this point and i wonder if there's a certain case of like there's only 700 of these guys in when the units like two of them getting it i don't know i guess also it depends

on who issues these medals yes because depending on the nation that's offering them out yeah if it's if it's britain during the war how reluctant are they going to be to then pass that on to a division yeah a group of battalion that's not actually british and also like think remember with the british as well as they're not as bad as the nazis by any stretch but there's a lot of racists uh in the high level government positions at this point like well yeah who sort of came up during the colonial and world war one well that's it you'll have a lot of guys that are they're born out of world war one yeah that's the the war that they've ruined to prominence in and now they're that's another thing though they also fought alongside other nations in world war

one so what are they fucking playing i mean yeah yeah it's it's a it's a shame because based on the prowess of these guys why undercut that yeah why they should have got it like based on the capability of what we've heard of uh and then here's another quote uh from the same guy um finally in north africa and only a few days before the german surrender a night attack by the fifth brigade had been successful except that at daylight there was a german platoon dug in between 23rd battalion and 28th battalion with apparently plenty of fight left in them but they were more than a nuisance, and plans were put in train for

a night attack by the 23rd Battalion, preceded by heavy shelling. Then in the afternoon came the surprise, at least at Brigadier HQ, that they had surrendered. Apparently the nearby Maori platoon had got fed up with

their sniping, and mounted their own attack, and the Germans gave in. these guys do not quit they got annoyed so they went and made them surrender yeah fucking hell give them the medal on the 13th of may 1943 axis resistance in north africa collapsed leading to the surrender of 238 000 german and italian troops two days later the new zealanders began the almost 3 000 kilometer trek back to their base in egypt 18 months of desert warfare had cemented the maori battalion's reputation as one of the eighth army's finest infantry unit but the cost had been high 270 men dead 815 wounded uh over the course of the conflict

and that's them in north africa what a fucking journey they had and the conflicts i've like jumped in on uh like they're climbing this mountain or the 42nd street they're like notable moments but they're not there's constant fighting in between constant like i mean context as well for the actual in-game mechanics when it comes to escarpments yeah they are the worst part of movement oh yeah because vehicles can't move up them and infantry units are massively detrimented when they're trying to move around them yeah so the fact that these guys scaled one yes to then try and accost the enemy goes to show the kind of cost that they're taking on in terms of maneuverability and tactical placement yeah it's not an easy job no not at all but these guys

are making their way up there to to push forward it start to finish these guys have showed up i think yeah what you said there about them being a sort of victim of their own success i think speaks volumes to it they've come in they've overperformed massively oh yeah and then they've been burdened with huge undertakings afterwards yeah and even with those heavy losses comparable to you know other units based on the the accolades they've got the stuff they've pulled off the units have taken on last time we're talking about the fact that you were talking about the the fact they took more prisoners than they actually had men themselves yes the logistics of that is insane yes these guys it's a real miscarriage of justice that they did not get the the medals that were

prescribed to them oh yeah i think that's actually insane yeah because they they gave like so much and like were so effective they should have got all the props and more well if it was down to war with a mate we'd bloody give it to them yeah so let's see how they pan out in our game knowing the dice rolls they'll probably die immediately and history will be rewritten and they don't have particular we don't have particularly um like special any special rules or even particularly high they've got like good close and assault and close defense but they should probably be have a lot more i feel like the history segment is just a fun way for you to try and gaslight me into not attacking your units

because I've become emotionally attached. Oh, yeah. Is it working? I mean, it might. If anything, what I might do is overcommit resources to fight units that aren't technically different.

But if that is the end of the Maori for now... We'll finish them off next week. There's a bit in Italy and then returning to New Zealand. Okay, good. So we'll do a wrap-up episode next week. good because i'm not quite ready to say goodbye yet no uh next week we'll we'll see out their swan song oh yeah yeah that's it for them the maori in north africa what a bloody group of guys

oh yeah there's also a bit uh there was a bit where because they had five companies uh they got four cases of like uh mutton birds delivered uh so they had a they had a sports contest uh where each company gained different points and the guy just describes it as, I can't remember who didn't end up getting a box in the end, but everyone had so much fun. These guys love what they do. Oh, yeah.

And they're fucking great at doing it as well. Just fantastic, fantastic gentlemen. I'm interested to see what the wrap-up is, but I will be sad to see them go. Oh, yeah. I think they've been... A lot of fun to learn about. It might be my favourite history segment so far.

And that's... I mean, I think I've said that at the end of every history segment, so... It's a good sign. It is, it is. Man, I... I feel like it's rushing it slightly on the back of that

because I don't know if we're giving them enough breathing space, but I've got a train to catch. You do. So... Hit me with some common ground. And now for something nicer. a little oasis in the war it's time for some common ground i'm trying to intro the common

ground i'm recording maybe yeah i've got some common ground for you andy okay and it's it's actually train related oh okay it should be illegal for people to have their conversations on a phone on loudspeaker in public okay now i don't know if you've been on a bus before uh yes i think on an early episode i talked kind of the opposite about this how i like eavesdropping on people on public transport no i think yeah you made a good point about this i remember that vaguely um i was on the bus not too long ago moving from one place to another as buses are very good for and i i had the unpleasant experience of somebody talking loudly on their phone on loudspeaker now i would like and maybe this is a bit facetious andy and i hope this doesn't come

across confrontational because you're not the problem by any stretch of the imagination um what is the fucking benefit of speaking on loudspeaker on your phone oh there is not good cool just so i'm not worried you have less privacy but i guess attention right i guess that's what it is why would you do this because i don't know maybe i'm a bit of a an introvert when i'm on public transport i think i am when i get on the train when i get on the bus wherever i'm going i like to just stick in my headphones and and just disappear from the world that's the way it's transit it's not a gig or like a pub where you socialize you get on you sit down you shut up and then you get off yeah you're going from one place to another it's like you're walking

along i mean yeah fair enough you're walking along you might give a hello good morning you know as you're walking past someone that's kind of it but on the train you're not passing anyone on the bus you're not going past anyone you're sat there it's static the bus is doing the movement not you there's no passage of of any sort of social norm it's just stay still so you want you want to make it illegal i want to make it an actual crime i want to i've got another solution potentially because i agree this is annoying yeah you know if you had like chewing gum at school and the teacher would be like i hope you brought enough for everyone if you're on a speaker a conversation there's an implicit understanding you've invited everyone around you to join that

conversation this is way better you have to let them just come up next to you and just like speak into the phone that that's that's way better because what i think would make people deeply uncomfortable and or aggressive is that if someone's on a conversation on speakerphone and the other person says something it's a funny remark it's a an anecdote that the other person finds quite witty if they start laughing you laugh as well yeah you just burst out laughing and they'll give you a bit of a funny look like what is he laughing at what just happened on my he's allowed to because you're on speaker come over and be like good one mate i like that as well especially if it's like a conversation that's specific to them where

they're talking about like a friend like a mutual friend has had a funny experience or oh josh is up to this thing again and then go over classic josh and then it's like what do you do i know you it's like no but i was invited to this conversation you think you know me because you're doing this in my fucking space as well aren't you you're playing this loudly for me it's you know it's the same way if people play music in a public space if it's music i enjoy i'll enjoy hearing it if it's music i don't enjoy i'll be upset shut it off i'll turn it off immediately and i think the same thing applies to this yeah if you're doing this in my space doing this on my train doing this on my bus i need to have some sort of recompense yeah because

it's the speaker thing that baffles me because like if someone's loudly talking on the phone i kind of like you are at least just talking into the thing and but if it's like you're projecting it out as well and i know what the fool's response would be it's oh well i can hear it better no you can't you're telling me having a phone pressed up against your ear a device that is designed specifically so you can hear when it's pressed against your ear you think that's not optimized already you need to try and blare it out loud and you think what that makes it easier to hear headphones exist yeah if you want to do this put your headphones in step off the bus i have i've got a very old phone i've got an iphone like a iphone 6 or something i think i've got yeah or an

8 maybe i my my microphones broke so i need to have my headphones in in order to have a phone conversation yeah and it's a it's perfect i've got my headphones in i can talk through my headphones i can hear very clearly ideal if someone's concerned about the quality of conversation they're going to be having in terms of volume buy headphones oh it's a solution to a problem that shouldn't exist it's well it's not a problem being on speaker exactly you've made a point it's not a problem whatsoever it needs to be criminalized i think either criminalized or or you're giving your privacy up so people can just be like i want to talk to him well you've recommended a form of vigilante justice that i'm a big fan of yeah which is inconveniencing people

who are inconveniencing you yeah i think it's the purest form of vigilante justice it is just if someone's being kind of annoying be kind of annoying back yes because it's not life or death and ultimately you can opt out if someone's doing that on the train you can just kind of sit there and go oh you put your headphones and you can just be annoyed quietly or you can go in there you can think you know what if they're gonna be loud i'll be loud back and i think that's actually the way the world should work in a lot of faucets i think if someone is being disruptive you have the right to disrupt back yes calm quiet revolution is what we need and i think this is the first step i don't think you should ever have your phone on speaker unless you're doing the dishes and wandering

around the house yeah or you're like four people on one end but then don't do that on the bus exactly i think it's it's it's selfish it's mean-spirited it's ignorant and i think there's a better way to do it so if anyone out there does that maybe maybe think it over for a moment think about what you're doing to the the likes of us the other people the people who have to hear the conversation and then don't call someone instead play our podcast really loudly on the bus and tell people about it more specifically if you hear someone having a conversation on speaker play this Common Ground segment on speakerphone.

It's the most passive-aggressive thing you could ever do. We're telling you right now, if this is happening right now and someone is doing this, listener, person who's on speakerphone right now, what are you doing? Think it through.

Take stock of your life. Go back. Be better. Be better than this. Be better than us. Be subtle. Be humble. Be brave. Do the right thing. Get in people's business if you're invited. Common Ground, of course, is a segment in which we encourage people to start a revolution.

But, Andy, I think my revolution, it started when we began playing this game. And it won't end until this game is done. And everyone who listens is part of this small, quiet revolution. This thing was meant to be unfinishable. and here we are in the twilight of upstage 3 of turn 1. Revolting against that. It's

we go back to it it's Sisyphus pushing the rock up the hill. That's who we are. The only issue is we know that there's an end to this. Way better than Sisyphus. I mean, yeah, he had it pretty bad.

He had it bad. We will win. We must win. What did he do? yeah why did he get punished like that uh he he tricked death um he managed to evade death um and uh he got a bit of um bit of backdoor immortality so on the back of that the punishment is we'll do this forever and when we were cursed with backdoor immortality we were cursed with playing the campaign for north africa what an evil sorcerer put this case so nice yeah warlock berg well everybody who's listening tonight um again i always say tonight as if it's this time for everybody it's dark outside for us but if you're listening right

now wherever you are whether it's early morning late in the evening you've been part of war with a mate episode 34 this one will be yes and the end is it's so far on the horizon that this is essentially forever so tune in next time and until then send everything you can if you've got anything to say info at warwithamate.co.uk for the email uh the instagram is just war with a mate and warwithamate.co.uk is the website and we we wish you well if you're going through an endeavor of your own or if you have any questions send them over but we are done i'm tired i'm tired as what I am. I'm ready to go to bed. I had a few drinks at work before this.

I've had a few drinks during the recording and my goodness, it's time for sleep and I hope I catch that train. Stay subtle, humble and brave, guys. Thanks for listening. And good bloody night. Thank you.