War With A Mate - Episode 35: Free Fallin’

Episode Date: August 2, 2025

The situation in Fort Maddalena heats up further as the guys close out their air missions and James begins angling for the impending close assault. This week’s history segment sees a poignant farewell to the 28th Māori Battalion, closing out another topic. With a sleepy Andy at the wheel and an admin-heavy session, the guys take the time to right some wrongs, from the state of live music performances to interstellar diplomacy.

Good evening, or morning, depends how you're feeling. I think the time of the day is more of a state of mind than it is the pointing hands on a clock. How do you feel about that, Andy? If that's true, I'm very much in the end-of-the-day state of mind. Oh, you've had a rough day, haven't you? You've been sleepy. I've been very sleepy today.

That's not what you want. Yeah. Usually I'm the tired one. Yeah, it's been a nice role reversal. And I'm full of beans. I haven't eaten any beans. It's just a colloquialism. just a turn of phrase thanks for the clarity i'm an uppity guy i've got energy it's so great

that's just because you're a bit tired yeah but how can you be tired andy when you are one of the hosts of the internet's only podcast documenting a playthrough of the campaign for north africa what were the mate was that yeah that's okay yeah yeah what were the mate i wasn't sure if you were prompting me to say the name or yeah well i guess you know it so yeah you've said War with a Mate, that's what we are, that's who we are, and I'm James. And I'm Andy. Yeah, that's us. You already know that, you guys know who we are, you know what we do, you know our biz. And if not, welcome.

We are titans of industry, we are playing the game, and it's going swimmingly. It's a little shot in the arm, it's a dose of adrenaline for when the days get long, and the days get shorter, if anything. We're dipping out of summer now, aren't we? yeah they're back going short but uh yeah i mean it wasn't a particularly full session no in terms of what we did no i i had a i had a late finish at work you're a little sleepy we just ticked off the end of the aircraft today yeah it was a it was a sleepy admin session throwback to the old days oh god the days of yesteryear i unsuccessfully strafed you did which is a bit of a shame

and then we basically just went through and did the refits and repairs refueling various things we did, we've decided to roll out all of the recouping of planes some of mine limped back of the four planes that you downed last week

two of them managed to make it back to base, that was a one in six chance, mine didn't they went down so yeah they stayed down where they belong in the dirt or the sand i suppose more accurately so not great uh loss ratio there i'm pretty pleased with it between that and you missing with the strafe yeah snake eyes you're old i mean yeah usually snake eyes is what you want but in this instance turns out snake eyes not so good no

but i'm happy with that because it's good for james i mean sure it is yeah because you're rolling into the land combat stage you moved your big division down as a sort of taster for your movement next session i did i moved the 62nd division i wasn't completely concrete on that for a while and it was it was a plan i had in the back of my head and that was really dependent on how the aircraft stuff went and when you did successfully pin seven of my infantry my infantry battalions including the best infantry battalions from each division that was when i decided it's probably time to go a little bit hard so i've moved up the 62nd division they are now coming down from the north and have flanked you yes which means you're now between a rock and a hard place

the rock being the 62nd division the hard place being the milady and first black shirt divisions yeah it's a nasty uh it's a nasty place for the seventh to be i think i uh yeah well i i'm right did definitely overextend them i suspect i'm gonna lose all of them uh which will be a big blow they're in a precarious spot because not only are they between a rock and a hard place but there is a third uh hard thing what should we call it tungsten there's a big tungsten block which is slightly over to the east which is the fourth black shirts that i pushed further out and if you retreat now to try and go back in your direction back over to the east you will have to maneuver around them yeah i'll have to keep in mind i'm not super worried about them because

from what i can they're probably limited to two or three hexes so i'm kind of picturing them as just having a big zone of control rather than being like they can come and strike me uh across more distance than that yeah i mean realistically they're not going to be able to sprint halfway across the desert after you because if they do that they're not going to be able to attack and then you just string me along on a wild goose chase and then do what i'm doing to you now and i'd hate for that to happen i wouldn't wish that on anybody except you because i've done it myself so you you're pincered things are heating up at fort madalena yeah it's really becoming the crux i think it's going to be pretty brutal uh this offstage it is i i moved them over so that

it could be locked down to a real fight it's either going to be a really bloody affair or you're going to have to completely vacate the border which i'm happy with either outcome if i pick off the seventh armor division that's a that's a win for me and if i scare you off from the border and you have to regroup another win for me yeah the only niggling thought i have is that you have the fourth indian division yes which is up to the the north northeast of this this fight this conflict they could be an issue for me but i do have my libyan divisions poised to the northwest yes ready to try and counter anything they do also they are uh they did get some pinning from the bombardment so there'll be limited effectiveness this offstage at the very

least yes which was something i'd i'd hoped for i was hoping that i can take them out of your arsenal i think yeah by pinning them there they're just slightly too far to do anything really relevant and i was i was hoping which you you did uh ignore the libyans and the 62nd division because i've not played around with the 62nd since offstage one so i was hoping you'd leave them alone because of that and you have which means that they are now something i can pull out the bag last minute as my my ace up the sleeve so that could that could work wonders uh yeah i mean it probably will i mean yeah that that's pretty much done i think uh but that's running away but yeah otherwise

well that's warfare for you Andy you win some you lose some historically that's what this is it's just one big game of history in a very literal sense I mean it's a game about history no it's a game of history okay

we're playing out history we're making history as well that's another important thing okay fine I'm not going to argue with you oh dear I've really worn you down because you are tired already yeah poor guy i'll try not to string you along too hard today man i've been there i've been in that well not that seat you always sit in that seat when we record my chair but i've been in

your in your shoes they're comfy for quite a lot yeah i've i've been a tired man before so you can lean on me today that's why i'm here i'm here for you to lean on have a little nap on rest your rest your head in my lap thanks buddy you can do that i'm not going to but the offer is giving me energy well if you don't do it then you probably don't mean that so you're gonna nope no i guess i don't mean it oh right okay empty words indeed then we're back to being foes i guess that's fine is that what you wanted yeah how's your supply situation fuck you got a lot of these big divisions on the move they're gonna be spending resources now well that's a bit of a mean thing to say it's just a question yeah and i don't i refuse you i refuse your question is it bad

I'm taking it as like this is bad It's not perfect Okay Of course it's not perfect We don't live in a perfect world Andy Why would anything be perfect Stop putting words in my mouth I'm just asking

Someone's perked up haven't they Fucking hell wow That was requested man You can't get angry now I'm perked I just wish you perked in a different way Maybe thought about a different topic The show has one topic What about the song

Free Fallin' by Tom Petty. It's a good song. You played it on loop for like half the time we were here. Yeah, I did not realize that was on loop and then I just

just kind of continued a little bit when we were packing everything back up. My hands were full of all of the recording equipment so it just kind of kept on going.

And now it's now it's stuck in my head. Good song though. It is a banger. Tom Petty, you got any favorite Tom Petty songs apart from that?

Nope, that's it. It's a good one. Running Down a Dream. you see the way i work with music it might be some of my favorite songs i probably will recognize them won't know the name or who's done them though no i've noticed that about you there'll be a few songs that'll come on when we're out and about we're in a in a bar or a club or disco tech yeah yeah we love a good disco i've only been to one it was a nightmare which which disco tech uh one in heidelberg germany oh i mean if you're gonna go to the disco tech you want to go to the german

discotheques oh yeah but everyone just sat on the floor and chanted stuff and me and my friend who were on the exchange were like have our exchanges brought us to a cult that sounds like a good exchange and then everyone stood up after like 15 minutes of chanting and just started going nuts dancing to like techno music that sounds great it was it was quite a fun night once i got over the fear of this is a cult murder and i'm the victim thing is cults get a bad rap uh uh i think gods tend to be pretty bad i mean when we start one it'll be one of the good ones yeah we've well this is already a cult if you're listening you are part of a cult now um yeah there's a there's actually like a waiver that it's all the way back in another episode that

you've probably skipped uh the part where we talk about it it's probably the one when we talk about michael mcintyre um which because that one was unhinged that was not good no that was that was new year yes it was we're in a little bit uh tipsy a little bit no i yeah you've signed away your rights so if you're listening to this we own how much is it of their income just a generous and modest 30 percent tithe yeah i thought yeah 30 yeah i think we we've been in talks to up that i mean only fair yeah so if anyone has any suggestions of what number it should be what kind of hard labor would be most profitable yeah if you guys don't want to give up any of income we will take hard labor that's that's fine sort of uh like breaking up rocks in a yard

yeah pickaxe because we've got plenty of uses for rocks uh paperweights uh weapons rock museums rock museums rock music polish them up sell them as stones to people like well that's it people that's it people don't understand the difference between rocks and stones the everyman doesn't understand they don't realize how easy it is to get a polisher yeah i've always thought that as well you can you can rent polishers as well so next time you're in like a gift store in the lake district or whatever your country's version of it is and there's a bunch of shiny rocks just remember go outside get your own rocks rent a polisher and turn them into stones yeah beautiful shiny stones with like a wet look effect oh yeah because that's great you know what i had this conversation with

somebody a little while ago about wet look jeans oh see i am a big advocate for jeans got some on right now i i'll walk around in them i'll occasionally run for the bus in them i'll i'll just sit around at my own leisure in jeans because they are durable they're stylish and somebody then said oh would you rather wear robes or jeans all the time and i went jeans jeans are better than robes yeah unless everyone's wearing robes if everyone's wearing robes you're in a different cult yeah i don't want to be in a cult who has jeans why not it seems too casual for a cult cult should be casual you need to break down these barriers in your head man no you need to break down the people in the cult yeah yeah to wear jeans yeah the barriers in my own head can

remain so that the issue was that i'd said jeans and then they said well what if they get wet and well then i'll be wearing wet jeans that's fine they'll dry out it's still comfortable and there was this whole like song and dance about how wet jeans are bad i mean i was like i was like right if you go on these expensive jean websites i don't know what they are i'm a modest man i'm subtle humble and brave i wear relatively affordable jeans fendi fendi gucci gucci jeans yeah oh i couldn't touch gucci jeans certainly not not unless we bump that 30 up to like 35 at least yeah and then i can get rid of all of my gucci money get our gucci money gucci jeans but they've all got wet look jeans is that the is that a thing i don't know the term for is

it just it looks like how jeans look like when when they're wet yeah basically yeah yeah it's not like a sort of like cool term that means something sneaky okay they just look wet so i'm just gonna see someone and be like oh he's maybe pissed himself or fallen in a pool yeah well if you pissed yourself it would be there'd be a very clear sort of pattern on the jeans wouldn't it it'd be like that's a that's a piss depends how hydrated you are yeah well that's a good point no because i wouldn't i wouldn't affect the the projection of the of the the urine the amount so it soaks the whole the whole genes yeah but i suppose yes uh the smell is really what would give away the hydration yeah might mistake that for just a fancy rich guy thing exactly yeah if

you look at it now you'll be like well maybe this isn't something as prosaic as the man has pissed himself he's probably stylish all the bourgeois are pissing themselves now and we just don't know about it oh god that would be the next step would just get on their private planes and piss in their pants well laughing at the little guys because they don't understand they don't know what's going on speaking of not knowing what's going on have you seen the alien invasion no the one that's coming oh i've not seen it if it's coming yeah so apparently there's uh there's some sort of unidentified object that's on a course towards earth in i think it's november yeah and some group of scientists a cult probably have decided the cult of science the cult of science well how

does that one go the cult of newton i'm sure there's a cult of science uh no there's people yeah sorry they call it something else don't they uh so they have determined that this could be could be a an attacking alien ship on its route to earth see i used to really want aliens to exist and for a brief time thought they did but i've just got it i've given up on that i think it's just a rock well it maybe it's a rock but it's just a rock they're using to distract us from private islands yeah that's a good point there's a lot of bad news going on at the moment if you're hey guys look up at the sky oh that's a classic isn't it they've always done that haven't they they're powerful the influential they're always telling you to go look up in the sky then you

look at it and you're distracted for a bit and they take all your shit and do bad things when you're looking away classic rich people i'm sick of it andy i'm sick of it can't be having it so the aliens are going to come uh what's your plan when they do greet them warmly that's probably a good idea they probably want to know what they're up to well that's it there's not much resource that they could take the aliens they could take well go back to war of the worlds we just watched the new trailer for the new war of the worlds that's gonna be bad with it's ice cube in it isn't it yes yeah so i heard about this it's like the ice cube doing rio window but through the internet on an alien invasion because i i really i love war of the worlds i love the i love the book

i love the musical the musical's banging yes god jeff oh god i love that musical um it's uh that music is incredible yeah love that uh that is cover to cover banger if anyone's not listened to it listen to all the worlds uh that is that is great the radio broadcast was fantastic don't even listen to the yeah yeah i've listened to the hg wells one that got everyone everyone riled up and panicked yeah yeah it was hg wells it's a awesome well awesome wells yes yeah a lot of wells around that yeah yeah kept them the family did they hear the wells is i'd love to have been there just listen to the radio and then like getting in a mob with people put a colander on my head get a shotgun yeah all the aliens are here as the radio said

because i'm thinking it'd be a fun bonding experience of shared embarrassment it's like i know if the aliens came you'd be out in the street fighting with me but let's not mention it like i know you can be relied upon but it's too embarrassing to like acknowledge why i know that that's a good point yeah you do have that shared camaraderie that means that if anything like that happens again well i guess you do have because if everyone thought it was real the guy in his house being like oh guys it's not real you guys are idiots the mob going past you're just gonna record that guy in your head as a coward yeah that's a good point you actually have a bit of a moral high ground at the end of all that so the the issue though is that if there is a second

event where there is an actual alien invasion or something else it might be a bit of a boy you cried wolf situation you might be so panicked to embarrass yourself again that you might not actually fight oh yeah that was the first step to make people react to aliens we've seen but this this new take on on war of the worlds it seems to be that they're doing a and i like the sound of this it's all from the perspective of like a monitor screen so you're watching like a someone's viewpoint from a monitor play out a bit like the film i think it's called unfriended which is a horror movie that came out a good few years ago yeah but it was done quite well i didn't mind there's quite a lot of that sort of limited perspective whether it is a rear window or

yeah or only for a screen or i feel like it was the next sort of stage of evolution from found footage horror sort of blair witch style yes i think that was the next progressive step with technology and i heard that and i was like that's a good way to keep the suspense going you know you've got alien invasion how do you obfuscate some of the details of the invasion while still showing some stuff uh but then watch the trailer it's kind of weird they talk about how the aliens are after everyone's data yeah i don't know if that's meant to be some sort of political commentary or if it's just a bad idea it's just a bad idea i don't know how that's gonna work it might also be an attempt to do like a data surveillance is bad thing but yeah that's what i'm thinking

it feels like it's gonna miss the mark it probably will ice cube is a fun actor yes in in you know the jump street films he's great in them i can't really see him as a serious lead in thriller what i can't see him as is a serious lead who's essentially has to carry an entire film by reacting to a screen that requires quite a lot of subtlety i might guess of like performance and stuff yeah i imagine there's probably a lot of screen time where it's him sort of talking to himself or liaising with other people i don't know i think there's there's some questionable decisions maybe i'm being a classic gatekeeper and going well i already like this thing how it is you're gonna change it or maybe i'm actually seeing this for what it could well be a bad film

i think it's just gonna be bad i think it could at best be an interesting failure i i agree i think i'm gonna watch it either way uh i think we'll probably watch it at some point uh with a few drinks criticize it yes which we do with bad films we did that with man and web yes and i keep having to remind myself that's a bad film because i had so much fun watching it yeah that thing was not good but the the point i was trying to make originally was that one of the resources we have that aliens might be after is uh blood oh blood yeah that's well that's what they want in all the worlds they want some blood they want us yeah so we're a resource so if you're friendly to them you might be in for a bit of a treat they might go well this is one of the nice humans

so we'll we'll allow them to stay alive you can play his little game as well you can keep the podcast going we'll broadcast it to zeta 5 and we'll just harvest little bits maybe they've come here to pick us up because they love the pod oh god maybe yeah because if depending on the the speed of travel if they're not going to get here until november then they they might have heard about it when it first came about they might be they're probably day one is yeah so all right well in that case uh zetas if you're listening uh thank you uh we've not had any emails or anything so we didn't know you were listening but it's very flattering

I don't know your alien native tongue so I feel like this is a little bit ham-fisted and disrespectful. This might seem ignorant but if they're advanced enough to get here I'm leaving that to them. Yeah they will know so we do appreciate it so thank you Zetas

yeah you're friends with the podcast we'd love to have you so come on down to Andy's you'll know where he lives surely you've probably got the tech to figure that one out and occasionally we accidentally dock stuff anyway so just keep an eye and listen out for that

ah good old aliens man what they're like it's hard to say absolute romans whoa he didn't mean that he didn't mean that there we go otherwise he'll greet you warmly with a heat ray it's the last thing you want man

we really need to get through more in the game sessions you know what we've been on a fucking solid streak for months Andy we've been ticking off game stuff like it's nobody's business we don't need to feel bad about taking this at the right pace yeah we've said from the start this isn't a this isn't a sprint it's a marathon and if you're having a sleepy day and i finished work late we can only cover what we can cover so anyone listening we're very sorry that we've disappointed you by not talking about the game

very much today we're just doing we're taking it back we're having a calm before the storm of what's going to be a contentious offstage land combat. What you will have next time is a lot to hear about, because it's all going to be my movement, the start of combat. So I might not be tired, but I might be furious, or sulking.

That's a fun one. We've never had an energy where we're both actively angry at each other. I've had some niggles with you before, we've been a little bit frustrated with one another, but I think real seeing red anger, that's a new one. Yeah.

I've been angry at the game. Oh, yeah. That's how this whole thing started. You were angry before we started? No, I was angry when we started to learn the rules. Oh, yes. I was elated when we first bought the game. I remember I sat there waiting for the eBay bid to wrap up,

and I was amazed that we got it. I was so thrilled. And then it arrived in record time, and it came like two days later. Brought it round to yours. We opened that bad boy up. We've got a video of that, actually. Yeah, I've still got it.

I was unboxing the pieces. yeah we'll need to pop that up somewhere sometime yeah uh i'll fire it over to here maybe drop on the instagram yeah yeah that'd be a good one yeah oh we've got youtube we could put an actual video on it oh yeah yeah at the moment the youtube just rattles off these episodes yeah just sort of yeah could add some other stuff to that yeah well yeah i think that's probably what we should use it for yeah if there's anywhere to put it it's probably youtube the founding father of video the inventors like the bugle said video killed the radio star

YouTube killed the video star and we're going to kill the YouTube star bringing it back to voice bringing it back to radio and you know I would say we've got faces for radio Andy but we're quite frankly beautiful people

yeah let's go with that well hey don't put yourself down I wasn't excuse me what we need to talk off mic because that's not acceptable that's uh oh sorry yeah yeah that's i forgot i was about to mention how hideously it's a curse all right i was cursed with incredible charisma charm and kindness and as a result i look like a goblin

a fucking sexy goblin how about that no no okay it's not well it was worth a try fire it out there into the ether maybe it would be believed, but no, I'm a goblin man, and I'm playing the campaign for North Africa like all goblins do I'd love to have some goblins Goblin these nuts that's a good joke

we can't do this there's a can of energy drink that's sold at the vending machine at my work it's called dragon energy, which of course sets up the perfect dragon soup? No, not dragon soup that'd be great, dragon soup is for the uninitiated a highly caffeinated

alcoholic drink yeah think 4 logo for Scottish people there you go yes that's a fantastic way to put it it's not quite as classy as Buckfast which is another scary drink I've only had Buckfast once

I had some Buckfast once and I got scars that night and also climbed half a seat above Edinburgh there's any way you're going to drink Buckfast you want to do it in Edinburgh i also found out there's a ranking system there's a number on the bottom on the bottle all right and they're like higher it is than like earlier it came out the barrel or something like that and it's going to taste better oh cool so if i'm buying bugfast which i never will have a discerning high

yeah i'll inspect that well there you go everyone if you're going to buy your bugfast check the number check the rankings you want to get yourself either low is good or bad yeah we don't know which way the scale works so uh look into that as well i guess and let us know as well because you've been letting us know all sorts of things haven't you? You interesting folk you all have all sorts to say. You've got

stuff to say about Heathcliff or House of Leaves or your own wacky adventures. We love to hear it all and I think maybe we should crack into some of that since we were just rambling about fucking nonsense Yeah, I've got one here for you Yeah, let's ramble about someone else's nonsense

What have we got Andy? hi andy and james i found your podcast from a reddit post a while ago and i've been binging the podcast nice i'm only on episode uh 19 right now but monty definitely is a pretty interesting guy i do want to ask two questions though first when rommel comes in what are you going to do with him are you going to tease andy with him by driving rommel to his front lines and back or something and second uh are you ever going to do anything with the dead camels just curious on these two speaking of the game though i created a subreddit of the game uh if you guys want to post their rcfna uh i can make you guys mods if you want i'm pretty sure you don't want that

stereotype i wanted to say hello and i'm still uh listening about monty so see ya your favorite subtle humble and brave pervert from virginia desmond thanks for emailing desmond well desmond i don't think we've ever mentioned about anything about perverts that can't be us surely not so uh it's an unfortunate admission to make but we we respect your integrity um but we've never said that so that's wild um well what i would say desmond is you're worried about the stereotype that we might not want to fall into i've just described myself as a goblin so we don't need to worry too much about what stereotypes we take on however um i don't know that we'd be best suited to um to moderate anything we can barely moderate our own content uh i mean look at what we're doing

today it's it's disjointed crap loose it's been loose it's been very fast and loose um the offer is fantastic we'll definitely check it out i've actually joined already i joined as soon as i saw this email come through and we'll probably not probably we'll post updates there when we do our update reddit posts and stuff we'll cross post them there yes absolutely we've posted a couple times we're going to post another update uh another big milestone so we'll pop that in there for you desmond you will be the uh first and foremost source on reddit for it pop it in some other pop it in the uh the hex encounter subreddit and board games is usually where we pop them but we'll definitely pop them in here desmond that is that is commitment because people need

to know about this game whether or not it's about us finishing it they need to know what's going on here we need other people if anything to pick up this game and stop playing it we need opponents we need enemies oh we want to raise people you know what we don't have a nemesis yet andy that's fine i can do without a nemesis no we need a nemesis no i can think of a few ideas uh just off the top of my head but i won't mention you work on them and then i'll just hate them when you've sorted out ah nice i like it synergy yeah i'll offload that to you uh as for are you gonna be doing a weird stuff of rommel i will be up and taunting with him or i will i will the thing is what i'll need to do first of all is determine what his actual capabilities look like in in

actual play because i know he's got it's either things like 40 or 50 cpa so he's got a lot of maneuverability but i'm i need to figure out what his actual capabilities are like how much i think he sets the moral he definitely sets the plus which is actually a huge bonus yeah it's a bit i think it's a big decider in combat i think it might be a two or three morale boost for different Which is massive. And he also gives me a huge boost to something else. While he's on the map, you have the best initiative. Yes, I've got a very big plus to initiative when he's on the map.

So what I don't want to do is run him around too far because your long-range desert group can get him. They're the only guys who can, yeah. It's like cat and mouse there. So I don't want to have him run off too much unless I can determine where your guys are. But I will definitely do some fun things with him. I want him to have a bit of a good time in the desert.

Oh, yeah. He's on the box for the game. You know, he's the main character. He's the... He's a famous guy who was involved. He's the protagonist. He's the protagonist of the North African campaign. Certainly not the protagonist.

He's the main guy. I'll let you have antagonist. All right, fine. He's the antagonist. He's the main guy. Whatever. You could be a bad guy. your protagonist can be a bad guy i mean yeah tony soprano walter white got all these bad guys who

are leads yeah but he's also not the lead what again that's debatable he's on the he's on the box are we sure it's him you wouldn't put yes it says on the box it actually has a little annotation yes yeah yes i'm sure you don't put not the main character on the poster for the movie yeah you put you leave the big reveal till the end you keep the villain secret you repeat the villain so who's the villain then because rommel's on the fucking box yeah he works for the villain no i agree with that yeah i'm really running out of rope here that's i've been trying to let you get off this all right fine i'll i'll admit as i often do the natties are definitely be bad guys thank you i just yeah it's important to get that soundbite out there every now and then

but your second question desmond dead camels well you were only on episode 19 you got a little ways to go you're about halfway to where we are now and you'll be uh happy to know when you get to this point we still have no idea what the camels are so when it comes to doing anything with them uh i guess we can only wax lyrical and get frustrated we do have some fun suggestions from fans we do we've had a few when we do our rule addenda after being the only people to complete the game maybe we'll probably include some homebrew camel rules absolutely and we will be able to at least then give somebody some closure when they play it in future because they'll have something to do with these camels instead of just panic because that's that's what

i tend to do but uh yeah we we appreciate the the reach out desmond all the way from virginia as well it's quite the distance from us but it doesn't mean that we're any further apart my friend because you've you've touched in and we've got people listening from space so relatively you're you're basically next door so keep an eye on the the campaign for north africa subreddit everyone i would definitely recommend checking it out i'm sure desmond's putting together beautiful little community there let's have a little look back in that mail bag and see what else we got in there so we have a message here from jordan which is titled good manners and fun facts two of my favorite things jordan writes andy and james firstly and by the way there are some uh

some all caps words in here and some uh italicized ones as well so i'll try and put some emphasis andy and james firstly let me say that i am appalled at the uncivilized behavior of your listeners Jordan let's have a little look and see his rationale not the aliens I hope when I started listening to episode one y'all had who y'all y'all had just released episode 15 or so and so when the calls started coming for emails I thought ah I'll see if they get any before I email them asking if I'm the first no such manners from many of your other listeners barbarians uncouth when I set up to wash dishes through on episode 17 and heard you say, I just can't imagine anyone listening to this while they wash dishes. Did I email you before catching up? No, because I have principles.

Anyway, I'm a few episodes behind and part way into episode 30, you bring up the word yawl again, and as a linguist, I can't resist sharing some cool context around it since I share your enthusiasm for the word. Now this is new and I like this, I like this direction. english lacks a distinct formal second person plural pronoun that is i can't say did you really think this game was a good idea now that's an interesting one jordan um just to to cut you off slightly uh mid-conversation because in uh in in wherever we are which is uh the north of england um use is actually a colloquial term that is used as a a second person plural pronoun so you know what we what we use up to last night where did you go it's it's actually a turn of

phrase that's used very frequently so we've not really struggled with it i think what i've enjoyed is that there maybe that's why i resonate with you all because it's a mirror of something i see so frequently in day-to-day life so um so you say that but there is a bit of a merit to it jordan and uh jordan continues now where i grew up in new england the accepted term was you guys as in you guys are insane for doing this but due to the gender revolution there are many places in the us where this is considered mildly impolite enter y'all in a flowing cape and shining armor a gender neutral term of address as useful as the singular they which is for some reason contentious even though you didn't notice me using it in the first part of this email oh wow no i like it no you are

quite the linguist jordan i like it now i can say you subtle humble brave bastards are doing the gaming world a service and i salute y'all jordan jordan you've put that very eloquently now as you'll know at this point the the listeners including yourself uh you've come out in in waves you've been firing off emails of all sorts of interesting points this of course being one of them and that is a very a very good insight into y'all maybe this is why i'm so enamored by it because it does fill a gap that not much language does it's the unisex bathroom of pronouns it is like it's not trying to be the solution it just is yeah it doesn't yeah there's no flair to it it's just being quietly being right for yeah a lot of people are looking for the solution to a

problem and the solution's been there the whole time it's you mentioned a good point there about they which is i use they a lot in in conversation i i use it i don't know when that start i think i've always done that i don't think it was to try and be polite i think it's just something i've done out of convenience it's always how you refer to someone if you didn't know the gender or you just didn't specify it and then pronouns became weirdly contentious yeah so i think i've always had that that sort of perspective where i've always said they anyway so when it's then became a quite a hot button topic i've not had to worry about it too much because i've already i already say it so y'all is another another beautiful word for that so now hopefully all of y'all

listening will be able to enjoy it that little bit more or use we've got two now yeah you could start dropping in some use you know start using some uh some some north england colloquialisms you know what we use up to and thank you you know all of you for sending in your emails see what i've done there i i you know what i think andy i think they are all fantastic y'all are fantastic there we go look at that oh banging them all out and i sincerely mean that i want to start hitting people with y'all but i think they'll think i like recently got back from holiday from like the southern usa and i'm being like weird they wouldn't get it andy when this understood people that's why we have to hide away doing this you know too publicly can't publicly say

you all i have to do on the pod yeah two two goblin men playing the campaign for north africa talking to aliens this really has become a real rabbit hole episode we're doing conspiracy theories we're doing uh we're doing um the politics of different pronouns and collective uses where we're just really barreling down on it. Yeah, God, we'll be getting a spot on Joe Rogan next week.

Oh, good. He couldn't handle us. We can't be interviewed. I'd like to watch him just be appalled as I explain my diet. Joe Rogan, have you ever heard of Huel? Joe, but you don't understand, if I get the two-for-one pizzas, I can have it for lunch

and dinner the next day. we can we can tick off a lot of things with this we can we can have some huel we can have some pizza um and i think what would be quite fun is to go into an episode of joe rogan not fully explain the campaign for north africa with the hopes that he doesn't know about it and then on there for some other reason and then ask that's a good point and then ask if we can play a game on his episode and then we're just locked in to his longest episode yeah well if anything what we do is we removed Joe Rogan from the Rolodex of podcasters for about 10 years.

Yeah. I reckon he would watch us play. I think he would just sit there and take it. Jamie, get them out of here. We can trick Joe Rogan. Letting us have a month on his podcast.

I'd be fine to trick Joe Rogan. I don't think I've got any moral quandaries with that. No, I'm happy to trick him. There we go. We're going to trick Joe Rogan, guys. Going to get him on next week's episode. we've promised some big guests before we've promised idris elba and he never manifested he's still not got back in touch which is wild uh the huel guys uh apparently think they're better than us but um i'm not gonna i'm not gonna go down that rabbit hole too much because uh it's just not worth it they're not worth it andy but you know who is worth it some men who were

better than us and that's very hard to come by but there's some that are definitely better than us in terms of their ferocity, their accomplishments and how old they are because they happened quite a long time ago. Indeed they did. It's the 28th Maori. Yes, it is. And I believe today we're wrapping them up.

We're wrapping them up. So we'll start off with a quote for them. Let's go. Go back to our mountains, go back to our people, go back to our Maori. But this is my last command to you all. Stand as Maori, stand as Maori, stand as Maori. lieutenant colonel james herner the final order ever given to the maori battalion before they

disbanded oh it's poignant what a way to begin beautiful indeed and uh just that word i mentioned mara that is like a sacred like religious site and community center it's like the center of their villages and tribes oh okay right yeah uh but cool uh thing so yeah on the 13th of may the war in 1943 the war in north africa ended the maori arrived in italy in october 1943 the germans had surrendered sorry not the germans the italians had surrendered in september 1943 but the country was occupied by germans one of the things they struggled with almost immediately the intense contrast between the desert environment and a particularly wet and cold italian winter oh okay so immediately at the opposite end of that spectrum it's like any british summer day

yeah from morning to afternoon so on the 6th of december they returned to combat at a town called orsogna which is about halfway up the boot pretty much directly across from rome to the east okay but like parallel to it the fighting was fierce uh lasted all the way through december and the maori were finally withdrawn mid-january swapping out with a indian unit in total during this they lost 11 men and 222 were wounded over the course of the battle uh but it wasn't decided in the time the maori were there okay right but they got a few months rest and then their next uh major engagement was for the struggle for a town called cassie cassino uh south of rome it's the main road going up northwards towards Rome.

One side, there's Mont Cassino, which is a 500-meter-high mountain with a monastery on top of it that overlooks the road and also the, at this point, heavily fortified town of Cassinone. The Allies were already engaged there with both the monastery and the town

for some time before the New Zealanders, including the 28th, arrived. So on the night of the February 17th, going past midnight into the morning the maori attacked the town's railway station this is a quote from sir edward dennis blundell whose letter we read this is a later part from a letter we read out last week okay i think of that gallant but abortive attack on the railway station at casano a few days previously some 25 to 30 maoris had arrived unheralded from the base of bari so bad was our intelligence security that when they had learned in Bari of the

impending attack and decided to be in on it with the boys rear division sent up an order that they were all to be charged with being AWOL lieutenant colonel young and the brigadier commander agreed to ignore it in my recollection some four of them were killed and several injured so they just heard about a scrap and came up against orders to take part yeah that that sounds about right yeah but the attack overall did not go well um they were pushing in deep into the town uh but their supporting armor couldn't get through the rubble and the blockages in the street uh for a town that at this point had been under like

constant conflict for like months at this point yeah i can't imagine that's easy to drive through especially when it's tanks yeah so they actually ended up having to retreat under like heavy gun fire and it as a result the gum diggers and the penny drivers a and b company lost 128 out of the 200 men they had jesus heavy losses then yeah a company's worth so a company would be like 100 men so yeah so losing north of that yeah after that unsuccessful attack in march they were rotated away from the front casino ultimately fell to polish troops in mid-may so after a short period of r&r they're back on the front lines in july that they're the first unit to reach florence on the 4th of august wow so still tip of the spearing it big accolade as well yeah crazy

they fought in rimmy in september and fianza in december and then winter closed in further they'd been here for almost a year at this point and the next three months were on defensive duty because of snows on the front on the front, just basically the whole thing just sort of slowed down to a halt for the winter. Yeah, well like you say

that massive shift as well for the environment that they're in, that's a crazy juxtaposition. But they got back onto the front in April pursuing German forwards northwards until the 2nd of May 1945 when the germans in italy surrendered the war for the uh 28th maori ended in a town called

trieste with a short but intense standoff with tito's yukoslavian partisans an allied force who'd come down to occupy the city in the hope that it would then be counted as part of yukoslavia when they were, like, doing all the treaties and, like, sorting the stuff out after the war. So these guys just sort of nipped down to try and nick an Italian city. Yeah, why not? Just on the trip back. Yeah.

Described as very tense, but no blows or anything, fortunately. So World War II's over at this point. August, I think August... Yeah, August, Japan surrender. Yeah, that sounds right. So World War II is over for them and the Maori at this point, but it does take them seven months to get home.

That's a big, massive threat. Because of logistical shipping issues, the millions of men from all over the world need to be moved back. Yeah, I mean, I've seen pictures of some of the ships coming back home at the end of the war, and they are jam-packed. Yeah, so 270 of them head off to Japan under the designation D Squadron to help with, like, garrisoning

and just holding Japan while they sort that out. Okay. But the rest of them head home on the Dominion Monarch shipping liner and refrigerated food transport. And they're left on Boxing Day 1945 bound for home. Oh, a nice little Christmas treat. Yeah.

upon returning home many of the maori men had to grapple with wherever it was worth it for their people the 28 maori had a 50 higher casualty rate than any other new zealand infantry group in the entire war it's massive yeah and over the six years of its existence it had gone through 12 commanders yeah i mean they were churning through them last time we were talking so yeah that's no surprise ben mclean a maori pow who'd been in caldits amongst other places on his first day back in new zealand after returning from the war uh he went into a local pub and the barman refused to serve him because he was maori fucking hell yeah a local policeman did intervene and insist that you should be served uh and they sat down together and did share a pint

i mean that's yeah that's a positive at least the last known surviving member of the battalion sir bom gillis uh died on the 7th of november 2024 oh jesus so that's um he was 99 years old that's around when we got the game yeah oh man that's yeah yeah time is crazy surprisingly recent um and he ended up accepting a lot of like he accepted some knighthoods and some i think an order of the british empire and he was reluctant to do that at first but when he was the last one he saw it as accepting it on behalf of of all of them yeah yeah i mean it was snubbed so many times during the war yeah what you've said previously so um but due to racism and discrimination against the maori that he experienced following the war he was quoted as saying towards the end

of his life war is a waste of time if i had the choice again i would not fight in that war can't fucking blame the guy no but there has led to some positives uh for the maori and we'll end with a quote from herna nagata a veteran of the 28th and the son of aprina nagata the mp who pushed for that unit to be formed oh yes one so this is what he had to say about the maori involvement in the war i doubt if maori people can point to any specific benefit or advantage which can be attributed to the participation of their men in world war ii but in a wider sense the fact that the maori took an active part in the war produced a number of positive things maori have a higher profile in new zealand life the treaty of waitangi have been given status unthought of pre-war

the maori is no longer a declining population nor a dying race can it be claimed that these changes took place because maori men went to world war ii probably not but can it be said that these changes would have taken place at all if the allies had lost the war damn yeah that is uh that's actually surprisingly poignant yeah i don't expect to be so stirred by a history segment, but yeah, I think something about hearing that they went through all of that and were still

on the back foot through discrimination is so fucked. Like, that's genuinely troubling to hear. That's not pleasant. But I think there was some stuff, so you know the guy who didn't get the

Victoria Cross? Yes. Four generals, including Montgomery, protested that decision after the war. Nice. But King George in 1945 said they'd be giving no more decorations or anything for the war.

Or just cut it off. It's over, we're cutting it off. But there has been efforts to recognise them later. He couldn't get that award but his son was presented with a sword and various honours, so I think there has

been an effort. yeah to respect what they did well from what you said you know the last surviving member managed to take on some of that on on behalf of the the entirety so that's at least they did get you know something in the end it's far too little far too late yeah but it's it's good that at least there is some recognition now and and hey we recognize it you know it's sad that you know absolutely nobody left that we can uh get that out to but yeah it's nice that it ties up with when we've started this it feels like a nice sort of little yeah tag on of history and just a truly remarkable group of people scary scary guys very capable uh completely unshakable as well by the

sounds of it yeah the fact that they went through that and then yeah the guy can't get a fucking pint like just insane do you think about the things that you've went through on the front lines of those conflicts fixed bayonets yeah and then you come back and you can't even have a bloody pint to celebrate or commiserate yeah um but just like their attitude is like them getting those uh order finding out oh there's going to be an attack with some of our other guys we want to be in with the boys yes just heading up uh also something i didn't find to put in but i thought was interesting i saw a mention of it is um they use the maoris uh in the new zealand second division to do radio communication uh when they didn't have time to fully encode it sometimes

okay uh because it would be such an alien language to the germans like some germans might know english or french but they wouldn't know maori that's a very similar to like i don't know if you know the navajo yes wind talkers yeah yeah called yeah uh so they did a bit of that as well being used for that's a very good use yeah yeah picking a very niche language from the other side of the world yeah to be used to it's effectively encoding it yeah because you're not going to be able to crack that as german intelligence don't stand a chance if anything from what i've heard about enigma and the failings of that with the previous history segments probably a better idea than enigma in some ways oh man well it's it's uh it's a shame we've wrapped

it up because i really thoroughly enjoyed hearing about them as always andy you've outdone yourself another fantastic history portion and uh the maori fantastic uh very impressive and it's a damn shame they didn't get that recognition when they needed it but hey we we give it for what that's worth it's minor but hey we think that those guys were fucking badass and if you want to find more about them there's a site 28th maori battalion.org.nz uh there's got a bunch of brilliant stuff in there that's where i found the battalion diary and some of the battalion letters i've been quoting from so if anyone does have more of an interest uh really great resource there well now that we've wrapped up the section i'll be having

a read of that over the next few days i think because i'm also interested to have a look at that i try and stave off reading any materials when you're doing a particular area of information because i don't like spoilers yeah so that's uh that's been awesome so everybody uh give a round of applause for randy because that was swell as always and a round of applause for the 20th maori yes those magnificent fixed bayonet guys oh god still i think the scariest unit i could run into in the war so far so far i've got no doubt that you'll be able to yeah overcome that and surprise me next time with something else yeah um because i did in the battle of cassia cassino there was a bit uh you can find it on the site uh two guys took a hundred germans as prisoners because they

got a tank to just shell a building that the germans were in and then threatened the radio operator who was German they'd captured to get the men to surrender. So a hundred German men surrendered to two Maoris and one tank. Oh my god. There's stuff like that scattered throughout. It's so

great. That is a crazy ratio of success. Two guys taking a hundred men is fucking silly numbers. They took brutal losses throughout it, but they always gave way better than they got. It was like ten men for a hundred. Oh, yeah, when they trade off, their game of chess is a fucking brutal one.

Oh, yeah. Damn. Well, that's something. Well, farewell to the 28th, and I guess on to the next week. Yes. Well, we're on the homestretch, Andy. You'll be happy to hear. It's nearly bedtime, because I've got no doubt I'm going to walk out that front door,

and you're going to hit the pillow and be lightened. I'll be asleep by the time you get to the end of the street. well in that case there's only one thing left for us to do and it's the most calming segment of anything it's common ground and now for something nicer

a little oasis in the war it's time for some common ground I'm trying the intro for common ground I'm recording maybe yeah Common Ground, as you all know,

is a chance for me and Arnie to come together. And this week it's not too bad because I feel like we've really been... It's been alright. It's been the good old days. It's been us together. We're duking it out over this game and the experience it is. Just having a jolly good time. Next week

it's going to be horrible. I need to think of a really strong Common Ground. We need a good Common Ground next week. Because we need to come together on something. So this week, it's a bit of a relaxed one. So whatever you say, we can take it easy breezy. And what is your opinion okay uh this one is just small scale it's to do with gigs you go a lot more gigs than me yeah i love a good gig uh no more planned on calls i think planned on calls are complete

fucking bullshit and they make shows worse ah see i like an uncle what okay oh you're not getting any sleep anytime soon friend because here's what an encore is for originally like why they started is the band finishes its gig and the crowd is so rowdy the owner is like get back on get rid of some energy or they're gonna like burn my establishment down now it's like a planned part of it and i think it just kills the momentum of the backup back bit of a set to like go off for like 10 15 minutes and also save your songs for it i'd rather they just played through and just didn't have it because i do feel like it dips you to just before the end see okay i i hear what you're saying and i will put a bit of a spin on that then okay so um i i

think there is still a merit to it because what you've what you've said there is it's built into these gigs now but part of that is because it does have that demand people after the band goes off they still want more you see i think that's the bands being in tight i think very few bands actually in that i don't know i think if you want to go see a band like if i want to go see a band and they they wrapped up and encores weren't a thing and people are so riled up and they're like cheering for more i'd be part of that i'd want more and then if they came back out i'd be like fuck that worked i will always do this now and that would still be a thing culturally so having them planned you sort of you stave off the uncertainty where people could get pissed

that it hasn't happened so so how about i think a lot of bands don't earn them so possibly and also i don't think it should be planned i think you should like because they save their best songs like they play their like three biggest songs after it so that's the part that i have should be like repeated stuff yeah so that that's the part that i have as a bit of an alternative yeah so instead of saving the the sort of big closers i think you you close out your big set you you wrap it up with your your big hit the one everyone knows everyone's there for uh depending on the band you know whatever it is that's going to be the big blowout and then it wraps up and then people like right so there's probably going to be an encore now and then for the encore who knows

what's going to come so at that point you've got you've it's a sort of a mixed bag because then you've got the you've got the hype and the excitement and then this could work to either stave off encores as you seem to want um because you might get a few songs where it's like oh these are sort of b-sides these are things i didn't really want to hear i'm not really into these ones or you get the other side where people are like oh my god it's this song this is a deep cut they never play this so instead the encore becomes a chance to explore maybe a different side of the band you know something that they don't often get to play so you get these sort of surprise songs who i will point to um and this is uh it might be a controversial one but i think done very well

taylor swift so she had her her ears to her and you know covered off all these different songs from different albums um which i think also just a great concept oh yeah apparently katie perry's not really nailed that when she's tried it um no she's now no yeah she's gone off the rails but i will say um on this uh this this live mic um that uh waking up in vegas by katie perry is a fucking brilliant song she's got some bangers oh absolutely but apparently the latest shows yeah um but um yeah so taylor swift had part of her set where she would do surprise songs uh each each show during this tour would be i think it was like one or two surprise songs and it would be like a deep cut and i think that that is a good notion would that be like the last song so uh no she would she

would scatter it in amongst i think i don't think it was like the very end uh from what i understand anyway yeah because i'm all for barnes throwing some old stuff in there but this is a way to reinvent the encore for you so instead of stripping it away completely and disappointing the masses because bear in mind everyone knows about the encore right now you're not talking about erasing everyone's memory you're talking about changing something fundamental i feel do you not feel like it gets to the encore bit and you're like oh fuck like i know i'm gonna stand here for 10 15 minutes they could have just played through not really i think it builds that sort of hype where everyone you know everyone's listened to the set all that way you know and they've had a great time and then

it's like right okay here we go let's build up this energy we've we've got that hype the tension how long is it going to be till they're back out and then they come back out and you know it's going to be some really good songs so then you go ham and you blast out and that's you tired out we'll we'll pep it out so i think the encore is great i i go to you said i go to a lot more gigs maybe i'm a you know i'm a first person uh experience that you should tap into here but i know because i've left gigs during the encore bit in the encore break i believe that i've had enough and you weren't good enough to get me away around i'm going but it sounds like you maybe weren't going to gigs where you really loved the band then like you weren't like massively

infatuated i've i've had annoying ones at bands i like oh fair i mean to be fair i've never had that i've never had that so maybe that's a differing experience i yeah i guess i just think it's an annoying blip and it's also like very self-congratulatory and stuff i mean it is it is but i guess if you're doing a show because i think this should be they should be like requesting or calling for you because if we're not going to get rid of encores or we're going to have encore's there i think it the other side of it is audiences should be much better about going no you've not earned this and just leaving okay i agree with that the band's been kind of shit and they go off for 15 minutes and come back and it's half the arena i think that would be good

i okay i agree with that i think maybe if yeah if the hype isn't there if the band has really fucked it somehow or they've just not got the hype they've just not been a good day or whatever it's just yeah had the energy yeah i think yeah in that case what what you do then get is the band gets to you know realize that everyone hasn't really enjoyed it as much as they should have the band goes right you know we'll call it an early night we'll we'll rest up we'll do better tomorrow and everybody goes back home and they're like right fair enough that wasn't actually what i wanted so no i that i agree with i think every every band i've went to see that i can think of uh there's been a big chant for an encore there's been a chant after the encore for a lot of them

where they want a second encore which doesn't actually ever happen i've never had that but i agree maybe we have some like decibel measuring system at gigs so you need to clear a certain volume and then they come back out and also i think a lot of the trout shouts for encores and gigs i've been is because they haven't played the songs you want like you want them to play most yet yes you want the big hit yeah that they've they've saved for the encore whereas i reckon if they didn't save it for the encore you'd get less of the well there we go then there we there we can incorporate both so we do the we do the the b-side deep cut thing and we also do you know that everybody wanting more because then they know you're not going to get the biggest song that's

not what you're cheering for yeah you're cheering for more of this band in general yes i like that then because then it feels like a more genuine encore yeah rather than like a smoke break built into a set yeah you're cheering for a potluck draw it could be any song from their their discography you could end up with you know a deep cut that you love one that you you don't love so much could be one that you actually don't like at all but if you're cheering for it that's what you've got and then places can cheer for uh we'll cheer for different uh like deep cuts so then the band will be like oh that's it you always like that weird stuff like yeah exactly and a city can have a bit of character as well of what they like it diversifies things yeah so there we go i

think that's i think that's a a good way to to meet in the middle yep so no saving songs no saving the big songs to last and audience better about leaving if the band haven't earned it yes audience participation is also key yeah there we go i think we we did it we managed to pull it around common ground if anything common ground is our encore we save it except it's not because no one's asking for it no one's asking for it and uh well it's not really our best it if anything it's kind of a deep cut deep cut b-side because it's the first segment we introduced and it's not really related to the game no i said not really it's not ever related to the point is it's not no it's meant to be a palate cleanser i bet there's definitely a demographic who uh who listen and just drop off

as soon as we mentioned common ground thank god we can't see the retention charts oh no if we can see that little like map of like when it spikes in the episode goodness me but if anybody does have anything they want to voice about uh on course or anything else that we do probably the campaign for north africa then you can get us at info at war with a mate.co.uk and the instagram which is just war with a mate we have a website war with a mate.co.uk and there's a web form on there which occasionally we get something fired through and anything that's emailed over we will get around to it we assure you of that but if you've not got anything to send don't send i guess and if you've got any historical uh recommendations uh please fire them across because both the

28th and the long range desert group came out of uh millet stuff mentioned in emails that i thought was interesting and looked into more yes yeah you guys inspired that yeah so any inspiration for anything yeah jonathan uh shout out it was his email the 28th maury so nice i think we actually got more than one possibly i think might have had a couple people but yeah and also matthew so we got got to like get through well thanks both because that was a history segment i loved um anyone else who's got a an idea for a history segment it doesn't necessarily have to be a a group could be a period of the war could be piece of technology it could be anything weird guy yeah weird guy we love weird guys we've got 10 years we'll cover

most of it yeah i'd be shocked if we don't get through all of it so send that over um and uh same with i guess all of the non-sequiturs about heathcliff and other weird stuff we love hearing your weird misadventures by the way so if anyone else is doing weird stuff that takes forever it's nice to know we're not alone but i'm gonna leave you alone andy i'm gonna leave you alone forever this is goodbye okay goodbye until tomorrow because i'm gonna see you for dnd we're gonna place yes you are dnd tomorrow i'll see you then i guess see you then and for the rest of you listening well andy i know you're tired but you're gonna do it yep stay subtle humble and brave there we go and get a good night's sleep in the deserts of your mind i'm gonna go pop off to mine so

farewell good night and sleep tight We'll be right back.