Historian of the eighteenth-century Atlantic World, American Continental Army, and Military Europe.
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Our story begins in the aftermath of Prinz Eugen von Savoyen's victory at Belgrade in 1717. After this victory and the resulting Treaty of Passarowitz, the Austrian government ruled part of Serbia and northern Bosnia via direct military control. 2/25 
When you read on the 18th century wars, you here again and again that troops fired at very short ranges. And certainly, compared with weapons today, the capabilities of the smoothbore flintlock musket were modest. 2/21
For those of you who don't know me, I'm an assistant professor of history at one of the more conservative universities in the United States. You can look up my bio and my resume.
When I started wargaming, my overwhelming focus was getting troops painted. The uniforms, etc. If I got some houses down on the table, or painted some fields, that was a win. I couldn't help but notice, though, my villages didn't look right. 2/10 
I think everyone has a historical figure off the beaten path they love to think about. Mine is this guy named Johann Dietrich von Hülsen. Born into a minor Prussian noble family in East Prussia in 1693, Hülsen had a long and varied military career. 2/17 
I'm a history professor who studies the military history of George Washington's time: ~1739-1789. I teach at a small liberal arts college with a revolutionary mascot, and absolutely love my job, and our history. Spent the week in Philly, seeing cool Americana. 2/25
Christopher Duffy, writing under the pen-name Hugh Faringdon, described his motivation to write "Confrontation: The Strategic Geography of NATO and the Warsaw Pact" with the following anecdote: "The speaker hailed from an anglophone foreign country,..." 2/25 
Christopher Duffy argues that patriotism in its modern form was most recognizable in Russia and Britain, and the letters of British soldiers do occasionally express semi-patriotic sentiments: Thomas Plumb wrote home to his family in Feb of 1777, speaking about Americans: 2/20 
The battle is often remembered as "Frederick the Great's first defeat", but it is much more significant than that, reshaping the possibilities and aims of belligerents in the Central European Seven Years War. A bit of background. 2/28
The 8th (King's) Regiment gets a bad wrap as a result of 3 things: 1) pithy comments from other units 2) their status as essentially a garrison regiment 3) comments from their officers. I try to address all of these things in the lecture, as well as explain their successes. 2/8 
So, I'm currently 13 hours in, and I think I have enough of a feel for it to give you my impressions. I'm not reviewing this as a gamer first, but as a history professor who has read, written, and thought about peasants in German History in the period just after this one. 2/25 
Both of the letters below were written in 1611, long after William Adams initial landing in Japan, and Tokugawa Ieyasu's (Toronaga's) victory at the Battle of Sekigahara in October of 1600. Both of the letter selections below describe Adams first meeting with Tokugawa. 2/25
It has been an absolute blast being the faculty advisor to this club over the last year. There were some bumps along the way, but we have a great crew: don't be fooled, young people love historical gaming, even in "obscure" periods. 2/22 
These young people are frequently derided with memes about "starter packs" or paradox games. Some of my fellow graduate instructors at WVU called them "military history bros." Although a number of them were conservative white men, I've taught "milhist bros" of all stripes: 2/25 
The Protestant "Paladins" were trying to break through the Spanish position to reach threaten the city of Breda, which Ambrogio Spinola's Spanish forces were currently investing. The goal of the action was not so much to destroy Cordoba as break through. 2/17 