Videos! New Total War: Rome II Trailer and History of Scotland Documentary

Total War: Rome II

I have a feeling this game is going to derail my painting this fall. I spent dozens of hours and late nights with the first Rome Total War, and I'm looking forward to the updated version. There's still quite a lot of Hollywood in this (Naval preparatory bombardments? Gigantic African elephants?) but I dig the focus on Hannibal and the Punic wars.

It looks like Total War: Rome 2 is set to release September 2, with free Greek city states downloadable content for preorders. Not sure if I should take advantage of the preorder or wait for the holidays when I'll have the time to devote to it.

History of Scotland

I was also hunting around YouTube for something to watch while I finished up some Normans for SAGA and stumbled upon a BBC production of the History of Scotland.

The first episode covered everything from the Romans fighting the Caledonians up to the appearance of "Scotland" as a political entity following the Battle of Brunanburh. Lots of fodder to spur games of Hail Caesar, Dux Britanniarum and SAGA. My knowledge of Scottish history is essentially nil, but I loved the first episode and I'm looking forward to watching the rest of the series. BBC always gets the best stuff.