French vs Venetians

 Understandably we have struggled to build any gaming momentum since losing Peter from our small group, but we did meet this week. The period played was Italian Wars, for the first time since early 2022. In my blog post on that occasion I speculated that the rules were due for a rewrite, and sure enough James had updated them in light of our experiences with the Peninsular Wars rules, most notably unit movement.

My main observation on the new set is that they are somewhat bloody, with the game ending within one night with one side having no morale and the other hardly any. We shall see if they stay that way when we try again next Wednesday.

Stan Qualen

 I've been away, but I'm back. While I get myself sorted out here's some music from a band I saw a couple of weeks ago:

I'm thinking of wearing my hair like that.

Much As Expected

 Well, I at least am a happy bunny. It could have been better, but it could have been worse. Anyone getting their news only from the mainstream media may have been surprised by the success of the pro-Palestinian independents, but you wouldn't be if you lived where I do; Starmer has been wrong about Gaza since the beginning. As for the rise of the Reform Party Company Ltd, I stand by the views I expressed in this post from eight years ago.

Let me leave you with a charitable appeal:

Today's the Day

 "When the mood of the music changes, the walls of the city shake" - Plato 

PotCXXIVpouri

 I've been busy electioneering of course. I'm quietly confident in Leeds North West, not least because no other party seems to be doing any campaigning at all. As for the overall result, who knows? I would, however, like to point readers towards this little 'prediction' I made on the 23rd April 2020, during the first lockdown when the Tories were well ahead in the opinion polls. As I said then: we shall see.

I have found time away from politics to do a few things. Firstly, walking. This is an entry in the very infrequent series of bridges of the Yorkshire Dales. In the Worth Valley, it's not far from the house that the Railway Children lived in.

We also finished the To The Strongest! game, with a win for the Crusaders, but not by much. I then took myself off to see Mississippi McDonald, who was excellent despite clearly not coming from Mississippi. This one's called 'If You Want A Good Cup Of Coffee'. If you do, then take my advice and don't go to McDonalds, whether in Mississippi or anywhere else.

Revelation Chapter 21 Verse 4

 We met last night for a game. James had chosen the Crusades using To the Strongest! for our return to the legendary wargames room.

It was fun - TtR! always is - but I'm not going to write much about it. I shall however share a couple of photos of James's extremely impressive Middle Eastern town, which hit the table in its full glory for the first time.

As you can tell it is modular, with the sections mapping directly onto the squares of the gridded tabletop. James had come up with rules for assaulting the town and then for fighting between sections that seem to be working well so far.

I hope that James is going to include some better photos on his blog, but this is the situation as we left it. It's not immediately obvious, but the Crusaders have broken into the section directly in front of the siege tower as well as the edge of the town on the left of the picture. However, I as the Crusaders may just possibly have overextended myself in an attempt to reach the palace at the back and thereby meet the victory conditions. The Muslim army has pulled itself together and moved to seek to drive the infidels back out. Plus, their forces outside the walls must surely get going sooner or later. To be continued.

Sad News

It is with a heavy heart that I pass on news of the death of Peter, my friend and wargaming colleague of twenty years or more. With cruel irony he was the youngest and, until his illness, the fittest and most active of our small group. My thoughts are very much with Heather and his family.

Readers of this blog are ideally placed to understand how unimportant wargaming is in the scheme of things. And yet, Peter had been wargaming, painting and collecting for fifty years; it was part of who he was (although quite a bit lower in his hobby priorities than horses if truth be told). With that in mind I take some comfort from the last game he played having been the best that any of us had been involved in for a long time, a backwards and forwards tussle with matters undecided until late on the fourth evening. His condition deteriorated shortly after that and neither he nor the rest of us have played since. 

The other interest shared by Peter and me was music. This remained hidden for many years after we first met, until one night I found myself quoting Tom Russell lyrics at the wargames table, as one does. He picked up on that and, our common taste having been established, he introduced me to the fine covers of Russell's songs recorded by Gretchen Peters. We ended up attending gigs together when both artists next visited the UK and I know that I shan't be able to listen to either of them in future without thinking of my friend. As a suitably elegiac way to commemorate that musical bond here is Russell's 'Guadalupe' beautifully sung by Peters:

Tell It To Me Slowly

 I write this in response to the blog having supposedly received 4,000 views in the last twenty four hours, a figure which is beyond implausible. Inasmuch as there are ever any views it's due to neither the frequency of posting nor the quality; it's simply that I've been going a long time so there plenty of opportunities for stray internet searches to hit a past post. I'm going to revisit two of those past posts myself, following a bank holiday weekend of gig going.

Firstly the Paperboys, ten years after having last seen them, and very good they were too. My companion on that occasion, the estimable Coral Laroc, didn't care overmuch for the trombone and the first thing said during the interval by the lady accompanying me this time was "What's with the trombone?". Plus ça change. Speaking of Coral, she was last heard of at the beginning of the month swimming in the sea off Redcar, following which she complained that something in the water had made her ill. Does she not read the newspapers?

I've also seen the Zombies, this time after a gap of eleven years. Back then I hinted at some surprise that Colin Blunstone's voice was in such good shape. It now occurs to me that at the time he was the same age that I am now - i.e. in his prime - and that therefore there was nothing remarkable in the fact that he could still cut it. I am delighted to report that all remains well vocally. And indeed musically, because it was an outstanding gig, with 'Time of the Season', 'Hold Your Head Up' and 'She's Not There' being the unsurprising stand-outs; excellent stuff and if I never see them again - which seems probable - it was a very good way to leave it. 

Stupid Boy

 No wargaming recently due to stuff. We are hoping to resume this Wednesday, technology willing.

In the meantime, there's going to be an election. I'm not sure I can do better than quote this week's Economist: "Whether this decision is an act of political genius or lunacy - and The Economist's money is on lunacy - Britons should welcome it". Bring it on, I say. So far it looks as if the Labour Party's plan to plant a mole to run the Tory's campaign for them is paying off, as they unveil one barking mad idea after another.

Opera in musica

 "Pretentiousness is the mask of worthlessness and weakness." - Rafael Sabitini

It occurs to me that the thing you will all have missed most due to my my erratic posting schedule is my self-appointed role as the leading opera reviewer among wargaming bloggers. I've seen nine so far in 2024, six of them new to me, and so I'm afraid I can't be terribly comprehensive in my catch-up. Instead I'll briefly cover a couple of highlights.

The best of those I've been to, I would say, was the Hallé's concert performance of the original 1857 version of Simon Boccanegra at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester, which was sensational and got both a standing ovation and rave reviews. I can't tell you how it compares to the revised 1881 version because I've never seen that, although Opera North are doing it in April 2025 and so readers can confidently expect me to post about that this time next year (*). I shall be particularly interested to know if the plot is any more understandable because this one was impenetrable. The most confusing moment came at the end of the first half when, the lady known as Amelia Grimaldi - who, spoiler alert, turns out to be someone else completely - comes on and tells us that she has, offstage of course, been kidnapped and then managed to get away. At this all the other characters, including those whom we know perfectly well both planned and carried out the deed, start singing "Death to Lorenzo". So far so operatic, except that to that point there had been no mention at all of any Lorenzo; nor, yet another spoiler alert, did he turn up in the second half. As opera critic Robert Thicknesse observed, it is "one of those libretti that heroically rises above explaining anything at all".

It was also at the end of the first half that the most memorable thing in Stravinsky's Rake's Progress occurred. It wasn't that I didn't enjoy the music, singing and acting or, to a lesser extent, the direction and design. It was just that the sight of the bearded lady sitting on a large horse with a cardboard box on her head - you can perhaps see why I had my reservations about what was going on in front of me - wondering why there was neither applause nor someone coming to help her down, was very funny. The reason was that the curtain had malfunctioned, the audience therefore had no clue that the act had finished (**) and it took some minutes before those behind the scenes came up with a plan to put us all out of our collective difficulty.

Other highlights included the first performance I had ever heard sung in Russian: Rachmaninov's Alekko set in a hippy commune and also featuring surprise appearances from some characters who had earlier that evening appeared in Mascagni's cavalleria rusticana, only visible to some on stage. Think Banquo's ghost. It was odd, but it worked. Also worth mentioning was Rossini's scala di seta where the silken ladder was represented by a more solid ladder let down into the pit. It was no shock to see the tenor climbing up it, more so to see the conductor do the same when joining the principals to take his bow.

* If the Lord spares me, and if I can be arsed.

** Beyond the fact that the orchestra had stopped playing; it's a good job they weren't on the Titanic.

Wellington Triumphs Somewhere Or Other

 The Peninsular campaign hasn't been getting a lot of love in the blog recently, or indeed from your bloggist if truth be told. However, we have been plugging away by playing a game that's lasted a full four weeks, the longest that I can remember happening in the legendary wargames room of James 'Olicanalad' Roach, and I've probably been playing there for close to twenty years(*). In the interests of complete disclosure I have to say that week two of the game was dreadful, at least from the point of view of my colleague Mr Jackson and myself, because we never got to do anything. But, in the finest traditions of the band on the Titanic we played on and, if I may mix my metaphors for a moment, we rose from the dead like one of those gay vampires that Ulysses S. Grant's great-great-grandson writes about. The final two evenings were highly enjoyable, with plenty of to and fro plus the good guys won in the end. What more could one want?

Well, fewer casualties probably. I still don't understand how the campaign loss system (ⓒ J.Roach) works, but the fact that the tray is overflowing is unlikely to be a good sign.

* Refights of Sidi Rezegh always felt like they had lasted for a month, but that's not the same thing.

Gold Tops A-Rattling

 “The cow is of the bovine ilk; one end is moo, the other milk.” - Ogden Nash

The election is nearly on us, the campaign will soon be over. Rest assured that my part in it does not involve any personal interaction with voters. The video in the last post rivalled that of Daniel O'Donnell for being the worst ever put up on these pages. This is better:

The Barry Barrel is Scraped

 It's election time; I'm busy.

To tide us over here is some Barry Blue. There are a couple of mysteries about this video. Is the music we're hearing the same as that to which he is lip-synching and 'dancing'? And why have the audience been drugged?

Fun fact: his real name is Barry Green. 

Unexpected fact: as a songwriter his work was recorded by, amongst others, Diana Ross and Vera Lynn.

Eve of Destruction

 We live in interesting times. It's reassuring therefore that readers have felt able to spare the time to write to me. For the record none of them have asked how the Peninsular campaign is going. Nevertheless I feel obliged to tell you. Mark very nearly won a couple of weeks ago, but the Spanish forces collectively made a burst towards Madrid, recapturing sufficient territory from the French to ensure that it will go on a bit longer. Bastards.

What did seem to be worrying you all was why my list of the most famous Barrys hadn't included Barry from Eastenders. A fine question, but in my defence I must point out that he is fictional, plus of course he was pushed off a cliff twenty years ago. Having said that, he did recently appear at a gig venue local to me presenting his, apparently famous, barrioke; shame I missed it.

Much more relevant to the state of the world is Barry Maguire, who recorded a song in 1965 which I would re-release sharpish were I his record label:

Sad But True

 "War, at first, is the hope that one will be better off; next, the expectation that the other fellow will be worse off; then, the satisfaction that he isn't any better off; and, finally, the surprise at everyone's being worse off." - Karl Kraus

From this week's Private Eye

Vauban's Wars Revisited

 I have set the siege up again to have a little play. It's been getting on for three years since it was last out on the table. I refer to 'the siege' because the initial layout is always going to be pretty much the same. These photos may therefore look familiar. 

One change that we decided was necessary was to start the game with some of the second parallel already built, and that's what you see above. I want to test whether that means that any adjustment needs to be made to the force sizes or to the opening values of food, powder, morale etc. I hope not, and that's the way I'm going to try it first. Having re-read the rules I'm not sure we gave sufficient weight to blind spots around the bastions during previous games, although as it was so long ago I may just have forgotten. One aspect of addressing that which requires some thought - and possibly the manufacture of  player aid or two - is that my bastions don't have as acute an angle as would have done in real life or as the rules assume. The main reason for that is simply to make the table footprint more manageable, although it also makes it easier to put the cannon and figures in them. As I say I need to have a think about how to match the rules to the terrain.

Speaking of terrain, the only real change since last time is that I have modelled and cast up some proper positions for guns and mortars to replace the rather bodged way in which I did it before. Hopefully you can get the idea from the photo above.

The Spanish Have a Beef With Wellington

 The Peninsular Campaign, which we have been playing on and off now for some months, is in one sense just an extended playtest. James wrote the rules drawing on his vast experience, his status as a wargaming demi-god plus, of course, the ever elusive wargamer's common sense. However, and despite that pedigree, until they were played no-one could know how they would work out in practice. We have made the expected running amendments as we went along, but I understand that James now feels that he knows enough to start thinking about some more fundamental changes and a version 2.0. One aspect that seems certain to feature is some achievable victory conditions.

The problem with the current system is that it seems to be as easy to lose victory points as it is to gain them. The French are currently ahead, but only by as much as the allies were recently, and a swing back is all too imaginable.

One way out would be a climactic, winner-takes-all battle and we rather thought it had arisen a few weeks ago. One French command under Sault attacked a numerically superior, but otherwise inferior Spanish army. A second French force was due to arrive part way through, but - thanks to a campaign card produced from nowhere by Peter - so was Wellington with a large and very strong Anglo-Portuguese army. This was the big one. Except it wasn't. The luck of the dice and cards resulted in Wellington not bothering on this occasion and the Spanish received the inevitable kicking. I wouldn't be happy if I was them.

To me, to you

 I have been asked why my round-up of famous Barrys in showbiz omitted Chuckle. Good question. At the risk of confirming AI in its belief that this is a YouTube channel, let's have some music from another one. And is it just a coincidence that the Leeds born Ryan brothers (real name Sapherson) shared first names with the Chuckle brothers (real name Elliot) (*)?

* Yes, it is.

Six Months of Boardgaming

 Haven't done this for a while. New-to-me and otherwise notable games only.

Age of War: OK, but no better. It's samurai themed, but fairly abstract.

Amerigo: Perfectly fine exploration and tile laying game.

Arkadia: Polyomino tile-laying game with some clever variable scoring rules. Good.

Clever Cubed: The third in the Ganz Schon Clever! series. The second remains my favourite so far.

Dead Man's Draw: Nice pirate themed filler.

Dogfight! Rule the Skies in Twenty Minutes!: Played this some more, this time including missions such as bombing and reconnaissance. It's not very good.

Dune Imperium - Uprising: According to those whose judgement I rate, this has replaced the original. I didn't see it as being that much better myself. What I did see was a scam, whereby people are lured into paying full whack again for a game that has a 90% overlap with one they already have.

Evacuation: I really did not enjoy this, indeed I failed to see the point. Other people claimed to like it, so what do I know?

Exit - The Disappearance of Sherlock Holmes: I'd never played an escape room game before, and this was much harder than I was anticipating. Fortunately the players included two of the sons of one of my regular companions, both of whom turned out be much smarter than either their mother or me, and so we managed to solve the puzzle. I'd certainly do others in the series, but only when surrounded by younger and more flexible minds than mine.

Faiyum: We gave this a go with four players and it was proved to be a very good game at that number.

Heat: Pedal to the Metal: A fine, fine game; highly recommended. There's loads of stuff in the base box which I still haven't played with, but enjoyed the circuit from the expansion which we tried.

The Hunt: A very enjoyable asymmetric two-player game about the Graf Spee raiding merchant ships in the South Atlantic at the outbreak of WWII and the Royal Navy's search for it.

Imperial: This is Diplomacy with added cash. We only played it because there were six of us, but it turned out to be well over the heads of most of those taking part. I'd like to give it a go with stronger players.

K2: Climb the world's most dangerous mountain and, if you're lucky, come back down again. I've always enjoyed this and snapped up a second-hand copy of the big box version containing the base game and all the expansions.

Kemet: Blood and Sand: This is an updated version of the original Kemet, which I had played and thought was OK. I was more enthusiastic this time, although whether that's changes in the game or changes in me I wouldn't like to say. 

Lancaster: Haven't played this for years, and ended up teaching it, which wasn't ideal. It's a good game, sort of about the Hundred Years War, but not really.

Magic Rabbit: Likeable, and short, cooperative game where rabbits have to be sorted into numerical order without any communication.

Mesopotamia: Did they carry stones on their heads in Mespotamia? Did they always execute messengers? Reasonably theme free, but nonetheless interesting, pick-up-and-deliver optimization game.

Modern Art: There are four types of auction in this, which was at least three types too many for my brain. I did very badly.

Nusfjord: Will it be wood or will it be fish? Either way money is scarce and the turns you will have throughout the game are even tighter. Difficult to do well against anyone who has played it before.

Obsession: Downton Abbey the board game. I enjoyed it a lot more than the first time I played it. Worker placement with differentiated workers.

The Quacks of Quedlinburg: A popular game that I had never played before and enjoyed when I finally did. Involves push-your-luck and bag-building, both mechanisms which I enjoy.

Ticket to Ride Legacy: Legends of the West: Don't worry, no spoilers here. I'd never played a legacy game before, but am enjoying this one. We have played four of the twelve sessions that will make up the whole thing and so far it has exceeded our expectations.

Vegetable Stock: Fun filler.

Wallenstein: Thirty Year War themed, but certainly not a wargame. The main gimmick is a tower into which your armies are poured to resolve combat, but my advice is not to fight if you can avoid it.

World Wonders: Yet another polyomino tile laying game, but with a neat money track concept. It also has nice wooden wonders of the world which get placed alongside your tiles. 

I went to Airecon, the large local boardgaming convention, for the first time this year. It was very good, I caught up with a lot more people than I ever do at wargames shows. The highlight was the bring-and-buy, which is also something that never happens at wargaming shows.

Barrytown

 “Barry, you're over thirty years old. You owe it to your mum and dad not to sing in a group called Sonic Death Monkey.” - Nick Hornby, High Fidelity

I rather enjoyed 'High Fidelity' the novel, not least because it was located in a time and place of which I had direct personal experience (*). I didn't care for the film version because, in a classic case of cultural appropriation, the producers relocated it somewhere else so that they could make more money. Perhaps enough time has passed for it to be worth re-reading and/or re-watching. From memory alone therefore, the Barry character (**) wants to be in a band, but in the end only gets to be in one because those who invite him have decided that all the members have to be called Barry (***).

The chap singing the music in yesterday's video was Barry Booth. He had quite a career and worked with some very well known names, many of whom are listed on his website, the biography section of which is quite amusing (****). Whilst he sadly never seems to have worked with Gibb, White or Manilow, he has collaborated with a couple of aptly named non-musicians, Barry Cryer (appearing not for the first time here) and Barry Fantoni, which whom he wrote a musical.

A week or so ago I went to see Barry Rutter, another figure to have featured in this blog before, speaking about "Shakespeare's Royals". In between giving the full-throttle, chewing the scenery, performances for which he is known and loved, he told several anecdotes. I was personally very interested in the background to a production I saw some years ago, but perhaps the most amusing concerned a backstage encounter he had in New York once with both Dizzy Gillespie and Rudolf Nureyev. Many years after that, Gillespie and Nureyev both died on the same day. Rutter quoted to us the 'In Memoriam' poem composed for the occasion by E.J Thribb, aged 17 and a half.

"So Farewell then … Dizzy Gillespie
Famous Jazz Trumpeter.
You were known for your Bulging Cheeks.
Rudolf Nureyev,
So were you."

E.J. Thribb was, of course, a penname of Barry Fantoni.

Perhaps the quote to best capture the essence of this whole post comes not from Hornby's original book, but rather from the digested version written by John Crace for the Guardian:

Barry is already at the shop by the time I arrive. "How was your weekend?" he asks. I think about telling him about Laura but then I think we don't really have that kind of relationship so I reply: "I made a list of all the anagrams you could make out of 'Solomon Burke is God'."

"Cool," says Barry. "Did you include 'I'm a sad twat'?"

* For example the 'Harry Lauder' pub they spend a lot of time in is clearly based on the 'Sir George Robey', which will be well known to anyone who ever visited the Rainbow.

** All three of the shop staff are, I would have thought, just meant to represent different aspects of the author's own personality.

*** Should this, as is quite likely, be wrong, please keep it to yourself because it rather undermines the remainder of the post.

**** Be warned though, many of the photos show him with a convicted paedophile. Booth is no longer with us and the website itself is clearly rather old.

Ayee

 “The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim.” - Edsger W. Dijkstra

Jonathan over at Palouse Wargaming has asked a chatbot to explain his blog. On the basis that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery I have asked the same AI the same question but about this blog. Part of its response says that I am involved in "discussing various historical battles and wargaming topics from an informed, expert perspective". So, clearly nonsense then.

To get a different opinion, I tried Gemini from Google, who after all actually host this blog. Gemini says that it isn't a blog at all, but rather a YouTube channel, citing as evidence the post entitled "YOUTUBE has a wargaming problem". There is no such post on here nor, as far as I can find, on YouTube either. 

While I'm sulking about the possibly libellous suggestion that this blog has featured so many videos that it might as well be a YouTube channel, why don't I play some music which celebrates the modelling side of our hobby:

The appearance of a photo of Michael Palin as a shopkeeper early on in the rather overly literal visual interpretation of the song is not by coincidence; he wrote the lyrics.

Altar of Freedom

 Mark and I had a little break from endless French versus Spanish in the Peninsula and tried out the 'Altar of Freedom' rules for the American Civil War, whose title comes from a letter which President Lincoln may or may not have written to a woman who may or may not have lost five sons in the conflict.

In turn, the rules may or may not be any good. The one thing I can say with certainty is that they have a bit of a learning curve and one game is not sufficient to come to a conclusion. The main gimmick is a hidden bidding system for command activation priority, but I didn't really get to explore strategies for that. There is also an extensive list of possible traits for each commander and mine ended up with strict restrictions on what he could do in the bidding phase, which was not ideal for a first game. 

I enjoyed it all nonetheless, and would be happy to play again. My main reservation would be that it seemed to be one of those games where units can start directly facing an enemy unit and manoeuvre on to a flank of said enemy in one move. That's a feature which I really don't like, but it's always possible that we weren't playing it properly. 

In this world where we live...

Seven years ago I posted a picture (*) of the statue of a comedian on the seafront of a run-down resort on the Northwest coast of England. Here's another one:

Come back in 2031 for a third in the series. 

* If anyone follows that link, I did indeed go down with Salmonella poisoning in 2017.

In another part of Spain

            There was a little girl,
            Who had a little curl,
            Right in the middle of her forehead.

            When she was good,
            She was very good indeed,
            But when she was bad she was horrid.

                       - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

It's possible that you are asking yourselves whether this Peninsular campaign hasn't been going on for rather a long while. It has, gentle readers, it has.

We fought through the conclusion of the latest battle between Spanish and French - Blake vs Marmont, but I still don't know where - over the last two Wednesday evenings. The first of those gave an excellent night's entertainment; the second didn't. Piquet, despite definitely being my rules of choice for Horse and Musket games, is a bit like Longfellow's little girl. Occasionally it is horrid.

Anyway, the Spanish duly lost, but did a reasonable amount of damage to Marmont's army. Elsewhere, Wellington has been trying to get to Sault, believing that he had inferior numbers. He did, but then a campaign card gave him the Old Guard, and then timely reinforcements to existing formations bolstered him even more. He was still too scared to take on the Iron Duke though and has attacked a nearby Spanish army instead. Will Wellington arrive in time to join the battle? I have no idea, because I clearly don't understand the campaign rules. 

Langzeitmüdigkeit

 “This lasted longer than I could describe even if I wrote pages and pages about it.” - C.S. Lewis

Someone has very kindly asked after my health. I am much recovered, possibly up to more or less what passes for 100% with me. The one thing that I still can't do is spend much time at a computer screen so, to everyone's relief, blog posts will continue to be infrequent. In other areas of my life I have thankfully managed to return to full man-about-town mode, including catching the current touring production of 'Oh! What A Lovely War', which I very much enjoyed and highly recommend should it come near you.

A talented group of actor-musicians absolutely nail the production's mix of broad comedy, satire and tragedy. If you've seen the film you'll know that the attribution of blame is not especially nuanced, but sadly what the piece has to say about the futility of war is as relevant today as it was then.

A l’hora del record seràs València

 Or possibly not. It would seem that Valencia was relieved after all because the French marched their entire force of to battle rather than leaving any to man the siegeworks. I can't tell you what that means for the campaign; presumably all will become clear in due course. Anyway, in another part of Spain the French and Spanish are having at it again; we have already had more battles than there were in the whole of the Peninsular war. This time the Spanish force is that of Blake, who has done nothing so far except receive reinforcements. He outnumbers the French on the table at the start and has therefore attacked. As usual I don't know the location at which the battle is taking place. In my defence I seem to mainly view the map upside down and from a distance.

We've only played the first turn of the game so far, so by way of a change here is a picture of the participants. I apologise for the lack of ties; your bloggist was of course wearing one behind the camera.

Was Valencia Relieved?

 Well, was it? I don't think so, but not for the first time the finer details of the campaign seem to be eluding me. More on this later.

I confidently predicted that the Spanish had advanced as far as they could and would be pushed back on the second evening of the game. Inevitably therefore, they kept moving forwards, and it was the French whose units started to rout off the table. However, the French had so much morale left and the Spanish forces were so bad - being largely raw troops who don't fire very often or very effectively (*) - that we collectively called it as draw. As no one won, the situation, I think, remains as it was and Valencia is still besieged.

The campaign rules we are using were written by James, and most enjoyable they are too. Of course, playing through them has led to the odd tweak to improve playability, but nothing especially major. One thing has become apparent though, it has proven rather difficult for either side to land much of a damaging blow on the other. So, we have decided to make the permanent losses incurred by the losing side of a battle greater. The unintended consequence of this could well be fewer battles and more manoeuvre, but I'm not sure that's necessarily a bad thing; see previous reports for evidence that I at least have been a bit gung ho in offering battle. The other change we have made is to increase the size of the hand of campaign  cards each player is allowed to hold. This may seem a bit of a technicality, but we think it may lead to forces having their supply lines threatened more frequently.

Anyway, more map moves next week.

* Basically the French rolled very well and the Spanish very badly in the set up, and the reverse happened during the game itself.

Will Valencia Be Relieved?

 The current action in the Peninsular campaign is yet another set-to between O'Donnell and Macdonald, who are having a feisty, but probably irrelevant, private war on Spain's Eastern coast. One of them is besieging Valencia, and the other is trying to relieve the siege; at the time of writing I can't offhand remember which way round it is.

The Spanish army is, even by their low standards, pretty rubbish. That's them above; there's a reasonable number of them, but they're mostly very poor quality. Given that they must attack I - and probably everyone else - thought it would be a straightforward French victory. However, the first night of the game proved both highly enjoyable and surprising in what it delivered. Despite that, I would imagine that the photo below shows the highwater mark of the Spanish advance. Note the French flanking attack at the bottom, which subsequently drove the defending infantry out of the woods back across the stream.

The latest iteration of the skirmish rules continue to work well; no doubt we'll find the flaws in due course. 

PotCXXIIIpouri

 “People have forgotten this truth, but you mustn’t forget it. You become responsible forever for what you’ve tamed.” 

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

It's been a while since I mentioned the pigeon. "Wait a minute," I hear you say "you've never mentioned a pigeon." Well, actually I have, you just weren't paying attention. A couple of years ago a pigeon with an injured wing landed in my garden and hasn't been able to leave. International Pigeon Rescue let us down by failing to send their operatives and I don't have it in me to wring its neck, so I've been feeding her ever since. My garden is surrounded by high stone walls and is never visited by cats and so she's still here. Last year she attracted a mate and reared a chick. I'm pretty sure I had never seen a young pigeon before. However, tragedy has struck. Her beau - and they mate for life - is no more, seemingly having flown into one of the same walls that has been protecting them. The original bird has gone full Greyfriars Bobby and has been sitting in the spot where he fell (I've obviously removed the remains) ever since. I shall have to put up a memorial to her. As none of the people to whom it is variously attributed once said "Sometimes you're the pigeon and sometimes you're the statue".

I was sorry to see that Tom Priestley, son of the great John Boynton, died on Christmas day. I met him once a few years ago. Most of his obituaries mention the problems he faced in being the son of a distinguished father, but he had great success himself. He was the editor of many films that you will certainly have seen, being nominated for an Oscar for 'Deliverance'. 

My health continues to improve to the extent that I have both been on a demonstration and been to a gig. Here's Brave Rival with 'Bad Choices':

Wellington Doesn't Lose

 I'm still struggling to spend much time working at a computer screen so posts will continue to be sparse; rest assured that quality will not rise as a result. As it happens I didn't miss any wargaming whilst AWOL, as there wasn't any. But we're back baby, we're back.

When we left it in December the main British force had decided to accept battle from the combined French forces despite the likelihood of being greatly outnumbered. I may be playing the role of Wellington, but I'm not role-playing the great man. There is no way he would have stood his ground, he would have retreated back to Portugal pronto. Indeed as we eventually got to the table I rather regretted my impetuosity. However I was lucky in that one of the three forces seeking to move against me didn't turn up at all. I was lucky again when the second force seemed likely to arrive quite late in the day. At the start of the battle therefore I had superior numbers. Having found my inner Iron Duke at last I didn't attack, rather I simply skulked behind a handy ridge.

The French moved against a village I was holding, with some initial success before being thrown back out of it. The Light Division saw most of the action and in skirmish formation saw off a formed unit with such ease that it has caused us to make a small amendment to the rules to make sure it can't happen again.

That's the 95th in the wood and that's a routing French unit at the top of the table. Subsequently the bulk of the French forces did arrive and the position looked very different.

But, I won the initiative when it mattered, rolling a timely double six (*) and turning eighteen straight cards of the twenty seven in my deck before the French could say "Zut alors!". The battle was drawn with remarkably few casualties on either side.  Both sides stay in place and all depends on the turn of the next campaign cards.

* Dice have replaced dominoes, but different dice to the ones that were replaced by dominoes in the first place; so far I prefer it.

A Bad Penny Always Turns Up

“Illness is the night side of life, a more onerous citizenship. Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick. Although we all prefer to use the good passport, sooner or later each of us is obliged, at least for a spell, to identify ourselves as citizens of that other place.”  - Susan Sontag

What better way to return than with some Rory Gallagher:

The Battle of Cacares

 At least I think that's how you spell it. Whilst here has been no wargaming content on the blog for a while, there has been plenty going on in the background. Over the last three weeks we have been playing out the Battle of Cacares, or possibly the battle of a place which has a name that looks a bit like that. I trust that James will write it up fully in a blog post heavily laden with photographs, but here's a few of my thoughts with only one picture, and that one a tad arcane.

Wellington, having captured Madrid, immediately abandoned it and pressed on to confront Soult, taking advantage of a chunk of the latter's forces being holed up in Badajoz with a Spanish army camped outside.  My strategy, for it is I, is based on an assumption that the underlying purpose of the campaign is to provide us with opportunities to play with toy soldiers, and I therefore seek to bring the enemy to battle if the opportunity arises. Reading between the lines, I suspect that my fellow players feel the same way.

The first evening mostly involved manoeuvre by the Anglo-Portuguese while the French just sat there. I had been thinking for some time that the skirmisher rules were too advantageous to the British Light Division and had in a previous game adopted a particular approach aimed at exploiting what I thought was a loophole, thereby encountering much derision from the others, who didn't agree at all. I stuck with it however and committed much of the initiative which I gained from the draw of dominos to an elaborately choreographed advance by the Lights on my centre right which caused no French casualties and got us absolutely nowhere. Somewhat more was achieved by the cavalry. Most of the French cavalry was on their left, and not wanting this on the flank of my advancing infantry I sent my cavalry to see them off, which they did, ending the night poised to force the French infantry into square. On my left the only action was the playing of an event card by Mark allowing him to carry out a prebattle artillery bombardment. This made such a mess of the 3rd division that they played no further part in the game.

I had thought that the French, who started with more units on the table than the British, would attack on their right and my plan was to bring my reserves on to my extreme left and get behind them. No such attack having been forthcoming I brought the reserves on anyway at the beginning of the second evening and moved forwards. This second evening was marked by a British inability to cause any casualties in combat or indeed to throw anything worthwhile in defence either. This was despite no longer being encumbered with the by now abandoned Epictetus grand theory of how to use Napoleonic light infantry. Far from forcing the French infantry into square my cavalry was blown away by musket fire and the entire division became 'spent'. In fact the French switched their remaining cavalry unit to their left flank, with the clear - if ambitious - idea of seizing the village on the Allies baseline and gaining a cheesy victory that way. The evening ended with the British infantry with charge distance across the whole of the French defensive line.

On the third evening British luck with the dice changed and weight of numbers and, probably more importantly, the quality of their troops broke the French line close to the end of the fourth turn of the allowed five. Thankfully for the credibility of the morale system the French do-or-die cavalry raid, er, died. Permanent losses for campaign purposes were quite high, more so for the losers. The following photo makes clear the method of establishing those casualties.

OK, I admit that it doesn't make anything clear, especially to me. Still, James knows what he's doing, and he says I'm currently leading the campaign scoring track, so all is well.

The Barber of Bradford

 And so to the opera. The last few days have seen the inaugural Bradford Opera Festival, the centrepiece of which was a semi-staged performance of the Barber of Seville, transported to twentieth century Bradford (the sixties perhaps) and with the libretto translated into 'proper Yorkshire'. Naturally, your bloggist was there. Dealing with the last point first, I couldn't help thinking that were I, Heaven forfend, a Yorkshireman then I would have felt rather patronised. However, the packed audience at St Georges Hall, the majority of whom were presumably from God's own county, rather lapped it up. 

I very much enjoyed it: fine singing combined with highly energetic performances combined to easily compensate for the lack of the sort of production values one is more used to. I must, in particular, praise Oscar Castellino who shone in the title role. He has sung with major companies, although I don't think I've ever seen him before. I think I would have remembered an artist whose biography in the programme starts "He was born in a car on a street in Mumbai".

The creators are planning to move on next year to the 'sequel' i.e. Mozart's 'Marriage of Figaro'. My main advice to them would be to get some side title displays in so we can get the full benefit of the dialect and the swearing. Oh, and lose the fourth act.

There ain't no goodhats...

 An intermittently recurring feature on the blog has been bands I wish I'd seen forty or fifty years ago, didn't, but now have. Latest to join this illustrious list is Wreckless Eric, a name he spent decades trying to avoid, but has now reclaimed. It was worth the wait:

He was supporting Dr Feelgood, who I probably would have gone to see anyway. The issue of whether I'd ever seen the original line up has now been resolved (although I can still remember absolutely nothing of the event) and this latest gig turned out to be 48 years all but one day since that previous occasion. That, I think is the longest period between my successive attendance at gigs of the same band, always assuming that you count them as being the same band. This lot are a bit of an odd mixture between being a proper band (they released an album of new material last year) and a tribute act (they play all the old favourites), but however you classify them they are bloody good and well worth seeing. Not, though as good as Wilko Johnson, Lee Brilleaux, John B. Sparkes and The Big Figure, so here they are:

Someone else who I've seen live this week is Tom Robinson, who I last saw in either late 1977 or early 1978, so not quite as big a gap. He was also excellent and extremely engaging; his anecdotes being almost as good as his music. I particularly liked the one about the time the Sunday People described him as 'Britain's no. 1 gay' when they 'outed' him for being in a relationship with a woman. Wreckless Eric's best anecdote was about Kevin Coyne, but he was perhaps topped by Maddie Prior of Steeleye Span - also seen by your bloggist with the last seven days; I am ceaseless in my search for material with which to entertain you - whose story concerned both Peter Sellers and his ukulele.

You can't keep a posh boy down

 

"Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better. First the body. No. First the place. No. First both. Now either. Now the other. Sick of the either try the other. Sick of it back sick of the either. So on. Somehow on. Till sick of both. Throw up and go. Where neither. Till sick of there. Throw up and back. The body again. Where none. The place again. Where none. Try again. Fail again. Better again. Or better worse. Fail worse again. Still worse again. Till sick for good. Throw up for good. Go for good. Where neither for good. Good and all."

                                             - Samuel Beckett

Les bourgeois

 

Ainadamar

 And so to the opera. I have been in Birmingham for a couple of days, primarily to take in the Welsh National Opera production of Golijov's 'Ainadamar'. This is an unusual piece, indeed the programme describes it as 'waith unigryw'; I'm not sure about that, although I might go as far as 'gwahanredol'.

The work deals with the assassination of the poet and playwright Federico García Lorca at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War and, rather than being told in a linear narrative, unfolds in flashbacks from the deathbed (*) of Lorca's muse, the actress Margarita Xirgu. The music added flamenco, Arabic and Jewish influences and Cuban rhythms to a classical core and was wonderful, greatly enhanced by the dancing which interspersed the singing.

At university in Madrid in the 1920s Lorca was a friend of Salvador Dalí (**) and, as luck would have it, I have been to see 'Daaaaaali!' at the Leeds International Film Festival. This is directed by Quentin Dupieux, whose 'Incroyable mais vrai' I saw and enjoyed last year at LIFF, but don't seem to have bothered to mention here before. In a similar fashion to 'Ainadamar' the film eschewed a single narrative arc in favour of a sort of recursive, Russian doll like series of dreams and films with films; all entirely in keeping with the great (and egocentric) surrealist at its heart. It was very funny, and I highly recommend seeing it should it make it to your local multiplex. The scene near the beginning in the hotel corridor is worth the effort on its own.

* That's how it seemed to me; no doubt other opinions are available.

** And Luis Buñuel.

Battle of Madrid, the Conclusion

 The game reached its inevitable conclusion, although it took a little bit longer than I thought it would. The French had played an event card (*) the previous week which meant that their best division could carry on after its morale was all spent, and carry on they did. Together with one of their cavalry units they caused a couple of British units on the left flank to rout. The focal point was however on the British right flank and there the Light Division advanced steadily and the day was won.

Things I would have done differently include arranging the units of the Light Division differently and possibly continuing the cavalry's move from flank to flank instead of pausing it for a while. I shall have a chance to test the first of those next week, because following another couple of turns of map moves (I think we're now half way through turn 8, but please don't rely on that) Wellington's army will now face off against Soult's.

I know everyone is interested in whatever rule changes occur. This week's related to morale losses following losing a melee. There was a certain amount of robust discussion around this as it seemed to appear from nowhere. James' justification didn't really consist of much more than saying that it was what he had written down and therefore it must be right. Fair enough, that will do me. And it is, of course, the same for both sides.

* These cards are part of the campaign structure. Personally, I'd include them in the base tabletop rules as well. I didn't like much about Soldiers of Napoleon, but I liked the event cards.

I Can Still See You

 I can still see you: an Echo,

to be touched with Feeler-
Words, on the Parting-
Ridge.

Your face softly shies away,
when all at once there is
lamp-like brightness
in me, at the Point,
where most painfully one says Never.

                         - Paul Celan

No one shocked as Home Secretary stands on guide dog's tail

 

"I think there is only one quality worse than hardness of heart, and that is softness of head."

 -Theodore Roosevelt

Kern You Believe It?

An unlooked for effect of my visit to Fiasco is that I have got the paints out again. One reason I didn't buy anything much was a nagging awareness that my last big(*) purchase hadn't progressed very far. But I'm pleased to report that the first unit of kern has now rolled off what I amuse myself by referring to as the production line.

Figures are a mixture of Red Box and Tumbling Dice

* Size of purchase is all relative obviously; this wasn't a particularly big purchase by anyone else's standards.

¡Hala Madrid! ...y nada más

 "I love thee as I love Madrid that we have defended and as I love all my comrades that have died. And many have died. Many. Many. Thou canst not think how many."  - Ernest Hemingway

I said last week that the Anglo-Portuguese army attacking Madrid was bigger and better than the defenders. The only hope for the French was to hope the initiative went their way and that they could see out the five turns allowed for the game before losing. In the event the opposite happened, with the Allies, for the second battle running, drawing the consistently higher dominos. At one point I drew the 2:1 domino; surely James would beat that? But no, he drew the 1:0. The very next draw I drew the double one; this time? No, he drew the 1:0 again. You can't help some people. On top of that, there were two double dominos (*), one when the French had all but succeeded in reaching the end of their deck, meaning that we only played one turn in the evening and Peter and I had been through our deck more than twice.

James will no doubt post a comprehensive post, but the evening ended with the French on the verge of losing all their army morale despite much of the British force, including their strongest infantry division and their cavalry, not having done anything at all. I give it half an hour at most next week.

* When both sides draw the same domino all used cards are shuffled back into the deck, but it doesn't count as an end of turn.