Monday 31 July 2017

Through the flashing bars

"Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability." -  Sam Keen  

Which is another way of saying that the painting total for July stands at the magnificent total of not a lot. Following the recent game of To the Strongest! I have colour coded the sabot bases used for Celts and Romans, to make it easier to keep track of which command things are in, but that's it I'm afraid.

Idleness has also extended to the blog, if you will excuse my self indulgence, I would like to catch up with other things that I've seen:
Hamilton Loomis: An intriguing blend of blues, funk, soul and jazz. He included a tribute to Chuck Berry, and his choice of 'No Particular Place to Go' rather suited the louche nature of the rest of the set. Like many performers today he's prone to wandering out into the audience and climbing on chairs while playing; wireless connectivity has a lot to answer for.



Dan Baird and Homemade Sin: Their website claims that they are 'classic hard rock', but actually there are significant country music influences. Baird used to be in the Georgia Satellites, although judging from his on-stage comments the split wasn't exactly amicable. It happened in 1990 so, if I may be so bold as to offer some advice: let it go, mate, let it go. The lead guitarist is the spitting image of Steven Toast, but not only could he really play, but he did a neat trick of swinging his instrument over his shoulder and back around in mid-solo, which I had never seen done before. The support band - the exact identity of whom remain a mystery to me - certainly are classic rock, right down to the haircuts and the loon pants. I'm pretty clear that four of them were at university with me and have been cryogenically frozen ever since in the style of Austin Powers. The drummer is a modern day imposter; perhaps something went wrong during the thawing process.



You know, the more I looked at the bass player the more certain I was that we had once put him up for election as treasurer of the student union without telling him about it; a story for another day.

The Endellion Quartet playing Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert, a soothing change from all those guitars.

The Graduate: Having recently seen a stage production I took the opportunity to catch a 50th anniversary screening of the film, which I had last seen many years ago. I can report that it's much better than the play, with Benjamin being a substantially more sympathetic character, although the tassel twirling did lose something from not being in the flesh, as it were.

The Temperature of Sculpture:  This collection of the work of the late Jiro Takamatsu is, like pretty much every show at the Henry Moore Institute, mostly complete tosh. I did however rather like this:


I've already mentioned one of the month's visitors, but the Casa Epictetus was also graced by the presence of this blog's Luxembourg correspondent. He has responded to last year's referendum result in the only sensible way and become a citizen of the Grand Duchy. Sadly my own search for an Irish ancestor has drawn a blank.

Saturday 29 July 2017

You can practically see it from here

"We must be very careful not to assign this deliverance the attributes of a victory. Wars are not won by evacuations." - Winston Churchill

The reputation of the film 'Dunkirk' has been rather tarnished, at least in the circles in which I move, by Nigel Farage praising it and urging all 'youngsters' (sic) to go and see it. Clearly in Farage's fantasies he imagines that had he lived at the time he would have been one of the few, heroically dog-fighting in his Spitfire; whereas most other people assume that he would have been interned on the Isle of Man as a Nazi sympathiser. In any event, I don't think one can blame the film simply because of the delusions of one unpleasant shit.

What one can blame it for is being somewhat soulless and clichéd, which I'm afraid was rather my impression. It is technically accomplished and I was very impressed indeed by the cleverness of the way that the three time strands (an hour in the air, a day on the sea and a week on the land) are meshed together and interact one with another. But I didn't engage with the characters, felt no sense of threat or menace and was tempted to laugh out loud on a couple of occasions, especially I'm afraid at Sir Kenneth Branagh, or at least at his character. As others have observed he seems to be channelling Kenneth Moore, but even the man who sank the Bismark (and, of course, actually saw active wartime service in the Royal Navy) would have struggled to convince with the character's final speech.


"Get off my bridge, Branagh."


For the rivet counters amongst us there are plenty of oddities. Spitfires don't seem to have too much fuel but do apparently have unlimited ammunition. Mark Rylance's character can tell the difference between Spitfires and Hurricanes just by the sound of the engine, despite - as any fule kno - them both having the same one; a point which is made to look even more ridiculous when it is revealed that he has a personal link with Hurricanes. In fact the air section of the film plays most obviously to the myth and, right at the end, is the vehicle for the clunkiest metaphor that I can remember seeing in a film since the whole of 'Life of Pi'.

Having said all that, it passed a couple of hours pleasantly enough and gave me something to write about. The elder Miss Epictetus enjoyed it and despite her youth didn't seem any more likely to vote UKIP when we came out.



Thursday 27 July 2017

The Hun is at the Grate!

One of the unimportant things that has been bothering me about the Through the Mud and the Blood scenario which we have just played, is the nature of the papers that the Germans were so intent on burning that they couldn't simply get up and go. I have come to the conclusion that they were probably sets of wargames rules, whose ambiguities, inconsistencies, gaps and errors had driven them to such levels of despair that they would rather be caught by the British than leave the publications in existence. In the event they had nothing to worry about because, in a first for us, the Germans won; and that despite the handicap of me not bothering to put the token for one of their sections in the bag for at least two turns.


The game ebbed and flowed a bit - as games need to - but suffered from a long gap since either of the players had used the rules, although I, as umpire, had played them a couple of weeks before. We are, of course, still in the 'training' section of the scenario book and so would expect to be still getting to grips with both rules and tactics and I think one could say that neither part worked particularly smoothly on the night. Points of note:
  • For the first time we used the mechanism for close assault against buildings and, more specifically, it became clear how not to do it.
  • We also used the sniper rules for the first time, but not for long. Peter rolled a double on his first shot and that was that. Still, the Lewis gun never jammed.
  • Ironically, having complained about the underwritten nature of the scenario, I should have been much more specific about terrain definitions.
  • This might be stating the bleeding obvious, but the game is all about the Big Men, whereas, as a generalisation, most other games are about units. A mental adjustment is necessary if one is to make it work properly.
  • The blind mechanism increasingly seems more trouble than it's worth - at least for attackers. I'm still keen to try it for defenders in a situation where they could be anywhere in the scenery. The process apparently adopted in Chain of Command has been recommended as an alternative and I shall give it a butchers.
  • One suggestion that came out in discussion which we shall try is that the British bomber section should be represented on the table by a rifle section until they start actually bombing.
The British prepare for a futile gesture

We might skip scenario 4 for now. We have a work around for the tanks required (I don't currently have any), but am rather put off by the need for seventeen British big men compared to the very small German force involved. I rather think it would all take a long time for not much game. Scenario 5 is a small German stormtrooper attack on a bunker. I can almost do it - with British defenders replacing the French in the book - and just need the addition of a couple more figures (German light machine guns) and a bunker.





In the meantime I continue to very slowly paint up more Great War figures with the eventual aim of playing some Square Bashing.

Sunday 23 July 2017

Scenario 3 one more time



 These are the scenario notes for our game this week. I promise that I will now shut up until we have actually played it. Note that I have changed the layout of the drainage ditch slightly. The spotting rule below refers to hexes, which is just for simplicity. Each hex is actually one twelfth of the the distance between the table edge and the sentry line.



British forces:

  • The British will enter the southern edge of the table on six blinds in any formation and place they wish. As usual there are no limitations as to how the Big Men may be allocated between blinds.
  • The rifle grenadier section will operate as riflemen
  • Each of the two rifle sections will have one scout each
  • ·        When blinds containing scouts are deployed these may be placed up to the command distance of the relevant Big Man away from the group, but not closer than 12” to any German forces.


Terrain:

  • All of the land enclosed by the drainage ditch is light cover for spotting and saving throws, as is the area to the south of the ploughed field. Neither have any effect on movement.
  • The ditch itself is free to jump into, but costs one movement dice to exit. Movement along it is in single file, counts as heavy terrain and offers medium cover against being fired at. 
  • The ploughed field is heavy terrain for movement, medium cover for spotting and light cover for shooting. 
  • Areas containing trees are medium cover for both spotting and firing.
  • All fences, walls etc. take one movement dice to cross.
  • Entering or exiting an unoccupied house uses one movement dice.
  • The occupancy limit for defenders in each house is 12 men;  they count as medium cover.



Sentries: 

  • There are six sentry blinds already placed out.   
  • The German player will mark which two contain the sentries. 
  • These blinds cannot move and do not activate on the German Blinds token. 
  • The British cannot attempt to spot the sentry blinds.

 
Spotting:  When the Sentry token is drawn, or the Time for a Snifter token if that is drawn first, the Germans roll 2D6 adding 1 for each hex from the southern baseline that the furthest British blind has moved plus a further 3 if any of the blinds are on the road. On a roll of 14 or more the arrival of the British has been noted and the alarm sounded:

  • The British remain on blinds, needing to be spotted or deployed as normal.
  • The actual German sentries are now put out and the blinds removed.
  • The main German force can now be activated (see below)


Sentries (slight return): The German sentries now act as per the core rules. Note that after leaving their post they move on the Snifter token and not the Sentry token.


German forces:

  • There are eight German blinds at the start - one per house – which never move.
  • The German player will secretly mark which house is the command centre.
  • When the alarm is raised by the sentries the German Blind token is added to the bag and the Germans are allocated four extra blinds to be placed anywhere subject to neither being nearer to the British than either sentry nor being with 12" of the British.
  • The German player now marks which of the twelve blinds represents which sections, with a limit of one per blind. The German officer is not placed on a blind.
  • The four new blinds can now move as normal on the German Blind token
  • NB after this point any section allocated to one of the original eight blinds must deploy in order to leave a house. 
  • The German officer’s token is also added to the bag. When it is drawn he may be – but does not have to be - deployed anywhere. That uses one of his initiative points and he can then use the other two in that turn. Subsequently to being deployed he acts as per the core rules.


Victory Conditions:

  • Either side win if they force the other to leave the table
  • The British win if at the end of any turn they have uncontested control of the command centre; the two non-combatants burning documents do not count for this purpose.

Saturday 22 July 2017

Just like that


It occurred to me some time ago that the secret of blogging is to never mind the quality, but to feel the width. In other words to stretch out one's material, however weak, across a number of posts. For example, that is why you have not yet had the full details of the incident involving me, the Rev. Ian Paisley and the giraffe, nor indeed the camels and the missile test in the desert. ["It is strange," says the Rhetorical Pedant, arriving from nowhere after a prolonged absence "how many of these supposedly entertaining stories of yours involve even-toed ungulates.". To which my reply must be that the universe is full of odd coincidences, at which we can only stare in wonder.]


"No surrender!"

In the spirit of the above paragraph I am therefore going to return to the clear the village scenario for Through the Mud and the Blood. Peter has drawn my attention to the fact that the rules for Scouts, such as they are, would be of great use in a situation where an attacker not on blinds approaches a defender who wishes to remain on blinds, whereas all our games so far have been the other way round. This is a fair point, and leads to the obvious ambition to see if I can incorporate that situation in the scenario. In the style of most wargames bloggers I shall simply say that I have some ideas and shall have to ponder it further.

"Don't play the rules, play the period. Aha ha ha!"

It doesn't however change my opinion that the core rules are overly vague on this issue as on others. As an illustration of exactly what I mean, here's a joke from Tommy Cooper:

"A blind bloke walks into a shop with a guide dog. He picks the dog up and starts swinging it around his head. Alarmed, a shop assistant calls out 'Can I help sir?'. 'No thanks,' says the blind bloke 'just looking.'"

Friday 21 July 2017

In which I am once again a Mexican cowboy

On re-reading yesterday's post it has become apparent that I am guilty of the same thing of which I am accusing rules and scenario writers: lack of clarity. For the record I know perfectly well that the victory conditions in Scenario 3 of Stout Hearts must by default be that the British have to drive the Germans out of the village or that, far less likely to happen I think, the Germans have to rebuff the British attack. My point was really that the writers should just have said that instead of making one infer it from a load of guff about the conflagration of unspecified archives.

Anyway, while I am on the subject, let me record my thoughts so far on the rest of it:
  • British formation. The Lardies are fond of showing off their knowledge and have used the scenario to describe 'artillery formation'. However from our extradiegetic perspective we know that there isn't going to be any German artillery falling. We shall therefore assume that just at the point that they enter the table the British have switched into the formation in which they will move to attack the village.
  • Sentries: The German sentries will probably have chosen to stand somewhere sensible rather than out in the middle of a field. Furthermore, this is not a commando raid under cover of darkness, this is thirty odd squaddies walking across country during the day. We shall exclude the possibility of the British spotting the sentries before they themselves are spotted.
  • Spotting: There needs to be two levels of spotting: the recognition that the British are coming in the first place and then the normal spotting to identify and be able to fire at individual groups. 
"Hmm, seems sensible stuff to me."
  •  It doesn't seem very satisfactory for the Germans to be able to deploy anywhere they like when the alarm is raised. Taking literally the scenario's assertion that they believe the British to be an hour away and also making it winter, we will assume that the Germans are putting their feet up and having a smoke inside, and we shall further assume that each section is doing so in a separate house.
I shall return anon with the specific mechanics.

Thursday 20 July 2017

Beyond Comprehension

"If you can't annoy somebody, there's little point in writing." - Kingsley Amis

I'm pretty sure that Amis père had novelists in mind, but sadly wargames rules writers seem to have taken what he said to heart. Every single set of rules seems embarrassingly badly written, and now I find scenario books are the same; but more of that later.

We finished the latest run through of Garigliano last night, and had a fine game which even the difficulty of navigating through Pike & Shotte could not spoil. James has been speaking to a wargaming lawyer (as in a real lawyer whose hobby is wargaming) who plays P&S regularly and who also had to admit that he found it almost impossible to make head or tail of it all. I trust that James will provide an illustrated write up of the game in due course, but for now let me just say that the French were badly let down by the Swiss; I suspect that a bung from the dastardly Spanish was involved somewhere along the line. I am pleased to say that although the attackers crossed the bridge in front of Formia they were eventually thrown back across the river; a small crumb of comfort in defeat.


It's back to the annexe for next week when we shall be moving to the third scenario in the Lardies' distastefully titled Stout Hearts etc. I was able to put on the first two without much problem, but sadly the third is a rather shoddy piece of work; 'underwritten' is probably the best word. The conceit is around the Germans having to burn confidential documents before the British arrive and it introduces two rear echelon types 'of no military worth, but capable of burning paper'. And then nothing; it's never mentioned again and there are no victory conditions at all, let alone any mentioning the capture of secrets. Much else is also ambiguous: Are the British obliged to enter in 'artillery formation'? Do all the Germans except the sentries really start in the same building or is that just poor writing? Are the sentries 'posted on the edge of the village' or may they 'deploy wherever the player wishes'? I could go on, but as you have guessed I'm not overly impressed. 




The same things happen quite a lot in the core rulebook as well. For example, there are supposedly rules for scouts, but actually there aren't; there are simply a couple of notes to the effect that they exist to, in some unspecified manner, probe enemy defences for weaknesses. Still, we've always found that overall the main mechanisms work OK, so I shall make some executive judgements regarding the details and hopefully we shall get a good game out of it.

Friday 14 July 2017

Не тихий дон

One of the companions of my youth  - in wargaming, follow-spot operating, bad rock and roll playing (and I mean bad), excessive beer drinking, and unsuccessful womanising (the last two possibly being connected) - duly arrived for a brief visit.

We first had a try at Through the Mud and the Blood and, as anticipated his familiarity with general Lardie concepts meant that he quickly picked it up. The British always win the first scenario in the book, but their task was made easier because I forgot the 'wait for it' rule thereby denying the Germans a first shot at the time of the attackers' deployment.




We then visited the legendary wargames room for, as is often the case these days, a bit of Gargliano. James has already written about the evening so I shan't add anything except to agree that Don's dice rolling was uncanny. At one point he rolled a saving throw of five dice and got five sixes.


Note the crap chariot in the background

The following day it was back to the annexe and a run through of To the Strongest!, a game that I hadn't played for a while - which showed. It all came back to me eventually and we had an enjoyable and very close game which Don as the Celts won in a deciding melee; the loss of a Roman commander at a crucial moment being probably the factor that swang it. 

A good time was had by all and Don learned two hard life lessons: never take James' advice when it involves attacking and, at TtS!, never use your commander to replace a 9 because you will inevitably draw a 10. Hopefully, he'll soon have another chance to avoid these mistakes.

Tuesday 11 July 2017

Let's see action

You may recall that I got back in touch with a wargaming partner from my (our) formative years, who had also returned to the hobby. Well, I am pleased to say that he is going to be visiting for a couple of days. Those of you who remember me mentioning that we were also members of a truly terrible band can be assured that we shall not be playing any music; though we shall certainly be playing some wargames. First up will be Through the Mud and the Blood and I have set up the opening scenario in the Stout Hearts etc book.


I have changed it a little bit from the previous run though of the same thing in that I have shortened the trench somewhat and the British will start a bit closer. Don hasn't played Mud and Blood before, but he has played other Lardies games - including with Richard Clarke no less - and I have forgotten everything that I ever knew about it, so he won't be too disadvantaged.


We shall also be off to the legendary wargames room for yet another go at Garigliano (it's actually an interesting scenario and gives a good game), which will be an opportunity to try Pike & Shotte with multiple players on each side, and then back in the annexe the crap chariots will be pressed into service for To the Strongest!. Unfortunately the latest trio of chariots haven't progressed beyond the undercoating stage and will not be taking part.

Sunday 9 July 2017

Progress Industry Humanity

The town in which I live is part of Leeds and for the most part that's where I go for entertainment and intellectual stimulation. However, I live on the border with Bradford and this weekend has seen me attend events celebrating two of its most distinguished sons.

On Saturday I made one of my infrequent returns to the University of Bradford, the place where I took my first degree, on this occasion for a talk on the time theories of J.B. Priestley. I won't attempt to reproduce what was discussed, which you would be correct in interpreting to mean that I didn't fully understand it. There were names bandied about that I'd never heard of (J.W. Dunne, Ouspensky), haven't read (Proust - shameful but true) or regard as complete charlatans (Myers and Briggs). Still, the main point at issue was that Priestley was a first rate writer, is unjustly overlooked and was ahead of his time. His influence can clearly be seen on novelists such as Borges and Burgess and on playwrights like Stoppard and Ayckbourn, and he was an early explorer of concepts later seen in works as diverse as E.T., Catch-22, Groundhog Day, Sliding Doors and The Purple Rose of Cairo to name just a few. The speakers recommended a range of works which apparently illustrate his interest in the possible circularity of time, but I have chosen to buy 'The 31st of June' on the basis that the panel said it was very funny. I shall report back. I also have to mention that I rather regret not having also been to the session before ours, which featured lots of brightly clothed Nigerians playing drums.


Today saw celebrations to mark the 80th birthday of David Hockney. The weather was nice, a big crowd turned up, there was a wide choice of food (I went for Tilapia and Jollof rice, perhaps still regretting missing out on the Nigerian drumming) and loud music; judging by the playlist DH is a fervent disco fan. There was even a large birthday cake representing his large work Le Plongeur, which is the cornerstone of the excellent new Hockney Gallery at Bradford's Cartwright Hall.


The other notable feature was a Hockneyfication Station where those with a more frivolous nature than your bloggist could be transformed into lookalikes of the great man.




Saturday 8 July 2017

I spoke not a word

'Experience teaches you that the man who looks you straight in the eye, particularly if he adds a firm handshake, is hiding something.' - Clifton Fadiman

And so to the opera. The plot of 'Un ballo in maschera' revolves around the assassination of a monarch and so, at the behest of the censors of the time, the setting had to be somewhere bland and non-contentious. Boston (the arriviste one in Massachusetts rather than the original in Lincolnshire) was chosen, presumably by committee. It has been the fashion recently to move it back to Sweden, Verdi's original inspiration having been the death of Gustavus III. However, the director on this occasion has eschewed real locations and made the characters playing cards, either black, red or, mysteriously, white. Still, there's not much point in complaining about the lack of logic in a fantasy setting, one should just go with the flow; and it all flowed along rather well I thought. 




The story can be boiled down to: man has an assignation with a married woman, her husband finds out and kills him; a scenario which hopefully won't befall any of us, at least not in full. But if that is to be my fate, then I hope to go down singing like Riccardo. Indeed I hope to go down singing, get back up singing even louder before finally succumbing whilst still singing. I say that because unusually in a nineteenth century Italian opera it is the male lead who gets the deathbed aria.

Going back to the plot, I know it's an opera and one has to tolerate some absurdities, but there was one thing that bothered me. If you were a group of plotters aiming to infiltrate a masked ball, where everyone is in disguise, in order to kill someone and you needed to set a secret password so that you could recognise each other without arousing attention, then would you choose 'Murder'?


Friday 7 July 2017

And Once Upon a Pair of Wheels

And so to the cinema. I have been to see the much praised 'Baby Driver' and very good it is too. It's completely implausible, very violent in a comic book sort of way and hugely enjoyable.I'm not sure it's worth the five star ratings that it's getting, but film reviewers love references back to other films and there are plenty of those, from 'Bonnie and Clyde' and 'Back to the Future' through 'Austin Powers' to 'Monsters Inc.'. Good as it is, it's not my favourite film of the year so far, which is 'The Handmaiden', about which I seem to have neglected to write before now. It's difficult to describe this Korean work (set during the Japanese occupation in the 1930s) without giving away spoilers, but it' a consummate piece of film-making, beautifully shot with a plot full of twists and turns and I strongly recommend it. Don't go to see it with your mother though.

Other films that I recommend and haven't bothered to mention previously would certainly include 'Theeb', which is basically a Bedouin western set during the Arab Revolt. From the way that the Ottoman soldiers are portrayed here it isn't that surprising that T.E. Lawrence was so successful. For those not keen on foreign language films, can I suggest 'Their Finest' in which Bill Nighy plays himself as usual and there's a wonderful cameo from Jeremy Irons. The setting is the making of a propaganda film about Dunkirk, and will provide an interesting context in which to watch the film on that subject that is just about to come out.


Finally, while catching up on films that I've seen, it's always nice to watch classics on the big screen so I took the opportunity to catch 'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes' featuring Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe, healthy girls both; a movie which was partly shot in my home town. Among its many memorable lines perhaps my favourite is when Lorelei suggests that Dorothy should 'find happiness and stop having fun'. Does life really have to work like that?

Thursday 6 July 2017

Garigliagain

We have had another crack at Garigliano, in a revised scenario that James describes here. Hopefully he will follow that with an illustrated game report so I will limit myself to a few points:
  • I was the Spanish this week and fared no better than I had as the French. Mysteriously whereas last week the Swiss Pike were shot to pieces as they attacked the colonelas, this week they weren't. While in the first game the Spanish had swept through the defenders at the tête-de-pont and over the bridge, this time they, er, didn't. 
  • Of all the periods which I regularly get a chance to wargame, the Italian Wars are the one about which I know the least. I have never read any books on the subject (other than Machiavelli of course) and anything I think I know about Renaissance warfare comes from either listening to James explain why he is changing the rules yet again or from having seen contemporary prints and paintings of battle scenes. I mention this because the games we play using Pike & Shotte develop in such a way that the table looks to me much closer to those visual representations than the games we played using Piquet derivatives used to do. 
  • I enjoy the rules, especially the relative looseness of the way movement is handled. I find rallying a bit less to my taste, but maybe I'm just being obtuse.
  • We are clearly, and frustratingly, still not playing everything correctly. Partly this is because of our long legacy of playing one family of rules, and partly because the rulebook is so badly structured. These inadvertencies would certainly include melees - which are not intuitive - but also things such as free moves and, no doubt, other areas of which we are not even aware.
Anyway, we shall revisit the scenario one more time next week, with the aid of a distinguished (by which I mean both award winning and indisputably normal looking) wargaming visitor from out of town.

Wednesday 5 July 2017

The Imaginary Invalid

And so to the theatre. I have been to see 'The Hypochondriac', an English adaptation of Molière's 'Le malade imaginaire'. Somewhat to my surprise  my companion for the evening claimed to be very familiar with the original French version - your bloggist is not normally out-bragged in the field of culture; I must be slipping - and she seemed to think it stuck closely to the source material. There were certainly plenty of seventeenth century costumes on display: breeches, elaborate wigs and heaving bosoms. Indeed one almost wanted to quote from the same playwright's Tartuffe to the actress playing Beline:

"Couvrez ce sein que je ne saurais voir.  
Par de pareils objets les âmes sont blessées"

It was, of course, very funny; albeit much of the humour being somewhat scatological. Still, surely even a pseudo-intellectual can be allowed the occasional snigger at a man pretending to be straining on a commode? No? Perhaps it's just me. It also featured a woman being sawed in half on stage, which I'm pretty sure is the first time I've ever seen this classic conjuring trick performed live; another box ticked.

The only odd note was the tacking on after the curtain call of a scene depicting the death of Molière, the author having indeed died while performing the lead role of Argan. It put me in mind of the performance of Turandot I saw many years ago in Gothenburg where Puccini's death was played out equally pointlessly.