Turn the Fourth

 After making the observation that it wasn't much like the usual sort of Piquet game, it went out of its way to prove that it was. The besiegers got all the initiative and turned all their Sapping cards, rolling a whole bunch of 3s on their siege dice. They have reached the glacis before the garrison got a chance to make any raids this turn.

This is important because raids can't be made on besiegers once they get that close. After that the defenders have to rely on...well actually, I am struggling a bit to see what they can do after that point.

They tried a sap of their own to see if they could outflank the attackers. They couldn't, although the fortress guns did damage a heavy gun and force its withdrawal from this emplacement.

However, there are others ready to move up.

And there are mortars shelling the town.

This is the position at the end of the turn. Much of this information would be secret and would be the basis of the espionage element to the game.

The ditch is dear to the drunken man

 Following the untimely end to the cricket in Ahmedabad I have turned once again to the siege. 

I have rearranged the glacis, narrowed the covered way and put a ditch where I said a few days ago that no ditch would be.

So where does that leave us?

 I've been searching through reports of Johnson's statement, but can't find any specific mentions of playing with toy soldiers. We need to find a proxy. Do you think it's more like going to the gym, or more like going to the zoo?

Natty Rebel

 Ignore the picture, this certainly isn't Don Van Vliet; instead, it is the late Ewart Beckford at his best:

Once More "Once More..."

 The second attempt at 'Vauban's Wars' was delayed slightly because, as I'm very pleased to be able to report, I have had a sore arm for a couple of days. In the interim I have received a parcel from Kallistra. I don't think that I had ever bought anything through the post from them before, having previously collected all my orders at shows, but it was as prompt and efficient as you would expect. The new arrivals were some half-hexes, enabling the glacis to take on a more regular form.

The photo reflects the end of the third turn, although turn two ended on a tied initiative dice roll and was very short. As you can see, the besiegers have developed a stretch of the second parallel and moved a siege gun forwards, albeit still too far away to breach the walls. The 'siege die' mechanism for sapping seems to work, although in a classic example of sod's law three of the first four rolls came up zero. The besiegers have lost half of their sappers to trench raids - by contrast, the garrison kept rolling 11 on a D12 - and may need to start using infantry as substitutes soon. Raiders also destroyed a gun emplacement, otherwise there would be two siege guns in the parallel.

I'm still not entirely sure that I'm doing it right, but it looks OK.

Siege Die

 It wasn't only the set-up that affected the way that the first run through went. I also indulged in a bit of false logic along the way. Like most wargames rules 'Vauban's Wars' use inches; like most people living in the twenty first century I use centimetres. The rules say that sappers can dig 6" of sap/trench per turn of the card; the saps which I made are 10 cm long. I decided that laying one length each time would be equivalent, because by adding the width of the zag to the length of the zig one came back to roughly the same thing. As I say, false logic.

The rules call for what they refer to as a 'Siege Die', a D6 with faces showing 0,1,1,2,2,3. They are used in mining and countermining (which I have excluded from my simple playtest) and when the garrison repairs the walls (which I got nowhere near in my first run through). Obviously, being a wargamer of many years standing, I have some of these dice to hand, so I intend to use them to address the above irritation. Sappers will roll the 'Siege Die' and build that many sections. You will note that the expected value is 1.5, thereby turning 10 cm into 6".

I think there is another possible benefit from this change. I found the facts that sappers would always build the same amount each time the Sapping card is revealed, and also that one is essentially guaranteed to be able to play all one's Sapping cards every turn, was not really to my taste. I prefer a bit more uncertainty in a game, and while the luck of the dice will average out in the long run (*), in the short run it will provide a bit of friction and give both the besieger and the garrison some hints as to where they might wish to direct their effort.

* Cue snorts of derision from many readers.

Once More Into The Breach (Assuming We Get That Far)

 It's time for another go at the new siege rules. One conclusion from the first run through was that the initial set-up had the two sides too far apart. I placed the first parallel at the advised distance from the walls, but the defenders need to be further forward of the walls and in greater numbers than the way I had arranged things.

I have therefore introduced a glacis, counterscarp and covered way. The last of those is - as I discovered - essential for moving troops from within the town to opposite wherever the attackers place their guns as they get closer.

I've still kept it relatively simple; there is no ditch and no ravelines. Apart from anything else I am keen to give the siege guns sight of the walls, as I never got as far as bombarding them last time.

Speaking of siege guns, the besiegers have a fourth (i.e. I have made a fourth) and have lost three infantry units to compensate. Plus, of course, both sides' artillery crews have arrived.

Bosworth 1485

"He said, ‘Give me my battle-axe in my hand,

Set the crown of England on my head so high!

For by Him that shope both sea and land,

King of England this day will I die!"

- from The Ballad of Bosworth Field

I own some half a dozen books about Bosworth, so obviously I was in need of another. As luck would have it Osprey have just published one. It is Bosworth 1485, number 360 in their Campaign series and is written by Christopher Gravett and illustrated by Graham Turner, and not to be confused with Campaign series number 66, entitled Bosworth 1485, written by Christopher Gravett and illustrated by Graham Turner. Of course, a lot has been uncovered since their first attempt was issued, not least the location both of the battlefield and of the loser.

Astonishingly, I don't own the original version so I can't be specific about the changes in either test or pictures, except to point out that the subtitle has changed from 'Last Charge of the Plantagenets' to 'The Downfall of Richard III'. I have been teasing away at that switch, all the time clutching my copy of 'L'écriture et la différence', and must conclude that I have no idea what we are meant to understand by it.

Jacques Derrida deconstructs the bowling

The book - the one on Bosworth not the one on structuralism - starts rather poorly. In the first paragraph following the introduction the author makes the bizarre claim that John of Gaunt was Edward III's eldest son. It might, I suppose, be interesting to speculate what difference it might have made to 14th and 15th century English history if he had have been. As Derrida used to say while opening the batting for the École normale supérieure: "Posed in these terms, the question would already be caught in the assurance of a certain fore-knowledge: can “what has always been conceived and signified under that name” be considered fundamentally homogeneous, univocal, or nonconflictual?"

Anyway, back to the book. It's fine. It adequately summarises all the newly available information alongside what was always known. The maps in particular are plentiful and clear. I don't think anyone reads such a work expecting to be enlightened as to the definitive version of what happened. It was all a long time ago and, in any event, the interesting question about the events of 1483 to 1485 will always be why, rather than what or where, and that is ultimately unknowable. So, a useful addition to the bookshelf, but it still leaves room for others.

PotCIIpouri

 “He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.” 

                                                                - Epictetus

I took apart the siege game, via which I was trying to get my head round one of the new sets of rules that I have bought during lockdown, because I thought there would be a brief break in the weather in which to do some spraying of the bastions. There was, and it was indeed short-lived. The day afterwards my house was under a whole pile of snow, followed by several days of very heavy rain and wind, and now there is once again a blizzard outside.

"It's all my fault."

I had come to the conclusion that the initial set up was wrong, and that some more resin cast bits and pieces were required. Making them was straightforward - although there are downsides; my absolute top tip is to make sure you wear gloves - but it has been impossible to move on to priming due to ongoing external inclemency. 

"Or possibly mine."

However, although remaining bitterly cold, it did stop snowing this morning. Unlike the textured stone paint I have been using, which is sensitive to anything much less than shirtsleeves temperatures, Halfords own label plastic primer seems impervious to the air being sub-zero and so there has been some progress and I hope to be back on the table relatively soon. One positive aspect of the delay is that both sides' artillery crews should be putting in an appearance, and the guns won't have to magically fire themselves any more.

Beans and Champagne

 In a confirmation of my suspicion that lockdown is atrophying my brain, I have been arguing with someone about whether Jack Nicholson could ever have been an opera singer. This eventually led us to his cameo in 'Tommy', which definitively proved that he couldn't. I was tempted to post that clip, but let's be honest, this is the scene we all want to see:

Which deserves to be followed by this:

I  have two questions arising from that scene. Firstly, when Elvis sings "Turn your head to the right", why do both he and Ann-Margret turn their heads to the left? Secondly, why is the blonde in the front row not wearing any trousers?

Sinking Force Z

 I have been reading 'Sinking Force Z 1941', a recent release from Osprey. It was written by Angus Konstam, who as well as being a prolific author on a variety of subjects - I think the last of his books I read was on the Barbary Pirates - was also the winner of the largest wargame in which I have ever played. My interest in the events covered is mainly because my uncle was present as a crew member of one of the escorting destroyers.

Although understandably focussed on the events from December 8th to 10th 1941, it also provides extensive background on how and why Force Z came to be there, and on the design and capabilities of both the Royal Navy ships involved and the Japanese bombers which attacked them. There are lavish illustrations, by Adam Tooby, and plenty of maps, diagrams and photographs. It could possibly have done with another run through by a proof reader, but overall is an impressive publication.

It forms part of Osprey's 'Air Campaign' series, and the central premise is that it marks the point that naval supremacy definitively switched from battleship to aircraft carrier. Indeed the subtitle is 'The day the Imperial Japanese Navy killed the battleship'. The argument is well made, and it was apparently the first time that more than one capital ship had been sunk at sea by aircraft alone, although as so often with history one wonders about the counterfactuals. In any event, the battleship's time had at least begun to run out by then.

There was one other interesting point for me. I knew that Pearl Harbor took place on December 7th and the invasion of Malaya on December 8th. What I had never appreciated was that events in Malaya started an hour before those in Hawaii. The explanation is, of course, the International Date Line, which, despite me being renowned for my expertise on the rotation of the earth, is something that it had never occurred to me to consider before. I feel foolish.

Amiable Indifferentism

"Having, then, once introduced an element of inconsistency into his system, he was far too consistent not to be inconsistent consistently, and he lapsed ere long into an amiable indifferentism..." - Samuel Butler

I have taken opportunistic advantage of a break in the weather to do some spray painting, including of the bastions currently being besieged. I have therefore abandoned my resolve of only a couple of days ago to play another turn of Vauban's Wars and instead I shall reset it and - once the bastions are dry - go again based on what I have learned. Speaking of which:

• I think that there is an interesting game in there. I am aware of how patronising that sounds, given that the author spent quite a number of years developing and playtesting the rules, but it isn't meant to be. Just take it literally.
• It's by no means the average wargame. That isn't just the asymmetry; lots of wargames - e.g. all colonial games - offer different challenges to either side. I also don't think it's just because the tactics required are unfamiliar to most of us. The game seemed to me to have a lot of similarities with some boardgames that I have played; and I don't mean board wargames, I mean boardgame boardgames. There are, for example, multiple routes to victory for both players and each has imperfect information about which is being pursued by his opponent and, often, how close the game might be to finishing.
• It's not a solo game. That should be obvious from my previous point, but is slightly disappointing because Piquet games usually work well as such. The small card deck and the balanced initiative mean that it ends up comparatively close to being an IGo UGo game masquerading as Piquet. It would be interesting to see how it played out with a larger deck and using the initiative method from classic Piquet rather than Field of Battle. Having said that, it's almost inevitable that the defenders would get all the initiative and the thing would drag on for ever.
• There is what looks like a well thought through and influential espionage element. Unfortunately I can't tell you any more because it's something that, as far as I can see, is unplayable solo. It is through this mechanism that players seek to understand what the other side is up to. Sadly, I think that even a Donald Featherstone tower of matchboxes wouldn't make it work for one person, so it will have to await a two player game. 
• I still don't really know what the best tactics are for the besieger in particular. Furthering my analogy with boardgames, players have fewer actions that the things they would like to do, so prioritisation is important. This starts with assembling the forces, and I definitely went with too many infantry and too few siege guns for my run through. The surest route to victory is massing the guns close to the wall and trying to blast it down. Or is it?
• I feel a bit more laser cutting coming on, when it is legal so to do of course. Ravelins would be straightforward enough. More difficult, but actually more important, is a glacis and counterscarp. The defenders need some secure way of moving troops around the front of the fort to mass either for a sortie or against an assault. In classic wargame blog fashion, I have some ideas.

So, another run through of a few turns will occur at some point. I have at least one small amendment which I shall make to make it slightly more solo friendly, but nothing that will distort the core game.