Return of the kern

 

"beware the preachers" - Charles Bukowski

There has been a bit of wargaming going on in the background, namely a fine refight of Talavera in the legendary wargames room of James 'Olicanalad' Roach. As we get older the weekly sessions seem to get shorter before we reach the point where we can no longer stand up for any more time, and so this game has taken several weeks. As luck would have it I had to miss this week's conclusion (*), but I think I had, as Wellington, done enough to ensure the correct result.

Wargaming has also moved a bit to the foreground, which is as much to my surprise as anyone's. I have ordered a new set of rules, which obviously I don't need, and will report on them when they arrive. I have also after a long, long gap got the paintbrushes out. The main output has been the kern last heard of here two years ago. Adding Irish troops to my Wars of the Roses forces was Peter's idea; I think he thought javelin armed units would add a bit of variety. It was undoubtedly his death eighteen months ago which badly knocked my mojo. I have tried a variety of things to kick it off again such as the MTB and E-boat models I inherited from Peter (**) and buying some Mexican Revolution figures (***) off eBay. What has finally made the difference is buying myself a new lamp, one of those where the lights surround a magnifying lens. It's great. I can't paint any better, but at least I can see my mistakes more clearly.

One of the things that was passed on to us by Peter's widow was a small collection of cowboys with which we have enjoyed playing using the Too Fat Lardies rule set. While I had a brush in my hand I painted up a preacher as a small contribution to the period; he can be a bystander, innocent or otherwise. I have literally never painted a 28mm figure before, but I don't think it turned out too badly. It was also nice to get the lightbox out again.

* I went to see The Fast Show Live - very funny.

** I fully acknowledge that these are never going to be painted.

*** I haven't given up hope of these.

Shows, Shows, Shows

That's a bit of an exaggeration; it's actually shows, shows (*). First up was the 214th Otley Show. I know that regular readers will be expecting action photos of the Young Farmers Ladies Tug-of-War competition - which was as engrossing as ever - or at least of some sheep, but you'll have to make do with this instead:

One of my regular boardgaming group is the Otley Lemon Curd King for a year. We are an eclectically talented bunch.

And then on Sunday it was off to Partizan. Regular readers will not be expecting anything much in the way of a photographic record, and indeed there is none. Fortunately other, more diligent, bloggists have already started to post image-rich accounts of the day for your viewing pleasure. Suffice it to say that there were lots of games (too many? I've certainly seen photos of at least one game that I simply don't remember.) and they all looked very nice. In a slightly annoying development a couple of them had added scenic endpieces to the tables, which no doubt made it look prettier if one was sat at the table playing, but rather got in the way of the enjoyment of the paying punters. I hope this doesn't become the fashion.

I didn't buy much. I picked up a copy of the Northampton Battlefield Society's wargamers guide to Edgecote and had a short chat with co-author Graham 'Trebian' Evans. Anyone familiar with his blog won't be surprised that he managed to turn the conversation to Towton, very much a bee in his bonnet. I bought a laser line thing at the Warbases stand. I had one which I bought very cheaply when Woolworth's went bust, but it went the same way as its vendor some time ago. I managed to have a word with Early War Miniatures and establish how to order stuff given the current state of their website. I felt a bit bad about raising the subject of their IT problems because it clearly touched a raw nerve and elicited a very pained look. Will I now progress the Mexican Revolution project? Maybe.

I also caught up with my old schoolfriend and wargaming opponent Don. He had news of another old friend (and bandmate, about which the less said the better) who, judging by the pictures Don had, has signed some sort of pact with devil because he looks exactly the same as he did when we were young men. Bastard.

* Note the semicolon, which will not disappear here while I'm in charge.

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.

Board Games April/May 2023

 I have played sufficient new-to-me boardgames in the last couple of months to make it worth writing them up. Here they are, plus a few others of note that have been revisited. Before anyone asks, I still haven't had another go at Scythe.

Black Fleet: A card driven game with ships on a map, where everyone plays all three of pirates, merchantmen and the navy. Good game.

Blueprints: Enjoyable dice drafting and arranging game in which everything I did turned out to have been done earlier and better by someone else.

Cascadia: If I describe this as pleasant it isn't meant to anything other than praise. It's an attractive tile-laying game about wildlife in the Pacific Northwest.

First Empires: I'd never heard of this, but liked it quite a lot. It's a like a roll and write, but without any writing; also involves tech trees.

For Sale: This is one of those games that I had been aware of, but had never played for some reason. It's reminiscent in some ways of High Society and I really liked it.

Hadara: Once again, a game I'd never come across which turned out to be a goodun. Card drafting, set collection, minimal theme.

Hanamikoji: Geisha's Road: A newish two player game. I've never played the original, but this variant is very good. Both players try to attract geishas to their tea house by taking the same four actions as each other, but choose the order in which they do them. It's thinky, but in a manageable way.

Heat: Pedal to the Metal: Now this one I had heard of, because it's been a bit of a hot favourite, no pun intended. It's a card driven Formula 1 game reminiscent of both Flamme Rouge and the Waddington's Formula-1 game I used to play with my cousins in the 1960s. Tremendous fun and highly recommended.

Ice Flow: Another game not seen for years. I love this game, was really pleased to get it to the table and I won as well, so all is right with the world.

K2: Broad Peak: K2 is an excellent game. I had never played this expansion, but it turned out to be every bit as good.

Lost Ruins of Arnak: A game from a coupe of years ago that had a lot of buzz. I finally got round to playing it and thought it deserved the praise it got. Amongst other mechanisms, it's a deck building game in which, for once, you stand a fair chance of getting to play any good cards you buy.

Quartermaster General: Cold War: This one hadn't been played for years, but I had two games of it in the last few weeks. Both times I played the West and both times I came last. It's not quite as good as the WWII version, but still excellent.

Quantum: The third game that hadn't been out for a yonk. It went down well, and I was informed that it's out of print and much sought after on the second-hand market. I'm rich. The game features dice as spaceships and might well appeal to wargamers.

Revolver: Once again it had been several years since Colonel Ned McReady tried to stop the Colty gang escaping to Mexico with the loot from their raid on the bank in Repentance Springs. I'd don't think I'd like to play this all that frequently - it runs on rails a little bit - but it's well worth bringing out from time to time.

TransAmerica: A railway building game you could play with those for whom even Ticket to Ride is a bit challenging ruleswise. The rules might be simple, but there's still quite a lot of game there, especially with six players. Apparently it's out of print and much sought after on the second-hand market. Having said that, I was so taken with it I bought a copy on eBay for £25 without any trouble at all. Perhaps my copy of Quantum hasn't made me rich after all.

Trekking Through History: More to do with history than trekking: there are lots of 'interesting' facts on the cards, but the time-travel theme is very pasted on. It's a drafting, set collection, push your luck game, and a good one.

Twilight Struggle: I'd wanted to play this game for years, and then it seemed like I was playing for years. It is very, very long. There's no denying that it's a really good game, a remarkable design in fact. But did I mention how long it takes? I won as the US, thereby redeeming my failure to win the cold war on either of my attempts using Quartermaster General; my success was almost entirely due to being able to play John Paul II immediately followed by Solidarność.

Village Rails: A very small box which contains a lot of game. It's more trains, with tile laying being the route building mechanism. I'd happily play it again.

Wars of the Roses: Lancaster vs. York: No sooner had we got fed up with playing the period with miniatures than it turned up as a boardgame. Think Kingmaker, but with the mechanics occasionally not really matching the theme. I enjoyed it - I won by a distance both times we played it - but I'm not sure I'd recommend seeking it out specially. 

PotCXXpouri

 This is mostly going to be about wargaming, but I must pass on my congratulations to the boy Windass, who done good. My interest in football has diminished in line with the growth in murderous regimes using it as a front. However, young Josh was at school with the elder Miss Epictetus (and yes, his father did cut a somewhat incongruous figure at nativity plays etc), so I have kept half an eye on his career from afar. I have no real idea why young men seek out the highly-paid and glamorous career of a professional footballer, but moments like that at Wembley yesterday must go some way to making the rest of it tolerable.

Anyway, on with the wargaming. We have played Möckern twice more, or more accurately one and a half times. It has become apparent that Epic C&C will not fit the role assigned to it i.e. a game that can be guaranteed to finish in an evening, which is a shame because to me it's much better than the original version. On a happier note the new 'Activated' tokens worked very well, to the extent that I have dug out some other tokens (actually they're tiddlywinks) to mark things such as units taking a march move. I don't know why I didn't think of this years ago.

There has also been some progress on the kern. To recap, I bought these  - a mix of Tumbling Dice and Red Box figures - earlier in the year when Test of Resolve was all the rage, but then went down with Covid. Having recovered sufficiently to think about painting again I discovered I had no plastic primer. By the time I bought some more the moment had passed and, once again, nothing happened for a while. Eventually having sprayed the plastic figures it was necessary to fix javelins to the metal figures, but I found that my superglue wasn't very super. In fact it wasn't any sort of glue at all. This was a bit of a surprise because my normal problem is sticking the wrong things together - one of them usually being my fingers - rather than failing to stick at all. Either I'd had it too long or I'd bought cheap stuff in the first place; knowing me it will probably be both. So, after yet another delay more glue was procured and there has been some progress.

I wouldn't hold your breath for a photo of the finished article, nor for a report on our refight of Mortimer's Cross.

PotCXIXpouri

 “Don’t repeat yourself. It’s not only repetitive, it’s redundant, and people have heard it before.” 

-Lemony Snicket

The lack of posts here is not because I begrudge the time to write them, or indeed the sheer hard work necessary to maintain the high standards for which this blog is known. It's not even because I'm not doing stuff, it's more that I've not only done that stuff before, but increasingly I have also written about doing it before.

One area in which that doesn't particularly apply is boardgaming, where I have played a fair number of new-to-me games recently, and I shall return to that subject shortly. One of those games had a Wars of the Roses theme, which reminds me that the new version of Kingmaker was released last week. It looks good in the photos and some of the revisions seen intriguing - pre-packed factions for example. However, the estimated playing time is up to five hours, and that alone means that I shan't be bothering.

Anyway, back to stuff I've done before and have now done again. Firstly there was the Stephen Daldry production of 'An Inspector Calls', which was just as good as ever. Secondly there was Walter Trout, who was...etc. etc. Trout, who looks in remarkably good nick for a man in his seventies with a transplanted liver, played at the King's Hall in Ilkley and rather bemused the audience by referring to the great views as the band drove over the mountains to the town. The views are indeed great, but you would have thought that someone from a country where they really do have mountains would have spotted that Ilkley Moor is relatively low rise. 

Last but not least there's wargaming, where we trotted out that old favourite Möckern. Actually, it's not particularly a favourite of mine; the French always win. However, there aren't that many published scenarios for Epic C&C Napoleonics, and even fewer for which I have the figures. On top of that I already have the map and OOB printed and to hand so laziness won out. It still gave an enjoyable game though. I shall only include the one photo, but it does show the defining moment of the evening. For those not familiar with the Epic rules, two cards are played each turn; one from your hand and one from a shared tableau. Peter, playing the French, chose Cavalry Charge from the table and followed up with Bayonet Charge from his hand. If you're going to play, play aggressively. 

Ferrybridge

 Wargaming has been both infrequent and irregular recently, for a variety of reasons (*). However, Peter came round yesterday and we had a run through of the Ferrybridge scenario from the first Test of Resolve scenario book. It is structured in three parts - as was the original battle of course - and I had been a bit sceptical about it all hanging together. Peter had persuaded me that, au contraire, that whatever happened we would be able to construct a sensible narrative. In the event we didn't have to because, apart from Clifford surviving to see Skipton Castle again (always assuming he gets through Towton alive of course), it unfolded in a very historical manner.

I only took one photo of each phase, so no matter the level of technical quality, they're all going to be included. The first shows the Yorkist attack across the bridge after the Lancastrians have seen off the first two companies of attackers and Warwick himself has been wounded and carried to the rear.  

Notwithstanding these losses, sheer weight of number told and the second phase saw Clifford arrive to try to retake the bridge. The chap with the flag is whichever knightly commander we hurriedly pulled from the box to act as first reserve; I'm afraid I can't remember who had that honour. The defenders had regained some strength, but their diminished resources meant that they were swept away without inflicting any losses at all on Clifford's men.

The only thing in focus in this photo would appear to be the bridge, so you'll have to take my word for it that it shows Fauconberg's flanking attack, after his having crossed the Aire somewhere upstream. Given the Lancastrians being at full strength and having a sizeable complement of archers, I think we both assumed that they would easily see off the threat. But, the rules rose to the occasion and Clifford's archers ran out of arrows before doing anything of note. Fauconberg sent his own archers forwards and after suffering steady casualties that Lancastrians decided to withdraw. At that point they got the luck of the cards and were across the table and off before the Yorkists moved forwards at all. The scenario therefore ended in a draw, although Edward IV was now free to march onwards to  catch up with Queen Margaret at Towton. However, for the time being at least they won't be meeting in the annexe. We have tired of the Wars of the Roses and will move, eventually, on to something else. 

Having played them now about half a dozen times, my overall view of Test of Resolve is very positive, and I would certainly recommend trying them out to anyone looking for some new Wars of the Roses rules. 

* Both known knowns and unknown unknowns.

Flourish. Enter King Edward...

 ... in triumph; with Gloucester, Clarence and the rest.

"Thus far our fortune keeps an upward course

And we are graced with wreaths of victory"

And so it proved in our refight of Barnet. Sadly for Hastings 'the rest' didn't include him as he had perished upon the roll of a natural one in melee. But Gloucester, obviously stung by my previous observation that he never seemed to make it through any of our games, played a blinder. I didn't take many photos and no good ones at all, but include this shot to illustrate Dickon in action.

This was the largest of the games we've played using Test of Resolve - indeed I'm pretty sure it was the biggest WotR game I've ever put on - and thus wasn't over quite as quickly as the others. It played out rather well I thought. The 'stand off distance' mechanism in ToR lends itself nicely to the scenario specific rules required to mimic the fog which was a big influence at Barnet historically. The clinching factor in our game was that Oxford's battle wasn't able to manoeuvre as quickly when it realised there was nothing in front of it as Gloucester's did in the same position.

I think we'll have one more WotR game before I set up a different period and no, it won't be Mortimer's Cross. No paint has yet touched kern, and I'm now off to Wales for a couple of days of birthday celebrations in the inevitable rain. One thing that does need sorting out is a better way of marking casualties and troop types. The existing system was designed for gridded games and just doesn't work properly in a non-gridded game. Also required is a method of distinguishing battles one from another given that most troops look the same. Neither of those will be done by next week.

Iechyd da.

Kern I Get A Witness

 What joy, there would appear to be a multitude of 'kern' puns out there. I think I vaguely promised to talk about the RedBox and Tumbling Dice kern figures that I had bought, but a picture is worth a thousand words:

Or it would be if it was lit better. I'll take another one when they've been undercoated. They are compatible in size and look fairly similar apart from the haircuts, as in the chap on the right has had one and the chap on the left hasn't. In fact the Tumbling Dice figure (that's the metal one) rather reminds me of a good friend of mine from university days back in the 1970s; one just needs to imagine that instead of throwing a javelin he is energetically playing pinball and is just about to bring that right hand down for some mean flipper action. So, where are the javelins, or darts as the Test of Resolve authors would have it? Those supplied are soft metal so I shall be replacing them with stiff wire. Prepare yourselves for details of how difficult it is to do that. I think my modelling skills are reasonable; they are certainly better than my painting skills, I'll say that before anyone else does. However, I have have a blind spot when it comes to superglue, so there could be problems ahead.

And yes that is the Financial Times protecting the table.

Three Battle Scenario - at last

 Firstly, a public service announcement: avoid this Covid thingy if at all possible. I was getting better, and then I wasn't. It is, to an extent anyway, my own fault. I had important reasons to take a day trip to London, but it rather set me back, not helped by all the inevitable train delays and cancellations. But, I had recovered sufficiently by Wednesday last for there to be a game in the annexe.

I'm not sure what's happened to the colour in that photo. It's the three battle scenario from the Test of Resolve rulebook, with a small change. The scenario has one battle with a mounted contingent, but given that the first thing that would happen is that they would dismount, I pre-empted that and made them fight on foot from the start. Instead I gave each side a small unit of mounted household reinforcements, so that we still got to see how the mounted rules work.

As you will note if you look carefully at the picture above, one of the things we were able to test is what happens if mounted men-at-arms charge into the rear of a unit which is running away. Funnily enough, it didn't end well for the foot unit. (I'm afraid that's Richard of Gloucester meeting an early death in one of our games, and not for the first time; he's jinxed) If Somerset and his boys had stopped there we would perhaps have come to the conclusion that cavalry could be dominant on the battlefield. However, rather than retiring and regrouping they charged on and quickly demonstrated why that wasn't what happened during the Wars of the Roses.

It was, once again, all over rather quickly. These rules really don't mess about. I, on the other hand, do mess about and there has been no progress at all on painting all the kern I bought at such great expense.

It Had To Happen Eventually

 "A disease known is half cured." - Irish proverb

I have had Covid. I wasn't particularly acutely ill, but it's left me very washed out, and with a sort of persistent brain fog. So no gaming - board or war - and not much of anything else really. My recent purchases of Irish kern have arrived, but haven't got any further than a heap on the dining table. Also in the pile are various flags which I ordered in to help fill the strange gaps in my complement of Wars of the Roses commanders. Of course, if I have the strength to write a blog post can painting and modelling be far behind?

Illness requires lighter reading material than my normal diet of Wittgenstein, Nietzsche and Proust so I picked up 'Winter Pilgrims', which had been passed on to me by Peter. I think the appropriate word for the main plot line is 'implausible', but the descriptive set pieces of various battles are both entertaining and give food for thought. As I have often observed here, no one knows what happened which means that fictional imaginings are as valid as anything else really. I thought that the passage about the attack on Sandwich was the strongest, perhaps because of the relatively small scale of the affair. By the time of Towton, the author had rather lost me; too many tea breaks in his interpretation for my taste.

The book covers Mortimer's Cross, so the kern put in a brief appearance. I trust that, once painted, my figures will put up a better show.

My WotR Collection

 That title makes it sound as if I am going to post photos of them all, but I'm not. I'm actually responding to a couple of questions that I've had: are the figures Perry plastics, and are the new Irish kern that I have ordered, er, Perry plastics. In both cases it's a no. My figures are 20mm, and most of them are actually Hundred Years War figures deployed anachronistically with no shame whatsoever.

This was the first period that I painted when, in my forties, I was looking for a hobby which I could pick up and put down in the periods between professional assignments. I chose 1/72 soft plastic because one key criterion was not spending much money. (As an aside, that worked out well didn't it.) I had always been interested in the Wars of the Roses, there weren't any figures available, so I bought those for the HYW instead. I had no thought of gaming and no one else would ever see them so it didn't matter. As time went by more specific 15th century figures became available labelled variously as WotR, Burgundians, Swiss, Hussites etc, but I didn't replace anything. Instead I simply mixed them in, as I did a few metal figures from Tumbling Dice's range. The latter were often for things that it wasn't at the time easy to find in plastic: hand-gunners, pikemen etc. 

For the kern I have ordered a mixture of the Redbox Irish Troops and Tumbling Dice figures, just for variety really. The Redbox set also contains some Galloglass, which clearly I don't need, but will no doubt find a use for in due course. When everything arrives I shall tell you what I think.

Next week's game isn't going to be a refight of a specific combat, rather we shall have a go at the sample scenario in the rulebook which the authors use to introduce various troop types that we haven't employed in our games so far. These include mounted household troops, the rules for whose use I still haven't quite got my head around. 

Tewkesbury again again

 Not for the first time I can report that we have replayed the battle of Tewkesbury. The 'Test of Resolve' rules continue to please, perhaps even more now that we are playing them properly. The Yorkists won, mainly by dint of throwing large numbers of elevens and twelves, against which the Lancastrians had no answer.

There were several presentational changes starting with the movement trays which I had pre-ordered and picked-up at Vapnartak. I'd also painted up some more household troops, allowing for the nobles to lead their battles from the front rather than being embedded in units in order to bulk them out. I have to report that the plastic mountain is so depleted that if I wanted to refight Towton I would actually have to buy some more; who'd have thought that day would ever come.

Speaking of buying figures, there has been a request to do Mortimer's Cross, but unfortunately I have no kern. There's no point in buying any unless I get enough to also refight Stoke Field, which it turns out requires quite a lot of them. Still, what is money for if not to buy more toys? And it will still just about cost less than an evening at the opera, particularly after factoring in the programme, the ice cream and the private jet to San Francisco with Julia Roberts.

So, next week won't feature any Irish, but there will be some in due course.

And Somerset Another Goodly Mast

Prince Edward: I know my duty; you are all undutiful:
                          Lascivious Edward, and thou perjured George,
                          And thou mis-shapen Dick, I tell ye all
                          I am your better, traitors as ye are:
                          And thou usurp'st my father's right and mine.

King Edward IV: Take that, thou likeness of this railer here. [Stabs him]

Richard, Duke of Gloucester: Sprawl'st thou? take that, to end thy agony. [Stabs him]

George, Duke of Clarence). And there's for twitting me with perjury. [Stabs him]

Or at least that's how Shakespeare has it in Henry VI, Part III. It didn't end like that in our refight of Tewkesbury, although it came close.

Mark turned up this week and took the Yorkists, allowing me to umpire. That should have given me time to take more photos, but didn't, mainly because the more I read the rules the more convinced I became that we playing the melee rules incorrectly. The starting point was our seeming inability to work out which companies in one battle ought to be rolling off against which companies in the opposing battle. The 'Test of Resolve' rules are fairly clearly written, so that was a bit of a surprise to me. It turned out to be a knock-effect of something else which we weren't doing right. In our defence the way things work is pretty much the opposite of how things work in the rules we have most recently been playtesting in the Legendary Wargames Room, and intuitively we seem to have gone down that road again. 

Anyway, notwithstanding having played it wrongly all evening, a good time was had by all. The Lancastrians won quite comprehensively in the end. The Yorkist ambush failed to happen, and Gloucester perished early on, as he often seems to in refights of this engagement. Hastings' battle also dispersed leaving Edward IV all on his own. He could still win though, by defeating Wenlock's battle in melee and pushing through to kill Edward, Prince of Wales, which he came tantalisingly close to doing. He was only thwarted by rolling very low against Edward's bodyguards very high roll. That is always a possibility with D12s. Still, as I said before, it was most enjoyable, as I'm pretty sure it would have been had we played it properly.

Tewkesbury Again, Naturally

 To the surprise of absolutely no one, the next battle in our trial of 'Test of Resolve' will be Tewkesbury; indeed the only reason it wasn't the first one was that I didn't own the relevant scenario book at the time. I got into the habit of playing Tewkesbury with new rule sets because it is, in my opinion anyway, the battle from the Wars of the Roses which is most balanced and in which the inevitable treachery, subterfuge, delayed arrivals, ambushes etc are still present, but don't overwhelm things. Plus of course there is now the added attraction of being able to compare one author's scenario with another's. 

Once again I am playing it as written, and will report back. My first thoughts are that I might have had Wenlock and Devon on higher ground than the approaching Yorkists, but I don't suppose it will matter much. 

This time it is Edward, Prince of Wales whose demise would signal the end of the game. Can he survive for longer than his father did in our refight of 1st St Albans? We shall see. 

I'm trying a different method of recording casualties and morale this time round. I originally made my markers for Command & Colours and, as I have no intention of making any more, am struggling a bit to find the best way of fitting a square peg in a round hole.

First St Albans - ish

 We played the 'Test of Resolve' 1st St Albans scenario featuring all the wrong nobles (*) and the rules met with a fair degree of approval. We were able to get a completely unbiased opinion as there was neither winner nor loser. Henry VI unfortunately got caught in the crossfire and perished. In the words of the victory conditions: "If he dies the game ends immediately and inconclusively as a draw! The Wars of the Roses take a surprising turn".

My main concern prior to playing a full game was whether the special period specific rules together with the game's initiative system would result in things running on rails, leaving no interesting decisions to the players. I'm pleased to say that didn't happen, although 1st St Albans is not a particularly normal battle, so perhaps no firm conclusions can be drawn. A concern that did arise came through the use of D12s, which inevitably means that luck in combat and morale testing can swing quite a bit. Still, I think we shall have another go, with a battle in the open rather than in a town next time.

The scenario itself was fine. I previously observed that one of the roads along which the Yorkists attacked is actually quite steep, but in truth had they been penalised for that they would surely have never fought their way into the town. The one area I would probably change is the 'God Save the King Test' which had to be taken by the first Yorkist units into the square. This was a straight die roll, but I think I would give them the normal bonuses for quality, attached commander etc. If the first unit fails then perhaps I would give a down to the subsequent units to reflect this. In terms of the way I laid it out, I would next time specifically mark out the areas around the square notionally occupied by houses, as well as scattering a few buildings about for aesthetic effect. 

* There have been questions about how I come to have a WotR collection which doesn't include a Warwick figure; he was after all fairly prominent at the time. Well the good news is that I have found him. I definitely don't have either York or Salisbury though.

All the right nobles...

 ... but not necessarily at the right battles.

I decided that one sensible way to rouse myself from my wargaming inactivity was to take a look at some of the sets of rules which I have accumulated over the last couple of years. Even more logical is to start with a period for which I actually have the figures, so the Wars of the Roses it is. I have a couple of unplayed sets, but first up is 'Test of Resolve', a card based WotR specific set which I briefly described on in a previous post. They should be straightforward for me to pick up because they are derived from/an homage to/a blatant rip-off of Piquet Inc's FOB albeit in a very streamlined and simplified fashion. I like the look of the initiative allocation system, which doesn't seem that it will result in me calling on the higher mathematics in order to prove that it's no good, and I'm also rather taken with the way they have evolved the Heroic and Lull cards. However all that is just from reading and having a play about with the mechanisms. What is required is a proper game.

When I bought the rules I also bought the scenario book for the first part of the wars (the book for the second half is also now available and an order has been placed), and so from that I have chosen 1st St Albans. The scenario book is really very impressive and could, I think, be easily translated to other rules. In the same way that no one really knows how they fought at the time, there is often also uncertainty about where they fought and what happened. Whilst this ought to be less of an issue for 1st St Albans, the road layout of the centre of the city not having particularly changed since then, there are still alternative views of what occurred. In this case the authors have gone for the Yorkist left and right swinging round and charging along Holywell Hill and St Peter's Street. This leads to my one small quibble. As the name implies Holywell Hill has a slope, quite a big one actually. I was in St Albans a few months ago visiting my sister - I stayed at the White Hart which is approximately where the middle house is on this side of the road in the photo above - and I can confirm that climbing up it carrying a suitcase is bad enough; one assumes it would be worse while wearing armour. None of this gets a mention in the scenario. Anyway, be that as it may, I'm going to play it as written.

Or at least I'm going to play it as written except for one detail. Notwithstanding having said in the first paragraph that I have the figures, I don't have models of all the requisite commanders. Therefore the Yorkist attack will be led by the next generation, those who fought at Tewkesbury to be precise. The Lancastrians will mostly be present and correct - I even have a Henry VI kneeling in prayer - but Sir Andrew Trollope has kindly agreed to deputise for Buckingham.

48 Crash

"Watch Out!

You know the 48 Crash come like a lightning flash (48 Crash, 48 Crash)" 

- Chinn & Chapman

Apologies, but the picture of Ms Quatro is mere clickbait. I am going to post about how I seem to have mislaid my wargaming mojo during 2022. Apart from actually playing the games it has been steadily diminishing; for example I have done no painting of any sort for many months now. Perhaps the last element of the hobby to go for me was my penchant for buying any new rules published for those periods which I game, or, as in the case of the Mexican Revolution, which I don't game. But even that seems to have shrivelled and died. Caliver Books were recently offering a deal on Billhooks Deluxe, expanding the 'Never Mind the Billhooks' WotR rules to cover amongst other things the Hussites. And yet, I didn't buy them. 

Whilst en route to Manchester to see 'Die Fledermaus' (*), the December issue of Wargames Illustrated caught my eye in the Smith's at Leeds station, as it contains a couple of sizable articles on the newly published rules. Would my enthusiasm be given a sufficient kickstart to get online and order a copy? Well, not so far it hasn't. I haven't been able to get over the image presented by the following quote: "Archer blocks in line can be deadly. Loosing an arrowstorm of 48 dice makes for a mighty racket as D6s bounce around the table..."

How many? Not for me I think.

* Which was excellent, featuring amongst other characters in the chorus the Spice Girls and Boris Johnson, plus an entirely unexpected appearance by Kathryn Rudge singing the 'Habanera' from 'Carmen'.

Medieval Military Combat (slight return)

 Just over a year ago I reviewed Dr Tom Lewis's 'Medieval Military Combat' and so too, albeit in a more dismissive fashion, did Graham Evans over at 'Wargaming for Grown-ups'. In Volume XXXII of The Ricardian, journal of the Richard III Society and hot off the presses, is another review. This one is by Peter Hammond, Research Officer of the society, and author of many books on the period himself. 

He is of much the same mind as me on Lewis's tome. His concluding paragraph reads:

"This book is an interesting mixture. As described it contains some interesting practical points which are not usually discussed. It is not well written, being badly organized but it is worth reading for the discussion of battle aspects not often covered. Unfortunately there are very few illustrations, all in black and white and very badly reproduced and the index is poor."

So, worth a read, but borrow don't buy.

Vellem nescire literas

 As befits a wargaming blog, no wargaming has equalled no posts. Reasons for not gaming have been various, but this week appear to have been related to a Brigadoon-like canal, which is sometimes there and sometimes isn't. I can't paint either because, whilst my balance problems have largely abated, the remnants make close focus work inadvisable. An ideal time therefore to design some scenarios, knock a few rules into shape (e.g. the hex-based version of Pax Romana) or perhaps even just tidy up the annexe (the mice having ceased to be, I am pleased to say). But no, instead I have been gadding about.

I have been to the Nero exhibition currently on at the British Museum, which poses the question: "Was he a young, inexperienced ruler trying his best in a divided society, or the merciless, matricidal megalomaniac history has painted him to be?". I think we all know the answer to that, although the exhibition stressed that he was very popular until he, well, wasn't. I came away conscious that pretty much my entire 'knowledge' of the period comes from watching 'I, Claudius'. Anyway, it's well worth visiting, especially for the Boudiccan revolt section. A bit of rank bad planning meant that I was there the day before the Hokusai exhibition opened, but one could now combine the two.

I also found myself in Leicester, and took the opportunity to go to the Richard III Visitor Centre, which I thought was very well done. The ground floor is given over to concisely explaining the Wars of the Roses, with major figures projected onto the walls and telling us their side of the story. It's a complicated subject, and the museum hasn't got a great deal of space, but they have a reasonable and balanced stab. It's not their fault that pretty much everyone is either called Edward or Richard. The first floor recounts the story of the search, the find and the scientific analysis required to establish that it was indeed him. It's a fascinating story, well told and again worth a visit. One's trip round culminates, as it should, standing by the hole in the car park itself, or more accurately the hole which used to be in the car park.

Yet more bad planning meant that I didn't manage to visit the tomb in the cathedral - it was shut - but while I was in the city I also went to the National Space Centre. It's not Cape Canaveral, but nonetheless was a worthwhile way to spend a morning. It's full of rockets, spacecraft, artefacts etc with plenty of informative and hands-on displays. Visiting the planetarium wasn't perhaps all that advisable for someone suffering from vertigo, but I closed my eyes and it all went away. My companion for the trip crashed in her attempt to land the lunar module, but as I had experienced her driving I wasn't entirely surprised. One of the most entertaining aspects for me was the timeline of the space age (which is almost entirely congruent with my own lifetime) which included many non space-related events, both significant and ephemeral, none of which seem to have happened in the order that I would have said that they did. Memory is a funny old thing.