Ahi, sul funereo letto

"Non sai tu che se l’anima mia
Il rimorso dilacera e rode,
Quel suo grido non cura, non ode,
Sin che l’empie di fremiti amor?
Non sai tu che di te resteria,
Se cessasse di battere il cor!
Quante notti ho vegliato anelante!
Come a lungo infelice lottai!"

- Gustavo, Un ballo in maschera

And so to the opera. It was a half full auditorium, although personally I had no problems at all with the journey. Those who stayed at home missed an excellent production - for some reason the company's first ever - of 'Un ballo de maschera'. Indeed the chap sitting next to me turned out to have seen it already and been so impressed that he had driven a hundred miles to see it again and was setting off for the return journey when the final curtain call had been taken. I did say that the weather didn't really seem as bad as the media were saying.

The performance was set in a vague mid twentieth century milieu, with some very sharp suits and long overcoats among the singers giving the impression that liquor was being bootlegged somewhere offstage. Were I designing it I might have been tempted to extend that image with Ulrica the soothsayer practising her trade in a speakeasy. Instead she appeared to be dressed as a member of the French resistance, perhaps signifying that if you asked to tell your fortune then you had better listen carefully because she would say it only once. 

Dunque ascoltate:

It was Ulrica's lair that caused a descent into unintentional comedy on the night. While she communed with Lucifer red curtains were drawn up on three sides of the stage to both provide some atmosphere and to give Gustavo a place from which to eavesdrop; sadly a large part of it promptly fell back down again (my new acquaintance confirmed that this hadn't happened when he had seen it previously). Rather than making use of this large gap, members of the cast chose to enter and exit through what was left, having of course to avoid where the King was hiding behind the arras. The resulting chaos brought back happy memories of the Morecambe and Wise show, only with better incidental music.

"I'm singing all the right notes..."

I've written about this opera before. It's one of those sad stories in which the wife goes back to her husband rather than stay with the man she really loves: Casablanca springs to mind, you may be able to think of others.

"Mi schianto il cor – ti lascio"

Plastic fantastic

"I love plastic. I want to be plastic." - Andy Warhol

If asked to define what sort of wargamer I am I would always answer "20mm plastic"; the slight irony being that by far the majority of the gaming that I actually do is 28mm metal in the legendary wargames room of James 'Olicanalad' Roach. However the collecting, painting and so on is essentially 20mm plastic with a bit of 20mm metal to make up the numbers. One thing that really differentiates us from other types of wargamer is the acquisition process. The boxes contain what they contain; some of the figures are of limited use and the proportions of different type of figures (e.g. officers, flagbearers etc) are never what one would wish for. When I started out all those years ago we would simply have unit sizes that reflected box contents and everything got used; nowadays I have a pile of stuff that will only ever be used for conversions. In addition, boxes are only in production for limited runs - the moulds are expensive relative to those for metal figures - and when they're gone they are (probably) gone. It took me a lot of time and a certain amount of expense to track down the last remaining sets of Hat WWI German Heavy Weapons in Europe when I belatedly decided that I needed ( OK, wanted) some. What we tend to do therefore is buy anything new that comes out and looks as if it might be vaguely useful. In my case the latest such purchase is some very nice figures of Medieval Gunpowder Castle Artillery. My 15th century forces already have so many bombards and the like that they can never all fit on the table at the same time anyway, but...

Some of the bombards

Their arrival inevitably led to some thought about upgrading my existing walls. The two issues that bug me are that I don't have enough and that I didn't make them modular, in the sense that all pieces are the same length. I might just have to treat myself to some laser cut MDF, probably the 28mm scaled ones; well it is my birthday soon. I mentioned this to James on our jaunt to Vapnartak and he tried to pass on some spare MDF sheet he had so that I could scratchbuild some. I think we all know that isn't going to happen. More usefully he has lent me a set of WRG 6th rules so that I can have a look at the siege rules. So, a relatively small amount of money spent on a set of figures that I don't really need will probably escalate into a much larger sum for something else that I don't really need. Such is life, as we used to say in the 1970s, such is life.

"You're alive!"

Which were the exact words addressed to me when I returned to boardgaming after a couple of months break to recharge the meeple mojo. These youngsters think that anyone over forty is on their last legs; well let me tell them there is nothing old about me. Anyway, I was going to do this list quarterly, but having realised that I couldn't for the life of me remember one of the games at all despite the name being written down in front of me, I thought it would be better to crack on and do it now before senility really kicks in.


7 Wonders: I have always liked some aspects of this game, and now like it a lot because for the first time ever I won.

Age of Steam: This was the best new (new to me that is) game played so far this year. It's a cracker. I always pick a strategy at random when faced with a new game and in this case went for: 'build railways on the bit of the board nearest me'. I came a respectable third out of five, but perhaps more up-front analysis might be helpful next time; and I hope that there is a next time.

Altiplano: This is recognisably by the same designer as Orléans (see below), but introduces an asymmetric element that didn't really do it for me. The start player marker is also a most irritating and large cardboard llama, or alpaca, or some other South American camelid. By the way, did you now that the Linnaean name for the Llama is Lama glama?

Dinosaur Island: Essentially Jurassic Park the board game. I took it a bit literally and did nothing but create dinosaurs in the laboratory. Little wooden visitors turned up in their droves, discovered there was nothing else to do and nowhere to eat and so buggered off again. I came last. I'm not so bothered about playing this again.

Flash Point: Fire Rescue: It's a co-operative game, but I rather liked it. It has a neat mechanism for spreading the fire that might have wargaming applications; can't think of any off the top of my head, but it might have. As with The Grizzled I don't know anyone who has ever won at this game.

Imperial Settlers: The French have an expression "l'esprit d l'escalier" which just about sums up ho I played this game. After every turn I would slap my head and tell myself what I should have done instead.

Junk Art: An amusing game of piling up odd shaped pieces of plastic until they all fall over. I do like a 3D game.

Nusfjord:  My random strategy in my first play of this game about building boats and going fishing was to focus on forestry. I came last.

Orléans: This was my favourite new game of last year and is strongly recommended. A nice set of balanced mechanics and scoring paths, with just enough player interaction to mean you need to watch what the others are doing.

Photosynthesis: Another excellent 3D game - hooray! - featuring trees and the sun. I am well known as being an expert on how the Earth goes round the sun and can confirm that it doesn't work as depicted here. We played the rules wrong - and if only I had a quid for every time I'd said that - but I'll take the win anyway. It's a spatial awareness game and we all know how poor I usually am at those. 

Sub Terra: It's another co-operative game, but this one is dull, dull, dull. There are dungeons, there are monsters, there is little tension. I was some sort of bodyguard with a power that allowed me to take hits on behalf of the others in the team, who supposedly had skills which would enable us to escape. When it became apparent that this wasn't going to happen I deserted them and made a run for the entrance; I didn't make it, but I died looking after number one, and that must count for something.

Telestrations: Amusing ten minute pictorial Chinese whispers.

Thunderstone Quest: This is a better deck builder than they usually are, because there is an end purpose in mind to use the deck for. Sadly this purpose is going into a dungeon - yawn - to fight monsters - yawn.

Zendo: This is a bit like the old Mastermind game, but better because it's multi-player. I'm not sure why you would pay for the plastic bits and pieces when you can clearly just play pretty much the same game with a couple of packs of cards.

Yäkatit

Did you know that in Ethiopia the quadrennial intercalation is immediately following August 29th by the Julian Calendar (currently, and for the next eighty years or so, September 11th by the Gregorian Calendar)? I mention it because, it not being a leap year, February seems to have finished.

February wargaming was rudely curtailed by the weather. The weekly game had to be postponed due to a frozen pitch and I can't get out to the annexe because a snowdrift has blocked the back door. I could force my way through it, but I'd get rather wet and cold in the process. What I really need is a snow shovel, but the one that I own is stranded on the far side of the garden, surrounded by tracks in the snow made by, I would guess, a large rodent.

I can get out of the front door however and cultural activities have continued apace. Opera North's Don Giovanni was odd in places, but rolled along nicely and I warmed to it s the evening progressed. It was a revival, but I think the original production occurred at the height of my nomadic lifestyle and so I missed it. It has some fairly odd elements in it such as, for example, time travel. The programme says that this is to represent the fact that the figure of 'the great seducer' appears throughout history in all parts of society. Perhaps he does, I wouldn't know about such things. The orchestra were marvellous as always and, for me, Zerlina was the pick of the singers. I also saw Leeds Youth Opera's inventive take on la Bohème, which was set in the refugee camp outside Calais. Rodolfo was also sung by, and played as, a woman, both of which worked rather well. The kept woman aspects were avoided in the action and the surtitles, presumably because of the young age of some of the performers. The fact that it was not felt necessary to hide a same sex relationship was, I hope you will agree, a sign that not all social progress has yet been lost.

On the theatre front I saw a couple of live broadcasts. Yet another Twelfth Night was entertaining, with Ade Edmondson as Malvolio not as one dimensional as I usually find him. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof seemed to involve a lot more nudity than last time I saw it, but none of the characters were any more sympathetic. I know it’s great art and so that shouldn’t be relevant, but I just kept wanting to slap them all. And don’t get me started on their stupid names. I also saw Birdsong, which of course ought to be the most relevant to wargamers. It’s very difficult to think of a new angle to approach the first day of the Somme, and - unless this is very different to the original book - Sebastian Faulkes doesn’t even seem to have tried. Apparently it was a huge cock-up and the wire hadn’t been cut. Who knew?

Cabinet change imminent, I see

"I turn over a new leaf every day. But the blots show through." - William Fisher

And so to the theatre. I have been to see Billy Liar, Waterhouse and Hall's 1960 adaptation of the former's novel. The play constricts things to the Fisher's living room (the film - which introduced that great favourite of this blog, Julie Christie - expanded it all back out again). The authors were of course both Leeds boys; indeed Hall lived in Ilkley - epicentre of wargaming in the lower Wharfe Valley - in the years before he died. He also married a 28 year old dancer when he was in his early sixties, which makes one think. ["It does," interrupts an unwelcome voice from the back "but no one else is thinking the same thing that you are."]

I've seen it written that there's a bit of Billy Fisher in all of us - and after all who can truly say they have never pretended to a stranger that one or more close relatives have had a leg amputated? On the other hand I'm pretty sure that I could make a better fist of going out with more than one woman at the same time than he does. Before anyone says anything, I'm not saying that I approve, simply that if one is going to do something then one might as well do it right.

I've also been to see 'Last Laugh', John Godber's new film, which features a working class Northern lad fantasising about becoming a scriptwriter whilst unsuccessfully juggling multiple relationships including one with a woman who makes the break that he himself cannot summon up the courage to do. There is nothing new under the sun. It's being shown along the M62 corridor prior to a full release and I thought it was very entertaining. Godber himself is excellent as the father. In other cinema news shooting has just started on a film called 'Ilkley', a black comedy based in, er, Ilkley - epicentre of wargaming... ["Enough, you've done that one already."] - and starring Sir Derek Jacobi amongst others; no news yet of any toy soldier content.

The best damn police cop in space

And so to the theatre. I have been to see The Pretend Men's hit from last year's Edinburgh Fringe 'Police Cops in Space', where I'm glad to report I laughed a lot. My concerns were not that it wouldn't be intrinsically funny, but more that it would be full of references to films that I hadn't seen; which I'm still assuming that it probably was. However, and despite having not any familiarity at all with the Star Wars franchise, even I could tell when Harrison Ford was being spoofed and a man in his underpants speaking in a Germanic voice can only be one person; for the record, I have actually seen 'Terminator'.

The robot that will take over if he can eliminate all the police cops has an Australian (rather than Austrian) accent, a crush on its same sex colleague and a tendency to stream of consciousness free association as he expresses his admiration. Should any of those be based on films them I'd appreciate being pointed towards them. I won't attempt to describe the rest, but it's worth seeing as it tours around, especially if like me you have a penchant for small casts performing multiple roles and very physical comedy. For some reason I thought the climactic fight for control of the universe being carried out with mops and a harmonica as the only weapons made perfect sense.

Anyway, I have to go as I'm off to the theatre again and it's snowing. I'll be back.

Has my heart gone to sleep?

Has my heart gone to sleep?
Have the beehives of my dreams
stopped working, the waterwheel
of the mind run dry,
scoops turning empty,
only shadow inside?

No, my heart is not asleep.
It is awake, wide awake.
Not asleep, not dreaming -
its eyes are opened wide
watching distant signals, listening
on the rim of vast silence.

                                - Antonio Machado

God still favours the big battalions

We replayed the Maloyaroslavets scenario and although it was a closer game we got the same result.

The Russians have advanced, but the French still hold the village

The consensus is that the French infantry units being a third larger than the Russians is the key factor, especially when you add on the extra dice in melee against infantry. In a sign that the game has some relation to reality cavalry and artillery have their uses, but you can't achieve anything without infantry to move in and occupy the ground.

Light Infantry aid two units in square using a tactic card

Two differences to the previous game were that the initial Russian assault on the village failed and that the French cavalry charge didn't take out any artillery. Paradoxically I think the failure to capture Maloyroslavets might have helped the Russians a bit in that the French, not having to mass their troops to retake it, rather fannied about elsewhere without achieving much. They were driven out several times, but only once did the Russians get a foothold. That ended abruptly when James once again demonstrated his ridiculous luck with the C&C dice and rolled four infantry symbols out of four. He doesn't have the same good fortune with normal numbered dice, it's just these ones.

The high water point for the Russians

So, another enjoyable game with a set of rules that seems usually to provide one. We like the tactics cards (although less ambiguous definitions would help) and we like the march moves provided by certain command cards. The rule we got wrong last time about attached commanders being vulnerable after losses swung straight into action when the first two such tests both resulted in double sabres being rolled and the officers dying. This time's incorrect rule was not playing that Cossacks ignore terrain penalties when in woods. In my defence the rules are - literally - all over the place, and we don't play them very often. Our house rule of a minimum of one dice in melee will stay. For clarity, the way we play it is to add up all the factors from unit size, type and any card effects and then if the result is still no dice then they get a minimum of one. Another house rule is on the horizon: I think that we shall try knocking off one dice for infantry fighting out of towns. Every other black powder rule set I can think off penalises troops for being in buildings and it just feels right. One option is only to inflict the penalty when they are ordered; in other words when attacked and battling back they would get the full dice. I shall think about it.

Rattus Norvegicus

“I don't like rats, but there's not much else I don't like. The problem with rats is they have no fear of human beings, they're loaded with foul diseases, they would run the place given half the chance.”

                                             - David Attenborough

The chimneys have been put on the back burner [“Come on,” says an unexpected voice from the past “I know you’re not much of a prose stylist, but even you can do better than that”], because the rats are back. Last time there was an infestation they obediently ate the poison and quietly disappeared. This time they are sticking two fingers up to me by repeatedly moving the bait around the garden just to show that they are on to my game and don’t care. Bastards.

Let’s have some music from the biggest cheese in the rat pack; this will cheer us up:

It's being so cheerful as keeps me going

I have been to see Fairport Convention, in what seems to have become an annual event. Normally at this point I'd start quoting from 'Matty Groves', but that joke has worn a bit thin since last year. The band were, naturally, excellent, but, beyond expressing the hope to see them again next year should the Lord spare us all, I can't think of much to say that I haven't said before.

The support act, Winter Wilson, were new to me and I was rather impressed. I especially liked the following song; indeed it was the lyrics to this that put me in mind of yesterday's poem:

Ashes of Life

        

Love has gone and left me and the days are all alike; 

Eat I must, and sleep I will, - and would that night were here! 

But ah! - to lie awake and hear the slow hours strike! 

Would that it were day again! - with twilight near! 

Love has gone and left me and I don't know what to do; 

This or that or what you will is all the same to me; 

But all the things that I begin I leave before I'm through, - 

There's little use in anything as far as I can see. 

Love has gone and left me, - and the neighbours knock and borrow, 

And life goes on forever like the gnawing of a mouse, - 

And to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow 

There's this little street and this little house. 

-          Edna St. Vincent Millay

No, no, no

The postman hasn't yet called to deliver all your bloggist's Valentine's Day cards, and research into how to repair chimneys and/or restore flues into use is starting to pall, so here's something romantic to get everyone loved up and in the mood for later on:

The Sixth Coalition is Postponed

The French won the refight of the battle of Maloyaroslavets last night, the Grande Armée

 was saved, and 1813 will therefore be rescheduled for a later date. 

The battle for the village rages

James, as the Russians, had his usual good results with the C&C dice (he is on a lucky streak at the moment; apparently a gypsy fortune teller has predicted that for every child knocked down by a bus he will find a pound coin), but the cards fell better for Peter and he used them with aplomb.

The Russians are in

However, it turned out that he used them with a little too much aplomb. Rereading the rules I find that only one Tactician Card can be used on a unit per turn, meaning that the heroic charge of the Chasseurs to take out two artillery units would have been ruled out by the video ref had the technology been in use. For the record the other rule we got wrong was not testing for the loss of attached commanders when units took hits without being destroyed; James did draw my attention to it, but I thought I knew better.

And then they're out again, leaving behind only a forlorn Mother Russia token

I thought the scenario worked. The Russians are handicapped by their lack of cavalry (the official scenario in Expansion 2 gives them some Cuirassier) and because the relative weakness of their units means that they achieve less for each activation,, but their extra artillery can be used to devestating effect. The March Move on certain cards meant that reserves at least had a chance to move forward, although as so often in C&C there were half a dozen units on either side that never saw combat. We shall play it again next week without any changes - other than swapping sides - and see how differently it turns out.

The Russians are pushed back everywhere

The changed shape of the playing area didn't cause any problems. The 'at least one dice in melee' rule only came into play a few times and, to me at least, seemed more natural than the alternative.

Meanwhile I was still thinking (aloud)

I have rejigged the Maloyaroslavets scenario a touch. There are now two flat hexes on from which the Russians can attack the village and one on the French side.

Also we shall play that in melee (or when Battling in official C&C terminology) all units will have at least one dice regardless of other circumstances. This will not apply to ranged combat. All the other ideas will be retained in the 'possible' file.

In addition I have moved all the reserves on to the table. The only real effect of keeping some back was to ensure they got into action in the historical order. Upon considering whether I cared very much whether they did so or not I had to conclude that I didn't.

To recap, the moving up of reserves will hopefully take advantage of the March Move available on some cards. In the original game a card such as, for example, Scout Right Flank was one that you played when you didn't have a better alternative or to thin out your hand. Now, as well as allowing the ordering of one unit, it allows three others to move as long as they don't pass out of, into or through a hex adjacent to the enemy, you get the choice of one of the two next Command cards and you get a Tactician card; all of which when put together seems an effective return to me.

I have also indulged myself and put some weak Russian militia in the monastery .

Another Vapnartak

I have been to this year's Vapnartak. Dealing with negatives first, there weren't enough games and the ones that there were looked exactly like the ones that were there last year, and the year before, and the year before.... It's a wargaming show that you wouldn't bother going to for the wargames. More happily, it's not too far, it's a lovely venue, there are lots of traders and one generally bumps into people one knows. I picked up some pre-ordered Hexon slopes, bought the traditional five small trees from the tree man, and bought another pack of narrow roads from S&A Scenics. These are not intended as realistic terrain pieces, but rather for the deliberately stylised C&C games.

Speaking of which James came up with a further alternative for the current scenario, namely to make the hill an advantage for the defenders rather than a penalty to the attackers. The downside of this is that it means the French would be rolling six dice against infantry and could expect to roll on average two infantry symbols plus one sabre symbol; in other words an attacking Russian unit would either have to force French defenders to withdraw or face a high probability of destruction when they battled back. I shall continue thinking.

Thinking aloud

"Death and the dice level all distinctions" - Samuel Foote

I'm still pondering the epic fail of the scenario that is currently set up in the annexe. In one sense the problem is entirely of my creation as in the boardgame there is no concept of stacking terrain, except in the very limited case of fieldworks, and in that case the rules quite clearly say that one only counts the highest penalty rather than adding them together.  Another way of looking at it is as a reflection of a couple of differences between C&C and other rules. In Piquet one can never attack with worse than a D4; in Black Powder a natural 6 is always a hit. In C&C - unless I've missed something - a unit that has suffered casualties can easily end up unable at all to attack an enemy with a terrain advantage; certainly that's the way that we have always played it. Similarly in both the other games the concept of support or superior numbers can give an advantage to the attacker in combat, whereas in C&C it doesn't come into effect until considering the need for withdrawal because of flag rolls.

The problem is much more significant for the Russian infantry as they start with three UI; the French infantry not only start at four UI, but get a one dice bonus (regardless of strength remaining) when battling other infantry. Even without compounding terrain penalties Russians only have to lose one UI and they can no longer attack, the French would have to lose three before that applied. Of course the Russian ability to ignore a flag is a compensation for this.

It seems to me that I have quite a few options:

1. Don't make terrain penalties cumulative.
2. Define the town as only having a penalty of one dice.
3. Allow all units a minimum of one dice when attacking or defending regardless of strength and terrain.
4. Allow multiple units to attack at the same time (this is a big change and I suspect the law of unintended consequences would come into play).
5. Give units a bonus of, say, one dice for supporting units (presumably those that aren't battling themselves in this turn).
6. Consolidate Russian units into fewer of greater strength.
7. Invent a rule allowing consolidation of weakened units during the game (I have thought about this before. The ambiguity of scale in C&C and definition of exactly what a unit represents means that perhaps one shouldn't take the word 'consolidate'; too literally; it's more an abstract representation of continuing capability).
8. Change the layout of the village terrain to allow some attacking on the flat. 

The minimum one dice option would also address the rare, but possible, situations where a unit could potentially be attacked in the certain knowledge that it would not be able to respond even if it survived.

No dice

"It is the nature of every person to err, but only the fool perseveres in error" - Marcus Tullius Cicero

Did anyone else spot the flaw in the C&C scenario I published the other day? Consider the problems a 3 stand Russian infantry unit (rolling three dice in melee) might have when attacking uphill (minus one dice) against a town (minus two dice). It could be a frustrating night for one of the players.

Back to the drawing board.

While I'm pondering that issue, here's some music from No Dice, a band that always reminds me of late 1977 and the fight that started in the Paradise curry house, subsequently continued outside in a snowy Morley Street, and resulted in Honours Ron receiving a well deserved black eye.

Pot74pouri

Has anyone else received an email from Google purporting to explain how effectively or otherwise one's blog is dealt with by their search engine? I didn't really understand it and, let's be honest, I don't care anyway, but one thing did rather leap out from their analysis. Virtually everyone who gets Discourses on Wargaming's url displayed in their search results is actually looking for gay porn. Your bloggist has lost 8 kg in weight over the last year and is looking pretty buff, even if he says so himself; so on balance, well done Google. However, further investigation also points to a single post from almost five years ago about an opera I went to see, Handel's misleadingly titled 'Joshua' (It's really about Othniel - yes, that Othniel), as the source of the traffic. So, today's post should start it all off again; perhaps I should get get some advertising on the site to monetise the upcoming surge in visitors.

Anyway, while I'm here let me bring you up to date on events in January that I have neglected to mention so far:

Opera: I saw Opera North's revival of 'Madama Butterfly' which was as good as I remembered. Anne Sophie Duprels was wonderful in the title role and appropriately enough kept her clothes on this time. I also saw the Royal Opera House live transmission of 'Rigoletto' which proved once again that closeups can sometimes not work to the advantage of sopranos playing much younger parts. Just to avoid charges of sexism, Michael Fabiano may also have been favoured by watching from further away. He was physically a very unconvincing starving poet in last year's 'La Boheme' and here he appeared to be wearing a costume two sizes too small. I have a good mind to email him with my own proven tips for losing weight (1).

Theatre: Speaking of broadcasts I also caught up with an encore of 'Young Marx' from the new Bridge Theatre in London. I nearly didn't bother because it had mixed reviews, but I enjoyed it and can report that it made me laugh. As did Alan Ayckbourn's 'Role Play' which easily delivered its quota of laugh out loud moments and featured some fairly authentic sounding East London accents. Less convincing was 'You're Only Young Twice' which, whilst well performed and mildly amusing in places, seemed to have very little connection to real life or real people.

Gigs: I've written about a couple of these already. The other one that I will mention is Henry Parker, a very good localish (Bingley I think) guitarist in the Davey Graham fingerstyle mode. I'd seen him before and on this occasion was able to buy a live album of a performance at which I was present in the audience; the third such that I own.

I didn't get to ride on the cherry picker and the roof still leaks, albeit not as badly as before.


(1) Diet and exercise; controversial I know, but there it is.

Maloyaroslavets

I have mentioned before that I don't care for the way C&C handles victory conditions. And if one is going to move away from that part of the base design then why not move away from other elements? So, for the latest game to be set up in the annexe, I have changed the shape of the board. It is exactly the same area, but instead of 20 x 12 hexes it's 16 x 15.

The scenario is Maloyaroslavets (October 24th 1812) which involved the capture and recapture of a village (in the right centre of the board above). To eliminate wasted space on the flanks, try to make sure that cards applying to all sectors can be utilised and provide space for successive waves of attackers from either side it seemed appropriate to make it deeper and less wide.

I took the OOBs from here, but have played about with the terrain a bit. I have added an extra bridge to mitigate against a roadblock for the French and have only included slopes around the village itself, mainly for simplicity. One part of the village and both bridges are in hexes spanning two sectors. Rather than trying to identify arrival times - a concept that doesn't fit easily into C&C's turn structure - commands have been staggered back to the baseline. Each side has a couple of off table commands which can be brought on at any time. If we remember to use the March Move rule that we overlooked last time then it shouldn't be too difficult to get things into action. Victory conditions are the French have to hold the village and one bridge by the end of the evening in order to win. If they don't then the Russians win. The game starts with a weak French garrison in the village just about to be assaulted by a larger Russian force. What is obviously meant to happen is that they capture it only to be assaulted in turn and so on in turn. I envisage burst of fighting followed by periods of regrouping and manoeuvre into position. As usual, we shall see.

The river can be crossed by infantry and cavalry (stop on contact), but a dice is rolled. Sabres means the loss of a stand, flags means the unit stops in the hex before the river. If the river is entered as part of a mandatory retreat then for infantry and cavalry a dice is rolled and unit symbols and sabres count as hits, flags mean an extra hex of withdrawal; artillery are destroyed. The French on the southern side of the river have an extra option when withdrawing; they can either move one hex back towards the baseline as normal, or they can move one hex towards the nearest bridge.

We shall be using the EPIC rules with the shared open hand of cards. Hands will be six cards each (to try to make sure that one has options given that the action will concentrate in the centre) with, I think, a starting hand of four Tactician cards. We shall use our house rule regarding cards such as Bombard, which is basically that you can spread the effect across the whole table. There will be a pre-battle Mother Russia role (six dice), and I think I shall allow Cossacks and artillery to start the game with higher than normal strength if that's the way the dice come up. I have some Russian militia - with a rather nice holy banner - who have never seen any action so I am trying to work out how to tweak things to get a unit of those on table; if they don't appear during the retreat from Moscow then they never will.

The Walk

Glamoured the road, the day, and him and her

And everywhere they took me. When we stepped out

Cobbles were riverbed, the Sunday air

A high stream-roof that moved in silence over

Rhododendrons in full bloom, foxgloves

And hemlock, robin-run-the-hedge, the hedge

With its deckled ivy and thick shadows –

Until the riverbed itself appeared,

Gravelly, shallowly, summery with pools,

And made a world rim that was not for crossing.

Love brought me that far by the hand, without

The slightest doubt or irony, dry-eyed

And knowledgeable, contrary as be damned;

Then just kept standing there, not letting go.

                                          *

So here is another longshot. Black and white.

A negative this time, in dazzle-dark,

Smudge and pallor where we make out you and me,

The selves we struggled with and struggled out of,

Two shades who have consumed each other’s fire,

Two flames in sunlight that can sear and singe,

But seem like wisps of enervated air,

After-wavers, feathery ether-shifts …

Yet apt still to rekindle suddenly

If we find along the way charred grass and sticks

And an old fire-fragrance lingering on,

Erotic woodsmoke, witchery, intrigue,

Leaving us none the wiser, just better primed

To speed the plough again and feed the flame.

                      - Seamus Heaney

Senbazuru

"There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up a pen to write." - William Makepeace Thackeray

This is the one thousandth post of this blog. I am confident that my wish will now come true. While I am waiting, here are the Kronos Quartet with Tusen Tankar:

I should be so Lucky

I went to see Lucky Peterson last night and shook my tail feather (Do it right, do it right, do it right, do it right!, Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!). Peterson was discovered by Willie Dixon and taught by Jimmy Smith among others; he is the real deal. Fresh from a three day residency at Ronnie Scott's one can only wonder what he made of playing a working man's club in the north of England (and yes once again you could occasionally hear the bingo caller in the next room), but it didn't seem to bother him. Accompanied by guitar, drums and trumpet he mainly played the organ and delivered a wide range of genres, from noodly jazz (never really my favourite) through belting versions of soul classics especially 'Papa Was A Rolling Stone'. This will give a flavour of the sort of shapes that I was throwing:

He was joined for a few numbers at the end by Mrs Peterson, Tamara Tramell, who most notably did a very Annie Mae Bullock inspired version of Proud Mary. She wore more clothes though; this was Yorkshire in January.

Peterson did switch to slide guitar for a fine medley of Muddy Waters' 'Hoochie Coochie Man' and Robert Johnson's 'Dust My Broom'. The latter song is of course most closely associated with Elmore James, who may possibly have been taught the song directly by Johnson. In one of those connections beloved of your bloggist, today is the one hundredth anniversary of James' birth. Here's one of his other songs that I am currently finding resonates with me:

Over the roofs

I 

Oh chimes set high on the sunny tower   

    Ring on, ring on unendingly, 

Make all the hours a single hour,   

For when the dusk begins to flower,   

    The man I love will come to me! ... 

But no, go slowly as you will, 

    I should not bid you hasten so,   

For while I wait for love to come,   

Some other girl is standing dumb, 

    Fearing her love will go. 

       II 

Oh white steam over the roofs, blow high!   

    Oh chimes in the tower ring clear and free!   

Oh sun awake in the covered sky, 

    For the man I love, loves me! ... 

Oh drifting steam disperse and die, 

    Oh tower stand shrouded toward the south,— 

Fate heard afar my happy cry, 

    And laid her finger on my mouth. 

       III 

The dusk was blue with blowing mist,   

    The lights were spangles in a veil,   

And from the clamor far below 

    Floated faint music like a wail. 

It voiced what I shall never speak, 

    My heart was breaking all night long, 

But when the dawn was hard and gray,   

    My tears distilled into a song. 

       IV 

I said, “I have shut my heart   

    As one shuts an open door, 

That Love may starve therein   

    And trouble me no more.” 

But over the roofs there came 

    The wet new wind of May, 

And a tune blew up from the curb 

    Where the street-pianos play. 

My room was white with the sun   

    And Love cried out to me, 

“I am strong, I will break your heart   

    Unless you set me free.”

        - Sara Teasdale

Another triumph...

...for the Prussians, who on this occasion weren't me. The 3-way scenario is starting to look somewhat unbalanced, primarily I think because the Prussian deck is so much better than the Allies that they can almost always do what they want, whereas the Russians and Austrians spent an hour last night without turning a Musket Reload card. I am minded to give one of those little lectures that James would at this point, explaining exactly what that means, but life is too short. We did eventually get the run of luck that we needed, but it was too little too late. It  would have been a sickener for the Prussians in a campaign context though, losing unit after unit when the game was already to all intents and purposes over.

Going back to the balance of the scenario, the Prussians set up second in full knowledge of how the Allies have deployed. And yet oddly enough, both James and I having set up with a completely free hand then fairly soon afterwards decided it was all wrong and started marching troops round the table. Given that we both still won we must assume that if the Prussian player ever gets their initial dispositions correct then it will be a walkover in no time at all.

As previously mentioned I have been trying to recreate a C&C Napoleonic scenario from six months or so ago. I was a tad harsh on  myself before because I do in fact have the OOB. What I don't have is a map and I seem only to have taken one photograph of the table. I was struggling to rationalise how it all went together from this when it became embarrassingly apparent that one section in the original game - the French left/Prussian right - had been one hex too wide and correspondingly the centre section one hex too narrow. Amateurs!

Pot73pouri

I know that you've all been waiting for a dental update so I can confirm that the permanent crown is now fitted and seems to be functioning OK; I am certainly no longer in pain. As for the roof, there has been a slight change of diagnosis. A cherry picker is due later in the week to allow re-pointing of the chimney stack. I have strongly made the case that as I am paying for the plant hire I should be allowed a go on it, but various obstacles are being placed in my path. We shall see.

My boardgaming rebirth has continued with a few more games played, featuring some very poor last places from your bloggist. I did get the biggest laugh in a game of Telestrations, but I'm afraid that you had to be there (which you would be correct in assuming is a euphemism for smut). Indirectly this has led (may lead?) to an unblocking of my current wargaming inertia. I have mentioned before playing a couple of games of C&C Napoleonics with Chris, the convener of the Monday night boardgaming in the pub group. He has requested another game and so the Great War will be sidelined pro tem. What I shall do is set up the sort-of Eckmühl game that James and Peter played last June. Partly because I thought it was a good scenario and partly because I neglected to write down the OOBs at the time and have been meaning to retrospectively do so ever since. There was actually some gaming last week when we played the first evening of a second run through of a SYW scenario at James'. His report doesn't mention that we, the Allies, did in fact turn a Move in Difficult card; it's just that we did so with out last initiative pip and the turn - and the evening - ended immediately afterwards. All we need to do is to win a dozen or so initiative points, then turn Manoeuvre, Musket Reload and Move in Difficult in that order and we're back in the game; not much to ask I think.

I can't go without a brief tribute to Hugh Masekela. Firstly, and perhaps surprisingly, this is him playing the trumpet part on the Byrds hit from fifty years ago:

And of course, I couldn't not include this from twenty years later:

A certain kind of light

I'm in the mood for some Eric Burdon, and of course it will also serve as a belated tribute to Sir Barry: