Another commemorative stamp

"The woe's to come, the children yet unborn

shall feel this day as sharp to them as thorn"  

- Shakespeare, Richard II

Silver hammer man

As I have probably mentioned before, I used to work for Robert Maxwell. Crap as it was at the time, it has had benefits since. Later in my career I became what used to be known as a company doctor. Inevitably the businesses which I joined were all in terrible trouble and full of demoralised staff worried with good cause about their jobs and their pensions. In every case someone would sooner or later ask me "I this the worst company that you've ever worked for?". I was then able to reply quite honestly that no it wasn't, because I had worked for Robert Maxwell. I never saw anyone do anything but nod their head understandingly at that point.

Six degrees of separation can take you a long way

What is the relevance of this to a wargaming blog? Well, assuming the Lord spares me, I intend to play wargames for many years yet, and some of them probably won't be any good. But when considering their rank in the list of all time crap games I shall always be able to say to myself "I played Sidi Rezegh", and then things won't seem so bad any more.

Despite having given several years of my life to the battle I only discovered last week that Sidi was actually a real chap - that's his tomb above; it also features on the tabletop - and that his name should be pronounced to rhyme with 'league'. After we finished the game (*) James came up with some sensible sounding amendments, especially to the way that the defenders on the escarpment should be treated, but I hope to hell that I never get the chance to test them out. I shall say no more about Blitzkrieg Commander except to observe that there are just too many dice rolled too many times for it ever to appeal to me.

* Hooray!

Wall, wall, wall

"Before I built a wall I'd ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offence."

- Robert Frost

Work on laser cutting sections of the modular wall continues rather slowly.

You will observe that it goes in a straight line. This is because I have now had three attempts to design a corner piece and none of them have fitted together properly. There doesn't seem to be any entrance either, now I think about it. On the plus side, I have finally got round to ordering the paint now that there is enough bits to be worth spraying.

More 4

Two actuaries are grouse shooting. They see a grouse in the air and they both shoot. The first actuary’s shot is 5 metres wide to the left. The second actuary’s shot is 5 metres wide to the right. The actuaries congratulate each other, because on average they hit it.


So, back to BKC4. The following needs to be read in conjunction with the previous post. Once again our imaginary target is an infantry unit with strength 6 and saving throws are ignored.

In the open attackers need 4,5 or 6 to hit. They therefore expect to kill the unit by rolling twelve dice. For every hit that doesn't kill the unit a dice is re-rolled and the same result (i.e. 4,5 or 6 in this case) on any dice will result in the target being suppressed. They therefore expect to suppress the unit by rolling four dice. There are therefore three suppressions per kill.

In light cover 5 or 6 is required. The equivalent figures are 18 dice, 9 dice and 2:1. In heavy cover, with a 6 required, the figures are 36 dice, 36 dice and 1:1. The progressions are therefore:

Suppress:  4, 9, 36
Kill: 12, 18, 36
Suppressions per kill: 3, 2, 1

So, does it require nine times more firepower to suppress someone in hard cover than someone in the open? Maybe it does. Perhaps the rule designers arrived at that conclusion scientifically following much research and designed a mechanism to deliver the required effect. Or possibly they designed a mechanism that happened to give that result and left it at that. Your money your vote.

Would the ratio of suppressions to kills drop as the target moved into heavier cover? I'm going to come right out and say no; in fact I'm going to assert that the exact opposite would be true. And do you know what, I'm not going to offer any evidence beyond saying that it's bleeding obvious. Now, once again it is possible that after much research the designers have established that I am wrong and have designed the perfect system to deliver the result that they want. On the other hand it is also possible that they have not noticed the arithmetic implications of their design, not understood them, or don't care. Once again you can choose for yourself.

As I said in the previous post, whilst this issue irritates me (and let's be fair I'm a grumpy old man in the first place) it's not that important unless one finds oneself in the fifth circle of hell condemned forever to refight Sidi Rezegh by charging pointlessly at infantry dug in on an escarpment. But overall it does seem to me  that the authors are more interested in the ease of playing the mechanisms contained in their rules than the results which arise from them.

 I will return at some point to the issue raised by Hopalong Freitag as to the size and cause of the intersection between the set of mathematicians and the set of wargamers.

Linear versus exponential in BKC4

I have been asked to expand on my statement yesterday that "the benefits of being in cover increase in an exponential manner while the benefits of better quality or greater quantity are linear". Before I do so, let me clarify a couple of points:

• The sentence in question is constructed using the rhetorical form of antithesis largely for literary effect. It's really only the cover bit that bothers me. Even then it's the least of the reasons that I don't like Blitzkrieg Commander; it got on the list because it features a lot in the Sidi Rezegh scenario.
• I haven't actually read the latest version of the rules. I have read BKC2, but for BKC4 we are relying on James, who is umpiring. If there is some error in the way we are playing then I will be the first to hold my hand up and acknowledge that it's all his fault, although obviously I will not be angry with him, just disappointed.
• I am well versed in the higher mathematics, but clearly can't be arsed to do any heavy number crunching, so have therefore limited myself to first order approximations; specifically I have chosen to ignore the impact of saving throws. Should anyone wish to take me on in the area of probability theory I feel obliged to remind you that my first degree was in Mathematical Sciences and to warn you that in doing so you will be entering a world of pain.
• As a contrast I claim no particular knowledge of Second World War tactics, equipment, combat or anything else battlefield related really; I'm more of a grand strategy sort of guy. Some things don't look right to me - which is why I'm going to mention them - but if you tell me they are OK then I won't argue.

Blitzkrieg Commander is a D6 based game. Units have a number of attack dice and a range, either or both of which may be different for anti-tank and anti-personnel firing. There are slightly different rules for off-table artillery, but they don't change the overall point being made. As the quality of units increases (e.g. better types of tanks) they gain extra dice and/or longer range. Any unit firing within half of its range gains an extra dice. If more than one unit fires at the same target they add the number of dice together. All this is recognisable, perfectly sensible and, I believe, fits being described as linear.

When a unit or more fires on another the dice are rolled. In the open any 4,5 or 6 counts as a hit. If insufficient hits are made to eliminate the target (hits are only cumulative within the firing players turn; they are removed before the owning player's turn begins) then a number of dice equal to the number of hits made is rolled and any 4,5 or 6 causes the target to be suppressed i.e. it can't activate on its next turn. (Suppression markers are not removed until then end of the owning player's turn.) It is, in essence, a game of suppression; make the enemy keep their heads down and then carry out your own objectives. We can see that, in the open, we would expect to suppress a unit once for every four dice rolled against it. Four dice would, on average, result in two hits, and two hits would, on average, result in one suppression.

When in cover two things happen: the to-hit throw required becomes harder and there may be a saving throw (actually armoured vehicles in the open get a saving throw as well). I'm going to ignore saving throws in the calculation because they complicate matters and actually work to skew the thing even more anyway. So in the next type of cover the roll required is a 5 or 6 to hit, and also subsequently to suppress. The same logic as above shows us that we expect to suppress the target for every nine dice rolled against it. In the hardest cover we have to roll a 6 to hit and afterwards to suppress. We therefore expect one suppression for every thirty six dice. It is my contention that the progression 4, 9, 36 is exponential in the everyday sense that the increase is becoming more and more rapid.

It is also my contention that something isn't right. An infantry unit firing at close range at another infantry unit rolls four dice. The target requires six hits to destroy it. So if you get caught in the open you would expect, on average, to get suppressed if the opposing unit activates and fires once and destroyed if it activates and fires three times. If the target is in hard cover then in order to expect to suppress it on the first activation (I use the term 'expect' in the sense of probability theory) you would have to fire at it with nine units. Now, clearly one would anticipate using a larger number of units, but does nine seem right to you? That point is to some extent moot, because the real problem is how many turns you would expect it take you the eliminate the target. The answer is, of course, also one. Having thrown the thirty six dice one would expect six sixes. In other words firing against infantry in hard cover it is as easy to kill them as to make them keep their heads down; or, if you prefer, it is as hard to make infantry in trenches keep their heads down as it is to kill them. Does that make sense?

In reality I am well aware that if you repeated this unlikely 9 vs 1 scenario many times you would on occasion suppress some units without killing them because the other side of the distribution curve contains a whole number of units killed without being first suppressed. To which I reply, so what? 

Pot90pouri

Firstly, commiserations to Jonathan Freitag over at Palouse Wargaming Journal, who, in case you hadn't heard, has broken his leg. Get well soon old chap, and I trust you will find a productive way to use the time.

Last night was day 2 of Sidi Rezegh Day 2. You may have formed the impression that I didn't like either the scenario or the the rules, and you would be correct in doing so. I'm not going to say any more about the set up of the game, except to remind you that it involves the Germans charging onto the table, the British moving towards them and then eventually someone winning. I am however going to be rude about the rules. Now, clearly James really likes them, and he is a person of high standing within the wargaming fraternity, whereas I am just some chap who dabbles in toy soldiers in such intervals as a heavy schedule of cultural activities and wanton women allows. Nevertheless, I don't like Blitzkreig Commander.

In no particular order:

• I don't like the way the benefits of being in cover increase in an exponential manner while the benefits of better quality or greater quantity are linear.
• I don't like the lack of a target priority rule, which inevitably results in ganging up on the opposition's strongest unit.
• I don't like the key role played by command radius, a spurious concept at the best of times and one that seems out of place in the period. In practice it is a significantly greater handicap to attackers than it is to defenders and makes it difficult to co-ordinate close assaults with artillery support. There is a small tweak in the rules to somewhat ameliorate this issue, but James has taken it back out of his house rules; wrongly, in my opinion.
• I don't like the activation mechanism. It is crude and offers the player no real choices; one simply keeps rolling until one fails. I would compare it unfavourably with, for example, the process used in To the Strongest!, which achieves a similar objective, but relies on the player making some real decisions. 

So, to recap, I don't like it.

Laser cutting continues, and I am pleased to say that I think I am beginning to get the hang of the various programmes and machinery involved. Which makes it all the more surprising that my first attempt at a corner for the wall didn't fit together and had to be thrown away. In happier news I have produced another attempt at a warband base, which is shown above squaring off against a couple of Roman units. 

This is it compared to the base I have previously been using; much better I think.

Peace Studies

A number of people seem to have assumed that I was being metaphorical yesterday when I described my film going companion as having a degree in Peace Studies. But no, not so, she was awarded a B.A. Peace Studies by the University of Bradford. It used to be a unique course, in the UK at least, although I don't know if that still obtains. There is a department of War Studies at Kings College, London; the two used to hold an annual football match, maybe they still do. It was a widely held view amongst students reading other subjects at the university in the 1970s that Peace Studies wasn't what one might think of as a 'proper course'. Indeed it was universally accepted that the only timetabled activity that they had each week was a requirement to spend an hour or so one afternoon in the department, lounging on bean bags and drinking herbal tea. My acquaintance, who I only met a few weeks ago, demurred when I put this to her, but she studied in the 1980s, so maybe things had changed a bit by then. I do know a number of excellent stories about one Peace Studies student contemporary of mine - I shall call him Raif - and will perhaps return to them in another post. One of my favourite memories is of him putting theory into practice by attempting to convince two sets of angry football supporters (of Bolton Wanderers and Tottenham Hotspur as it happens) that they should refrain from aggression towards each other because they had more in common than they had differences. Fortunately we managed to rescue him in time.

My new friend is plugged in to the circle of Bradford graduates who remained in the city after graduation and we have discovered that among them are some that I knew back in the day. Very sadly one of those died between Christmas and New Year, before I got a chance to renew our acquaintance. It's a salutary reminder that life is short and getting shorter.

Going back to Peace Studies, as far as I am aware the course hasn't produced any notable politicians. There are however two alumni of the wider university in reasonably prominent positions in the UK at the moment. The first, Clive Lewis, is standing for the leadership of the Labour Party. His flagship policy seems to be the abolition of the monarchy. Whilst I'm all for that, I'm also well aware that it isn't a vote winner; indeed it isn't going to win my vote as a party member for him. The second has appeared in this blog before. At one point the two main parties seemed to be competing as to which had the worst MP named Williamson, and the Tory entry was Gavin, also an ex-student in the Wool City. In the topsy-turvey, Alice in Wonderland world of British politics he, despite being both useless and a self-serving toad, was actually fired as Defence Secretary for being on the right side of an argument. Still, you can't keep a bad man down and he is currently Secretary of State for Education.

1917 and all that

I have been to see '1917', as I'm sure many readers will have. ["I cannot refrain" interjects the long absent Rhetorical Pedant "from pointing out that you don't have many readers."] Fair point, no offence taken. I have been to see '1917', as I'm sure a high proportion of my readers will have.

"What I am about to order you to do makes no sense at all. Do I make myself clear?"

I went to see it on an IMAX screen, which I think was a good decision because the film is all about the spectacle. The set-up, and therefore the plot, is frankly ridiculous. The first comment by my companion for the afternoon, a woman with so little interest in military history that she actually has a degree in Peace Studies, as we left the screen was "Why didn't they drop the message from an aeroplane?". Why not indeed? Still, I - and she - thoroughly enjoyed it and so would you. It is a feast for the eyes, full of tension and with emotional moments that ring true rather than being overplayed. I do wonder who milked the cow though.

As I am writing about films can I say that I have also seen 'Little Women' and 'Knives Out', both of which were also excellent. Both adopted a non-chronological approach to the narrative and in both cases it worked to great effect despite one being a classic, the fate of whose characters is well known to most viewers before it starts, and the other being a whodunnit, with the need for key details to be kept back until the end. They featured a number of British and Irish actors doing American accents and the only one that didn't wobble at all across the two films was Daniel Craig. I am inclined to believe that's because he wasn't so much attempting a real southern US accent as performing some strange concoction of his own; highly entertaining whatever it was.

Still, it was good to watch Christopher Plummer without constantly expecting him to whip out a guitar and start singing 'Edelweiss', something that always spoils 'Waterloo' for me.

One half mass times velocity squared

I'm partial to both military history and physics and so was delighted when they were combined in the latest Royal Armouries talk, which was on the development of very large guns since the Crimean War, with (some) reference to the science behind them. Subjects covered ranged from Mallet's Mortar to the Iraqi Supergun, via the Paris gun, Gustav and Dora and the V3.

Mallet's achievement was perhaps the most impressive, given that he started more or less from scratch in his application of the scientific method to the problem which he faced; namely how to destroy the fortress at Sebastopol, the task which was to eventually be completed by Schwerer Gustav nearly a century later. He successfully reverse engineered the required shell size (anticipating Barnes Wallis in his calculations), overcame the problem of circumferential stress in the barrel, and used a modular design for ease of transport. All he didn't manage was to complete the task before the war ended; the gun was never fired in anger.

The weapon that really caught your bloggist's attention was the Pariser Kanone, not least because its range was so great that when aiming they had to take account of the rotation of the earth, a subject which of course has often featured here before. According to the speaker, Paris moved four miles between the gun being fired and the shell landing; it was not a precision weapon.

One interesting analogy used was that the kinetic energy of a projectile leaving the barrel of a WWI 7.5cm field gun (i.e. those included in my Square Bashing games) was equivalent to that of an articulated lorry travelling at 100 mph.

Laser-less focus

Despite Bruce Lee's advice of the other day I couldn't really call myself a wargamer if I didn't wander off topic occasionally. I am still making progress on the modular wall thingie, but I have allowed myself to consider what the laser cutter could do for another of my in-hand projects. As I'm sure I have mentioned before I have decided to beef up my Romans and Ancient Britons. Having made To the Strongest! the rules of choice, and the size of the table therefore determining the size of the squares, I find that the units I have now look a little on the small side. It is easy enough to upgrade most things - just paint some more - but the warbands are more difficult. They are already based in the largest available movement tray that Warbases make, and sticking two together doesn't look good at all. So, what could I knock up myself?

For reasons I have since forgotten, most figures are based on pennies, while those bearing standards, totems and musical instruments are based on 2p pieces as are the chieftain type figures that I use to represent heroes, and casualty markers are on 30mm circular bases; hence the different sized holes in the above.

Add a base layer and one has a movement tray. My idea is that, instead of standing behind the tray and getting forgotten when they move, heroes and casualty markers will be on the same base, at the back. Incidentally, the stuff in the background is what I think will be the production version of the wall tower.

This is the painted up version.

And this is it standing next to the existing movement tray. I think the concept is good, but the design still needs work. One problem is ironically that in trying to represent a 'deep' unit in  TtS! terms, I have made the base too deep. I shall have another go, flattening out the oval a bit  and squeezing the figures together.

Wot, no cake!

So, we're having another bash at Sidi Rezegh. James claims that it's been four years since we last did it, but I think he means that it seems as if it takes four years every time that we do. If you read his blog you will see that he is very complimentary about Blitzkrieg Commander 4 (*); I shall go as far as to say that it is better than Blitzkrieg Commander 3. Part of my reluctance to say more is because, as I have admitted before, I don't know very much about the period (**). I would genuinely like to learn more, for example why, in the whole of the six weeks of Operation Crusader, there appears to have only been one battle.

I won't tell you in detail what happened - and nor will James because he didn't take any photos - but all you need to do is look back at previous reports of refights: the Germans made a futile infantry attack on the escarpment while waiting for their tanks to turn up. The Panzers will arrive next week and the accompanying 88mm gun will destroy all the British armour and that will be that. You read it here first, or perhaps you read it the last time we did it, or the time before that, or the time before.....

What was noteworthy was that I managed to activate one command five times in one turn which, for those who don't know the rules, is virtually impossible. On the other hand my opening artillery barrage achieved absolutely nothing and the untouched defenders suppressed everything they fired at, so luck was reasonably even.


*   Apart that is from all the bits with which he disagrees and has changed already.
** I mean in a wargaming sense obviously.

功夫

"When God said "Let there be light" he must surely have meant perfectly coherent light." 

- Charles Hard Townes

It's time for a laser cutting update. Perhaps unsurprisingly, when one has got past the sci-fi and super villain connotations, using the laser cutter is intrinsically a little dull. Indeed, far from simply pushing a switch and pushing off for a coffee, it requires a lot of concentration. The parts cut out have a habit of partially dislodging with the potential that a raised section may impede and perhaps damage the laser head. One's hand has to be constantly poised over the pause button. Still, on the plus side, it's nice to do something where the term laser focus actually means something rather than being a meaningless faux-inspirational cliche.

The real skills involved are in using CAD software to translate a creative 3D vision into 2D plans and in arranging the required parts, rotating and flipping as required, so as to make the most effective use of the material being cut. Your bloggist is only too well aware that he does not possess the requisite attributes in any great amount. So, I have gone down the route of prototyping, making a first pass and then amending that rather than aiming for the ideal design before producing anything. As Bruce Lee also said “If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done. Make at least one definite move daily toward your goal.”

I am now happy with the short wall section and made a couple more of those yesterday when I went in to produce my second version of a wall tower. I still don't really like the latter and am going to change it again. Longer walls, corner pieces, gatehouses etc. will all follow as will a higher keep/citadel. It may take a while.

Disappointingly I have been unable to source the paint from my local hardware shop because their wholesaler doesn't stock the shade that I want. It is of course readily available online. No wonder that the high street is dying. 

New Year, new lurgy

Or possibly the same old lurgy. There is a bug going round and I've had it. Otherwise of course I would have joined the younger Miss Epictetus for the New Year's Day swim in the Wharfe.

As well as precluding that experience, my being a bit under the weather has also meant no wargaming activity. Although, having said that, at the height of the fever I did have a nightmarish hallucination that we were playing Sidi Rezegh again.

The poet begs his beloved to write to him

My gut-wrenching love, my death-in-life,
in vain I wait for you to write me a letter,
like a withered flower I think rather than to live
without being me, to lose you would be better.

The air is everlasting; the lifeless stone
neither knows the shade nor shuns the gloom.
The innermost heart doesn’t need the frozen
honey that comes pouring from the moon.

But I suffered for you; ripped my veins,
a tiger and dove wrapped your waist
in a tussle of bites and lilies.

So now fill with words my madness
or let me live in the tranquil
night of my soul, forever in darkness.

                  - Lorca

2019

I don't often get predictions right (you will recall that a couple of months before the election I forecast that Jezza was about to resign), but I was bang on the money this time last year when I said that 2019 would be even worse than 2018; by and large indeed it was. Perhaps that's why this year I have been unusually reticent in inflicting on you my opinions of all the plays etc wot I have seen, but let's have a quick retrospective summary now; be warned, for some reason this is all a lot more quantitative than it is qualitative.

Opera: I saw twenty six operas this year, plus two ballets and a sprinkling of classical concerts. The operas ranged in obscurity from Pfitzner's 'The Christmas Elf', of which I saw the first ever UK performance, to La boheme, which is - I think - the most frequently performed opera that there is globally. My favourite was Vaughan William's 'Pilgrim's Progress' with a nod to Janáček's 'Cunning Little Vixen' and Martinů's 'The Greek Passion'.

Theatre: I saw fifty two plays and musicals of which my favourite was 'Wise Children' from the wonderful company of the same name. A very honourable mention must go to 'Tuesdays with Morrie'. My favourite Shakespeare (out of the thirteen that I saw) was a toss up between 'The Merry Wives of Windsor' at the Globe and Northern Broadsides' 'Much Ado About Nothing'. This section seems an appropriate place for the following photo, which I have been looking for a chance to use for some months and which if nothing else illustrates that Chekhov can actually be made interesting:

Music: I only went to twenty three gigs, which is pretty pathetic really. My favourite were The Stumble whom I saw twice. Their live performances do not translate into their recordings, which is often the case and another reason why I should go to more live shows.

By the way, the lady on your bloggist's left in that photo is a regular, and somewhat wild, audience member at blues gigs around here, indeed she is the instrument fingerer mentioned in this previous post; I could tell you some stories about her, but frankly she terrifies me so I won't.

Film: I've seen sixteen films and am going to choose 'Stan and Ollie' as my favourite; what can I say, I'm a big softie. I made a special trip to the Imax in Bradford to see 'Apollo 11' on a big, big screen and am glad that I did. Still today, after fifty years, it's just an astonishing achievement and spectacularly documented in the film.

Talks: The quantity of gigs may have declined, but for some reason the number of talks attended has increased markedly. The best two were both on painting, one on Klimt, the other on Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven. A prize for making a little go a long way goes to Ian Bottomley, Curator Emeritus of Oriental Collections at the Royal Armouries who managed to speak very entertainingly for an hour on the subject of the current whereabouts of those small number of suits of armour which were given as diplomatic gifts to various European royal courts by Japanese trade missions in the sixteenth century. The most irrelevant and off subject question from an audience member - a category that is very keenly contested every year - was the chap who, at a talk about Nietzsche, asked why god had created gay animals in species other than humans. My own unassuming interventions - the incident with the light cavalry sabre notwithstanding - were, of course, always entirely intended to add to the collective enlightenment rather than allow me to show off my own erudition and knowledge.

Books: For those concerned about my apparent compulsion to count things, I don't really; I work it out retrospectively from my diary. The exception is books, where I kept a specific record this year because I thought it would be interesting. Obviously it wasn't in the slightest bit interesting, neither to me nor anyone else, but despite that I now know that I read one hundred and thirteen books, the pick of which was 'Winged Victory' by V.M. Yeates, which of course has a wargamer friendly theme. Another book I very much enjoyed which falls into that category is 'The March' by E.L. Doctorow; the march in question being that of Sherman.

Boardgames: I played fifty eight different games seventy eight times (figures courtesy of boardgamegeek). Top marks for a game I hadn't played previously go to Quartermaster General: Cold War, which I have no qualms in recommending to wargamers, and the same is true of my top solo game recommendation, Maquis. I hope to step up my boardgaming a bit next year, although the Monday night Yew Tree group has become very dull and cliquey so I may have to look elsewhere.

Wargames: I played or umpired in, I think, twenty three games, many of which were played over two or three weeks. They focussed mainly on James new Peninsular war collection plus, it shouldn't be forgotten, his new bridges. In the annexe it was mainly Great War, but there was a smattering of other stuff as well. My favourite game, apart from my one-sided triumph at Fiasco, was the relatively recent Battle of San Winnoc.

Event of the Year: Newspapers and magazines inevitably have to choose their picks of the year early in order to meet deadlines. Your bloggist has the luxury of posting this on the afternoon of December 31st and can therefore make sure that nothing will overtake what he writes. Or so you would think. Last year I was awakened at 23:45 or so - being teetotal I avoid going out on New Year's Eve and therefore retire early - by the younger Miss Epictetus who wished to inform me that she had got engaged, an event which clearly would have merited inclusion right at the top of my round up of 2018 had she told me a tad earlier. So, this year's choice is caveated by pointing out that it is subject to nothing better happening in the next few hours. However, I think it unlikely that anything will beat this:

Finally, let's hope next year is better than we're all expecting, especially for you and yours.

Peace and love to all.

..and the tortoise crawls

I have been to see the exhibition Troy: Myth and Reality at the British Museum. I won't write too much about it in detail - there are many reviews online which do that - but I do recommend seeing it if you get the chance.

It's broken into three sections. Firstly, Homer's poetry as represented on various artefacts from almost contemporaneously with him through to the end of the classical era. This section is mainly focussed on a few episodes spanning the whole story from the judgement of Paris via the dispute over Briseis and its consequences in the deaths of Patroclus, Hector etc, the ruse of the horse, and right through to Odysseus' return to the waiting Penelope.

The second section features the excavations of the the real Troy and contains many objects found by Schliemann and the third consists of post-classical representations of the myth.

As I say, I thought it was excellent. I especially liked the very stylised outline representation of the Trojan Horse through which one had to pass between the first two parts of the exhibition. Disappointingly I felt no urge for some early Bronze Age wargaming, but perhaps the idea will grow on me.

Mechanics, Dynamics, Aesthetics

"Oh the places you'll go! 

 There is fun to be done! 

 There are points to be scored. 

 There are games to be won."

   - Dr Seuss

If I was going to sum up the aim of our recent run of Peninsular Napoleonic games it would be to design a set of rules that meet a certain standard of historicity (as we see it) and are fun to play. The second of those concepts is even more nebulous than the first, but I have come across an academic paper (which can be found here) that attempts to provide a structured taxonomy of what that word might mean in the context of games. The paper is well worth reading, and in case you are worried is not very long. Anyone who has played wargames or boardgames (and probably computer games; I have absolutely no experience of these and so can't comment) will recognise the classifications that the authors put forward even if you don't agree fully with all of them.

Not least among the paper's virtues is that, as an illustration, it puts forwards some suggestions as to how one might make Monopoly worth playing, and almost has one believing they could work. Almost.

Gut Yontiff

“There are some upon this earth of yours who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name; who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us.”

                 - Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

In which Epictetus gets trollied

One drawback of being at the Stoic end of the philosophical spectrum is that one tends to put up with things; it sort of goes with the territory. And so it has proved with the impact of the leaking boiler on figure painting, which has rather dragged on throughout November and December and looks as if it's set to roll on into January as well. So, I have eventually decided that enough is enough and have invested in a hobby trolley in which to store work in progress.

In the background you can see the currently unavailable cupboard. And yes, that dining chair is as uncomfortable as it looks. Anyway, stuff has been relocated back indoors making it more accessible, with the added benefit of freeing up the gaming table.

Note the terracotta undercoat which your bloggist favours, mainly because it is very forgiving if you miss a bit later on in the process. I'm rather pleased with this new acquisition, although obviously not to the extent of actually doing any painting yet; that would be too much to expect.

Adiós, Mi España Querida

The conclusion of the last wargame of the year saw a British win and the poor old French didn't even get the satisfaction of capturing the village they had been attacking for the whole game. They - I - did take the crossroads at the other end of the table, but it proved a short lived triumph because immediately four infantry units all decided they had had enough and left the table at the same time; in a notably more coordinated fashion than anything that had been managed up until that point. The evening also saw a consensus develop in favour of giving the whole skirmisher thing - indeed the whole Peninsular thing - a rest for the time being. There have been one or two false dawns, but we really haven't got anywhere. We shall let our collective subconscious mull it over for a while. In the meantime:New Year, new period.

2020 will also hopefully see some volume laser cutting as both the technology and the bureaucracy seem now to be aligned. The only current hitch is my inability to source my chosen shade of stone effect paint. There is less good news regarding the resumption of figure painting, which is in part dependent on fixing the leak in the boiler. The bit that is positive is that it has been established that the boiler is not in fact leaking. The bad news is that it would appear that there is a leak in the mains supply to the boiler which, and I think you're probably ahead of me, can't be sorted out until the New year.

Kenny Lynch

I am very sorry to read of the death of Kenny Lynch, who was born in the same place as me; which unfortunately was Stepney rather than Barbados.

Back in the 1980s the Labour Party was supported by Red Wedge, a loose collection of hip and happening musicians. The constituency in which I was a member wasn't a high enough target to be graced by them, but we were offered a visit from Kenny Lynch. Sadly I couldn't persuade the agent to accept. As well as singing and acting, Lynch wrote and co-wrote a number of songs for others.

He was, as you will no doubt read in the obituaries, the first artist to record a cover of a Lennon-McCartney song and the connection continued when he appeared on the sleeve photograph for 'Band on the Run'.

The photograph - which also contains a disgraced former Liberal MP - was shot in Osterley Park, another place in London in which I have lived; although, when I think about it, the list of places that I have lived is almost as long as the list of disgraced former Liberal MPs.

I shall say this only once...for now

"Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats." - Voltaire 

I feel obliged to mention the election result, albeit only briefly and in passing. Firstly, our Labour and Co-operative MP here in Leeds North West doubled his majority; just saying.

That's Otley in the background

Secondly, people may have wondered why I have spent the last twenty five years telling anyone who would listen that Caroline Flint is a brain-dead poisonous witch (for example here); well, it's because she is.

Voltigeurs, chasseurs ou tirailleurs?

We continue to seek the Goldilocks formula for skirmishers to use with James' not very quickly growing Peninsular War forces, and tried a different version this week. For those interested, the game is going to end in a British victory, but as French commander I hope for one or two tactical successes along the way to make me feel better. Going back to the rules, these aren't minor tweaks, but rather all the things we have tried are radically different in their mechanics, and perhaps unsurprisingly they all seem to have good bits and bad bits. The current version have at least one great virtue - simplicity - and it becoming increasingly obvious why most rules abstract skirmishers out; maybe, just maybe, bears don't really eat porridge.

There has been no further painting due to the ongoing boiler leak, which I hope to have sorted out by next week. I may have said that before. News reaches me that the Two Fat Lardies are currently play testing a set of skirmish rules for Romans and their opponents in the 1st century AD, which I shall have to take a look at when they are released. My source on the inside claims that he is bringing some competition gamer rigour to the drafting of the rules, which would be welcomed I think.

In other news, I have acquired yet more Hexon pulverised ground from eBay and now can't conceive that I shall ever need any more, or indeed as much as I have already got. Access to the laser cutter is not possible at the moment due to a bureaucratic twist which has left me somewhat bemused, but as it happens I am actually happier leaving it all until after Christmas anyway.

Then shriek'd the timid, and stood still the brave

"It’s something like going on an ocean voyage. What can I do? Pick the captain, the boat, the date, and the best time to sail. But then a storm hits… What are my options? I do the only thing I am in a position to do, drown - but fearlessly, without bawling or crying out to God, because I know that what is born must also die."

- Epictetus

The nose has it

I was going to mention the election, but I find that Buddy - who belongs to the younger Miss Epictetus - has said all that needs saying.

There were big queues at the polling station this morning, but that may just be because today's the day when it gets dark earliest; not to be confused with the day in just over a week's time when it gets light latest, and which is also the shortest day. It's been far too long since we had a post about the interplay between the Earth's orbit around the sun, its rotation on its own axis and the angle between that axis and the plane of orbit.

San Winnoc

The battle of San Winnoc reached a conclusion last night. It really was a most enjoyable game, tightly fought over three weeks and with the result in the balance right until the end. Naturally therefore, we are going to change the skirmisher rules again. I will leave it to James to explain the changes and the reasons for them, but I am broadly in agreement. I do however have observations on two other areas of the rules.

Under the traditional way of allocating morale chips each side got a fairly random mix of morale and additional cards for the deck, each of which allowed extra actions such as firing, moving etc over the course of each turn. The revised method seeks to balance these so that one either has more morale but fewer bonus cards, or visa versa. Clearly getting the balance between the two things is problematic, but I think we are all reasonably happy with the first attempts at doing so. In this game the French had the extra cards and the British the extra morale. The French prevailed, but even so I think, given the choice (which one isn't) I'd pick the higher morale every time. The extra cards are only useful if one gets the initiative to use them, whereas the morale is always of value.

More worryingly it seems as if for the last ten years and more I have been playing a completely different rule for automatic melee (i.e. against disorder or shaken units, flanks, skirmishers, or artillery) to that being played by everyone else. I have no reason to claim that my version is better than what appears to be the actual rule, and it would seem that I have been limiting my options somewhat for all that time. I have re-read both the Piquet master rules and James and Peter's Seven Years War set (Lemons Are Not The Only Fruit) and there is absolutely nothing in them on which to base what I was thinking, so there you go; I feel foolish.

Pot89pouri

The central heating saga drifts on, or perhaps I should say 'drips on' as there turns out to be a leak. The whole system is being drained tomorrow, which is something to look forward to. The relevance of this to a wargaming blog is that my painting tray and figures currently being worked on normally live (*) in the cupboard under the boiler and have had to be relocated out into the annexe, so no progress to report there.

However, the laser cutter has been declare operational again - the problem was apparently an incorrectly set bed size - and I have had another go. The reworked town wall section looks fine and is now ready to go into mass production, or at least it will be when I have increased the height of each of the end pieces by one millimetre; a very odd mistake to have made in the first place. I also produced a test of a wall tower, looking at which made me realise what it ought to look like. Actually it ought to look round rather than square, but pragmatism means that square it is. My new idea is somewhat complex, but in theory at least the laser cut pieces will be accurate and will fit together snugly.

The above picture is dual purpose, showing both the one millimetre gap which proves that the theory of snug fitting pieces is subject always to the competence of the chap doing the design, and out of focus off to the right is the cloth soaking up the leak from the radiator.

I had hoped to have welcomed the blog's Luxembourg correspondent to the Casa Epictetus for a visit at some point in the next couple of weeks, but this has been put on hold by what he describes variously as "etwas äußerst Ärgerliches" and "verdammte Scheiße". I suspect that he just doesn't want to run the risk of not being allowed back into mainland Europe after Election Day proves once and for all that the country has gone completely mad and the rest of them decide to quarantine us.


* I do know that they aren't really alive.

Hey Lord, don't ask me questions

After forty years and two false starts I have finally seen Graham Parker play live. As David said here Parker has aged along with the rest of us. In fact I'd go so far as to say that he now looks like Alf Garnett. Given his origins he also unsurprisingly sounds like the man as well; or at least he would if Johnny Speight had made his character an enthusiast for recreational drugs instead of West Ham. Still, despite his tour-strained voice the wait was well worthwhile:

Another act from the distant past that I'd never seen before was Wishbone Ash, who I have caught on their current 50th anniversary tour. Coincidentally, or perhaps not, their original bassist and vocalist Martin Turner is also touring and playing only the band's songs, so I went to see him as well. Both shows were excellent, although I would just give the edge to Turner's, oddly enough for music that is all about the guitars that's because his singing was better. The audience for both - and I don't imagine I was the only overlap - was essentially grizzled old men, and it was rather amusing when they all - including me - leapt into a bopping frenzy at the appropriate point in this song; it certainly takes me back:

Cornucopia

This piece, by sculptor Edward Allington, is entitled 'One Unforgiving Moment', which perhaps indicates that the smaller vases result from the breakage of the larger, but for some reason exist as miniaturised replicas; fractals rather than fragments.

Elsewhere in his work Allington differentiates between factory based mass production and large scale craft workshops in which those involved have the opportunity to display pride in their work. Viewing it as a modeller and wargamer it may not be surprising that it made me think of an historical original being reproduced both in miniature and in great number.

Anyway, mention of fractals reminds me of my favourite mathematical joke:

Q: What does the B in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for?
A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot

Mr and Mrs Miller

"Windmill or no windmill, he said, life would go on as it had always gone on - that is, badly." 

- George Orwell

James' new windmill put in an appearance for this week's game, but despite what Orwell wrote in 'Animal Farm' things definitely got better. Orwell's mill represented the industrialisation of the Soviet Union, whereas James' represents Up 1 sometimes and Down 1 on other occasions, which perhaps explains the difference. Or more likely it was the tweaks made to the skirmish rules regarding how far in front of the formed body they could be. In either event it was a very enjoyable first half (or possibly third) of the game. I've got much more morale and significantly outnumber the French in the centre, but am probably going to quite quickly lose the town of San Honore. The rules are getting close to being finished I think. I am a bit confused about how skirmishers get pushed back, but perhaps that's just me.

Elsewhere, heat has returned to the Casa Epictetus after nine days. This may come as a disappointment to some of the ladies of West and North Yorkshire, but frankly I need a rest. A bit of warmth is just the right environment for some painting  so I was glad to receive my recent order from Newline Designs. If you recall I had originally bought two chariots and two packs of crew only to discover that each pack of crew contained sufficient for two chariots. Naturally I therefore bought two more chariots. To my surprise each of the new arrivals has a crew in the pack already, leaving me, as before, with two extra crews. This one could run and run.

The laser cutter is still hors de combat.

Barbecue Bob and Laughing Charley

I have been to see Catfish Keith, a man who I know I have often mentioned here before. Suffice it to say that he was as good as ever. Let's hear him playing some Blind Willie Johnson:

Both Catfish Keith and Dave Speight, the support act, referenced Barbecue Bob Hicks and his brother Laughing Charley Lincoln, two somewhat more obscure contemporaries of Johnson (and, before anyone asks, I have no idea why they have different surnames). Barbecue Bob wrote 'Motherless Child', covered by Eric Clapton amongst others and not to be confused with 'Motherless Children' written by Johnson and of course also covered by Clapton. Here's the first:

Dave Speight, an accomplished country blues performer himself, was the support for The Stumble last weekend as well (pretty much identical songs and patter in fact). Preston's finest blues band are excellent live and definitely worth seeing should you get the chance:

The Stumble, like many blues bands (the Rolling Stones, Canned Heat, Dr Feelgood, Double Trouble etc. etc. etc.) take their name from someone else's song, in this case a Freddie King instrumental. Here's Peter Green playing with John Mayall's Bluesbreakers: