Nobody likes a Soor loser

Before you ask  I shall be tagging this game as Seven Years War despite it taking place during the Austrian War of Succession, because it's my blog and I can do what I want. Whichever the war it is, so far, proving to be the basis of a good game. As you will see from that link James has sought to recreate the conditions on the day by stacking everything in the Prussians' favour and then challenging the two commanders to outdo their predecessors.

I was allotted the role of Frederick and decided that the best tactic was to throw everything at the hill, ignoring the town completely because the bad Austrian deck meant that they could never bring the troops on their right wing across in time to do anything about it. The beauty of Piquet, as I have often mentioned here, is that nothing is guaranteed. In the event the Austrians gained most of the initiative, turned their Command Indecision cards at fortunate points and obviously thought to themselves that if The Prussian king didn't want the town then they would have it instead.

So, cue slight change of plan with a couple of infantry units redirected to evict them. The first of the interlopers has been seen off without any problem; the Prussians are unit for unit much better. The other will no doubt follow shortly. On the hill the first wave of infantry was thrown back, but has rallied and the attack will resume. Similarly, despite losing the initial cavalry melee the Prussian are still there. Given a reversion to the mean and something like equal initiative I am confident that history will be recreated.

You will recall that I had first failed to obtain spray paint for the laser cut walls because the couriers couldn't find the house, and then the can I did get was an unsuitable shade. I have now procured the correct item by the primitive method of actually going to a shop in person and checking that what I was buying was what I actually wanted. It will never catch on. No painting has taken place because we are now being hit by Storm Jorge, which although causing too much wind to spray in is a bit of a wimp compared to his forerunners, including the storm with no name of last week. I can't account for the whereabouts of storms Eglantine, Faramir, Gordon Bennett, Horatius Cocles or Itchy. Presumably they blew themselves out in the North Atlantic somewhere.

Pot91pouri

I forgot to mention when posting about 'The Turn of the Screw' that the evening I attended was broadcast live on OperaVision, which was the first time I'd been at any sort of performance being live streamed. Now clearly I know that what makes this all possible are the significant advances in camera technology including the ability to film in low light levels, miniaturisation and remote control, but nevertheless when I first arrived I found myself looking around for something like this:

I used to share a flat with a chap who worked for the BBC and he had lots of stories about David Coleman; and Valerie Singleton; and Basil Brush: all the greats in fact.

In other news, there has been a bit of a delay in making my castle/town wall. I decided that I had made sufficient bits to make it worth spray painting some to see how it turned out. Since that point we have been subject to Storms Ciara and Dennis, bringing strong winds and heavy rain and so rendering spraying - which obviously has to take place outside - impossible.This weekend there was thankfully no storm, despite which there were mysteriously winds just as strong and rain just as heavy. Indeed for the third time in as many weeks there was this:

And this:

Instead of spraying or laser cutting castle walls, I passed the time making myself a Piquet clock, for no better reason than I'd always wanted one and you can't get them anywhere. Piquet being a rather niche game it wouldn't be economic for anyone like Warbases to make them. I am rather pleased with the way it turned out.

It involved me shocking everyone else in the workshop by leaving the laser cutter and moving across to a different bench; in this case the one with the pillar drill, a tool I hadn't used for half a century. Still, there are some things you never forget:

"Pack away now please"

Ghosts, Zombies and Gypsies

“How on the other hand could I make a reference without a new plunge into the hideous obscure?”

- Henry James, The Turn of the Screw

And so to the opera. I have been to see Britten's 'The Turn of the Screw'. I'd seen Opera North's production about ten years ago, but didn't recognise any of it; old age seems to have some benefits. It was appropriately spooky, the music and singing were top rate and it also involved knitting and puppets; so no complaints from me. I should mention the remarkably precocious eleven year-old who played Miles; I should, but I can't because I have mislaid my programme.

Miles of course dies in the end (sorry for the spoiler, but it's an opera so what else did you expect), but doesn't sing afterwards unlike many others - especially sopranos - do. I have also been to see a zombie themed version of 'Don Giovanni' (if you know the plot then you'll realise that it sort of makes sense) in which Il Commendatore did not just sing after dying, but also after his entrails had been ripped from him and eaten by his murderer. So, more realistic than many operas then. 

Finally, I've seen another Mozart piece - 'The Marriage of Figaro'. I previously saw that one while on my post-divorce exile in the upper gallery so it was interesting to see it up close following my return to the expensive seats. It was well worth it, although I can only repeat my previous advice to the composer: lose the fourth act. On this occasion I not only missed my bus, but on top of that the following one was cancelled; thanks for nothing Wolfgang. 

Vale crucesignati

"Today everything exists to end in a photograph." - Susan Sontag

Everything, that is, except James' Crusades figures, because once again he didn't take any and clearly isn't going to post about it in his blog. And, now it's over; we shall be moving on to my favourite - Horse and Musket using Piquet  - and all those waiting to admire the colourful display will have to wait until the next time the Pope decrees that "Deus Vult".

The last of the TtS! games was very good, although the Crusaders won easily in the end. As the Saracen commander I would point to two successive turns where the entire army decided not to do what was asked of them, but that of course is the beauty of the game. A special mention must go to the commander of the left flank, who saw four units in a row destroyed while he was attached and ended up, in Brigadier Ritchie Hook fashion, leading a bunch of Bedouin irregulars. I should also reluctantly acknowledge that James' new out of ammo system appeared to work reasonably well, and did remove a lot of bookkeeping and clutter. 

So, next week a whole new set of rules not to remember properly. 

You don't know what it's like

As with all great media empires, this blog regularly consults its readers as to what they want and expect. One answer comes back much more frequently than all the others: videos of Leonard Cohen singing Bee Gees songs. Your wish is my command:

Another TtS! triumph

Jonathan asked in a comment on yesterday's post why no photos of James' superb Crusades armies. In response I can only offer photos of my badly painted 1st century CE Romans and Ancient Britons. But never mind the figures, take a look at those bases.

Keith, who clearly has never been told that it's rude to point, returned to the annexe after a bit of a gap for a game of TtS!. You may recall that as soon as he got the hang of C&C Napoleonics I switched games. It had been a while since his first game of To the Strongest!, to give me a chance to double the size of the units in order that they filled the squares, as previously discussed on these pages.

When one overlays squares on to the Hexon hexes on my table there are basically two ways of doing it. The first, which was how I had set it up for his last visit, is six rows deep and the other is nine rows deep. The latter is better just from a manoeuvrability perspective and so I switched this time. The net result is that the new warband bases are too big to slide from one square to another without knocking the grid markers out of position. So, joined up thinking in action then.

Keith had largely forgotten how the game worked, but fortunately it's a set of rules that I am completely on top of, so we didn't have any problems. Nor did the Romans, who saw off the onrush of Celts without much trouble. I don't have any decent photos of the massed chariots, although they did account for the only auxiliary infantry unit to be destroyed with an impressive flanking sweep and charge.

Hopefully, we'll schedule another game after a shorter interval than the last. Maybe some terrain features next time as well.

Another TtS! debacle

"When shall we stop this madness?" - The Hospitaller, Kingdom of Heaven

When indeed? For the third week running we completely mangled the rules while using To the Strongest! for the Crusades. It's embarrassing.

It was a pleasant way to spend an evening, although the game was to some extent spoiled, both by our own decisions and by the gods of wargaming. The game was set up to use the rules for ammunition as written, before we started we decided to not bother with any such rules at all, and then after an hour we switched to James' alternative rules. It was a mess. As for the gods, they completely reversed the previous week's luck as far as commanders went - although they left it with the Crusaders - and I basically couldn't miss with ranged fire. The whirling masses of Turcomans evaporated like water in the desert. 

It all looked very good though; too good in some ways. I was seduced by the all black colour scheme of the Hospitallers, assumed that they would sweep all before them, only to find that they kept refusing to act at all before crumbling ignominiously in the face of a few Kurds. Never trust a man in a fancy uniform.

Crystal mountain

"It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves." - George Mallory

I continue to play boardgames from time to time, but seem to have got out of the habit of writing about them. I certainly haven't come across any that cry out to be recommended to wargamers, but it's also because I only ever seem to play games once, which isn't enough to form a proper opinion. Hard-core boardgamers (which doesn't include me) are obsessed with the cult of the new. They buy games play them two, three, maybe four times and then the games are never seen again. I only play two or three times a month, those I play with tend to game three or four times a week and so everything tends to whoosh past me in a blur. 

However, I do feel the need to mention 'Mountaineers', if for no other reason than because I love a 3D game. Unsurprisingly given that it's made out of cardboard, the thing isn't that stable, especially when you try to push the little plastic climbers in to the holes. The game's owner - that's him in the picture - has come up with a variety of designs for stabilising it; indeed you can just see some aluminium corners which he has fabricated and which, it has to be said, don't work at all. I may be the classic man with a hammer who sees every problem as a nail, but I can feel some laser cutting coming on. Is the game worth it? Probably not; we are doing it because it's there.

I must also mention another addition to my portfolio of one player games. 'Crystallo' is a tile laying, pattern matching game which requires a large amount of table space to play. It's very well designed and produced, but not the sort of thing I am likely to be any good at. The theme is rescuing magic animals and slaying dragons, with a sort of quest overlaid on it. I have so far risen to the level of Impoverished Commoner, which seems about right.

At the end of the day

I have been to see Fairport Convention on their wintour, which has been so regular an occurrence over the last few years that it's almost not worth mentioning. Just for the record I didn't go last year. It was much as always, that is to say excellent, although they do look like they are getting old; perhaps I should pass on to them my secret recipe for never looking any older.

You would never believe that I'm in my sixties

They performed a number of songs from their latest CD 'Shuffle and Go', a number from the 'Full House' record, plus inevitably enough a couple from 'Liege and Lief', including of course 'Matty Groves'. I liked the new stuff, although obviously not sufficiently to buy a copy of the album. I was especially taken by a song about Michael Collins (the American astronaut rather than the Irish revolutionary) which songwriter Chris Leslie (the talented multi-instrumentalist rather than the failed centrist politician) introduced by pointing out that those of us of a similar age (*), he was a child of the Apollo era. Still, given the current political developments in Ireland and the upcoming centenary of his assassination, perhaps there would be a market for a companion piece about Mícheál Ó Coileáin as well. 

Coming back to 'Matty Groves', there has been sufficient time since what I shall refer to as 'the events' for me to once more listen to the song with equanimity. Which is just as well, because it was also played by the Sandy Denny Project when I saw them a week or so earlier. I didn't know what to expect from the gig as Ms Denny had a unique and beautiful voice and mere imitation didn't seem a fruitful route to take. I needn't have worried as the six piece band both shared vocals around and gave us their own interpretations of material written by and associated with the late singer rather than carbon copies. Probably the majority of vocals were taken by Sally Barker, who I had seen supporting Fairport in 2017, and she did a good job. However, at the end of the day there was only one Sandy Denny.

* including those of us who don't look it.

Smiteless in Gaza

We replayed the previous week's game, swapping sides and tinkering a little with rules and scenario conditions. We started the evening with a summing up of the rules we had got wrong the previous week, and ended by analysing the rules we had got right the previous week, but had forgotten to play on this occasion; we really need to get a grip. It was a fairly hapless evening all round for me as commander of the Saracens, who were comprehensively bulldozed out of the way by the Crusader convoy. I would be the first to acknowledge any shortcomings in my generalship, but frankly it was just one of those evenings. The real point of wargames is surely to smite one's enemy, and in two hours of play I only achieved two hits; everything else was either missed or saved.

One problem is that TtS! as written is really a get-stuck-in melee game (apparently on the basis that missilery was relatively unimportant in ancient warfare), whilst the Saracens fielded large numbers of horse archers who operated very effectively from a distance. This is not a criticism of TtS!, which is a great game. Indeed, one of its strengths is that it is (exactly as Piquet is) a toolbox game, in which it is relatively simple to tweak things for period specific versions that match one's own view. James' has, naturally enough, come up with some ideas for beefing up the Turcopoles (not a euphemism) and also thinks he can improve on the author's method of limiting ammunition supplies. We shall see.

In other wargames news, the laser cut walls remain unpainted due to a series of unfortunate events. Firstly there were problems with delivery of paint caused by the same couriers who caused no end of trouble when I bought a Remoska just before Christmas. They keep claiming that they can't find the house, but as I live directly on an 'A' road in the middle of a town, that seems implausible. Anyway, other paint has been sourced, but Storm Ciara, currently raging outside, is precluding any spraying. The new stuff looks too light in colour to me anyway. Once again, we shall see.

Ubu

I have been to see 'Kneehigh's Ubu', which is, as it implies on the tin, Kneehigh theatre company's version of Jarry's 'Ubu Roi'. The reason they have revived this rather notorious piece at this particular time is perhaps most easily illustrated by quoting the Wikipedia entry for the original play. The eponymous Ubu, who has taken over the country in a coup spurred on by his ambitious wife, is described as "fat, ugly, vulgar, gluttonous, grandiose, dishonest, stupid, jejune, voracious, greedy, cruel, cowardly and evil". Does that sound like anyone we know?

Katy Owen as Ubu and Mike Shepherd as Mrs Ubu

It was simply brilliant. Described as a 'sing-along satire' it involved maximum audience participation with members invited not just to sing, but even to get up on stage and fight at one point. There was also a keenly fought game of dunk-a-trunk, which looked like good fun; I have made a mental note of the rules and equipment required. Kneehigh's style is much to my taste (see this previous posting on their Tristan & Yseult; and of course the Wise Children company reviewed  glowingly here on a couple of occasions over the last couple of years spawned out of them) and it was equally appreciated by the mainly mid-teen schoolkids amongst who made up most of the audience. Now when I was at school all we ever went to see was Shakespeare.

It is just possible that Alfred Jarry's school focused on the Bard as well because, as you have no doubt already worked out for yourself, the basic structure comes directly from Macbeth, and there are bits of other Shakespeare plays thrown in for luck. Someone even exits pursued by a bear at one point.

The events surrounding the first (and only) performance of the original play are well worth reading about. Amongst those there were W.B. Yeats (whose opinion may have been coloured by the fact that he didn't speak French) and Stéphane Mallarmé, another poet previously quoted in this blog.  Incidentally, Jarry invented the concept of pataphysics; there's a limit to how many times I can post a video of the same song, so let me send you back to here. Whilst this latest production has run for a lot longer, by the time you read this you will have missed the chance to see it. If it's ever revived then don't miss it next time.

Good riddance

This post has been brought to you by Tarquin's Cornish Gin - the gin for the skin you're in. 

Turpe

We turned to the Crusades for a game of To the Strongest! in the week, and most enjoyable it was too. Perhaps inevitably the Crusader wagon train didn't make it across the the table; there was at one point a tempting gap, but I couldn't successfully activate the oxen to head for it before more Saracens arrived. I'm pretty sure we weren't playing the rules entirely correctly, but I suspect you took that as a given by now.

To the Strongest! is also set up in the annexe at the moment. In a burst of laser cutting frenzy I have produced enough (actually somewhat more than enough) warband bases for my new expanded unit sizes. I am a dozen or so warriors short, but that's only one or two per base so we can play without while I paint some more up. What I can't work around is the missing couple of dozen Roman auxiliaries, but they are all on the conveyor belt so just a couple of days and we should be good to go. The massed chariots are looking good even if I say so myself.

The first century AD is the period covered by the imminent release from the Two Fat Lardies, to be called 'Infamy, Infamy'. These were being demonstrated at Vapnartak by one of the play testers. I didn't have time to play a game, but was able to ask a lot of questions and also take a look at the draft, loose-bound version of the rules. They looked OK and I shall be buying a copy when they are eventually published. As Peter and I agreed on the way home, they look like they will address the niche that my going-nowhere Pony Wars mash-up was always intended to, and the included scenarios will hopefully give me a chance to get out on to the table all the non-combatant type figures and buildings that I've accumulated over the years. For example, the demo game included this:

I'm afraid that I shan't be making one, but it reminded me of happy, and very much missed, times past.

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.