Not of the dental kind (although, just in case anyone is interested, I do currently have a temporary crown in place), but rather another game in the legendary wargames room featuring even more bridges than last time, but no hidden ford. It all looked very good - it was the wider rivers this time - and James took photos, so we can only hope that he comes out of his current blogging retirement and posts about it.
In the meantime you'll have to make do with a dry, unillustrated version from me. I have to say that once again it was a pleasant, but vaguely unsatisfactory, evening's entertainment. We tried out new rules for fighting across bridges, which, interestingly, but not surprisingly, bore no relation to those that I thought we had agreed to try out the previous week. On the plus side it was easier to get troops to cross the bridge; on the down side it seemed inevitable that they would evaporate as soon as they got over, which was hacking Peter off a bit. It would have been even worse for the attackers if the defenders' artillery had hit anything before being destroyed.
There seemed to me at least to be even more inconsistencies than usual. For example defending with one's back right up against a river seemed to be a positive benefit (*), which seems counter intuitive to say the least. And the longer bridges over the wide river took two moves to cross, exactly the same as it does to get across the medium river (**); thus begging the question as to why have two different widths in the first place. Also the rules regarding preference for standing in long lines of units close together when morale tested makes perfect sense for refights of large battles, but it makes for some challenges when trying to defend three widely spaced bridges with eight units of infantry.
The game is about threequarters of the way through. The Russians have so far managed to get five units across the river, all of whom have been either destroyed or routed. I can't see how the Russians can win unless they can force their way across one of the bridges without taking any significant losses and then just pour their cavalry across and off the table. It's possible - the defending units are thinly spread and very short of artillery plus one unit of dragoons has mysteriously decided to take time out to water their horses directly in front of two batteries of Russian guns - but rather unlikely. On the other hand we had a spate of games last year where the eventual winner had basically given up and only carried on because the night was still young.
* Unless you lose the melee, in which case you are toast.
** There are no narrow rivers, just wide and medium; it's like buying a coffee in Starbucks or Costa.
Epictetus - Discourses on Wargaming
Thursday, 31 January 2019
Wednesday, 30 January 2019
Pot83pouri
No posts for a few days because I lent my laptop to the elder Miss Epictetus for some urgent midwifery business. I did consider dusting down the old one, but, as you may remember, the keyboard on that one is incapable of typing the letter 's'; to do o would obviouly be a wate of time. In other news I have had my revenge on the exercise bike for straining my groin by breaking it and have had to spend a lot of money to replace it; that will show it who's boss.
The Square Bashing game a couple of weeks ago having been declared sufficiently successful to warrant another go I have been working away on a couple of things. The two Mark IVs are more or less complete. Naturally after boasting as to how easy the first one was to assemble I found the second one - which is of course essentially identical - more of a challenge. The specific period of my forces is the final year of the war, Cambrai onward, and so I have painted them with the red and white identification stripes adopted by the British in 1918 once the Germans started using captured tanks in numbers. One source - OK, it's the Osprey - says that the location and size of the stripes varied so, notwithstanding every photo I've ever seen showing them looking identical, I have made them slightly larger for artistic effect. I have also omitted the rails for the unditching beam as those provided in the kit are so fragile that they would just break off anyway. I have an idea as to what to use instead and if it doesn't prove to be beyond my modelling skills I shall retrofit them at some point.
The limited nature of my kit assembling abilities brings me to the aircraft that I bought. I certainly shan't be able to complain that I haven't had my money's worth in hobby time from them because I have been fiddling with the Sopwith Camel for hours. I felt quite pleased with myself when I dry assembled it eventually, only to discover that I had the top wing on back to front. Anyway, it is now complete and undercoated, so we shall see what it looks like after painting. I have left the propeller off for the same reason as mentioned before: it would just break off anyway. The reasons I went for 1/144 were size and megalomania. The first doesn't really make any sense because WWI aircraft are tiny anyway. The second, which basically means buying squadrons of the things and playing air combat games, is fairly unlikely if each one takes that long to build.
After only playing one game of Square Bashing so far it is obviously too soon to start making house rules. However the aircraft rules as written are somewhat ambiguous, so a rewrite for clarification purposes is required. I also want to tweak the Higher Command rules a bit, possibly just temporarily while we work out what they all mean. In order to keep everything else as standard as possible I am going to add back in poison gas barrages, which I left out of the asset options I gave to the players for the last game. I have therefore knocked together some markers, with the added bonus that it gave me a chance to use the hot glue gun; something that always goes down well.
Next step is all the pre-battle dice rolling, which I might get Peter and James to do if there's an early finish to the next game in the legendary wargames room. If the British are the attackers they can have the tanks, if it's the Germans they can have stormtroopers and flamethrowers.
The Square Bashing game a couple of weeks ago having been declared sufficiently successful to warrant another go I have been working away on a couple of things. The two Mark IVs are more or less complete. Naturally after boasting as to how easy the first one was to assemble I found the second one - which is of course essentially identical - more of a challenge. The specific period of my forces is the final year of the war, Cambrai onward, and so I have painted them with the red and white identification stripes adopted by the British in 1918 once the Germans started using captured tanks in numbers. One source - OK, it's the Osprey - says that the location and size of the stripes varied so, notwithstanding every photo I've ever seen showing them looking identical, I have made them slightly larger for artistic effect. I have also omitted the rails for the unditching beam as those provided in the kit are so fragile that they would just break off anyway. I have an idea as to what to use instead and if it doesn't prove to be beyond my modelling skills I shall retrofit them at some point.
The limited nature of my kit assembling abilities brings me to the aircraft that I bought. I certainly shan't be able to complain that I haven't had my money's worth in hobby time from them because I have been fiddling with the Sopwith Camel for hours. I felt quite pleased with myself when I dry assembled it eventually, only to discover that I had the top wing on back to front. Anyway, it is now complete and undercoated, so we shall see what it looks like after painting. I have left the propeller off for the same reason as mentioned before: it would just break off anyway. The reasons I went for 1/144 were size and megalomania. The first doesn't really make any sense because WWI aircraft are tiny anyway. The second, which basically means buying squadrons of the things and playing air combat games, is fairly unlikely if each one takes that long to build.
 |
| You wouldn't believe how long it took to get to this stage |
After only playing one game of Square Bashing so far it is obviously too soon to start making house rules. However the aircraft rules as written are somewhat ambiguous, so a rewrite for clarification purposes is required. I also want to tweak the Higher Command rules a bit, possibly just temporarily while we work out what they all mean. In order to keep everything else as standard as possible I am going to add back in poison gas barrages, which I left out of the asset options I gave to the players for the last game. I have therefore knocked together some markers, with the added bonus that it gave me a chance to use the hot glue gun; something that always goes down well.
Next step is all the pre-battle dice rolling, which I might get Peter and James to do if there's an early finish to the next game in the legendary wargames room. If the British are the attackers they can have the tanks, if it's the Germans they can have stormtroopers and flamethrowers.
Thursday, 24 January 2019
Six Bridges to Cross
Nikita Kruschev once said that politicians were the same all over: "They promise to build a bridge where there is no river". Whoever was running the part of eighteenth century central Europe over which last night's game in the legendary wargames room was played out had a new twist; he - one must assume it was a he - built several bridges in a place where, as it turned out, one could simply walk across the river in the first place.
We were playing James' interpretation of a scenario from C.S. Grant's book of much the same name. It provided a pleasant evening's entertainment, but James was heard muttering about various things he would change before he wrote it up in detail, and I think he was right as it didn't quite gel. This wasn't helped by the fact that my units, which you will recall are of somewhat arbitrary quality in Piquet, turned out to be much better than Peter's. We also, as distressingly often these days, weren't entirely on top of the rules, which only really mattered because when we remembered what we had left out until that point Peter immediately proved that he can always be relied upon to throw a one on a D20 when he really, really doesn't want to. Anyway, I think we agreed on the appropriate rules for game play when trying to fight across a bridge - helpful as James has been building both them and rivers in industrial quantities - and what the tactics would be to take advantage of the rules that we just made up; so progress of sorts was made. Incidentally James advises that second hand copies of 'Scenarios for Wargamers' change hands for around £100. I think for that money I'd expect the author himself to come round to my house and run the game for me.
In other wargaming news I have bowed to pressure and acquired a couple of tanks for the Great War. It is thus that I find myself assembling a plastic kit for the first time since, probably, 1971. I'm actually finding it a fair bit easier than I remember. In part that will be having the right tools - sprue cutters are very simple, but very effective - but also I think due to patience, a resource in very short supply when I was a teenager. I have also bought a couple of aircraft: a Sopwith Camel, of course, and an Albatross. These are the old Skytrex 1/144 models now produced by Red Eagle Miniatures. They look far more difficult to assemble than the Emhar Mark IV and so, employing my new found reserves of patience once again, I have put them to one side and haven't done anything with them.
We were playing James' interpretation of a scenario from C.S. Grant's book of much the same name. It provided a pleasant evening's entertainment, but James was heard muttering about various things he would change before he wrote it up in detail, and I think he was right as it didn't quite gel. This wasn't helped by the fact that my units, which you will recall are of somewhat arbitrary quality in Piquet, turned out to be much better than Peter's. We also, as distressingly often these days, weren't entirely on top of the rules, which only really mattered because when we remembered what we had left out until that point Peter immediately proved that he can always be relied upon to throw a one on a D20 when he really, really doesn't want to. Anyway, I think we agreed on the appropriate rules for game play when trying to fight across a bridge - helpful as James has been building both them and rivers in industrial quantities - and what the tactics would be to take advantage of the rules that we just made up; so progress of sorts was made. Incidentally James advises that second hand copies of 'Scenarios for Wargamers' change hands for around £100. I think for that money I'd expect the author himself to come round to my house and run the game for me.
In other wargaming news I have bowed to pressure and acquired a couple of tanks for the Great War. It is thus that I find myself assembling a plastic kit for the first time since, probably, 1971. I'm actually finding it a fair bit easier than I remember. In part that will be having the right tools - sprue cutters are very simple, but very effective - but also I think due to patience, a resource in very short supply when I was a teenager. I have also bought a couple of aircraft: a Sopwith Camel, of course, and an Albatross. These are the old Skytrex 1/144 models now produced by Red Eagle Miniatures. They look far more difficult to assemble than the Emhar Mark IV and so, employing my new found reserves of patience once again, I have put them to one side and haven't done anything with them.
Wednesday, 23 January 2019
Operatic Queens
"Some may say that I couldn't sing, but no one can say that I didn't sing." - Florence Foster Jenkins
No sooner have I referred to the role of the coarse actor in amateur dramatics, than I have been to see an amateur performance that was very good by being very bad. I have been to see 'Glorious!', the story of Florence Foster Jenkins. My companion for the evening had seen the Meryl Streep film on the same subject and, according to her, it covers the same ground in a very different way. This version was certainly very funny, in particular the transition between the first and second scenes of the second act which was also well directed. I could, however, have done with fewer gay 'jokes'; if there was ever a time when simply saying the word 'pansies' was funny then thankfully it has long gone. Top marks must go to Katrina Wood in the lead role. It must be incredibly hard to sing that badly on purpose if one can sing properly in the first place. Here is Madame Jenkins herself to show what I mean:
I am going to see 'The Magic Flute' soon, and I'm sure that I won't be able to get that rendition out of my head. In the meantime I went to see the live broadcast of 'The Queen of Spades' from the Royal Opera House. Opera directors are seemingly incapable of telling a story straight and this was a high concept production, although I must, grudgingly, say that it largely worked. The main idea was that the composer was on stage throughout, mostly sat behind a piano watching his characters take life, but also with his own story, of his guilt about his homosexuality and his extremely short lived marriage mixed in with Pushkin's novella. If it succeeded it was because they threw the kitchen sink at it theatrically. I was very taken when the male chorus came on stage all dressed as Tchaikovsky, with many of them looking more like him than he did; it was like the occasion when Ernest Hemingway came fifth in an Ernest Hemingway lookalike competition. Here, for the avoidance of doubt, is the real thing:
There is a Mozart pastiche in the ball scene of Act II, and there was coincidentally a reference to 'The Magic Flute' here as well with two sopranos dressed as songbirds alternately wrestling with Tchaikovsky (or possibly with Count Levitsky; it was hard to tell by then) and writhing erotically on the floor together. By no means the most bizarre aspect was when the title character died (apologies for the spoiler, but - once again - it's an opera) they buried her in the piano. Sometimes when things are that weird one just has to go with it.
Tuesday, 22 January 2019
The grass roots, right or wrong?
Marc asks whether Rosa Luxemburg considered that 'the people' might be right wing. Let's leave aside the likelihood that she did while some of them were murdering her and look back to Marx. Luxemburg was one of a large number trying to work out, or simply claim that they knew, what Marx had meant; after all the old chap was not always terribly consistent in what he wrote. Some of them came to the conclusion that, while he may have been driven by good intentions they still didn't really want to be associated with him, thank you very much. Others, Lenin for example, decided that they would very much like to claim to be his followers, but that wouldn't stop them striking off in completely different directions if it suited them; not much 'withering away of the state' in the Soviet Union, with 'dictatorship of the proletariat' meaning dictatorship on behalf of the proletariat because the party knew what was best for the people.
Now Marx was clearly right about a number of things: his critique of the problems of capitalism has stood up pretty well and a number of aspects of it were proved entirely correct a decade ago; his insight of the powerful negative impact on individuals and through them on society as a whole of the alienation of man from the work he performs is as valid in today's call centre as it was in the cotton mills of his time; and above all Marx pointed out that if we don't like the way history is going we can actually seize power from those who currently have it, a lesson taken to heart by many around the world with a consequent huge historical impact.
Where Marx is most definitely found wanting, is in his rather naive assumption that just because the exploiters were bad people, that the exploited must therefore be good. We can pontificate all we like about 'false consciousness' and about a lot of people being 'useful idiots' to those in power (both entirely valid concepts), but as can be seen around me as I write, and no doubt around you as you read, the chances of expressions of grass roots feeling being of a right wing nature is pretty high. Perhaps Lenin was right and Luxemburg wrong after all.
Now Marx was clearly right about a number of things: his critique of the problems of capitalism has stood up pretty well and a number of aspects of it were proved entirely correct a decade ago; his insight of the powerful negative impact on individuals and through them on society as a whole of the alienation of man from the work he performs is as valid in today's call centre as it was in the cotton mills of his time; and above all Marx pointed out that if we don't like the way history is going we can actually seize power from those who currently have it, a lesson taken to heart by many around the world with a consequent huge historical impact.
Where Marx is most definitely found wanting, is in his rather naive assumption that just because the exploiters were bad people, that the exploited must therefore be good. We can pontificate all we like about 'false consciousness' and about a lot of people being 'useful idiots' to those in power (both entirely valid concepts), but as can be seen around me as I write, and no doubt around you as you read, the chances of expressions of grass roots feeling being of a right wing nature is pretty high. Perhaps Lenin was right and Luxemburg wrong after all.
Sunday, 20 January 2019
The Art of Coarse Figure Painting
I quite regularly go to watch amateur theatre companies. Some of the productions are very good indeed - Alan Bennett's 'The History Boys' at Ilkley Playhouse springs to mind - but it's fair to say that many of them don't quite reach those heights. In 1964 Michael Green wrote the very funny 'The Art of Coarse Acting' about amateur dramatics and those who participate in them. He defined a coarse actor as, among other things, someone who can remember the pauses, but not the lines and whose hope is for his character to be dead by Act II so that he can spend the rest of his time in the pub.
A short while back Iain foolishly asked to see the painted version of my scratch built WWI German 17cm Minenwerfer. And more or less simultaneously Prufrock wrote about common tropes of wargames bloggers. Now I happily put my hand up to most of those he featured, but not as it happens to the one about promising to paint any better in the coming year. I know that I am not a terribly good painter, but I also know that actually my standard of painting is perfectly adequate for what I do with it. So, responding to both Iain and Aaron (beware a man with two, or even three, consecutive vowels in his name - that's my advice), and with due apologies to the late Mr Green, here is an illustrated guide to the art of coarse figure painting, complete with no jokes whatsoever.
My first point is a boring, but necessary one; decent brushes are just as essential to coarse painting as they are to professional standard. I'm sorry, but there it is. I decided to treat myself to some new ones for the New Year and hastened to the establishment of a local artist's supplies entrepreneur (and wargamer). With hindsight the trip was overdue, not so much because the quality of work produced has improved dramatically, but because the pleasure of painting has increased with better tools in my hand.
So, it turns out that I did have plenty of German artillery figures after all and didn't really need to order any. Now I have more. The plastic ones are Hat and the metal ones are Frontline; and they are stuck down with PVC glue. I appreciate that they would be closer to the weapon in action, but that would leave the base looking a bit empty, and they are easier to paint this way. Couldn't I put them on smaller bases? If I'd have thought about things like this before I came up with my basing standards, then yes. Couldn't I paint the figures separately and then base them? I will simply point out that that would involve more work.
Next step is to cover the base with filler, this being where the basing of the weapon on a couple of layers of cardboard comes in to its own. I have abandoned my experiment with lightweight filler, which I found wouldn't stay where I put it, and gone back to the original.
The same dogmatic chap who used to lecture me about banana oil also had a bee in his bonnet about Rustoleum, which he had read on the internet was the only product to use to prime plastic figures. I told him repeatedly that was simply the US brand name of stuff readily available in the UK, but he wouldn't have it and at one point was trying to source some imported cans. He has long since moved on to collecting the shapeless metal figures of his childhood, and I have no idea whether he ever got any. For the record I use Halfords own label, which works fine. For this quantity of figures I don't spray it directly on, I spray some into a pot and brush it on. Choose your vessel carefully. The primer melts the type of plastic used for disposable food bowls; don't bother asking how I know.
I believe that there is a hotly contested debate about the various advantages of undercoating in either black or white, which is why I have always used terracotta. The two strong points for me are firstly that I can see the surface detail to paint the next coat, and secondly that if you miss a bit and the undercoat shows through, then terracotta is very bland and not easily noticed. You may be thinking that the lighting for the photograph is making the terracotta look a bit garish and, well, orange. In fact it is orange. I ran out of terracotta and all I could find quickly was some cheap tubes of artist's acrylic orange in Captain Value. I'm going to put a wash on when I've finished and a matt varnish; it will be all right on the night.
I seem to have forgotten to photograph a few steps. Anyway, I use a method which I have seen described as 'imagining that the little chap is getting dressed'. I paint the flesh first, then the main uniform colour, then the various accoutrements. Apart from Valejo German Uniform, everything is craft acrylics, with no shading, highlighting or any of that arty-farty carrying on.
I then apply a diluted Humbrol enamel wash, black in this case for Germans. The level of dilution is a good question. On this occasion I thought it was much too dark, wiped it off, diluted it some more and reapplied. I appreciate that isn't very scientific, but there you go. As a digression you may notice that the surface of the cutting mat has undergone a bit of damage between the last two photos, following one of those domestic inadvertancies which seem to occur a lot in Casa Epictetus, especially when modelling is going on. This blog doesn't have the budget for competition prizes, but if any wants to take part just for the fun of it, there is huge kudos to the first person to leave a comment correctly identifying what I did.
And here's the finished article, varnished and flocked, with a couple of random sandbags for visual effect. To end where we started, I know it isn't very good, but it is quick and easy to do and entirely fit for the purpose intended. I shall not be attempting to improve.
A short while back Iain foolishly asked to see the painted version of my scratch built WWI German 17cm Minenwerfer. And more or less simultaneously Prufrock wrote about common tropes of wargames bloggers. Now I happily put my hand up to most of those he featured, but not as it happens to the one about promising to paint any better in the coming year. I know that I am not a terribly good painter, but I also know that actually my standard of painting is perfectly adequate for what I do with it. So, responding to both Iain and Aaron (beware a man with two, or even three, consecutive vowels in his name - that's my advice), and with due apologies to the late Mr Green, here is an illustrated guide to the art of coarse figure painting, complete with no jokes whatsoever.
My first point is a boring, but necessary one; decent brushes are just as essential to coarse painting as they are to professional standard. I'm sorry, but there it is. I decided to treat myself to some new ones for the New Year and hastened to the establishment of a local artist's supplies entrepreneur (and wargamer). With hindsight the trip was overdue, not so much because the quality of work produced has improved dramatically, but because the pleasure of painting has increased with better tools in my hand.
So, it turns out that I did have plenty of German artillery figures after all and didn't really need to order any. Now I have more. The plastic ones are Hat and the metal ones are Frontline; and they are stuck down with PVC glue. I appreciate that they would be closer to the weapon in action, but that would leave the base looking a bit empty, and they are easier to paint this way. Couldn't I put them on smaller bases? If I'd have thought about things like this before I came up with my basing standards, then yes. Couldn't I paint the figures separately and then base them? I will simply point out that that would involve more work.
Next step is to cover the base with filler, this being where the basing of the weapon on a couple of layers of cardboard comes in to its own. I have abandoned my experiment with lightweight filler, which I found wouldn't stay where I put it, and gone back to the original.
The same dogmatic chap who used to lecture me about banana oil also had a bee in his bonnet about Rustoleum, which he had read on the internet was the only product to use to prime plastic figures. I told him repeatedly that was simply the US brand name of stuff readily available in the UK, but he wouldn't have it and at one point was trying to source some imported cans. He has long since moved on to collecting the shapeless metal figures of his childhood, and I have no idea whether he ever got any. For the record I use Halfords own label, which works fine. For this quantity of figures I don't spray it directly on, I spray some into a pot and brush it on. Choose your vessel carefully. The primer melts the type of plastic used for disposable food bowls; don't bother asking how I know.
I believe that there is a hotly contested debate about the various advantages of undercoating in either black or white, which is why I have always used terracotta. The two strong points for me are firstly that I can see the surface detail to paint the next coat, and secondly that if you miss a bit and the undercoat shows through, then terracotta is very bland and not easily noticed. You may be thinking that the lighting for the photograph is making the terracotta look a bit garish and, well, orange. In fact it is orange. I ran out of terracotta and all I could find quickly was some cheap tubes of artist's acrylic orange in Captain Value. I'm going to put a wash on when I've finished and a matt varnish; it will be all right on the night.
I seem to have forgotten to photograph a few steps. Anyway, I use a method which I have seen described as 'imagining that the little chap is getting dressed'. I paint the flesh first, then the main uniform colour, then the various accoutrements. Apart from Valejo German Uniform, everything is craft acrylics, with no shading, highlighting or any of that arty-farty carrying on.
I then apply a diluted Humbrol enamel wash, black in this case for Germans. The level of dilution is a good question. On this occasion I thought it was much too dark, wiped it off, diluted it some more and reapplied. I appreciate that isn't very scientific, but there you go. As a digression you may notice that the surface of the cutting mat has undergone a bit of damage between the last two photos, following one of those domestic inadvertancies which seem to occur a lot in Casa Epictetus, especially when modelling is going on. This blog doesn't have the budget for competition prizes, but if any wants to take part just for the fun of it, there is huge kudos to the first person to leave a comment correctly identifying what I did.
And here's the finished article, varnished and flocked, with a couple of random sandbags for visual effect. To end where we started, I know it isn't very good, but it is quick and easy to do and entirely fit for the purpose intended. I shall not be attempting to improve.
Thursday, 17 January 2019
Lloyd George, your boys took one hell of a beating
The first game of the year in the annexe was our first try at Peter Pig's 'Square Bashing', and I'd count it as a success; as opposed to the British attack which was not, in any sense, a success. As usual with a first try of new rules there were important lessons to be learned as to what tactics to employ, for example not to call in artillery barrages too close to one's own troops.
I had read beforehand some of the reviews posted on TMP at the time that the second edition of SB was released a few years ago. There was much chuntering about the turn sequence being unclear and, in particular, how difficult it was to understand the difference between hits (for the purpose of permanent damage recording) and casualties (for the purpose of morale testing). All I can say is that we didn't have any problem at all, and for a debut run through I thought we got very few rules wrong. One other complaint people had was it all took too long, whereas we didn't find that, and it would seem to meet my requirement for a game that one can play in an evening.
That may still exclude the set up process - which in typical Peter Pig fashion seems to be very complicated and take for ever - but would certainly include calculating the result. I deferred that to a subsequent day on the basis it would be long-winded, but in fact it looks more complex than it is and I did it in five minutes. One thing I wasn't especially keen on is the fact that the value of objectives and units killed relies on the roll of dice after the game ends, but I think it would have made little difference to the outcome on this occasion. What might have made a difference is if I had told James in his role as attacker that he could get victory points for occupying squares in the defender's second and third rows as well as for capturing the objectives. In my defence I can't remember reading that bit before at all. Anyway, at the point we finished the Germans had 82 VP to the British 30. Had the British captured the farm it might have reduced that difference by about 25 even if casualties on both sides had been equal while they did it.
I mentioned in my report of last week's refight of Novara that Peter had started the New Year in his usual dice rolling form. It certainly wasn't true for this game; he was on fire, saving everything and hitting everything. It won't last.
I had read beforehand some of the reviews posted on TMP at the time that the second edition of SB was released a few years ago. There was much chuntering about the turn sequence being unclear and, in particular, how difficult it was to understand the difference between hits (for the purpose of permanent damage recording) and casualties (for the purpose of morale testing). All I can say is that we didn't have any problem at all, and for a debut run through I thought we got very few rules wrong. One other complaint people had was it all took too long, whereas we didn't find that, and it would seem to meet my requirement for a game that one can play in an evening.
That may still exclude the set up process - which in typical Peter Pig fashion seems to be very complicated and take for ever - but would certainly include calculating the result. I deferred that to a subsequent day on the basis it would be long-winded, but in fact it looks more complex than it is and I did it in five minutes. One thing I wasn't especially keen on is the fact that the value of objectives and units killed relies on the roll of dice after the game ends, but I think it would have made little difference to the outcome on this occasion. What might have made a difference is if I had told James in his role as attacker that he could get victory points for occupying squares in the defender's second and third rows as well as for capturing the objectives. In my defence I can't remember reading that bit before at all. Anyway, at the point we finished the Germans had 82 VP to the British 30. Had the British captured the farm it might have reduced that difference by about 25 even if casualties on both sides had been equal while they did it.
I mentioned in my report of last week's refight of Novara that Peter had started the New Year in his usual dice rolling form. It certainly wasn't true for this game; he was on fire, saving everything and hitting everything. It won't last.
Wednesday, 16 January 2019
Don't ask me
Readers may be wondering why your bloggist hasn't commented on the latest carryings on by the UK government, or perhaps it would be better to say what passes for a government. Tempted as I am, I shall just quote W.B. Yeats:
"I think it better that in times like these
Tuesday, 15 January 2019
Monday, 14 January 2019
Bags of delay
"You should never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for freedom and truth"
- Henrik Ibsen
Almost as unexpected as two wargaming related posts in a row is that we actually played a game last week. It was Novara, the set up of which is as described on James' blog. It's a surprise attack, and it played out in a reliably surprising manner. To allow for what happened historically, but still make a game of it is not easy, but James is rather good at that sort of thing and to be honest I don't think this was any exception; he was just unlucky. The key was that the French Gendarmes were both dismounted and undressed. Piquet is a game of turning cards and then acting on them so in this case the Gendarmes had to turn the Formation Change card - of which they have only one - to get themselves sorted out. It isn't particularly clear from James' blog, but they had to turn it twice: once to put their armour on and once to mount up. The decision before the French commander was therefore whether to arm on the first turn of the card and run the risk of the Swiss arriving while they were still unmounted, or to mount and set of to defend themselves without full harness, or indeed any trousers. An interesting dilemma, or at least under normal circumstances it would have been.
As a digression I must remind you that there are two different types of Piquet: the traditional (we use a version of this heavily amended by Peter and James for the Seven Years War) and one known by the acronym FoB (we use their heavily amended versions of this for Ancient Galleys, Punic Wars, Crusades and Italian Wars). "But," I hear you ask "doesn't that get confusing?". To which I can only answer "Of course it gets bloody confusing!". There a number of differences between the two, but the one which should concern us here is initiative. In the original version it is possible to get large swings of initiative; indeed it is possible, though rather unlikely, for one player to end up with virtually no initiative at all and stand there twiddling their thumbs all night while their opponent burns through their deck. We had a truly terrible SYW game where that happened back in September 2015 should you wish to check out the report. It was just such experiences that apparently led to the design of the revised version, in which both sides always get the same initiative, although you never know whether you might go first or second. If one side goes second then first on successive turns then they might get a run of up to a maximum of twenty card turns, but the opponent will have had ten before they start and will get ten after they finish. The key point is that you turn all your cards each turn and are therefore guaranteed to activate any special conditions such as the one above. Or are you?
Each deck also has a small number of Lull cards. When these are turned each player rolls a dice, if the non-active player wins then he gets to turn a card out of sequence. The law of averages says that it will all even out in the end. However, on this occasion, to represent their sleepiness, the French had a much larger number of Lull cards. The Swiss won a remarkably high proportion of them and ended their first turn through the deck with the French still only part way through theirs. Crucially, one of the unturned cards was Formation Change. I was therefore spared making the wrong decision of whether to mount or dress; instead they did nothing and were cut down still riding their doxies rather than their horses (historically accurate by the way). However, on the plus side Piquet's virtuous side meant that it was in the end a very close game. The Landsknechts - not fully prepared, but not completely déshabillés either - actually bested the fearsome Swiss pike, not least because of the damage done by their cannon (that last part also historically accurate). In fact had their commander not died inopportunely early on, the French might well have won. So, an odd game, but Piquet not entirely disgraced; not as much as the French cavalry anyway.
For the record, Peter's first throw of the New Year was a one on a D12; start as you mean to go on.
Wednesday, 9 January 2019
Ein Minenwerfer von Grund auf gebaut
As previously advised there hasn't been much hobby related activity recently (although watch this space for the return of wargaming to the lower Wharfe Valley, following a message from James which included the instruction to forget everything we know because he has changed the rules), but I have been inspired by the excellent Tin Soldiering On blog to do some modelling. That link should take you a post about sticking bits of cardboard onto plastic soldiers in an Airfix Magazine stylie, and it gave me the irresistible urge to do some scratch building. I decided to make a second German 17cm minenwefer. Naturally I don't need one; indeed I have no rules that differentiate these from the smaller 7.58cm version of which I have many. But, as someone once said, what's that got to do with the price of fish?
The completed model I already have (and previously mentioned here) looks like this, with apologies for the excess flash lighting:
First step is to get a scale diagram from the internet and print it out. Obviously I would both like to give credit to whoever produced it and point you to it, but I originally downloaded it a year or so back and now can't for the life of me find the website again. Should anyone want a copy then ask and I'll send you one. With no expense spared I have glued it on to the back of an empty tissue box.
I then cut out the base plate and the two side pieces. Also required is an appropriate length of 3mm plastic tube and two pieces of stiff wire, all measured from the drawing.
The base is glued on to, as it happens, the base. The layers of cardboard are to raise it to approximately the level of the crew, who will of course be on, well, bases, thus making eventual application of filler easier. The two pieces of wire are fixed to the side of the tube.
The side pieces are glued in an upright position to the base. I use UV activated glue for all this as I find superglue impossible to cope with (see previous postings for details). The stuff used to be really expensive, but now isn't; I get mine from eBay.
The barrel is glued at an appropriately jaunty angle and a thin strip of cardboard is glued along the back edge of the baseplate. Details such as sights and controls (I tend to the impressionistic rather than the strictly accurate) are added in plasticine, hardened with an acetate based nail varnish. Please don't bother telling me that Donald Featherstone used banana oil; I know that he did and I also know that banana oil is an acetate.
At this stage one looks for suitable crew, finds one doesn't have any left and places an order online. Readers may choose to perform this step earlier if they wish.
For various technical reasons reporting on painting the model will be deferred.
The completed model I already have (and previously mentioned here) looks like this, with apologies for the excess flash lighting:
First step is to get a scale diagram from the internet and print it out. Obviously I would both like to give credit to whoever produced it and point you to it, but I originally downloaded it a year or so back and now can't for the life of me find the website again. Should anyone want a copy then ask and I'll send you one. With no expense spared I have glued it on to the back of an empty tissue box.
I then cut out the base plate and the two side pieces. Also required is an appropriate length of 3mm plastic tube and two pieces of stiff wire, all measured from the drawing.
The base is glued on to, as it happens, the base. The layers of cardboard are to raise it to approximately the level of the crew, who will of course be on, well, bases, thus making eventual application of filler easier. The two pieces of wire are fixed to the side of the tube.
The side pieces are glued in an upright position to the base. I use UV activated glue for all this as I find superglue impossible to cope with (see previous postings for details). The stuff used to be really expensive, but now isn't; I get mine from eBay.
The barrel is glued at an appropriately jaunty angle and a thin strip of cardboard is glued along the back edge of the baseplate. Details such as sights and controls (I tend to the impressionistic rather than the strictly accurate) are added in plasticine, hardened with an acetate based nail varnish. Please don't bother telling me that Donald Featherstone used banana oil; I know that he did and I also know that banana oil is an acetate.
At this stage one looks for suitable crew, finds one doesn't have any left and places an order online. Readers may choose to perform this step earlier if they wish.
For various technical reasons reporting on painting the model will be deferred.
Monday, 7 January 2019
The axe for the frozen sea within
"Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order to live." - Gustave Flaubert
I have been thinking about books and how I choose what to read. Despite what the internet seems to think, Oscar Wilde most certainly didn't say "it's the things that you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it"; and in any case I ignore the warning. Like most of us probably do, I always have a non-fiction book to hand: military history of course, but also other subjects that interest me: political economy, mathematics, opera etc. I would be loathe to claim that I ever retain anything when I've finished them, but they at least temporarily make me feel virtuous.
I'm not sure that I can say the same for my recent choice of fiction. What's on my kindle is in part driven by what Amazon and/or the publishers offer at a discount (especially the 99p daily deals), but even when I buy something worthy on the cheap it doesn't always follow that I will actually read it. Indeed I find myself increasingly reading for light relief, often even taking out much of the work of choosing by reading through series of books in order. I have mentioned before that I have been re-reading the Flashman novels (got a bit stuck on Flash for Freedom!, which is somewhat more unpleasant than I remember it) and also working my way through the much longer 87th Precinct series. These latter are proving a bit difficult because not all of them are on kindle and I have therefore been forced to scout around for cheap second hand copies; paying full price being self-evidently not an option. I have reached 'Fuzz', which combines the usual far-fetched main story involving the regulars with a sub-plot about a book being published whose protagonist shares a name with one of the detectives. Presumably there is a sort of metafictional paradox going on; we know that novelists typically avoid using the type of name that one ever comes across in real life.
Going back to how I choose books, it is to some extent a case of Beziehungswahn, with one thing leading to another. I saw the film of 'Journey's End' and tried to get hold of R.C. Sherriff's autobiography. I found that to be rather too expensive for me, but did come across a reasonably priced copy of a book about the battalion in which he served, the 9th East Surrey. It then became apparent that he wasn't the only officer in the unit who went on to literary fame, and my attention was drawn to Gilbert Frankau. He is out of fashion now, but between the wars was apparently a big seller. He turned to writing after being thwarted in his ambition of becoming a Conservative MP; they wouldn't have him because he was divorced. Personally I would have thought that his being a fascist should have been more of a block. And he was; he wrote a newspaper article in 1933 entitled 'As a Jew I am Not Against Hitler'. His extended family has nevertheless, as so often with refugees and migrants, greatly enriched British cultural life; including one of them appearing in every episode of Fawlty Towers. Anyway, back to Gilbert. He wrote of his wartime experiences in fictionalised form, and, having become interested in the 9th East Surrey and the 24th Division as a whole, it seemed logical to seek that out. The book's title: 'Peter Jackson - Cigar Merchant'.
"There are two motives for reading a book: one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it." - Bertrand Russell
I have been thinking about books and how I choose what to read. Despite what the internet seems to think, Oscar Wilde most certainly didn't say "it's the things that you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it"; and in any case I ignore the warning. Like most of us probably do, I always have a non-fiction book to hand: military history of course, but also other subjects that interest me: political economy, mathematics, opera etc. I would be loathe to claim that I ever retain anything when I've finished them, but they at least temporarily make me feel virtuous.
I'm not sure that I can say the same for my recent choice of fiction. What's on my kindle is in part driven by what Amazon and/or the publishers offer at a discount (especially the 99p daily deals), but even when I buy something worthy on the cheap it doesn't always follow that I will actually read it. Indeed I find myself increasingly reading for light relief, often even taking out much of the work of choosing by reading through series of books in order. I have mentioned before that I have been re-reading the Flashman novels (got a bit stuck on Flash for Freedom!, which is somewhat more unpleasant than I remember it) and also working my way through the much longer 87th Precinct series. These latter are proving a bit difficult because not all of them are on kindle and I have therefore been forced to scout around for cheap second hand copies; paying full price being self-evidently not an option. I have reached 'Fuzz', which combines the usual far-fetched main story involving the regulars with a sub-plot about a book being published whose protagonist shares a name with one of the detectives. Presumably there is a sort of metafictional paradox going on; we know that novelists typically avoid using the type of name that one ever comes across in real life.
Going back to how I choose books, it is to some extent a case of Beziehungswahn, with one thing leading to another. I saw the film of 'Journey's End' and tried to get hold of R.C. Sherriff's autobiography. I found that to be rather too expensive for me, but did come across a reasonably priced copy of a book about the battalion in which he served, the 9th East Surrey. It then became apparent that he wasn't the only officer in the unit who went on to literary fame, and my attention was drawn to Gilbert Frankau. He is out of fashion now, but between the wars was apparently a big seller. He turned to writing after being thwarted in his ambition of becoming a Conservative MP; they wouldn't have him because he was divorced. Personally I would have thought that his being a fascist should have been more of a block. And he was; he wrote a newspaper article in 1933 entitled 'As a Jew I am Not Against Hitler'. His extended family has nevertheless, as so often with refugees and migrants, greatly enriched British cultural life; including one of them appearing in every episode of Fawlty Towers. Anyway, back to Gilbert. He wrote of his wartime experiences in fictionalised form, and, having become interested in the 9th East Surrey and the 24th Division as a whole, it seemed logical to seek that out. The book's title: 'Peter Jackson - Cigar Merchant'.
"There are two motives for reading a book: one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it." - Bertrand Russell
Saturday, 5 January 2019
Alfred Munnings - War Artist 1918
I have been to the National Army Museum to see their current exhibition of Great War paintings by Sir Alfred Munnings, many of which have been brought together for the first time in a century. Munnings specialised in painting horses, although the notes to the exhibition claim that he actually preferred cattle as models because of their docility. I know very little about painting and even less about horses, but what I do feel qualified to say is that the animals in the pictures look to me like they do in real life, which one cannot always say about some well-known equine artists.
Munnings was commissioned in 1918 by the future Lord Beaverbrook to document the Canadian Cavalry Brigade in France, whose commander General Seely is shown above on his horse Warrior. Munnings - a notorious womaniser whose first wife tried to commit suicide on their honeymoon - only had one eye, which seems to me to make his work even more impressive. Being cavalry they were well behind the front and most of the paintings show formations en route or the horses being cared for.
However, while he was there the front moved due to the German Kaiserschlacht offensive and whilst that did give Munnings the opportunity to paint perhaps his most famous work, 'The Charge of Flowerdew's Squadron', he wasn't an eyewitness and it probably didn't take place as it does in the picture.
In fact he had been moved to the safer task of painting the Canadian Forestry Corps, a formation that I had previously been unaware of. It would seem that it was exactly what it sounds like: a large number of lumberjacks brought across the Atlantic to cut down trees, eat their lunch and go to the lavatory. It's one of those unsung areas that probably nevertheless had a large impact. Between 1914 and 1918 British imports of lumber fell by 10 million tons per year freeing up capacity in merchant shipping already under fierce attack by submarines.
The permanent collection at the museum contains many interesting items, among them for example the hat that Picton wore during the Battle of Waterloo. Or should I say during part of the battle, because also on display is the musket ball that killed him. Highly recommended should you find yourself at a loose end on the Kings Road. Any museum trip worth its salt will always generate a useless fact. That from this one is that the modern Hungarian army has no Hussar regiments.
Munnings was commissioned in 1918 by the future Lord Beaverbrook to document the Canadian Cavalry Brigade in France, whose commander General Seely is shown above on his horse Warrior. Munnings - a notorious womaniser whose first wife tried to commit suicide on their honeymoon - only had one eye, which seems to me to make his work even more impressive. Being cavalry they were well behind the front and most of the paintings show formations en route or the horses being cared for.
However, while he was there the front moved due to the German Kaiserschlacht offensive and whilst that did give Munnings the opportunity to paint perhaps his most famous work, 'The Charge of Flowerdew's Squadron', he wasn't an eyewitness and it probably didn't take place as it does in the picture.
In fact he had been moved to the safer task of painting the Canadian Forestry Corps, a formation that I had previously been unaware of. It would seem that it was exactly what it sounds like: a large number of lumberjacks brought across the Atlantic to cut down trees, eat their lunch and go to the lavatory. It's one of those unsung areas that probably nevertheless had a large impact. Between 1914 and 1918 British imports of lumber fell by 10 million tons per year freeing up capacity in merchant shipping already under fierce attack by submarines.
The permanent collection at the museum contains many interesting items, among them for example the hat that Picton wore during the Battle of Waterloo. Or should I say during part of the battle, because also on display is the musket ball that killed him. Highly recommended should you find yourself at a loose end on the Kings Road. Any museum trip worth its salt will always generate a useless fact. That from this one is that the modern Hungarian army has no Hussar regiments.
Tuesday, 1 January 2019
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)