PotCXXpouri

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

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

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

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

Partizan 2023

 Enough of things I've done before, here's something new: I've been to Partizan for the first time ever. I have to say, it was just as good as I was told it would be and I enjoyed it a lot. It's a nice venue, which didn't get too hot, plenty of traders and far more games than one gets at, for example, Vaprnartak. No doubt comprehensive, photo-replete reviews will appear elsewhere so I will cover the fact that I didn't take many pictures or write down the details behind anything by just concentrating on a couple of the highlights for me.

Inevitably perhaps, the first would be the refight of Möckern using C&C being displayed by the Old Guard from Bexley. The coincidence of us having played this exact same thing last week is perhaps lessened by the point I made in the last post that there aren't very many published scenarios for Epic C&C. They were using 28mm figures on, I think, 6" hexes and so had room for much more terrain and larger unit sizes than I use. I've seen elsewhere on someone's blog about the show that he found the players to be somewhat uninterested in speaking to punters. I have to say that I didn't find that to be the case and they passed on one or two tweaks to the scenario which they use to even it up a bit. I may well incorporate those into at least one of the two further reruns of this that I am planning for this week. (For those wondering why I would do that it's because I want to host two games and I don't really have the time to set up anything else. In an exciting development we shall be back in the Legendary Wargames Room of James 'Olicanalad' Roach for the following week.)

My only purchase of the day - although there may just possibly be a rather large follow up on-line order - was also C&C related. I bought some activation markers from Warbases. As readers may know from photos in previous posts I use a small marker behind each unit which shows type and strength. It has been our practice for many years now to rotate this by ninety degrees to indicate that a unit is activated for this turn. However, this has proven to be an increasingly complex concept for one player - an age related issue maybe? - so I thought I'd try a different tack to see if it was simpler. I believe the markers I bought are actually intended for Chain of Command, although I got involved in a demo game of the same and didn't see any such markers.

I say 'involved in' rather than 'played in' because it had finished before I had managed to remember anything much from my one previous play of the game. We - a British paratroop force - won from a losing position by rolling a double activation, which I believe is exactly what happened in my first game; another spooky coincidence. You may just be able to see towards the far end of the table a burning German AFV (possibly a Stug III) which, in my only real contribution, I had caused to be knocked out by the anti-tank gun at the bottom of the photo (possibly a 6 pdr) by rolling a shed load of 5s and 6s. The distinguished looking chap on the left is Don Avis, my first ever wargaming opponent, now acting as proof-reader, event-organiser and all round consigliere to Richard Clarke of Too Fat Lardies fame. I hadn't expected to see Don there and we hadn't been chatting for more than a minute or so before the subject of our failed career as rock musicians was raised; it was ever thus. Don also dragged me into a game of What a Cowboy, which I thought was great fun, enhanced perhaps by the fact that the boys from Boreham Wood cleaned up the town and took down the bad guys.

So, all in all, a good day out.

PotCXIXpouri

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

-Lemony Snicket

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

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

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

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

Brutus Is An Honourable Man

 All this talk of politics reminds me that I have been to see the Royal Shakespeare Company's current touring version of 'Julius Caesar'. I've always seen the play as being about what sacrifices one is willing to make in order to achieve political success. In Shakespeare's view such sacrifices are always those of other people rather than oneself, starting with one's enemies but when push comes to shove also including one's friends and allies. It was a fairly average production although I did think that the assassination itself was done very well.

I've also been to see 'Pride & Prejudice (sort of)', Isobel McArthur's very funny adaptation of the Jane Austen classic. I'd seen it before, it was one of the last things I'd been to before the first lockdown, and if anything it was even better this time round. I highly recommend it if you get a chance.

Also very funny was Alan Bennett, reading from his diaries and answering questions on subjects ranging from T.S. Eliot to the ironmongers of Settle via a rant about the current government for which he got a rousing round of applause. Mind you, he also got clapped when he said that he always lays down on the floor when Jehovah's Witnesses knock on his door. He's a genius, although you don't need me to tell you that. He's 89 today; so happy birthday to him.

Some election musings

 

Well, I lost again, but am going to claim a moral victory after having seen my vote increase by over 50% from four years ago. As you may have guessed my candidature was more in the way of showing the flag (or this case the rose) than in expectation of winning. However, elsewhere we doubled our representation on the council, so only another eight years and we'll be in charge.

I was standing for Otley Town Council, which is too insignificant to form part of the various running totals of councils and councillors which have been published over the last couple of days. A sort-of relative of mine (*) was elected on Thursday to Ribble Valley council as an independent. Now, Ribble Valley is a proper council and he was therefore included in all the analyses. I don't have sufficient forbearance to refrain from pointing out that I actually got more votes than he did. The raw figures being banded about by the media need fairly careful interpretation before any conclusions are drawn.

* He and I used to be married to two sisters, but now we're not.

Fire and Fury

 It's election day, but counting won't take place until tomorrow afternoon, meaning it will be another 48 hours or so before I write something here along the lines that the voters of West Chevin ward don't know what they're doing. In the meantime let's have a third wargaming post in a row, possibly a record for the blog.

Mark brought round some of his ACW figures. He is inevitably in the middle of rebasing them - he is the king of rebasing - but he had completed enough for a small game. It had been probably getting on for twenty years since I had played the period and I had never played the rules used, so it was all a pleasant change. Mark opted for Brigade level Fire and Fury, and I found them easy enough to pick up. I can't vouch for how well they reflect the period, firstly because I don't know much about it and secondly because Peter and I, as Union commanders, decided that a suicidal charge across open ground was the best tactic to pursue. In fairness to us we also tried a flanking march around the woods on our left, but you can judge how successful that was by the fact that I didn't take any photos of the forces engaged in it.

I did take one of the highwater mark of our assault in the centre, but the boys in blue were driven back by the rebels' musketry and that's as close as we came to taking the objective. Despite everything, I enjoyed it. I have to caveat that by repeating that it was a small game and we started with all units having the same quality, weapons and size in order to keep things simple. But I'd be up for a larger, more complex game; once, of course, that Mark has rebased everything.