Optimised for Rowing

 "There are no galley-slaves in the royal vessel of divine love - every man works his oar voluntarily!"

- Saint Francis de Sales

Someone - and I wish I could be more specific, but I wasn't paying attention - has acquired some ancient galleys and is looking for a set of rules. As part of the process of passing some on to him (or possibly, though unlikely, her) we cracked out James's Punic wars fleets and had at it. The rules were 'Fleet of Battle' as written by James and Peter and published in Wargames Illustrated (*) a few years ago. We played them as printed, in other words nothing like the the last time that we played a set of rules with that title, or probably as we shall play next time. I'm fairly sure that last time we did this we were trying to make them work with hexes, the same hexes that can still be seen on the tabletop in the photo above.

In any event, they worked well enough, with a bit of fudging where there appeared to be bits missing. For reasons of space the published version effectively only contains the QRS and not actually any rules per se. Obviously we know how it's all meant to hang together, but you have to wonder what anyone else made of it. Still, as I always say, if you can't rely on the common sense of wargamers then what can you rely on?

* I think; it could just as easily have been one of the others.

The Arctic Summer of Edwin Drood

"In hell there is no other punishment than to begin over and over again the tasks left unfinished in your lifetime." - Andre Gide

It has come to my attention that I somehow contrived to publish the previous post without its concluding paragraph. Obviously I could go back and edit it, but, let's face it, anyone who is interested has already read it and anyway it would involve me in extra work. So, either supply your own witty and insightful conclusion or delight in my flouting of blogging conventions as you see fit.

I am actually quite keen to write about wargaming, it's just that there hasn't been any. I have however been to Recon, probably the nearest show to me. I ran into Bob, my fellow Holy League commander in the Ravenna game at Fiasco. This time he was playing in the Lance & Longbow's Battle of Lewes game and I experienced a certain amount of schadenfreude to find that he was doing as badly on his own as he did alongside me. He also revealed what happened to the missing dice, so that at least is one less thing for me to worry about. I mentioned a couple of years ago not being able to take a picture of Euan in his re-enactment gear, but was better prepared this year. Here he is with a couple of camp followers; I think his luck is in:

I have now been paid for my recent piece of work and so the show was a good opportunity for me to start spending, an opportunity that I passed up on. I have decided, pro tem at least, to finish off some existing projects before I start a new one. I realise that it's  not wargaming as generally understood. With that in mind I have been painting some more heavy weapons for the Great War. I don't know if I mentioned the way that 'Square Bashing' marks casualties before, but it's a bit odd, being done by the half base. "Why not just have twice as many bases, each of them half the size?" I hear you ask, and that seems a very fair question. I have approached the basing of infantry in the manner of the farmer with seventeen cows and three sons (one of whom he doesn't seem to like very much), but that still left machine guns and mortars. There are plenty in the pile - one of the advantages/disadvantages of plastic - so I've finished off a few. I've even scratch built a second 6" Newton mortar for the British. And the sum total of my spending at the show was a copy of the Osprey on the Whippet medium tank which was going cheap for some reason.

I have also broken with my recent habit and bought a wargaming magazine; indeed I bought two. I was tempted to go for the full set, but this month's Miniature Wargames has an elf on the cover and there are limits, dash it all. I bought Wargames Illustrated because it has an article on Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart, previously featured on this blog, and Wargames Soldiers and Strategy has a scenario for Maloyaroslavets, previously, er, featured on this blog. WI also has an article on Medieval Sieges, and it is possible that buying some laser-cut MDF castle walls is the way that the money ends up getting spent. I have quite a large collection of siege weapons, which have very rarely seen any action.

Pot15pouri

It has been drawn to my attention that in my last blog posting I merely listed the boardgames that I played rather than describing them and giving readers the benefit of my much sought after opinion. I shall rectify that immediately. I didn't like Phase 10 terribly much whereas I did like Tikal a lot. The former is a proprietary version of a Rummy variant (a brief trip to the mighty Wikipedia reveals it to be Liverpool Rummy) in the same way that Uno is simply a publisher's version of Twizzle. It passed the time, but one would have to be very bored - probably in a tent in the rain - to play all ten phases. It also seemed odd to me that the later phases are easier to get that the earlier ones. Shome mishtake shurely?

A random Liverpudlian plays Rummy

Tikal on the other hand appealed to me and not just because I won rather handily. Like most Eurogames the theme is rather lightly applied on top, but having been to both Chichen Itza and Tulum I am down with the Mayans. And explorer placement also floated my boat a bit more than worker placement even though it is quite clearly exactly the same thing. Add to that hex tiles and volcanoes reminiscent of Survive! and I was sold.

I have been ploughing my way through more wargames magazines; this time Wargames Illustrated 313. The theme of this edition is the Franco-Prussian War and I enjoyed those articles. I have only ever played one FPW game - which from memory involved Mark suddenly announcing that the gates of the city I was defending had been thrown open by the citizens - and don't know much about it. I do however know that no human has ever adopted the posture of the German officer in the painting on the front cover. There is also, fittingly, another fine tribute to Donald Featherstone and, not unexpectedly, a lot of guff about Flames of War.

Myth

"The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic." - John F. Kennedy

I could write a whole blog on the irony of that quote coming from JFK of all people. However, I shall restrain myself and address the subject that I had in mind. Last night saw the Operation Crusader game that we have been playing come to a sort-of conclusion. It ended anyway. I shall write about it in due course as no doubt will James. Between weeks two and three James had, as is his wont, changed the rules, including some aspects of the morale/training classes of the troops. Coincidentally this month's Wargames Illustrated contains an article by Barry 'League of Augsberg' Hilton on the questions of which units deserve superior performance status on the tabletop and how is this attained. As one of his examples he takes the Royal Scots Greys performance at Waterloo; his point being that while they performed admirably, no-one could possibly have known this in advance, and so rather than being rated as superior at the start of the battle they should be average and if the luck of the dice/cards are with them they will live up to their illustrious forbears and if it isn't then they won't. he further ascribes part of any reluctance on the part of wargamers to do that to Lady Butler's famous painting 'Scotland Forever!'.

The original of this is, of course, in Leeds Art Gallery and so I decided to go and take another look at it. Painted in 1881, it has no value as a historical record and is - exactly as Hilton implies - simply propaganda. Furthermore, while current day wargamers may take it as supporting the elite status of the 2nd Dragoons, I suspect that it was in fact simply meant to support High Victorian British Imperialism. The curators at the gallery would appear to think so because it is hung on the same wall as another painting that will no doubt be familiar to readers: 'General Gordon's Last Stand' by George William Joy.

Naturally no-one knows how Chinese Gordon met his death, although even those who point to the negative aspects of his character (his religious views were somewhat odd even by the peculiar standards of those who, er, hold religious views in the first place) don't denigrate his physical courage, so it's all at least possible. It has, in any event, become the accepted version and - if memory serves me right - Charlton Heston's demise in the 1966 film owes a debt to this portrayal.
The imperialist apologia is completed by a third painting on the same gallery wall, the truly dreadful 'Drums of the Fore and Aft' by Edward Matthew Hale, depicting the selfless sacrifice of child musicians in order to rally the regiment.

For those wishing for an antidote to all this there is a sculpture in the same gallery by Bob and Roberta Smith which acts as a commentary on the Joy painting and draws parallels between 19th century and 21st century western imperialism in the Muslim world. For those wishing to be reminded of the reality of war I would also recommend, currently to be found hanging in one of the upstairs galleries while on loan from a private collection, 'Night Arrival of Walking Wounded' by C.R.W. Nevinson, the marvellous futurist war painter who served as an ambulance driver in France during the First World War. That's the truth, rather than the myth.