Met you not with my true love?

‘As you came from the holy land
Of Walsingham,
Met you not with my true love
By the way as you came?’

‘How shall I know your true love,
That have met many a one,
As I went to the holy land,
That have come, that have gone?’

‘She is neither white nor brown,
But as the heavens fair;
There is none hath a form so divine
In the earth or the air.’

‘Such an one did I meet, good sir,
Such an angelic face,
Who like a queen, like a nymph, did appear
By her gait, by her grace.’

‘She hath left me here alone,
All alone, as unknown,
Who sometime did me lead with herself,
And me loved as her own.’

‘What’s the cause that she leaves you alone,
And a new way doth take,
Who loved you once as her own,
And her joy did you make?’

‘I have loved her all my youth,
But now old, as you see,
Love likes not the falling fruit
From the withered tree.

‘Know that Love is a careless child,
And forgets promise past,
He is blind, he is deaf when he list,
And in faith never fast.

‘His desire is a dureless content
And a trustless joy;
He is won with a world of despair
And is lost with a toy.’

‘Of womenkind such indeed is the love
Or the word love abused,
Under which many childish desires
And conceits are excused.

‘But love is a durable fire,
In the mind ever burning;
Never sick, never old, never dead,
From itself never turning.’

                     - Sir Walter Raleigh

Thorbjørn Risager & The Black Tornado

I have been to see the award-winning Thorbjørn Risager & The Black Tornado. A seven piece on the night I saw them (neither the alto sax player nor, sadly, the Tornadettes having made it to the wilds of West Yorkshire), they mostly play original material plus covers of artists such as Muddy Waters, Big Joe Williams and, less obviously, Nat King Cole. I thought they were excellent; judge for yourself:

Who exactly put those men in column?

Somewhat to my surprise the recent post with the fewest views is last week’s report on the current Seven Years War game at James’. Apart from anything else the mention of Russians usually attracts spambots in their droves. Anyway, things have moved on, mostly to the benefit of the Prussians. In the centre the bridge was completed and units moved across it, with mixed success it must be said. On the right the Prussian heavy artillery was able to wreak havoc on some rather badly placed infantry columns – the player responsible perhaps wisely choosing not to reappear this week – and to take out the Russian artillery facing them. It would seem that this is one of those games that James isn’t going to feature on his blog, so I’m afraid that’s probably the best description that you’ll get of the action.

Some readers (Hello Don) have said that the apparent constant rule changes in our games would drive them mad, but I think this game demonstrates why they are sometimes not such a bad idea. This is the only period in which the rules played are recognisably classic Piquet (although I will make a prediction here that that’s what James ends up using for the Peninsular War collection currently being painted) and the differences from the base set come from, perhaps, four directions.

Firstly, the chrome which reflects how we (i.e. James) understand warfare of the time to have been conducted. This is, of course, precisely, how Piquet was intended to be played and there are published supplements covering periods from ancients through to the 20th century. The original set is Horse and Musket, but perhaps mainly Napoleonic focused and the desire to have something more mid eighteenth century and specifically central European led to the ‘Lemon’ rules being written. Pretty much everything I know about the period comes from playing these rules, so I can shed no light at all on how successful they may or may not be in achieving this.

Secondly, there are things that just seem as if they could be improved. Changes made of this type would include playing Major Morale on the opponent rather than oneself when the card is turned and a morale challenge only costing a morale chip when it fails, both of which, in my opinion, substantially improve things.

Thirdly, there is the influence of other rulesets. Classic Piquet was written for much smaller, shorter lasting games than those we tend to play in the legendary wargames room. Morale is lost per stand lost, and when you’re dead, you’re dead. The publishers of Piquet subsequently issued a derivative set of rules – collectively known as FoB – which among other things reduce the potential for the swings of fortune that put a lot of people off and also make multiplayer games more practical. Further changes related to loss of morale, now by unit not stand, and the introduction of the ability to rally back losses that had been taken. Both of these changes suited the longer games we played and so were adopted. We then experimented with Black Powder for a different period - the Italian wars. Black Powder allows rallying back - although it makes it bloody difficult to do in practice – but the first hit can never be recovered i.e. units can never be recovered back to full strength. We rather liked that, and so it too was adopted.

Regular readers may also recall that the definition of a flank has proved problematic. It cropped up during the very first game that I played with the Ilkley Lads – an ACW game which must have been getting on for fifteen years ago now – and it has done so pretty much ever since. I think (hope?) that we have settled on one (if the centre of your unit is behind the extended front edge of the target unit then it’s a flank), but having done so I think we are just about to transcend flanks completely. Black Powder talks in terms of ‘enfilade’ instead of ‘flank’ and because there’s a compelling logic to that it has started to make an appearance in our games using other rules.

Which neatly brings me on to the fourth reason for changing the rules: new elements to the game. In this case it’s obviously the pontoon bridge. Standing looking down at the table, it doesn’t make much sense that a unit crossing the bridge in column should take more casualties when fired at from the side than from the front, which gives a push to the switch from ‘flank’ to ‘enfilade’. But that wasn’t the only issue that just didn’t seem right. As I referred to in the previous post we had need of some mechanics for building the bridge and so used those in the original Piquet rules. On the table the rather slow progress in construction enabled Peter to send up some Cossacks to harry the sappers. A quick look at the rules shows that the effect of this is, er, nothing at all; the bridge builders just carry on regardless. The same turns out to be true for being under fire from artillery. None of that seemed to make sense and so some tweaks were applied. In addition there are artillery rules for shooting at structures (cue much discussion as to whether a pontoon bridge was more like a wooden fence or a wooden house) or for shooting at troops, but none for targeting both at the same time if the latter are passing across the former; so some more adjustments were deemed to be required. What we ended up with still didn’t quite feel right - it is of course very important that it still all fits in with the general style of Piquet, card driven, opposed single dice rolls etc. - and I have no doubt that it will have evolved further by next week. I personally can’t see any alternative to this suck it and see development process, and prefer it to playing on regardless with something that is clearly incorrect. Sometimes it’s the journey rather than the destination.

For Chriss

O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power
Dost hold Time’s fickle glass, his sickle, hour;
Who hast by waning grown, and therein show’st
Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self grow’st.
If Nature, sovereign mistress over wrack,
As thou goest onwards, still will pluck thee back,
She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill
May time disgrace and wretched minutes kill.
Yet fear her, O thou minion of her pleasure!
She may detain, but not still keep, her treasure:
   Her audit (though delayed) answered must be,
   And her quietus is to render thee.

-          William Shakespeare, Sonnet 126

Alceste moi

“My hate is general, I detest all men;
Some because they are wicked and do evil,
Others because they tolerate the wicked,
Refusing them the active vigorous scorn
Which vice should stimulate in virtuous minds.”

- Molière

And so to the theatre. I have been to see an all-female production of Molière’s ‘The Misanthrope’, or more properly of Tony Harrison’s early 1970s updated translation. This version further changed things so that the circle in which hypocrisy was being practised was that of modern celebrity television chefs. Not being at all familiar with those being run down behind their backs - I was straining my ears in vain for mention of Fanny Craddock or the Galloping Gourmet - I was a bit lost at times.

You can't beat a bit of Fanny

However the energy of the verse speaking swept it all along most pleasurably. There were also some well-choreographed physical interludes among the rhyming, plus yet another prop inadvertency. Less intrusive than last week’s curtain problems the Michelin inspector’s peeling false moustache nevertheless caused just as much amusement. Of the three ladies I went with one loved the play and the other two weren’t so keen; they did like the shoes though.

T'ain't Such a Much

This House

“This house is a circus, berserk as fuck 
We tend to see that as a perk, though”

-          Arctic Monkeys

And so to the theatre. I have been to see James Graham’s rather fine political play ‘This House’. Funny, thought provoking and well-acted I would urge anyone in the UK to catch it while it’s on tour. Anyone outside the UK won’t understand anything, which brings me to the main point: it casts a really embarrassing light on our particular form of democracy. Whether a government stands or falls shouldn't really depend on wheeling terminally ill people into Westminster on trolleys. The story regarding Frank 'abstain in person' Maguire being plied with drink and locked in a cupboard was certainly current at the time, whether true or not. There has to be a more rational, dare I say modern, way of doing it. In one small move in the right direction it has just been agreed that MPs on parental leave can make use of proxy votes. Welcome, sort of, to the twenty first century.

In fairness some of the events – which I am old enough to have lived through – were so bizarre that any system of governance would have struggled to deal with them.  Considering that the scenery mainly consists of the whips offices plus a few benches to represent the House of Commons they manage to very effectively portray the whole John Stonehouse affair including re-enacting his pretend drowning on a beach in Florida. And whilst I have no idea whether Audrey Wise was as terrifying as made out to be here, the script does allow her to demonstrate that sometimes principles matter; there was a spontaneous round of applause when she did so. From where I stood then, and indeed stand now, getting arrested on the Grunwick picket line was a source of pride rather than shame. In fact I’m pretty sure that Shirley Williams – on a very different wing of the party – also picketed; as did I.

As did he

I’m not old enough to have actually met any of the players in the action, although one of them’s son-in-law was the chap responsible for sending me to post-invasion Grenada a few years later. The actor playing him didn’t look old enough, but then we were all so young in those days. Speaking of the cast, there are nineteen of them (plus musicians whose changing hair styles between acts reflect the fact that the 1970s weren’t exactly homogeneous), which inevitably increases the likelihood of sitting there asking oneself where one has previously seen some of them. The answer – again for UK readers – is the Oak Furniture Land adverts; apparently there's a sale on if you get down there quick.

"We all know what parliament is, and we are all ashamed of it." - Robert Louis Stevenson

There were moments

The dog's spillocks

Wargamers of a certain age will no doubt recall with the same nostalgia as me Chapter 26 of Donald Featherstone's 'Advanced Wargames', the one on Engineering that contained rules on arcane subjects such as 'throttling down earthen banks' and 'spillocking'. I'm pretty sure that, at least in my middle aged wargaming renaissance, I had never actually put any of this into use; bridges have been blown up, they have never been constructed. But now, the time has come, because James' pontoon bridge has reached the table, cards have been turned, dice have been rolled, and it has been erected across the raging river. Or, as it turned out in this case, not erected across the raging river.

In the inevitable way of new toys, the unit of Prussian pioneers entrusted with building it rolled up as poor, followed by a battery of Russian howitzers knocking down the bits they did complete. Still, there's always next week. James and I, as the Prussians, put in a pretty average performance all round. We nearly lost within the first half hour because I completely misunderstood which road exit the Russians needed to capture to win and didn't bother to protect it. We also did a most peculiar little dance with half of our cavalry which achieve nothing except to waste a lot of initiative and present a flank to the same howitzers, thereby incurring heavy losses. Still, as someone immensely wise once said, there's always next week.

I must mention that the Russian guns that did all the damage were commanded by Mark Dudley, making a welcome return to the legendary wargames room, and showing a remarkable facility with a set of rules that been changed quite significantly since he last played them.

Advice

Folks, I'm telling you,
Birthing is hard
And dying is mean
So get yourself
Some loving in between.

            - Langston Hughes

S.O.S.

Should anyone be wondering why the font size on this blog keeps varying between posts - well so am I.

Be that as may, here's some Agnetha; I mean here's some ABBA:

Ahi, sul funereo letto

"Non sai tu che se l’anima mia
Il rimorso dilacera e rode,
Quel suo grido non cura, non ode,
Sin che l’empie di fremiti amor?
Non sai tu che di te resteria,
Se cessasse di battere il cor!
Quante notti ho vegliato anelante!
Come a lungo infelice lottai!"

- Gustavo, Un ballo in maschera

And so to the opera. It was a half full auditorium, although personally I had no problems at all with the journey. Those who stayed at home missed an excellent production - for some reason the company's first ever - of 'Un ballo de maschera'. Indeed the chap sitting next to me turned out to have seen it already and been so impressed that he had driven a hundred miles to see it again and was setting off for the return journey when the final curtain call had been taken. I did say that the weather didn't really seem as bad as the media were saying.

The performance was set in a vague mid twentieth century milieu, with some very sharp suits and long overcoats among the singers giving the impression that liquor was being bootlegged somewhere offstage. Were I designing it I might have been tempted to extend that image with Ulrica the soothsayer practising her trade in a speakeasy. Instead she appeared to be dressed as a member of the French resistance, perhaps signifying that if you asked to tell your fortune then you had better listen carefully because she would say it only once. 

Dunque ascoltate:

It was Ulrica's lair that caused a descent into unintentional comedy on the night. While she communed with Lucifer red curtains were drawn up on three sides of the stage to both provide some atmosphere and to give Gustavo a place from which to eavesdrop; sadly a large part of it promptly fell back down again (my new acquaintance confirmed that this hadn't happened when he had seen it previously). Rather than making use of this large gap, members of the cast chose to enter and exit through what was left, having of course to avoid where the King was hiding behind the arras. The resulting chaos brought back happy memories of the Morecambe and Wise show, only with better incidental music.

"I'm singing all the right notes..."

I've written about this opera before. It's one of those sad stories in which the wife goes back to her husband rather than stay with the man she really loves: Casablanca springs to mind, you may be able to think of others.

"Mi schianto il cor – ti lascio"

Plastic fantastic

"I love plastic. I want to be plastic." - Andy Warhol

If asked to define what sort of wargamer I am I would always answer "20mm plastic"; the slight irony being that by far the majority of the gaming that I actually do is 28mm metal in the legendary wargames room of James 'Olicanalad' Roach. However the collecting, painting and so on is essentially 20mm plastic with a bit of 20mm metal to make up the numbers. One thing that really differentiates us from other types of wargamer is the acquisition process. The boxes contain what they contain; some of the figures are of limited use and the proportions of different type of figures (e.g. officers, flagbearers etc) are never what one would wish for. When I started out all those years ago we would simply have unit sizes that reflected box contents and everything got used; nowadays I have a pile of stuff that will only ever be used for conversions. In addition, boxes are only in production for limited runs - the moulds are expensive relative to those for metal figures - and when they're gone they are (probably) gone. It took me a lot of time and a certain amount of expense to track down the last remaining sets of Hat WWI German Heavy Weapons in Europe when I belatedly decided that I needed ( OK, wanted) some. What we tend to do therefore is buy anything new that comes out and looks as if it might be vaguely useful. In my case the latest such purchase is some very nice figures of Medieval Gunpowder Castle Artillery. My 15th century forces already have so many bombards and the like that they can never all fit on the table at the same time anyway, but...

Some of the bombards

Their arrival inevitably led to some thought about upgrading my existing walls. The two issues that bug me are that I don't have enough and that I didn't make them modular, in the sense that all pieces are the same length. I might just have to treat myself to some laser cut MDF, probably the 28mm scaled ones; well it is my birthday soon. I mentioned this to James on our jaunt to Vapnartak and he tried to pass on some spare MDF sheet he had so that I could scratchbuild some. I think we all know that isn't going to happen. More usefully he has lent me a set of WRG 6th rules so that I can have a look at the siege rules. So, a relatively small amount of money spent on a set of figures that I don't really need will probably escalate into a much larger sum for something else that I don't really need. Such is life, as we used to say in the 1970s, such is life.

"You're alive!"

Which were the exact words addressed to me when I returned to boardgaming after a couple of months break to recharge the meeple mojo. These youngsters think that anyone over forty is on their last legs; well let me tell them there is nothing old about me. Anyway, I was going to do this list quarterly, but having realised that I couldn't for the life of me remember one of the games at all despite the name being written down in front of me, I thought it would be better to crack on and do it now before senility really kicks in.


7 Wonders: I have always liked some aspects of this game, and now like it a lot because for the first time ever I won.

Age of Steam: This was the best new (new to me that is) game played so far this year. It's a cracker. I always pick a strategy at random when faced with a new game and in this case went for: 'build railways on the bit of the board nearest me'. I came a respectable third out of five, but perhaps more up-front analysis might be helpful next time; and I hope that there is a next time.

Altiplano: This is recognisably by the same designer as Orléans (see below), but introduces an asymmetric element that didn't really do it for me. The start player marker is also a most irritating and large cardboard llama, or alpaca, or some other South American camelid. By the way, did you now that the Linnaean name for the Llama is Lama glama?

Dinosaur Island: Essentially Jurassic Park the board game. I took it a bit literally and did nothing but create dinosaurs in the laboratory. Little wooden visitors turned up in their droves, discovered there was nothing else to do and nowhere to eat and so buggered off again. I came last. I'm not so bothered about playing this again.

Flash Point: Fire Rescue: It's a co-operative game, but I rather liked it. It has a neat mechanism for spreading the fire that might have wargaming applications; can't think of any off the top of my head, but it might have. As with The Grizzled I don't know anyone who has ever won at this game.

Imperial Settlers: The French have an expression "l'esprit d l'escalier" which just about sums up ho I played this game. After every turn I would slap my head and tell myself what I should have done instead.

Junk Art: An amusing game of piling up odd shaped pieces of plastic until they all fall over. I do like a 3D game.

Nusfjord:  My random strategy in my first play of this game about building boats and going fishing was to focus on forestry. I came last.

Orléans: This was my favourite new game of last year and is strongly recommended. A nice set of balanced mechanics and scoring paths, with just enough player interaction to mean you need to watch what the others are doing.

Photosynthesis: Another excellent 3D game - hooray! - featuring trees and the sun. I am well known as being an expert on how the Earth goes round the sun and can confirm that it doesn't work as depicted here. We played the rules wrong - and if only I had a quid for every time I'd said that - but I'll take the win anyway. It's a spatial awareness game and we all know how poor I usually am at those. 

Sub Terra: It's another co-operative game, but this one is dull, dull, dull. There are dungeons, there are monsters, there is little tension. I was some sort of bodyguard with a power that allowed me to take hits on behalf of the others in the team, who supposedly had skills which would enable us to escape. When it became apparent that this wasn't going to happen I deserted them and made a run for the entrance; I didn't make it, but I died looking after number one, and that must count for something.

Telestrations: Amusing ten minute pictorial Chinese whispers.

Thunderstone Quest: This is a better deck builder than they usually are, because there is an end purpose in mind to use the deck for. Sadly this purpose is going into a dungeon - yawn - to fight monsters - yawn.

Zendo: This is a bit like the old Mastermind game, but better because it's multi-player. I'm not sure why you would pay for the plastic bits and pieces when you can clearly just play pretty much the same game with a couple of packs of cards.

Yäkatit

Did you know that in Ethiopia the quadrennial intercalation is immediately following August 29th by the Julian Calendar (currently, and for the next eighty years or so, September 11th by the Gregorian Calendar)? I mention it because, it not being a leap year, February seems to have finished.

February wargaming was rudely curtailed by the weather. The weekly game had to be postponed due to a frozen pitch and I can't get out to the annexe because a snowdrift has blocked the back door. I could force my way through it, but I'd get rather wet and cold in the process. What I really need is a snow shovel, but the one that I own is stranded on the far side of the garden, surrounded by tracks in the snow made by, I would guess, a large rodent.

I can get out of the front door however and cultural activities have continued apace. Opera North's Don Giovanni was odd in places, but rolled along nicely and I warmed to it s the evening progressed. It was a revival, but I think the original production occurred at the height of my nomadic lifestyle and so I missed it. It has some fairly odd elements in it such as, for example, time travel. The programme says that this is to represent the fact that the figure of 'the great seducer' appears throughout history in all parts of society. Perhaps he does, I wouldn't know about such things. The orchestra were marvellous as always and, for me, Zerlina was the pick of the singers. I also saw Leeds Youth Opera's inventive take on la Bohème, which was set in the refugee camp outside Calais. Rodolfo was also sung by, and played as, a woman, both of which worked rather well. The kept woman aspects were avoided in the action and the surtitles, presumably because of the young age of some of the performers. The fact that it was not felt necessary to hide a same sex relationship was, I hope you will agree, a sign that not all social progress has yet been lost.

On the theatre front I saw a couple of live broadcasts. Yet another Twelfth Night was entertaining, with Ade Edmondson as Malvolio not as one dimensional as I usually find him. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof seemed to involve a lot more nudity than last time I saw it, but none of the characters were any more sympathetic. I know it’s great art and so that shouldn’t be relevant, but I just kept wanting to slap them all. And don’t get me started on their stupid names. I also saw Birdsong, which of course ought to be the most relevant to wargamers. It’s very difficult to think of a new angle to approach the first day of the Somme, and - unless this is very different to the original book - Sebastian Faulkes doesn’t even seem to have tried. Apparently it was a huge cock-up and the wire hadn’t been cut. Who knew?

Cabinet change imminent, I see

"I turn over a new leaf every day. But the blots show through." - William Fisher

And so to the theatre. I have been to see Billy Liar, Waterhouse and Hall's 1960 adaptation of the former's novel. The play constricts things to the Fisher's living room (the film - which introduced that great favourite of this blog, Julie Christie - expanded it all back out again). The authors were of course both Leeds boys; indeed Hall lived in Ilkley - epicentre of wargaming in the lower Wharfe Valley - in the years before he died. He also married a 28 year old dancer when he was in his early sixties, which makes one think. ["It does," interrupts an unwelcome voice from the back "but no one else is thinking the same thing that you are."]

I've seen it written that there's a bit of Billy Fisher in all of us - and after all who can truly say they have never pretended to a stranger that one or more close relatives have had a leg amputated? On the other hand I'm pretty sure that I could make a better fist of going out with more than one woman at the same time than he does. Before anyone says anything, I'm not saying that I approve, simply that if one is going to do something then one might as well do it right.

I've also been to see 'Last Laugh', John Godber's new film, which features a working class Northern lad fantasising about becoming a scriptwriter whilst unsuccessfully juggling multiple relationships including one with a woman who makes the break that he himself cannot summon up the courage to do. There is nothing new under the sun. It's being shown along the M62 corridor prior to a full release and I thought it was very entertaining. Godber himself is excellent as the father. In other cinema news shooting has just started on a film called 'Ilkley', a black comedy based in, er, Ilkley - epicentre of wargaming... ["Enough, you've done that one already."] - and starring Sir Derek Jacobi amongst others; no news yet of any toy soldier content.

The best damn police cop in space

And so to the theatre. I have been to see The Pretend Men's hit from last year's Edinburgh Fringe 'Police Cops in Space', where I'm glad to report I laughed a lot. My concerns were not that it wouldn't be intrinsically funny, but more that it would be full of references to films that I hadn't seen; which I'm still assuming that it probably was. However, and despite having not any familiarity at all with the Star Wars franchise, even I could tell when Harrison Ford was being spoofed and a man in his underpants speaking in a Germanic voice can only be one person; for the record, I have actually seen 'Terminator'.

The robot that will take over if he can eliminate all the police cops has an Australian (rather than Austrian) accent, a crush on its same sex colleague and a tendency to stream of consciousness free association as he expresses his admiration. Should any of those be based on films them I'd appreciate being pointed towards them. I won't attempt to describe the rest, but it's worth seeing as it tours around, especially if like me you have a penchant for small casts performing multiple roles and very physical comedy. For some reason I thought the climactic fight for control of the universe being carried out with mops and a harmonica as the only weapons made perfect sense.

Anyway, I have to go as I'm off to the theatre again and it's snowing. I'll be back.

Has my heart gone to sleep?

Has my heart gone to sleep?
Have the beehives of my dreams
stopped working, the waterwheel
of the mind run dry,
scoops turning empty,
only shadow inside?

No, my heart is not asleep.
It is awake, wide awake.
Not asleep, not dreaming -
its eyes are opened wide
watching distant signals, listening
on the rim of vast silence.

                                - Antonio Machado

God still favours the big battalions

We replayed the Maloyaroslavets scenario and although it was a closer game we got the same result.

The Russians have advanced, but the French still hold the village

The consensus is that the French infantry units being a third larger than the Russians is the key factor, especially when you add on the extra dice in melee against infantry. In a sign that the game has some relation to reality cavalry and artillery have their uses, but you can't achieve anything without infantry to move in and occupy the ground.

Light Infantry aid two units in square using a tactic card

Two differences to the previous game were that the initial Russian assault on the village failed and that the French cavalry charge didn't take out any artillery. Paradoxically I think the failure to capture Maloyroslavets might have helped the Russians a bit in that the French, not having to mass their troops to retake it, rather fannied about elsewhere without achieving much. They were driven out several times, but only once did the Russians get a foothold. That ended abruptly when James once again demonstrated his ridiculous luck with the C&C dice and rolled four infantry symbols out of four. He doesn't have the same good fortune with normal numbered dice, it's just these ones.

The high water point for the Russians

So, another enjoyable game with a set of rules that seems usually to provide one. We like the tactics cards (although less ambiguous definitions would help) and we like the march moves provided by certain command cards. The rule we got wrong last time about attached commanders being vulnerable after losses swung straight into action when the first two such tests both resulted in double sabres being rolled and the officers dying. This time's incorrect rule was not playing that Cossacks ignore terrain penalties when in woods. In my defence the rules are - literally - all over the place, and we don't play them very often. Our house rule of a minimum of one dice in melee will stay. For clarity, the way we play it is to add up all the factors from unit size, type and any card effects and then if the result is still no dice then they get a minimum of one. Another house rule is on the horizon: I think that we shall try knocking off one dice for infantry fighting out of towns. Every other black powder rule set I can think off penalises troops for being in buildings and it just feels right. One option is only to inflict the penalty when they are ordered; in other words when attacked and battling back they would get the full dice. I shall think about it.

Rattus Norvegicus

“I don't like rats, but there's not much else I don't like. The problem with rats is they have no fear of human beings, they're loaded with foul diseases, they would run the place given half the chance.”

                                             - David Attenborough

The chimneys have been put on the back burner [“Come on,” says an unexpected voice from the past “I know you’re not much of a prose stylist, but even you can do better than that”], because the rats are back. Last time there was an infestation they obediently ate the poison and quietly disappeared. This time they are sticking two fingers up to me by repeatedly moving the bait around the garden just to show that they are on to my game and don’t care. Bastards.

Let’s have some music from the biggest cheese in the rat pack; this will cheer us up:

It's being so cheerful as keeps me going

I have been to see Fairport Convention, in what seems to have become an annual event. Normally at this point I'd start quoting from 'Matty Groves', but that joke has worn a bit thin since last year. The band were, naturally, excellent, but, beyond expressing the hope to see them again next year should the Lord spare us all, I can't think of much to say that I haven't said before.

The support act, Winter Wilson, were new to me and I was rather impressed. I especially liked the following song; indeed it was the lyrics to this that put me in mind of yesterday's poem:

Ashes of Life

        

Love has gone and left me and the days are all alike; 

Eat I must, and sleep I will, - and would that night were here! 

But ah! - to lie awake and hear the slow hours strike! 

Would that it were day again! - with twilight near! 

Love has gone and left me and I don't know what to do; 

This or that or what you will is all the same to me; 

But all the things that I begin I leave before I'm through, - 

There's little use in anything as far as I can see. 

Love has gone and left me, - and the neighbours knock and borrow, 

And life goes on forever like the gnawing of a mouse, - 

And to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow 

There's this little street and this little house. 

-          Edna St. Vincent Millay

No, no, no

The postman hasn't yet called to deliver all your bloggist's Valentine's Day cards, and research into how to repair chimneys and/or restore flues into use is starting to pall, so here's something romantic to get everyone loved up and in the mood for later on:

The Sixth Coalition is Postponed

The French won the refight of the battle of Maloyaroslavets last night, the Grande Armée

 was saved, and 1813 will therefore be rescheduled for a later date. 

The battle for the village rages

James, as the Russians, had his usual good results with the C&C dice (he is on a lucky streak at the moment; apparently a gypsy fortune teller has predicted that for every child knocked down by a bus he will find a pound coin), but the cards fell better for Peter and he used them with aplomb.

The Russians are in

However, it turned out that he used them with a little too much aplomb. Rereading the rules I find that only one Tactician Card can be used on a unit per turn, meaning that the heroic charge of the Chasseurs to take out two artillery units would have been ruled out by the video ref had the technology been in use. For the record the other rule we got wrong was not testing for the loss of attached commanders when units took hits without being destroyed; James did draw my attention to it, but I thought I knew better.

And then they're out again, leaving behind only a forlorn Mother Russia token

I thought the scenario worked. The Russians are handicapped by their lack of cavalry (the official scenario in Expansion 2 gives them some Cuirassier) and because the relative weakness of their units means that they achieve less for each activation,, but their extra artillery can be used to devestating effect. The March Move on certain cards meant that reserves at least had a chance to move forward, although as so often in C&C there were half a dozen units on either side that never saw combat. We shall play it again next week without any changes - other than swapping sides - and see how differently it turns out.

The Russians are pushed back everywhere

The changed shape of the playing area didn't cause any problems. The 'at least one dice in melee' rule only came into play a few times and, to me at least, seemed more natural than the alternative.

Meanwhile I was still thinking (aloud)

I have rejigged the Maloyaroslavets scenario a touch. There are now two flat hexes on from which the Russians can attack the village and one on the French side.

Also we shall play that in melee (or when Battling in official C&C terminology) all units will have at least one dice regardless of other circumstances. This will not apply to ranged combat. All the other ideas will be retained in the 'possible' file.

In addition I have moved all the reserves on to the table. The only real effect of keeping some back was to ensure they got into action in the historical order. Upon considering whether I cared very much whether they did so or not I had to conclude that I didn't.

To recap, the moving up of reserves will hopefully take advantage of the March Move available on some cards. In the original game a card such as, for example, Scout Right Flank was one that you played when you didn't have a better alternative or to thin out your hand. Now, as well as allowing the ordering of one unit, it allows three others to move as long as they don't pass out of, into or through a hex adjacent to the enemy, you get the choice of one of the two next Command cards and you get a Tactician card; all of which when put together seems an effective return to me.

I have also indulged myself and put some weak Russian militia in the monastery .

Another Vapnartak

I have been to this year's Vapnartak. Dealing with negatives first, there weren't enough games and the ones that there were looked exactly like the ones that were there last year, and the year before, and the year before.... It's a wargaming show that you wouldn't bother going to for the wargames. More happily, it's not too far, it's a lovely venue, there are lots of traders and one generally bumps into people one knows. I picked up some pre-ordered Hexon slopes, bought the traditional five small trees from the tree man, and bought another pack of narrow roads from S&A Scenics. These are not intended as realistic terrain pieces, but rather for the deliberately stylised C&C games.

Speaking of which James came up with a further alternative for the current scenario, namely to make the hill an advantage for the defenders rather than a penalty to the attackers. The downside of this is that it means the French would be rolling six dice against infantry and could expect to roll on average two infantry symbols plus one sabre symbol; in other words an attacking Russian unit would either have to force French defenders to withdraw or face a high probability of destruction when they battled back. I shall continue thinking.

Thinking aloud

"Death and the dice level all distinctions" - Samuel Foote

I'm still pondering the epic fail of the scenario that is currently set up in the annexe. In one sense the problem is entirely of my creation as in the boardgame there is no concept of stacking terrain, except in the very limited case of fieldworks, and in that case the rules quite clearly say that one only counts the highest penalty rather than adding them together.  Another way of looking at it is as a reflection of a couple of differences between C&C and other rules. In Piquet one can never attack with worse than a D4; in Black Powder a natural 6 is always a hit. In C&C - unless I've missed something - a unit that has suffered casualties can easily end up unable at all to attack an enemy with a terrain advantage; certainly that's the way that we have always played it. Similarly in both the other games the concept of support or superior numbers can give an advantage to the attacker in combat, whereas in C&C it doesn't come into effect until considering the need for withdrawal because of flag rolls.

The problem is much more significant for the Russian infantry as they start with three UI; the French infantry not only start at four UI, but get a one dice bonus (regardless of strength remaining) when battling other infantry. Even without compounding terrain penalties Russians only have to lose one UI and they can no longer attack, the French would have to lose three before that applied. Of course the Russian ability to ignore a flag is a compensation for this.

It seems to me that I have quite a few options:

1. Don't make terrain penalties cumulative.
2. Define the town as only having a penalty of one dice.
3. Allow all units a minimum of one dice when attacking or defending regardless of strength and terrain.
4. Allow multiple units to attack at the same time (this is a big change and I suspect the law of unintended consequences would come into play).
5. Give units a bonus of, say, one dice for supporting units (presumably those that aren't battling themselves in this turn).
6. Consolidate Russian units into fewer of greater strength.
7. Invent a rule allowing consolidation of weakened units during the game (I have thought about this before. The ambiguity of scale in C&C and definition of exactly what a unit represents means that perhaps one shouldn't take the word 'consolidate'; too literally; it's more an abstract representation of continuing capability).
8. Change the layout of the village terrain to allow some attacking on the flat. 

The minimum one dice option would also address the rare, but possible, situations where a unit could potentially be attacked in the certain knowledge that it would not be able to respond even if it survived.

No dice

"It is the nature of every person to err, but only the fool perseveres in error" - Marcus Tullius Cicero

Did anyone else spot the flaw in the C&C scenario I published the other day? Consider the problems a 3 stand Russian infantry unit (rolling three dice in melee) might have when attacking uphill (minus one dice) against a town (minus two dice). It could be a frustrating night for one of the players.

Back to the drawing board.

While I'm pondering that issue, here's some music from No Dice, a band that always reminds me of late 1977 and the fight that started in the Paradise curry house, subsequently continued outside in a snowy Morley Street, and resulted in Honours Ron receiving a well deserved black eye.

Pot74pouri

Has anyone else received an email from Google purporting to explain how effectively or otherwise one's blog is dealt with by their search engine? I didn't really understand it and, let's be honest, I don't care anyway, but one thing did rather leap out from their analysis. Virtually everyone who gets Discourses on Wargaming's url displayed in their search results is actually looking for gay porn. Your bloggist has lost 8 kg in weight over the last year and is looking pretty buff, even if he says so himself; so on balance, well done Google. However, further investigation also points to a single post from almost five years ago about an opera I went to see, Handel's misleadingly titled 'Joshua' (It's really about Othniel - yes, that Othniel), as the source of the traffic. So, today's post should start it all off again; perhaps I should get get some advertising on the site to monetise the upcoming surge in visitors.

Anyway, while I'm here let me bring you up to date on events in January that I have neglected to mention so far:

Opera: I saw Opera North's revival of 'Madama Butterfly' which was as good as I remembered. Anne Sophie Duprels was wonderful in the title role and appropriately enough kept her clothes on this time. I also saw the Royal Opera House live transmission of 'Rigoletto' which proved once again that closeups can sometimes not work to the advantage of sopranos playing much younger parts. Just to avoid charges of sexism, Michael Fabiano may also have been favoured by watching from further away. He was physically a very unconvincing starving poet in last year's 'La Boheme' and here he appeared to be wearing a costume two sizes too small. I have a good mind to email him with my own proven tips for losing weight (1).

Theatre: Speaking of broadcasts I also caught up with an encore of 'Young Marx' from the new Bridge Theatre in London. I nearly didn't bother because it had mixed reviews, but I enjoyed it and can report that it made me laugh. As did Alan Ayckbourn's 'Role Play' which easily delivered its quota of laugh out loud moments and featured some fairly authentic sounding East London accents. Less convincing was 'You're Only Young Twice' which, whilst well performed and mildly amusing in places, seemed to have very little connection to real life or real people.

Gigs: I've written about a couple of these already. The other one that I will mention is Henry Parker, a very good localish (Bingley I think) guitarist in the Davey Graham fingerstyle mode. I'd seen him before and on this occasion was able to buy a live album of a performance at which I was present in the audience; the third such that I own.

I didn't get to ride on the cherry picker and the roof still leaks, albeit not as badly as before.


(1) Diet and exercise; controversial I know, but there it is.