Pot98apouri

 Fingers have been pointed at the lack of wargaming content hereabouts. The natural response to that would be to publish (yet) another post on some random other subject, but I shall not stoop to that. (Although stay tuned for an entirely non-wargaming Question and frankly not many Answers session tomorrow.) Instead, let us consider developments in what, you will recall, the Economist described as 'a good hobby for an anxious time'.

Well, and obviously, I haven't got any myself, otherwise I would have written about it already. In common with a number of other bloggers I posted to say that I had received my copy of 'Infamy, Infamy' and implied that I would try it out and/or review it and then post again. In common with many of those other bloggers, I haven't done either. I therefore broke my recent habit and bought a copy of the July/August issue of Wargames Soldiers and Strategy, which carries a review therein. I haven't read it yet, but when I do you know that you can rely on me to post about it here.

Not reading wargames magazines and the lack of shows to attend means that I am sadly off the pace in understanding what's hip and happening. It would be nice if I could rely on the blogs which I read to keep me abreast of things, but disappointingly they do tend to wander off topic rather a lot, writing about walking, swimming, cycling and suchlike nonsense. In any event, I was surprised, but intrigued, to come across a reference to Wofun Games. Firstly, that's a terrible name, and the full name - World of Fun Games - is even worse. However, I did find the concept interesting. What they do, as you probably already know, is produce plexiglass flats for a number of different periods. For at least some of those periods the figures are based on drawings from the range of Peter Dennis Paper Soldiers books published by Helion. It may be that, like me, you have looked at those books and asked yourself "Can I be arsed to photocopy, cut out and mount all these?" and then, also like me, replied in the negative. Well, now you don't have to, all you have to do is put your hand in your pocket. I confess to being tempted by one of the periods available, although not tempted enough to actually do anything about it.

A mere seven years ago, I heralded the imminent arrival of new set of rules for horse and musket sieges, called Vauban's Wars. Following an astonishingly short development programme they are to be published next month. I am quietly confident that a set will find its way to Ilkley, hypocentre of wargaming in the lower Wharfe valley, and the Peninsular war would appear to be an obvious setting for giving them a try. From what I have seen so far, I would imagine that there will be many elements which will be transferable to other periods. And, as regular readers will know, I have a shedload of equipment for medieval sieges. All I need is something to besiege.

Which seems an appropriate place to put a photo showing current progress on what is turning into the most expensive toy castle in the world. Spraying is slow at the moment, because being the English summer it rains most days. However, designs are in place for the castle which will sit in one corner of the town above (you can see one piece of wall towards the top right of the picture), so the project is still very much moving forward.

Small bomb thrown by hand

My absence from these pages has been primarily because I hurt my neck and sitting at the computer has been rather uncomfortable. In truth it has also been in part because nothing of interest has happened to me or indeed anywhere near me. However, I was awoken from my torpor today when the centre of town was suddenly sealed off by the police and several buildings evacuated. It turned out that someone had donated a hand grenade to Oxfam. As you do.

A better man than me could probably make a joke out of the fact that since shops are only accepting contactless payment at the moment, anyone who bought the grenade from Oxfam wouldn't need a PIN. However, until that better man comes along, we are left with the one about the mathematician being trained to use grenades. He was told to pull the pin and then count down from three before throwing it. It blew up when he reached minus six.

Drink responsibly

 

The Definition of Love

My love is of a birth as rare

As ’tis for object strange and high;

It was begotten by Despair

Upon Impossibility.

Magnanimous Despair alone

Could show me so divine a thing

Where feeble Hope could ne’er have flown,

But vainly flapp’d its tinsel wing.

And yet I quickly might arrive

Where my extended soul is fixt,

But Fate does iron wedges drive,

And always crowds itself betwixt.

For Fate with jealous eye does see

Two perfect loves, nor lets them close;

Their union would her ruin be,

And her tyrannic pow’r depose.

And therefore her decrees of steel

Us as the distant poles have plac’d,

(Though love’s whole world on us doth wheel)

Not by themselves to be embrac’d;

Unless the giddy heaven fall,

And earth some new convulsion tear;

And, us to join, the world should all

Be cramp’d into a planisphere.

As lines, so loves oblique may well

Themselves in every angle greet;

But ours so truly parallel,

Though infinite, can never meet.

Therefore the love which us doth bind,

But Fate so enviously debars,

Is the conjunction of the mind,

And opposition of the stars.

                          - Andrew Marvell

Zodiacal Light?

“Sometimes these flashes of normality come at me from the side, like ambushes. The ordinary, the usual, a reminder, like a kick.”
                                                - Margaret Atwood

So, there was I thinking that wargaming would never be the same again when, out of the blue, comes an email from James saying that he has changed the morale rules.

Yorkshire Day/Schweizer Bundesfeiertag Mubarak

There has suddenly been a flurry of hits on the very first post on this blog from 2012. I fully appreciate that the quality has diminished quite a lot since those days, and so presumably do the discerning readers who have restricted themselves to a single post from eight years ago. At that time I blogged fairly frequently about being a wargamer who didn't game. Why then, now I am in the same position of not gaming, am I not blogging about it? (The rhetorical questions were much better back then as well.) Rhetorical or not it's a good question, especially as Ilkley, which we must now learn to refer to as the hypocentre of wargaming in the lower Wharfe valley, has been suddenly locked down again, implying that there will be no quick return to the table. In the somewhat arbitrary nature of the way in which the UK government is behaving (which you will correctly interpret as a euphemism for 'it's a complete shitshow') the place where your bloggist blogs has not been affected beyond me having to wait another couple of weeks should I require either an intimate waxing or to go ten pin bowling. For the sizeable Muslim population in the areas which have been re-restricted it has been a much bigger issue because yesterday was Eid al-Adha (and a belated Eid Mubarak to them); it was a bit like telling most people on Christmas Eve that they couldn't have lunch with their relatives the following day.

A little piece of Switzerland in Yorkshire

I haven't seen any strong protests from those wishing to celebrate Yorkshire Day (which is today of course) by scoring a few strikes or by having a Brazilian, but no doubt the locals will be consoling themselves by telling anyone who will listen that the face masks are bigger in God's Own County than they are anywhere else. Eid, which means 'feast' in Arabic, also means 'oath' in German and today is also Swiss National Day celebrating (near enough) the day in 1291 when three cantons swore the oath of confederation. Sadly, when you look at it in detail, Swiss National Day turns out to be even more of a recent and contrived invention than Yorkshire Day is, on top of which Yorkshire is bigger. God, I'm starting to go native.

This mask is not from Yorkshire

So, to wrap up, here's Rossini via Yorkshire with some memorable music about a Swiss terrorist/freedom fighter:

Now as then

"Carving is easy, you just go down to the skin and stop." - Michelangelo

Pot97pouri

I am not old enough to have seen Peter Green in his prime, but the former Mrs Epictetus and I did get to see him in 2009 when he did a low key tour. Musically it was very good, although understandably he didn't engage with the audience at all. Lovers of trivia may wish to know that he performed that night in a hat very reminiscent of those favoured by Benny from Crossroads. There have been those who have, and in the very recent past too, mocked such headgear; I trust that you are now suitably sorry for your actions.

I have been asked what happened in the 'Square Bashing' game, reports on which ended rather abruptly. You may remember that it had been that British turn to move next, and that their situation appeared to be hopeless. It appeared that way because it was in fact hopeless (*). The only sensible thing for them to do was to retreat, but as you will also remember I had been reading C.S. Forester's 'The General', in which such behaviour is forbidden regardless of logic or cost in human life. I therefore decided that, guided by this philosophy, the British would attack to attempt to recapture their lost positions. To cut a long story short, they didn't, rendering their situation some way beyond hopeless, and leading to me clearing the table. No photos were taken.

Lots of musicians have been recording concerts with no audience during these troubled times, and blog favourites The Heimatdamisch are no exception. Here's an excerpt, but be warned that what the trumpeter does at the beginning is most definitely not the recommended method of ensuring that surfaces are free of the virus. Conny seems to have spent the whole of lockdown on a sunbed, but I for one am glad to once again get the chance to admire her lungs.

* Your bloggist has been reading too much Douglas Adams recently.

Oh, but I would be if I could

Castle update

"There are no rules of architecture for a castle in the clouds." - G.K. Chesterton

My castle - actually I think these are town walls; the castle proper will come later - has reached a stage whereby it can form a circuit. It's been a slow process because firstly there has been some sort of virus thingy going around; secondly the actual cutting bit is rather boring; and thirdly because I'm not very good at the design phase and always end up doing new element types at least twice. The sections are in various stages of painting and none are finished.

Next steps are an internal corner section, some corner towers and who knows what else.

Gerocognition

The Tangerine Turd seems have a bee in his bonnet about proving his (entirely imaginary) mental capacity, which rather reminds me of this:

During a visit to the local psychiatric hospital, Donald asked the Director how they determined whether or not a patient should be institutionalised.

"It's simple actually," said the Director. "We fill up a bathtub, then we offer a teaspoon, a teacup and a bucket to the patient. We ask him or her to empty the bathtub."

"I understand." said Donald "Obviously a normal person would choose the bucket because it's bigger than the spoon or the teacup."

"No. A normal person would pull the plug and let it drain. Do you want a bed near the window?"

Here's Little Feat with 'Fat Man in the Bathtub':

From someone else's correspondents

"The proper definition of a man is an animal that writes letters." - Lewis Carroll

It has long been a maxim of mine that if you don't blow your own trumpet then someone else will use it as a spittoon. For considerably less time than that, I have held the view that I must surely be able to squeeze a blog post out of the contents of the current issue of The Economist. So, bringing those two principles together can I highlight the letter in this week's magazine comparing Dominic Cummings to Sejanus; a comparison made on this blog on the 26th May.

While I'm on the subject of such correspondence, there was a letter from a seismologist in the New Scientist a couple of weeks ago, complaining about their misuse of the word 'epicentre' to simply mean 'centre'. This obviously caused me some concern, as I faced having to rewrite a large number of past entries of my blog (in a manner reminiscent of you know who), even assuming that I could find a phrase as mellifluous as 'wargaming epicentre of the lower Wharfe valley' with which to replace it. So I reached for my dictionary and found that although the first definition of epicentre is 'the point directly above the focus of an earthquake', the second definition is a synonym of centre. So, vindicated again. Having said that, 'wargaming hypocentre of the lower Wharfe valley' is growing on me for sure.

Rock and Roll

Obviously the main purpose of yesterday's photo was to demonstrate that in the early seventies it was possible to be a wargamer and also to be one of the cool kids. I think that it is case proved myself, although it has subsequently been suggested to me that the clothes and hair on display aren't helping my argument very much. I don't agree, except possibly for Kitty Loewenstein's jacket and also the rather unfortunate hat being sported in the back row by someone apparently taking fashion tips from Benny out of Crossroads.

Anyway, for no particular reason here's some music - and some clothes - from about the same period:

Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells

The lack of posting recently has of course been caused by lack of inspiration. Luckily several complaints have been received here at the Casa Epictetus, which gives me something write about.

Firstly, Don has taken offence at my suggestion that he hasn't aged well. I withdraw that comment absolutely; Don is still the svelte young man that he used to be. Indeed, I can go further: he is at least twice the svelte young man that he used to be.

Secondly, I have had an email from Peter in which he refutes the suggestion that he fell off his horse and hurt his keg (sic). I am very pleased to hear that; no one knows better than your bloggist how one's social life can be affected by a less than fully functional barrel. It was of course James who originated the story in his blog, but nevertheless I am happy to make it clear that Peter was at all times in control of what he was doing.

Peter also mentioned seeing the BBC documentary on Persian history, which makes me think that I may have been searching in the wrong place for the other two episodes and so I shall take another look. Nundanket (and apologies for the capital letter) asks about the reference in Wodehouse to Jamshyd. It is in a passage in 'Summer Lightning' - one of the Blandings novels -about Hugo Carmody (a minor character then acting as secretary to the Earl of Emsworth) and is an allusion to FitzGerald's 'translation' of the Rubaiyat. Perhaps had it been found in Wodehouse's other well-known series of books, it would have come from the mouth of the erudite Jeeves rather than that of his young master.

Shahnameh

"They say the Lion and the Lizard keep

The courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep"

- The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Following a recommendation on nundanket's blog, I watched the first part of the recent BBC series on Persian Art. I enjoyed it - despite it following the BBC's house rules of the presenter starting by telling us that she was going on a journey to discover stuff; silly me for assuming that she got the gig because she already knew it - and would have watched the other parts if I hadn't faffed about for so long that they had vanished from iPlayer. I had never before heard of the Shahnameh, the national epic poem of the country, the stories in which the programme compared to what we know of actual history. The very next day I was reading some P.G. Wodehouse and there was a reference to Jamshyd. The name seemed familiar and, sure enough a quick google showed him to be one the mythical rulers whose adventures are contained in the work. It's a small world.

Edouard/Édouard

“The rain set early in tonight,

The sullen wind was soon awake,

It tore the elm-tops down for spite,

And did its best to vex the lake:

I listened with heart fit to break.

When glided in Porphyria; straight

She shut the cold out and the storm,

And kneeled and made the cheerless grate

Blaze up and all the cottage warm;”

- Robert Browning

For reasons that are no doubt perfectly logical it is only winter storms which are named in the UK. So when two weeks ago we were hit with hailstones the size of eggs and my garden was flooded twice, once because the hail was so intense that it washed the moss off the roof and blocked the gutters, it didn't have a name. A few days ago the wind was so strong that it broke off a sizeable chunk of the tree outside my house. On that occasion the branch - big enough to be used as a social distancing measuring stick (old school) - blew down the road at great speed causing cars to have to swerve out of its way, but still no name. Yesterday, the media got very excited about the approach of what is apparently known to everyone except the Met Office as Storm Edouard - and there's a definite touch of Johnny Foreigner about that name - to the extent that I planned a day inside. And what happened? It rained a bit, which, let's be frank, is not that unknown in the UK in July.

What I would have been doing if not for Edouard

Anyway, in the end I have managed to achieve a few wargames related things. I have had another try at washing figures in my new ultrasonic bath, and I think I have revised upwards my impression. It's all subjective, and the proof of the pudding will be when the paint doesn't flake off, but I think it's actually a pretty effective method. I have only tried it on metal figures so far and will have to report back when I have had a go with some plastic figures. I have almost, but not quite, finished off the couple of dozen ancient Britons which were left half-painted when lockdown commenced and were then never touched despite all the time I had to do so. The auxiliary cavalry command set that's next up has highlighted the limited extent of my reference library for the Romans. I have far more books on, for example, the Mexican Revolution despite not gaming that at all. The problem is that it contains a Vexillarius, and I could work out what he had on his head. Most online sources suggest an animal skin - although there is no unanimity about which - but the only animal it could plausibly be is a donkey, and I find that most unlikely. I have continued my reading of 'Infamy, Infamy' - another typo on page 22; come on Don, get a grip - but really need to set something up and work through it. That of course means either finishing off or abandoning the game currently set up.

And last, but not least I have had a go on the laser cutter for the first time since February. It was hard enough remembering how to get into the workshop, let alone how the machine itself worked, but it is another small step forwards.

A good hobby for an anxious time

It's been a long time since I abandoned the frivolity of reading the wargames press and limited myself to magazines of a more serious nature. I was therefore temporarily thrown when, on turning the pages of this week's issue of The Economist, I came across a photograph of the Perry Twins - the one below in fact. It was adorning a brief article about wargaming, which does indeed describe what we do as 'a good hobby for an anxious time'. Unsurprisingly, given his audience, the writer concentrates mainly on the business element of things. The effect of the pandemic has, according to Alan Perry, been "like two Christmas' worth of demand"; so someone's happy then. I also wasn't previously aware that Games Workshop now has a higher stock market valuation than Marks & Spencer. Who'd have thought there were more orc fanciers than there are lovers of the polyester trouser?

In the background of that photo is what appears to be an authentic piece of nineteenth century military headgear. It got me wondering where I had previously seen a well-known wargames figure sculptor with the same type of items displayed prominently; and then it occurred to me. I offer absolutely no apologies for revisiting this old favourite:

For those without any patience, Mrs Hinton's first appearance wearing military uniform can be found 1 minute 48 seconds in; don't ask me how I know.

Shaking All Over

I have acquired an ultrasonic bath. While my reasons for purchasing it were not wargaming related, it would have been remiss of me not to try it out on some figures as a method of cleaning them prior to painting. These is the Early Imperial Roman Auxiliary Cavalry Command pack from Newline Designs.

Whilst I have no way of objectively measuring it, my best guess is that it has made no difference when compared with just soaking them in some warm soapy water for a while. Still, what's the point in having toys if you don't use them.

Actual Arrival of New Rules

I have received my pre-ordered copy of 'Infamy, Infamy', the latest rules from the Too Fat Lardies, complete with pack of cards and some game markers.

I haven't read much of them yet, having been distracted by the credit and name check given on page 1 to Don, my first ever wargaming opponent from fifty plus years ago. Fortunately there is no photograph; the poor old sod hasn't aged well at all. I wonder if it's him that's to blame for the typo on page 6.

I shall definitely give them a go and, given that I know Peter has also bought a copy, there may be some support in getting it into the schedule. However, no one knows when wargaming is likely to start up again and the longer the delay the more figures that James will have added to his Peninsular War set up; it would, of course, be rude not to christen those.

Anyway, that all gives more time to ponder the question of basing.The sabot bases which I already have aren't for the same size as the units specified here. My initial reaction was to bodge it some way, but on the other hand I do have access to a laser cutter....

Bring me sunshine

"If I had to choose a religion, the sun as the universal giver of life would be my choice." 

- Napoleon Bonaparte

As those readers in the UK will know, it has once again been what the Met Office refer to as 'well hot'. At such times it is custom and practice at the Casa Epictetus to abandon wargaming, blogging and the like in order to frolic outside. And so, with due regard to social distancing and no regard whatsoever to social decorum, that's what has been happening for a few days. The reason that we in this country drop everything and rush off into the sunshine is that we know perfectly well that it won't last long, and inevitably the rains have now come back, and tagging along with them is your bloggist.

Before I disappeared I had played out some more of the game currently in progress in the annexe. Although I can vaguely remember what happened I can't really bring to mind any of my associated thought processes, so basically this is a couple of photos to bring us up to date. The British rolled better dice than the Germans once again and called in a barrage which has, for the moment at least, stopped the assault on the town and destroyed a field gun into the bargain.

Unable to attack, the Germans responded in kind and for the first time one of their barrages was both called in and hit its intended target. However, it achieved very little actual damage when it got there. Elsewhere the Germans did what they should have done the previous turn and attacked in the centre, with great success.

The attackers now hold three of the four objective squares, although not the one that I seem to have flung all their strength against. No doubt there's a learning point in there somewhere. I'm not sure what options the British really have left, except to try to roll high numbers at the end of each turn and finish the game quickly. To be continued...

Urgent Arrival of New Rules

"Painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war." - Pablo Picasso

Both I and the stepladder have returned to the annexe. If the time spent decorating has taught me anything, it is that my previous practice of paying someone to do it for me was the entirely correct approach and one to which I should return forthwith. 

When we last visited the table, the British had a big hole in their line and needed to fill it. The normal route to bring on reserves in 'Square Bashing' is the reinforcement phase, which occurs right at the end of one's turn. There is also the option, in the opening phase, to select Urgent Arrivals as one's asset. Only one asset is allowed each turn, and that is presumably to speed up game play. I'm happy with that, but it has always seemed to me that some assets give more value than others, and so the same ones - artillery barrages mainly - always end up getting selected. If one rolls well then a barrage can do damage to a number of squares and an even larger number of units. If one rolls well when choosing, say, Hasty Defences one can put some sandbags up in one square. They just don't seem comparable to me. I therefore allow a modest upside to a couple of the asset classes to reward good (i.e. lucky) dice rolls. In this case the British rolled two sixes and three fives with five dice and thus two infantry units arrived and moved into the gaps. Not much else happened on the British turn until the very end. The game starts with a clock set to 21, and the defender rolls a D6 as the last action of their go to reduce it; when it reaches zero the game is over. Six turns is therefore a reasonable forecast for the length of the game. On this occasion the British rolled a one, implying that there are most likely still six turns to go. That rather suits the Germans.

So, the Hun commander decided to take advantage of this probable extra game length by not immediately assaulting in the centre, but giving himself an extra turn of barrage. Unfortunately the German artillery, having missed everything on the first turn, failed to even fire this time. The only assault that occurred was against the town objective where, having successfully rolled to use their Higher Command ability to add to the attack, the Germans were rolling thirteen dice against nine. Perhaps inevitably they nevertheless lost the melee. My tactics of constantly assaulting built up areas doesn't seem to be the right one after all. Still, a flamethrower unit has arrived and next time perhaps they will do better. British shooting improved and one German unit, which had failed morale based on last turn's shooting casualties and therefore couldn't move, took a bit of a pasting.

The Birth of the Cool

Apologies to those who have been waiting for an update on the Square Bashing game. The British have had a turn and got some reinforcements into their line, not least because I played a bit fast and loose with the rules. I shall pick up the narrative again shortly, I hope. In the meantime there has been a certain amount of stuff going on here to distract me, as opposed of course to the amount of going out and being distracted, which has been none whatsoever. However, reopening of the sorts of places that I like to go is at least on the horizon, and therefore I have been giving some thought to what I shall be wearing when the day comes. As a noted man-about-town in these parts I am aware that all eyes will be on me for guidance as to how the hygiene-conscious dandy will best equip himself for the world post lockdown. The answer, dear readers, is this:

The new normal

I wish to offer a hat-tip (a literal hat-tip as you can see) to Peter for his advice. In one of the infrequent round-robin emails that have passed between the wargamers of the lower Wharfe valley to check whether anyone has fallen off his perch I mentioned that I intended to rock the bandana. Upon reading this, he sagely suggested that I should not forget the hat.

You can tell that horse hasn't been able to get its hair cut for a while

In the same exchange he passed on the welcome news that one of his horses had foaled. When I mentioned this in conversation to a friend (with nothing whatever happening in one's life, any subject, however irrelevant, is likely to be brought up in order to keep the conversation going) she asked a question that was obvious, but which I had unaccountably overlooked. Was this the same horse that he had been riding when he fell off and hurt his leg? I shall report back.

Let's see some more action

I said that the delivery of my rubber railway track inspired me to set up a 'Square Bashing Game', but it was also because I have been reading C.S. Forrester's 'The General', as recommended by David form Suffolk on his blog. As with his other recommendation, 'Private Angelo' by Eric Linklater, I thoroughly enjoyed it and have no hesitation in adding my praise to his. Towards the end of the book the unimaginative eponymous Lieutenant-General is astonished as his Corps is very quickly overrun when the dastardly Hun comes up with some new tactics. Crucial to these tactics were the Stoßtruppen (I'm going to call them that, not for the usual pretentious reasons which often find me using untranslated foreign languages, - vous savez parfaitement de quoi je parle  - but in order to distinguish them from the Nazi thugs of a later generation) whom I mentioned the other day. So, there are two things in particular that we know about these units: they were specialised assault troops and were equipped and armed to facilitate that role; and whenever they came up against a well-defended strongpoint rather than attack it themselves they by-passed it and left it for the ordinary troops following behind to deal with. You don't need me to point out that there is a bit of a contradiction there. The rules writers at Peter Pig have opted to follow the first line of approach, presumably on the basis that if you had a special type of unit whose main objective is to rush across the board and leave by the opposite baseline then no one would choose them and even if they did then it wouldn't make for a very good game. All of which is a long-winded way of justifying my decision to charge the German's two Stoßtruppen battalions straight at a defended town.

That all happened on the special opening phase, so now we are on to the first German turn proper. This opens with the asset phase. When we played 'Square Bashing' a few times a year or so ago I came up with a number of brilliant alternatives which greatly improve this aspect of the game. Unfortunately I didn't write them down and, with one minor exception, I can't remember them, so I shall be using the rules as written. The board above shows the assets available to either side. I decide to call in a suppression barrage with the aim of pinning the units in the town while the main German attacking force comes up. I committed eight of the available twelve dice to this and succeeded. 

Or, to be more precise, succeeded up to a point. The barrage came in and missed everything, a combination of overs and unders ensuring that no British units were hit. Still, those in the town can't now withdraw in their turn, which both suits the Germans and, by removing one decision, makes it easier to play solo. (By the way, there will be no overhead photos for the time being as I am doing some decorating and the stepladder is required elsewhere.) Next comes the higher command phase. This is also one that seems ripe for a tweak or two, but for this game I'm playing it straight. During their respective turns the Germans will be able to attempt to improve the fighting spirit of selected units and the British may do the same to the morale of theirs. On this occasion the Germans try to affect the less weakened of the units attacking the town, but fail. After this is the German morale phase in which the unit half way up on the left of the above photo, badly beaten in a failed assault in the opening special phase, turned tail and ran away, although it didn't rout. 

Moves and assaults are next. The whole line moved up meaning that those remaining in contact with the town were now supported. I decided that they would assault again, because even though they would do so at adverse odds and probably lose (they did), it probably wouldn't suffer more casualties than they would be letting themselves be shot at (which they didn't). On top of which there was always the remote chance that they could have forced the British back into the barrage thereby inflicting heavier casualties.

In 'Square Bashing' you shoot in the opponent's turn if you haven't been assaulted. The unit above found itself in the open and targeted by two mortars and a field gun. However, the dice have swung back against the British and nothing happened. The rather odd looking deployment along the British line was caused by some dreadful dice rolling during the depletion phase of the set up. If I was the Germans - which of course I am - I would be intending to put some gas down to stop the off-table reserves moving forwards and reinforcing the line at this particular point.

Lastly, the Germans brought on their only off table unit to add to the attack along the road in case the gas ploy doesn't work.

Stoßtruppen

Re-reading yesterday's post I find that I may have given the impression that, after setting up the terrain, I followed the official rules for setting up the game. Obviously, and as I think we now all realise, great men of history such as myself are exempt from the sort of petty constraints that are appropriate for lesser beings; in other words, that's not exactly what I did. Instead, having established that the Germans were not only attacking, but were doing so with overwhelming force, I decided to give them some stormtroopers and fiddled the rest of the force around to make the points still even. The rules, which are not always either clear or consistent, say that you have to choose your forces before determining who attacks and who defends, but rather confusingly also say that the Germans can only have stormtroopers if they attack.

On the centenary of the start of the Great War some years ago various figure manufacturers launched WWI ranges on the assumption that there was going to be lots of demand from wargamers inspired by all the commemorations. There wasn't and very few, if any, of those ranges, were ever completed. In the case of the producers of 20mm plastic sets a fair number of them seemed to start with German stormtroopers - presumably because they are exotic - and then they never got round to anything much else. That is why most of my German forces are metal whereas most of the British are plastic. I mention all this because, whilst I have some stormtroopers painted up I wouldn't bother using them for a game at this level where each unit represents a battalion. On my table the units so designated look just the same as the other German infantry.

This is also consistent with the way that Stoßtruppen are handled in 'Square Bashing'. Basically, they are infantry units that are deployed further forwards than everything else and get an extra assault phase right at the beginning of the game, during which they get to throw some extra dice. Given that the attacker moves first this effectively means that they get to attack twice in a row. After that first phase, they stop having any special abilities and count as the highest quality of infantry. They are allowed to deploy last, after the defender has both set out his units and they have been depleted to represent the initial barrage, meaning that they can attack the weakest point in the line if they so choose. I went down a different route, choosing to use them to try to seize the town that is one of the objectives. It didn't work. The British (or, to be more precise, their coin toss) decided to stay and fight and won the fight quite handily. I have clearly not only forgotten the rules, but also what tactics are best employed with them.

The Germans on the left have failed in their assault, losing one figure (half a base in terms of the rules). The casualty marker counts up losses until the next time morale is taken. The British losses were caused during the depletion rather than the assault, but in any case if you win the fight then then any casualties are ignored for morale purposes. Speaking of 'winning the fight', that's what the red token signifies, meaning that they will be able to claim extra dice in the next melee. I bought the tokens from Warbases and they're crap; unreadable in fact. When I gain access to the lasercutter once again I have a plan to make some better ones, also acrylic. The coloured beads indicate the quality of the unit.

The second unit of stormtroopers fared even worse, but my photograph of that turned out to be rather blurred. These others are now sitting in the open with two machine gun units ready to open fire on them. I think that the first German turn proper will need to open with a barrage on the town and hope that it doesn't fall short.

Let's see action

When the railway track that I had ordered prior to lockdown arrived it proved sufficient - at least once the hot weather was over - to motivate some wargaming activity. It was easy enough in the first instance to set up a Square Bashing scenario incorporating said railway. However, doing that made it clear that I had completely forgotten everything about the rules. I have now re-read them and the game is pretty much ready to go.

Although I laid out the terrain on a whim, I followed the rest of the pre-battle sequence in full. The Germans rolled exceptionally well and the British exceptionally badly, so I think we must interpret this as part of the German Spring Offensive in 1918. They have pushed through the front line and the unprepared British reserves are trying to stop them. The defenders' poor dice continued into the depletion phase so a big chunk of their force - including two thirds of their field guns - start off table. In addition their heavy artillery is presumably needed more urgently elsewhere, because their barrage assets ended up being very low.

The railway track

The Germans are clearly going to win the battle, but the somewhat convoluted victory point system means that they have to win big in order to win overall, if you follow me. Added to the variable game length (a die is rolled after each turn until a target total is met and the game is over) means that they will have to get on with it. That makes it ideal for a solo game, and - always assuming my enthusiasm is maintained - I shall play it out. The main decision the British have at the beginning is whether to resist the stormtrooper attack just about to be launched on the town - which is one of the victory objectives - and risk destruction at the hands of crack troops, or to withdraw in the hope of retaking it once reinforcements arrive. I shall toss a coin I think.

What's New Pussycat?

“There are a set of religious, or rather moral writers, who teach that virtue is the certain road to happiness, and vice to misery, in this world. A very wholesome and comfortable doctrine, and to which we have but one objection, namely, that it is not true." - Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling


My mother-in-law likes to recall the story of how she sat on Tom Jones' knee in a nightclub back in the 1960s.  I think we can assume that he the incident has been forgotten by him, if the reports of his life are even remotely true. Anyway, Sir Tom - who took his stage name from the film starring Albert Finney - is eighty today, so here he is with an elegiac cover of a Leonard Cohen song:

The Strong Poetry of Wargaming

Back before I allowed myself to get side-tracked into ranting at the incompetents and hypocrites who run the country, one of the last posts on here which actually mentioned wargaming addressed our habit of constantly changing the rules, often in mid-game, a subject which often prompts questions from readers. I have been wondering whether what we do could perhaps be explained in philosophical terms. Allow me if you will to make the sweeping, and not particularly accurate, generalisation that one can divide western philosophers since the middle ages into three types: religious believers for whom the Truth is handed down on tablets of stone; enlightenment thinkers for whom there is an external Truth which can be found by reason and science; and those influenced by romanticism who take the view that Truth is subjective and found within us. I do this because it seems to me that it might be valid to divide wargamers into three portions in the same way, except that instead of the search for Truth, we are talking about the search for the ideal set of rules.

Faith based wargaming is simply to accept what someone else has decided is the case. I went through that phase myself as a teenager; we probably all did. What was written in the book that I borrowed from the library must surely be right. This is an approach is very much still alive, in both historical and fantasy settings, and in the most ultra-orthodox of forms, even to the extent that in some environments one can only play if one has toys from the official supplier. I have no first hand experience, but presumably competition wargaming wouldn't work without starting from this premise. And I would argue that it's also what is being practised by those who succumb to marketing hype and adopt new sets of rules as soon as they are published, albeit probably to eventually drop them and move on to the next big thing.

Readers will no doubt have read rulebooks written by those who take the view that there is a definitive way to play wargames, which can be uncovered by the application of scientific investigation and rational analysis. If one is only precise enough about how quickly troops marched, fired, reloaded etc in real life; about the efficacy of weapons on the battlefield; about the mechanics of command and control; if one can only reconcile ground scale, figure size and unit strength; then one will end up with what is, surely, out there somewhere waiting to be discovered, namely the 'perfect' set of rules. In the introduction to his book 'The Napoleonic Wargame', G.W. Jeffrey explains the approach: "wargames rules should be nothing more than tables of facts, which are referred to in order to determine the result of situations on the battlefield".

Paddy Griffiths on the other hand writes in 'Napoleonic Wargaming for Fun' that "No one can be very dogmatic about wargames rules, because they are always a very personal thing"; which I think places him among the romantics. I would define these as those who are searching for a game that encapsulates the ousia, the essence, of the historical period involved rather than attempting to develop a simulation of it. What this group really want is something that represents the overall feel, rather than pedantically seeks (and fails) to recreate the mechanics of, the triple acies of the Punic Wars, the clouds of skirmishers of the Napoleonic period, or whatever other historical nuance it is that interests them.

So, what does this have to do with continuously changing the rules? Well, firstly, James' example of the evolution of Kriegspiel into Free Kriegspiel took place in Germany, which was the home of Romaticism, and therefore an unsurprising place to see a switch from objective to subjective 'truth' in wargaming. And, it seems to me anyway, that this last section - the romantics - is where I/we fit. Nietzsche defined Truth as "a mobile army of metaphors" which I think nicely sums up how we go about it. We try one way of looking at something, and if it doesn't work, or perhaps if we just have a feeling that there may be a better alternative, we try another way of looking at it. If you view it as a continuing project rather than an attempt to achieve a definitive result - somewhat akin to Freud's concept that we each spend a lifetime wrestling with our unique and idiosyncratic problems which will inevitably still remain unresolved when we die - then it all makes sense.

In Praise of Idleness

 I have been pondering on how little I have managed to achieve in the period in which I have been confined to my home. I have read a great deal, but other than that I have done nothing of any value. I was reminded of the words of Bertrand Russell, who said that he didn't mind the time he spent in prison for his pacifism during the First World War because the lack of visitors and other interruptions meant he could get on and do something useful. Later on, in 1932, Russell wrote an essay entitled "In Praise of Idleness", in which he pointed out something that, judging by the way the UK government's financial response to the crisis has been structured, is clearly still true today: the idea that the poor should have leisure has always been shocking to the rich.

In addition to his fame as a philosopher, his campaigning for nuclear disarmament, winning the Nobel Prize for Literature etc, Russell was of course a very distinguished mathematician. A while ago I formed the intention of writing a post about why so many wargamers are mathematicians; or possibly it was going to be about why so many mathematicians are wargamers. That lack of clarity about the aim might be why I never got very far with the exercise. In fact the only thing I had decided, was to preface the piece with a quote from Russell: "Mathematicians neither know what they are talking about nor care whether what they say is true". I suspect that we all know at least one wargamer like that.

Added to my wishlist.

Who fancies one of these?

We're going to need a bigger table.

Late May

"I cannot tell you how it was;

But this I know: it came to pass

Upon a bright and breezy day

When May was young; ah, pleasant May!

As yet the poppies were not born

Between the blades of tender corn;

The last eggs had not hatched as yet,

Nor any bird foregone its mate.

I cannot tell you what it was;

But this I know: it did but pass.

It passed away with sunny May,

With all sweet things it passed away,

And left me old, and cold, and gray."

- Christina Rossetti