Ferrybridge

 Wargaming has been both infrequent and irregular recently, for a variety of reasons (*). However, Peter came round yesterday and we had a run through of the Ferrybridge scenario from the first Test of Resolve scenario book. It is structured in three parts - as was the original battle of course - and I had been a bit sceptical about it all hanging together. Peter had persuaded me that, au contraire, that whatever happened we would be able to construct a sensible narrative. In the event we didn't have to because, apart from Clifford surviving to see Skipton Castle again (always assuming he gets through Towton alive of course), it unfolded in a very historical manner.

I only took one photo of each phase, so no matter the level of technical quality, they're all going to be included. The first shows the Yorkist attack across the bridge after the Lancastrians have seen off the first two companies of attackers and Warwick himself has been wounded and carried to the rear.  

Notwithstanding these losses, sheer weight of number told and the second phase saw Clifford arrive to try to retake the bridge. The chap with the flag is whichever knightly commander we hurriedly pulled from the box to act as first reserve; I'm afraid I can't remember who had that honour. The defenders had regained some strength, but their diminished resources meant that they were swept away without inflicting any losses at all on Clifford's men.

The only thing in focus in this photo would appear to be the bridge, so you'll have to take my word for it that it shows Fauconberg's flanking attack, after his having crossed the Aire somewhere upstream. Given the Lancastrians being at full strength and having a sizeable complement of archers, I think we both assumed that they would easily see off the threat. But, the rules rose to the occasion and Clifford's archers ran out of arrows before doing anything of note. Fauconberg sent his own archers forwards and after suffering steady casualties that Lancastrians decided to withdraw. At that point they got the luck of the cards and were across the table and off before the Yorkists moved forwards at all. The scenario therefore ended in a draw, although Edward IV was now free to march onwards to  catch up with Queen Margaret at Towton. However, for the time being at least they won't be meeting in the annexe. We have tired of the Wars of the Roses and will move, eventually, on to something else. 

Having played them now about half a dozen times, my overall view of Test of Resolve is very positive, and I would certainly recommend trying them out to anyone looking for some new Wars of the Roses rules. 

* Both known knowns and unknown unknowns.

First Quarter Boardgaming 2023

 Just (mainly) the games new to me.

Anno 1800: This was fun; it's only a shame that I didn't listen more closely to the explanation of how one was likely to win. It's a tech tree game really, but the point of advancing up the tech tree was quite clearly described as being to attract new people to one's territory and then keep them happy. I managed the second part OK, but when we came to add up the scores I had a pathetically small number of inhabitants all of whom were wallowing in low scoring luxury. I'd like to give this another go.

Clank!: Catacombs: The original Clank! was a good game, but this much better. The main change is a modular board, which means that each game is different and allowing players to wander off in different directions, although the size and shape of one's table may influence this in practice. I really liked this.

Fürstenfeld: Economic game about brewing. I wasn't hugely enthused.

Mosaic: A Story of Civilisation: The subtitle is actually 'A Story of Civilization', but the blog must maintain its standards. This has tech tree elements, with a bits of set collection, area control, resource management and indeed very abstracted military conflict. The absolute best bit about this game is how quick each of one's turns is, meaning very little down time. On the other hand with five players, it does go on a bit, although by the third time through we had knocked an hour off the duration. Worth a look.

Mush!Mush!: This isn't a new-to-me game at all, but I can't resist writing about it because it was six years since it last got played. It's a husky racing game, with a clever central mechanism and works well with higher player counts. I hope to get this back to the table this year.

Scythe: This game is currently rated 16th overall on boardgamegeek, which inevitably means that I don't like it. I've had numerous opportunities to play it since it came out in 2016, but never bothered because I didn't think I'd enjoy it. Admittedly that judgement was mainly based on thematic and aesthetic grounds. It's set in some sort of alternate 1920s history in some sort of unspecified geography, precisely the type of fantasy/post-apocalyptic/steam-punk bollocks that gets right on my wick. Furthermore, it has a combination of a few ridiculous looking plastic pieces, which are not in scale with each other, and a few equally random sized wooden meeples making it a visual abomination. Anyway, I finally played it and hated it. I have been persuaded to give it another go tomorrow on the probably specious grounds that it will grow on me second time around. We shall see.

Flourish. Enter King Edward...

 ... in triumph; with Gloucester, Clarence and the rest.

"Thus far our fortune keeps an upward course

And we are graced with wreaths of victory"

And so it proved in our refight of Barnet. Sadly for Hastings 'the rest' didn't include him as he had perished upon the roll of a natural one in melee. But Gloucester, obviously stung by my previous observation that he never seemed to make it through any of our games, played a blinder. I didn't take many photos and no good ones at all, but include this shot to illustrate Dickon in action.

This was the largest of the games we've played using Test of Resolve - indeed I'm pretty sure it was the biggest WotR game I've ever put on - and thus wasn't over quite as quickly as the others. It played out rather well I thought. The 'stand off distance' mechanism in ToR lends itself nicely to the scenario specific rules required to mimic the fog which was a big influence at Barnet historically. The clinching factor in our game was that Oxford's battle wasn't able to manoeuvre as quickly when it realised there was nothing in front of it as Gloucester's did in the same position.

I think we'll have one more WotR game before I set up a different period and no, it won't be Mortimer's Cross. No paint has yet touched kern, and I'm now off to Wales for a couple of days of birthday celebrations in the inevitable rain. One thing that does need sorting out is a better way of marking casualties and troop types. The existing system was designed for gridded games and just doesn't work properly in a non-gridded game. Also required is a method of distinguishing battles one from another given that most troops look the same. Neither of those will be done by next week.

Iechyd da.

Kern I Get A Witness

 What joy, there would appear to be a multitude of 'kern' puns out there. I think I vaguely promised to talk about the RedBox and Tumbling Dice kern figures that I had bought, but a picture is worth a thousand words:

Or it would be if it was lit better. I'll take another one when they've been undercoated. They are compatible in size and look fairly similar apart from the haircuts, as in the chap on the right has had one and the chap on the left hasn't. In fact the Tumbling Dice figure (that's the metal one) rather reminds me of a good friend of mine from university days back in the 1970s; one just needs to imagine that instead of throwing a javelin he is energetically playing pinball and is just about to bring that right hand down for some mean flipper action. So, where are the javelins, or darts as the Test of Resolve authors would have it? Those supplied are soft metal so I shall be replacing them with stiff wire. Prepare yourselves for details of how difficult it is to do that. I think my modelling skills are reasonable; they are certainly better than my painting skills, I'll say that before anyone else does. However, I have have a blind spot when it comes to superglue, so there could be problems ahead.

And yes that is the Financial Times protecting the table.

Cattivo consiglio

 And so to the opera. The number of views this blog gets have decreased even faster than the number of posts that I have made, but if anything should whack them right back up again it's reviews of two rarely performed operas. 

Rossini's 'Il viaggio a Reims' was written to celebrate the coronation of a King Charles, meaning that ETO's current production is perhaps more timely than one of those they performed last year. On the other hand the king in question was Charles X of France, who was crowned in 1825 and deposed in the July revolution of 1830; will the Windsors go the way of the Bourbons? Reviews have been mixed, but I'm with those who say that it's an enjoyable romp. I'm also with those who say 'lose the third act'. 

Musically stronger - Rossini wrote his piece to be performed just the once, and recycled the best bits into other operas - was Donizetti's 'Lucrezia Borgia'. I'm not sure it was dramatically stronger because, well, it made no sense at all. Nor does it appear to have much to do with history. It was however beautifully sung and blackly comic. Lucrezia is much given to reminding the Duke of Ferrara that he is her fourth husband, with the implication as to what happened to the first three being fairly clear. The work also contains what must be the worst advice in all of opera when Orsini (on the left above) tells the not terribly bright Gennaro (that's him on the right) that they should go that night's feast given by notorious poisoner Lucrezia Borgia, as there will be plenty of time to leave town tomorrow. It doesn't end well for either of them, or for pretty much everyone else in the cast come to that.

Three Battle Scenario - at last

 Firstly, a public service announcement: avoid this Covid thingy if at all possible. I was getting better, and then I wasn't. It is, to an extent anyway, my own fault. I had important reasons to take a day trip to London, but it rather set me back, not helped by all the inevitable train delays and cancellations. But, I had recovered sufficiently by Wednesday last for there to be a game in the annexe.

I'm not sure what's happened to the colour in that photo. It's the three battle scenario from the Test of Resolve rulebook, with a small change. The scenario has one battle with a mounted contingent, but given that the first thing that would happen is that they would dismount, I pre-empted that and made them fight on foot from the start. Instead I gave each side a small unit of mounted household reinforcements, so that we still got to see how the mounted rules work.

As you will note if you look carefully at the picture above, one of the things we were able to test is what happens if mounted men-at-arms charge into the rear of a unit which is running away. Funnily enough, it didn't end well for the foot unit. (I'm afraid that's Richard of Gloucester meeting an early death in one of our games, and not for the first time; he's jinxed) If Somerset and his boys had stopped there we would perhaps have come to the conclusion that cavalry could be dominant on the battlefield. However, rather than retiring and regrouping they charged on and quickly demonstrated why that wasn't what happened during the Wars of the Roses.

It was, once again, all over rather quickly. These rules really don't mess about. I, on the other hand, do mess about and there has been no progress at all on painting all the kern I bought at such great expense.

Thought for (Match of) the Day

 "The unrestricted person, who has in hand what they will in all events, is free. But anyone who can be restricted, coerced or pushed into something against what they will is a slave." 

- Epictetus

It Had To Happen Eventually

 "A disease known is half cured." - Irish proverb

I have had Covid. I wasn't particularly acutely ill, but it's left me very washed out, and with a sort of persistent brain fog. So no gaming - board or war - and not much of anything else really. My recent purchases of Irish kern have arrived, but haven't got any further than a heap on the dining table. Also in the pile are various flags which I ordered in to help fill the strange gaps in my complement of Wars of the Roses commanders. Of course, if I have the strength to write a blog post can painting and modelling be far behind?

Illness requires lighter reading material than my normal diet of Wittgenstein, Nietzsche and Proust so I picked up 'Winter Pilgrims', which had been passed on to me by Peter. I think the appropriate word for the main plot line is 'implausible', but the descriptive set pieces of various battles are both entertaining and give food for thought. As I have often observed here, no one knows what happened which means that fictional imaginings are as valid as anything else really. I thought that the passage about the attack on Sandwich was the strongest, perhaps because of the relatively small scale of the affair. By the time of Towton, the author had rather lost me; too many tea breaks in his interpretation for my taste.

The book covers Mortimer's Cross, so the kern put in a brief appearance. I trust that, once painted, my figures will put up a better show.

My WotR Collection

 That title makes it sound as if I am going to post photos of them all, but I'm not. I'm actually responding to a couple of questions that I've had: are the figures Perry plastics, and are the new Irish kern that I have ordered, er, Perry plastics. In both cases it's a no. My figures are 20mm, and most of them are actually Hundred Years War figures deployed anachronistically with no shame whatsoever.

This was the first period that I painted when, in my forties, I was looking for a hobby which I could pick up and put down in the periods between professional assignments. I chose 1/72 soft plastic because one key criterion was not spending much money. (As an aside, that worked out well didn't it.) I had always been interested in the Wars of the Roses, there weren't any figures available, so I bought those for the HYW instead. I had no thought of gaming and no one else would ever see them so it didn't matter. As time went by more specific 15th century figures became available labelled variously as WotR, Burgundians, Swiss, Hussites etc, but I didn't replace anything. Instead I simply mixed them in, as I did a few metal figures from Tumbling Dice's range. The latter were often for things that it wasn't at the time easy to find in plastic: hand-gunners, pikemen etc. 

For the kern I have ordered a mixture of the Redbox Irish Troops and Tumbling Dice figures, just for variety really. The Redbox set also contains some Galloglass, which clearly I don't need, but will no doubt find a use for in due course. When everything arrives I shall tell you what I think.

Next week's game isn't going to be a refight of a specific combat, rather we shall have a go at the sample scenario in the rulebook which the authors use to introduce various troop types that we haven't employed in our games so far. These include mounted household troops, the rules for whose use I still haven't quite got my head around. 

Tewkesbury again again

 Not for the first time I can report that we have replayed the battle of Tewkesbury. The 'Test of Resolve' rules continue to please, perhaps even more now that we are playing them properly. The Yorkists won, mainly by dint of throwing large numbers of elevens and twelves, against which the Lancastrians had no answer.

There were several presentational changes starting with the movement trays which I had pre-ordered and picked-up at Vapnartak. I'd also painted up some more household troops, allowing for the nobles to lead their battles from the front rather than being embedded in units in order to bulk them out. I have to report that the plastic mountain is so depleted that if I wanted to refight Towton I would actually have to buy some more; who'd have thought that day would ever come.

Speaking of buying figures, there has been a request to do Mortimer's Cross, but unfortunately I have no kern. There's no point in buying any unless I get enough to also refight Stoke Field, which it turns out requires quite a lot of them. Still, what is money for if not to buy more toys? And it will still just about cost less than an evening at the opera, particularly after factoring in the programme, the ice cream and the private jet to San Francisco with Julia Roberts.

So, next week won't feature any Irish, but there will be some in due course.

Carnevale

 It's Carnevale, a festival that I've always felt that we British celebrated in a particularly boring fashion; your bloggist has never been a fan of pancakes. Judging by the look of this no-expense-spared video things aren't any better in the Netherlands:

PotCXVIIIpouri

 There's been no wargaming for a while, but we shall hopefully be be back in action in the annexe this week. The blog has also been a bit quiet, although I can report that the mystery viewer has stopped looking at the post which I mentioned before and started looking at this one instead; several times a day as with the first example. I flatter myself that the new target of his/her/its attentions is somewhat less boring that the other one, but even so...

In my absence I have been painting the cultural quarter of the town red; it's the time of the year for both opera and Fairport Convention. I also saw Hayley Mills performing on stage, an actor who was a star before I was born, and I am certainly not young. Add to that a very interesting lecture on Weights and Measures and you can understand my not finding the time to post anything here.

None of the above involved any of the following people, but I do like me some John Lee Hooker:

International Bomber Command Centre

 A couple of posts ago this blog featured a very brief extract from Tennyson's 'In Memoriam'. I am fond of a thematic link so let's have a photo of the man himself standing larger than life outside Lincoln Cathedral.

The cathedral itself is, I am pleased to report, still looking very impressive after a thousand years or so. The view below is from the western wall of the castle, back across the bailey and over the east wall.

The imp is still there, although just as diminutive and unimpressive as always. I'm sorry to say that Magna Carta wasn't around, having gone for what the guide described as 'a rest in the dark'. We've all felt the need for that I'm sure.

One local attraction that has opened since I was last in the city is the somewhat strangely named 'International Bomber Command Centre'. Lincolnshire of course contained many bomber bases during WWII, but this isn't actually one of them. It's a new building on farmland just outside Lincoln, with an impressive view of the city. It's fairly close to RAF Waddington, current home of the Red Arrows, and they were much in evidence while we were there. The website describes it as 'a facility' and 'an experience', both of which make sense. It's not a museum as such, having very few historical artefacts, but instead it does two things rather well. Firstly, it uses technology rather effectively to cover both the activities of Bomber Command and the stories of those across Europe who suffered due to bombing. Secondly, it has a memorial to the more than 55,000 members of RAF Bomber Command who died during the war, with all their names inscribed thereon. I thought it was all very well done, and perhaps more pertinently so did my companion for the visit, who wasn't particularly looking forward to it, but ended up glad that she came. Indeed she seemed to be rather enjoying herself controlling a Lancaster on its bombing run over Peenemünde.

If I have one observation it's that whilst it didn't shy away from highlighting the moral debate about strategic bombing, I didn't spot anything related to whether in the end it turned out to be an effective use of the Allies' resources. Perhaps the memorial is intended to make us reflect on that for ourselves.

Vapnartak 2023

 I was at Vapnartak at the weekend, for the first time since 2020. I arrived at about 10:45 and to my surprise had to queue for fifteen minutes to get in. There was some debate while we waited as to just how crowded it would be inside; in the end it was about the same as usual, so I'm not sure what the problem was. There are a few photos of the show elsewhere on the internet (try these for example), but none here I'm afraid. There were a number of games worth looking at and plenty of traders, and it was good to get back to visiting shows. The only other one that I have been to since lockdown was that attached to the Lard Workshop (*) and that was both smaller and unbearably hot.

Purchases were limited: some sabot bases to make movement easier in Test of Resolve plus the above book; oh, and a coffee, but sadly no cake because they didn't have any. I bumped into Peter and when comparing purchases I explained that I bought the book, as I always do with publications about the US invasion of Grenada, so that I could point out what they had got wrong. However, on this occasion a chat with the nice man on the Helion stand about the author and the commissioning process makes me think it will be less bad than usual. I bet they still don't mention Plessey though.

Peter also drew my attention to the fact that we had got far more rules wrong in Test of Resolve than I had admitted to here. So, that fact coupled with the new sabot bases, means that we shall definitely return to them in due course. Real life has intervened to make it hard to predict when that might be, but my fingers are firmly crossed that things aren't as bad as they may seem.

* Or possibly it was the other way around.

The quiet sense of something lost

 As in the winters left behind,

 Again our ancient games had place

-Tennyson, In Memoriam

PotCXVIIpouri

 The previously - and deservedly - obscure post which I mentioned earlier in the month is still getting a dozen or so visits a day. Does anyone know if Blogger allows one to put adverts on just one post? Only kidding; there will never be advertisements on this blog. 

No, adverts will join all the other things that are no longer featured here: interest, humour, secret messages to the big bouncy woman, etc. And, for some time now, that list has included videos in memory of the musical heroes of my youth who have left us. I had to give those up for actuarial reasons; barely a day goes past without sad news that yet another octogenarian has popped his or her last balloon. If I commemorated all of them then I wouldn't have room for the wargaming content for which this blog is so highly regarded. However, and you all saw this coming, I am going to make an exception for Tom Verlaine, for no better reason than that if 'Marquee Moon' isn't the best debut album of all time then I'd like someone to tell me what is. Let's lift a glass to happy days in Seaview:

If anyone is interested, the best debut single of all time is clearly 'Virginia Plain'.

And Somerset Another Goodly Mast

Prince Edward: I know my duty; you are all undutiful:
                          Lascivious Edward, and thou perjured George,
                          And thou mis-shapen Dick, I tell ye all
                          I am your better, traitors as ye are:
                          And thou usurp'st my father's right and mine.

King Edward IV: Take that, thou likeness of this railer here. [Stabs him]

Richard, Duke of Gloucester: Sprawl'st thou? take that, to end thy agony. [Stabs him]

George, Duke of Clarence). And there's for twitting me with perjury. [Stabs him]

Or at least that's how Shakespeare has it in Henry VI, Part III. It didn't end like that in our refight of Tewkesbury, although it came close.

Mark turned up this week and took the Yorkists, allowing me to umpire. That should have given me time to take more photos, but didn't, mainly because the more I read the rules the more convinced I became that we playing the melee rules incorrectly. The starting point was our seeming inability to work out which companies in one battle ought to be rolling off against which companies in the opposing battle. The 'Test of Resolve' rules are fairly clearly written, so that was a bit of a surprise to me. It turned out to be a knock-effect of something else which we weren't doing right. In our defence the way things work is pretty much the opposite of how things work in the rules we have most recently been playtesting in the Legendary Wargames Room, and intuitively we seem to have gone down that road again. 

Anyway, notwithstanding having played it wrongly all evening, a good time was had by all. The Lancastrians won quite comprehensively in the end. The Yorkist ambush failed to happen, and Gloucester perished early on, as he often seems to in refights of this engagement. Hastings' battle also dispersed leaving Edward IV all on his own. He could still win though, by defeating Wenlock's battle in melee and pushing through to kill Edward, Prince of Wales, which he came tantalisingly close to doing. He was only thwarted by rolling very low against Edward's bodyguards very high roll. That is always a possibility with D12s. Still, as I said before, it was most enjoyable, as I'm pretty sure it would have been had we played it properly.

Tewkesbury Again, Naturally

 To the surprise of absolutely no one, the next battle in our trial of 'Test of Resolve' will be Tewkesbury; indeed the only reason it wasn't the first one was that I didn't own the relevant scenario book at the time. I got into the habit of playing Tewkesbury with new rule sets because it is, in my opinion anyway, the battle from the Wars of the Roses which is most balanced and in which the inevitable treachery, subterfuge, delayed arrivals, ambushes etc are still present, but don't overwhelm things. Plus of course there is now the added attraction of being able to compare one author's scenario with another's. 

Once again I am playing it as written, and will report back. My first thoughts are that I might have had Wenlock and Devon on higher ground than the approaching Yorkists, but I don't suppose it will matter much. 

This time it is Edward, Prince of Wales whose demise would signal the end of the game. Can he survive for longer than his father did in our refight of 1st St Albans? We shall see. 

I'm trying a different method of recording casualties and morale this time round. I originally made my markers for Command & Colours and, as I have no intention of making any more, am struggling a bit to find the best way of fitting a square peg in a round hole.

First St Albans - ish

 We played the 'Test of Resolve' 1st St Albans scenario featuring all the wrong nobles (*) and the rules met with a fair degree of approval. We were able to get a completely unbiased opinion as there was neither winner nor loser. Henry VI unfortunately got caught in the crossfire and perished. In the words of the victory conditions: "If he dies the game ends immediately and inconclusively as a draw! The Wars of the Roses take a surprising turn".

My main concern prior to playing a full game was whether the special period specific rules together with the game's initiative system would result in things running on rails, leaving no interesting decisions to the players. I'm pleased to say that didn't happen, although 1st St Albans is not a particularly normal battle, so perhaps no firm conclusions can be drawn. A concern that did arise came through the use of D12s, which inevitably means that luck in combat and morale testing can swing quite a bit. Still, I think we shall have another go, with a battle in the open rather than in a town next time.

The scenario itself was fine. I previously observed that one of the roads along which the Yorkists attacked is actually quite steep, but in truth had they been penalised for that they would surely have never fought their way into the town. The one area I would probably change is the 'God Save the King Test' which had to be taken by the first Yorkist units into the square. This was a straight die roll, but I think I would give them the normal bonuses for quality, attached commander etc. If the first unit fails then perhaps I would give a down to the subsequent units to reflect this. In terms of the way I laid it out, I would next time specifically mark out the areas around the square notionally occupied by houses, as well as scattering a few buildings about for aesthetic effect. 

* There have been questions about how I come to have a WotR collection which doesn't include a Warwick figure; he was after all fairly prominent at the time. Well the good news is that I have found him. I definitely don't have either York or Salisbury though.

All the right nobles...

 ... but not necessarily at the right battles.

I decided that one sensible way to rouse myself from my wargaming inactivity was to take a look at some of the sets of rules which I have accumulated over the last couple of years. Even more logical is to start with a period for which I actually have the figures, so the Wars of the Roses it is. I have a couple of unplayed sets, but first up is 'Test of Resolve', a card based WotR specific set which I briefly described on in a previous post. They should be straightforward for me to pick up because they are derived from/an homage to/a blatant rip-off of Piquet Inc's FOB albeit in a very streamlined and simplified fashion. I like the look of the initiative allocation system, which doesn't seem that it will result in me calling on the higher mathematics in order to prove that it's no good, and I'm also rather taken with the way they have evolved the Heroic and Lull cards. However all that is just from reading and having a play about with the mechanisms. What is required is a proper game.

When I bought the rules I also bought the scenario book for the first part of the wars (the book for the second half is also now available and an order has been placed), and so from that I have chosen 1st St Albans. The scenario book is really very impressive and could, I think, be easily translated to other rules. In the same way that no one really knows how they fought at the time, there is often also uncertainty about where they fought and what happened. Whilst this ought to be less of an issue for 1st St Albans, the road layout of the centre of the city not having particularly changed since then, there are still alternative views of what occurred. In this case the authors have gone for the Yorkist left and right swinging round and charging along Holywell Hill and St Peter's Street. This leads to my one small quibble. As the name implies Holywell Hill has a slope, quite a big one actually. I was in St Albans a few months ago visiting my sister - I stayed at the White Hart which is approximately where the middle house is on this side of the road in the photo above - and I can confirm that climbing up it carrying a suitcase is bad enough; one assumes it would be worse while wearing armour. None of this gets a mention in the scenario. Anyway, be that as it may, I'm going to play it as written.

Or at least I'm going to play it as written except for one detail. Notwithstanding having said in the first paragraph that I have the figures, I don't have models of all the requisite commanders. Therefore the Yorkist attack will be led by the next generation, those who fought at Tewkesbury to be precise. The Lancastrians will mostly be present and correct - I even have a Henry VI kneeling in prayer - but Sir Andrew Trollope has kindly agreed to deputise for Buckingham.

Pointless

 Something - I very much assuming it's not someone - is looking at this non-descript post from six years ago (*) a dozen times a day, and has been doing so for weeks. If I had invented some sort of algorithmically driven blog reader I would be bitterly disappointed if that was all it bothered to come up with.

Anyway, in honour of what I am supposing to be a type of virtual machine let's have some 'Lothar and the Hand People', a band from the sixties who don't get anything like the recognition they deserve from most wargaming blogs.

* You know that I mean non-descript even by the low standards of this blog

Ramparts Unclimbed

 A couple of months ago I posted photos of the forces laid out for the final assault in the siege game that has been clogging up the table in the annexe since the middle of last year. I have actually played it out, I just haven't written it up. The reason for that was that it became obvious fairly quickly that it was impossible for the attackers to succeed using the combination of the rules as written, the forces as chosen and the tactics which I was employing. 

A small part of the problem was that the defenders had won every one of the preliminary siege rounds, forcing the besiegers to attack before they had built all the siege equipment they otherwise might have and without the level of superiority of forces they would have wished for. Possibly also I had jinxed them a bit by writing in that last post: "I don't see how the attackers can lose". However the main problem is that assault by escalade is exceedingly difficult. Now, obviously it should be, but then again one wants a balanced game. I came away with a number of thoughts as to how to tweak things, for example I think more, but smaller, defending units might work better. The attackers also need to concentrate their efforts to gain local superiority. I had held off posting about it pending trying those out, but have decided to move on and do something else completely.

So, overall I thought the rules, which you will recall were published about a year ago in Miniature Wargames, were an interesting way to represent a medieval siege. They could also provide a platform to build on to include some of the aspects which Vauban's Wars introduced effectively e.g. food, spies, disease. The part that didn't work for me was the assault, but funnily enough that's the bit that isn't handled well by VW either. 

2022

It's time for the review of the year. It was a terrible year for the world in many ways of course. In addition for me there were bereavements and funerals, but I'm afraid that is inevitable as one ages. On the plus side, the year did contain much to amuse those of us with an interest in UK politics; indeed my most read post of the year was this one. While the pandemic now seems a long time ago I found that my caution about crowded places was slow to abate. I may now be back at full flâneur level, but at the start of the year my diary wasn't so full. In any event, what did get done may be appearing here for the first time as I have been remiss in writing about culture in the blog, or indeed writing about much at all.

Opera: I saw eighteen operas this year, which is getting back close to normal levels. Top marks has to go to 'Orpheus Reimagined'. In the words of Opera North this 'melds the music of Monteverdi’s 1607 opera 'Orfeo' with brand new music by composer and virtuoso sitar player Jasdeep Singh Degun. Together, he and early music specialist Laurence Cummings lead a cast starring some of the best Indian classical and European baroque musicians in the UK'. I thought it was sensational. Also well worth a mention was Krenek's 'Der Diktator', both very timely in its subject matter and accompanied by a fascinating post-performance discussion about the nature of authoritarian leaders.

Theatre: I saw twenty nine plays (compared to four in 2021), which once again is somewhat more like it. Best was 'The Book of Mormon' with an honourable mention for Julian Clarey and Matthew Kelly in 'The Dresser and for 'The Corn is Green' at the National Theatre. Seven of those were Shakespeare, of which the best was 'Henry VIII' at The Globe.

Music: I went to sixteen gigs, a big improvement on 2021's four. However the best was once again Martin Simpson, so that didn't change. The best excluding the maestro was probably Errol Linton. It goes without saying that to see Connie Kreitmeier in the flesh was a highlight as well.

Film: Without doubt the best film I saw was 'Hallelujah', the documentary about Leonard Cohen, which I highly recommend. The best non-documentary was 'The Harder They Come', starring Jimmy Cliff, released back into cinemas to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of its initial release plus, of course, the sixtieth anniversary of Jamaican independence. The best current offering was 'Official Competition', which was brilliant, but both in Spanish and on rather limited release. If pressed to choose a mainstream film the one I'd recommend the most is, I think, 'The Duke', but with a nod to 'Belfast'.

Talks: I attended twenty seven talks this year, the best of which was on the subject of J.B. Priestley's time in Hollywood. Apparently his regular drinking partners whilst there were Groucho Marx and Charlie Chaplin, which would have been a pub crawl worth tagging along with I think.

Books: I have read 101 books, which is fewer than the previous year, but then again I went out more. The best fiction was Mikhail Bulgakov's 'The White Guard' with an honourable mention for  'Minty Alley', by C.L.R James. I fully appreciate that neither of those is terribly modern. Best non-fiction was 'Wagner and Philosophy' by Bryan Magee. Best non-fiction that was in any way related to the ostensible purpose of this blog was John Buckley's highly entertaining 'The Armchair General'.

Boardgames: I played 57 different games 157 times, so that's a healthy increase. I've reported on them elsewhere so I'll say no more here.

Wargames: By my reckoning I played around thirty games, many of which spread over two or three evenings. My favourite was 'Flashing Blades' at the Lard Workshop, which as I said at the time was a cracking little game. I am happy to have a go at any rules or period really and enjoyed a number of new ones this year. I found 'DBN' rather entertaining, and while I never really warmed to 'Soldiers of Napoleon' they did include some nice ideas; what they are not is a multi-player game. Probably the most disappointing new-to-me set was 'Rommel', which just didn't seem to grab any of us; perhaps it would have been better if we had used them to refight Sidi Rezegh. The rules/period which I personally would most like to revisit in 2023 is 'Jump or Burn'. Back in March James told us all to think of names for our pilots as we were just about to start a campaign, following which the planes were never seen again.

Exhibitions: The first new award category for a few years. I'm think the highlight was Walter Sickert retrospective at Tate Britain, with a special mention for the British Museum's fine exploration of the history and context of Stonehenge. 

Event of the Year: There were a few contenders. Clearly returning home to find the house full of smoke and my spare bedroom in flames must be one possibility, as was the failure of International Pigeon Rescue to mobilise their Otley branch following an emergency call by one of my occasional companions after she found an injured bird in my back garden. However, I am going for the rather tasty old-school fight on the X84 bus, which transported me momentarily back to my youth, when such things were commonplace.

For 2023 I wish us all, more than ever, love in a peaceful world.

Newish boardgames

 Lack of posting means lack of boardgames reviews, which is a shame because I've played one or two good ones. These are the games I played for the first time since I last did a roundup:

Concordia: In the finest tradition of the blog, having said that these are new games let's start with one I had played before a few years ago, but couldn't remember at all. It probably didn't help my memory that we played on a different map, this time Britannia. In my previous review I said that I chose a strategy and stuck to it despite the fact that it was a wrong one. This time I chose  strategy, stuck to it, and it was the right one. Not a bad game.

Dandelions: This is a roll and move game, which is about as old-fashioned a mechanism as you can get. However there are a couple of simple twists which, combined with its very short length, make it a neat little game.

Dune: Imperium: This is the pick of the new games I've played and it's easy to see why it is so highly rated. I don't want to suggest that wargamers are only interested in fighting, but this game combines worker placement with a combat system. You don't have to fight every battle, but you'll have to take part in some if you want to win. The combat part reminds me of Condottiere, which is high praise, in that it's crucial to decide when to go all in and, equally, to judge when ones opponents are going to do the same. Highly recommended.

Endless Winter: Paleoamericans: Another big, heavy new game with a buzz around it. It was fine, but fell a bit short for me. In particular while the first three of the four rounds it is played over were quite meaty in terms of decisions and actions, the final round was a big anti-climax. It also takes up a vast amount of table space.

Glasgow: A game about building the second city of the empire, so lots of tenement tiles. I probably need to give this another go before passing judgement.

Kluster: A strange game, or perhaps activity, with some very strong magnets. 

Lacrimosa: Based on the writing of Mozart's Requiem, so top marks for unusual theme. It's OK, quite reminiscent of Rococo, a game I like. I have a ticket for a performance of the Requiem in May next year; that will probably get a longer review than the game.

Obsession: It is seemingly obligatory to refer to this as 'Downton Abbey the board game', notwithstanding the fact that the game is set in the Victorian period whilst the soap opera - or so I understand, obviously I've never seen it - takes place between the wars. I thought it was a very average worker placement game, but perhaps that was sour grapes after I bust a gut to marry above my station only to find that it was temporary and I had to do it all again the following turn.

Spirit Island: A co-operative game, but better than a lot of others I have played. We successfully defended our island against the invaders, but no real thanks to me as it turned out I had not fully understood the victory conditions so the end came as an abrupt surprise. 

Take it Easy!: Quite an old game - 1980s I think - about laying pipes and using a bingo-style mechanism. I genuinely thought I was doing very well, but it's a spatial awareness game, so it turned out that I wasn't.

Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition: A card game version of the bigger game. I didn't really see the point.

Ticket to Ride: Amsterdam: A twenty-minute version of TtR with the same core mechanisms, but a smaller map and fewer pieces to place. The latter change in particular means there is absolutely no room to mess about; you have to be on it from the start. Very similar, and equally good, is Ticket to Ride: London. 

Villagers: If the original source material for Dandelions is Ludo, then this is Happy Families with Mr Bun the Baker replaced by Lumberjacks, Speelunkers, Freemasons and, well, Bakers. It's fine.

Walkie Talkie: Passes the time until you realise that there aren't any enforceable rules, and it therefore probably isn't actually a game at all.

Shake For Me

 How about some Duane Allman slide guitar:

Felicitations

 

Gut Yontiff to one and all

48 Crash

"Watch Out!

You know the 48 Crash come like a lightning flash (48 Crash, 48 Crash)" 

- Chinn & Chapman

Apologies, but the picture of Ms Quatro is mere clickbait. I am going to post about how I seem to have mislaid my wargaming mojo during 2022. Apart from actually playing the games it has been steadily diminishing; for example I have done no painting of any sort for many months now. Perhaps the last element of the hobby to go for me was my penchant for buying any new rules published for those periods which I game, or, as in the case of the Mexican Revolution, which I don't game. But even that seems to have shrivelled and died. Caliver Books were recently offering a deal on Billhooks Deluxe, expanding the 'Never Mind the Billhooks' WotR rules to cover amongst other things the Hussites. And yet, I didn't buy them. 

Whilst en route to Manchester to see 'Die Fledermaus' (*), the December issue of Wargames Illustrated caught my eye in the Smith's at Leeds station, as it contains a couple of sizable articles on the newly published rules. Would my enthusiasm be given a sufficient kickstart to get online and order a copy? Well, not so far it hasn't. I haven't been able to get over the image presented by the following quote: "Archer blocks in line can be deadly. Loosing an arrowstorm of 48 dice makes for a mighty racket as D6s bounce around the table..."

How many? Not for me I think.

* Which was excellent, featuring amongst other characters in the chorus the Spice Girls and Boris Johnson, plus an entirely unexpected appearance by Kathryn Rudge singing the 'Habanera' from 'Carmen'.

Lieutenant Padfield

 The actor Daniel Craig featured in the previous post. Twenty years ago he played Guy Crouchback in Channel 4's adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's 'Sword of Honour' trilogy. The book documents Crouchback's war, which paralleled Waugh's own in many respects, and has a large cast who I've always assumed were modelled on, or amalgams of, real people. Indeed I have already written about one probable source for Brigadier Ritchie Hook. I have just come across another example.

I have been reading the second volume of the diaries of Henry 'Chips' Channon. Now, don't judge me. Channon was clearly an appalling human being: shallow, snobbish, hypocritical, anti-semitic, a Tory MP - I could go on. (By the way the child in the picture is Paul Channon, who went on to become a cabinet minister under Thatcher). However, I got the book very cheaply, and that's not to be sniffed at. And the years covered are 1938 to 1943, so I thought it would be interesting to see how the events of those years were viewed at the time. As with Charles Repington's diaries from the Great War which I read earlier this year it becomes clear that many of them aren't viewed as being worth mentioning. Repington never writes about the Easter Rising or the Russian Revolution and Channon doesn't regard the battle of Stalingrad as being worth even alluding to in passing. The main amusement in Channon's case is just how wrong he was about so many things. Not merely that he was an arch-appeaser (*), but that his tips for high political office - including himself - inevitably get sacked shortly afterwards, never to rise again. At one point he predicts the imminent restoration of the monarchy in Germany, which even without the benefit of hindsight does seem as if he's been smoking something.

Waugh's novel contains a character called Lieutenant Padfield, the 'Loot', an American social phenomenon who is everywhere and knows everyone. Channon's diaries feature the 'Sarge', one Stuart Preston, who is attached to Eisenhower's HQ in some unspecified capacity, knows everyone and is at every social function. The real Preston, who went on to be art critic of the New York Times, is now understood to have been working in counter-intelligence, with the task of infiltrating high society to identify sources of indiscreet gossip; if Channon is to be believed he did so in a very hands on manner. Waugh's 'Loot' turns out to be spying one of the major characters on behalf of a firm of US lawyers, so perhaps Waugh (**), and therefore presumably everyone else as well, was fully aware of what the 'Sarge' was up to.

* After the Germans occupy the whole of Czechoslovakia in contravention of the Munich agreement, he observes that Hitler doesn't make life easy for his friends.

** Who also appears in Channon's diaries; Chips is not a fan.

PotCXVIpouri

 I have been to the cinema to see 'Glass Onion', the second Benoit Blanc murder mystery. Whilst I didn't think it was as tightly plotted as 'Knives Out' it was nevertheless highly entertaining, not least for Daniel Craig's accent. It featured a few surprise cameos including Angela Lansbury. Lansbury of course died last month, and had the sort of career that means much information of interest to your bloggist was often left out of her obituaries. It was mentioned in a few places that her grandfather George Lansbury was the leader of the Labour Party in the early 1930s, but I don't recall reading anywhere that Oliver Postgate, the Noggin the Nog and Bagpuss supremo, was her first cousin. The blog pays its respect to them all.

Someone else who recently left us was Wilko Johnson, who I may or may not have seen with the original Dr Feelgood (*). 

I went to see Eliza Carthy last week and she dedicated a song to Johnson, explaining that she had played with him and that he and her father, Martin Carthy, had been close. This threw me momentarily because Martin Carthy is, well, old. But then I remembered both that Wilko Johnson himself had also been old, and that indeed so am I. Eliza Carthy and her band, the Restitution, were great. Here's one they did:

* For anyone who followed that link, new information has come to light and it would seem that the gig in question was actually at St George's Hall in Bradford rather than at Huddersfield Poly.

Fate

If dawn finds someone proud,

Evening sees them brought low.
Don't believe in success,
Don't accept failure.
Clotho spins and our fortunes change.
The gods do not offer
Any guarantees.
The thread twists swiftly,
And our lives turn with it.

                   - Seneca

Even More Bell Curve Bollocks

 I'm sure everyone is familiar with the remark attributed to a senior French civil servant after something had been explained to him: "That's all very well in practice," he said "but will it work in theory?". I feel somewhat the same about the domino method of determining initiative for games of Piquet. I'd previously been very happy with it, and then I asked myself what theoretical underpinnings it had. I should have let it lie.

The winner's probability distribution is indeed, as I predicted, right-skewed and the mean (9.5) is higher than the mode (7). There is a long tail of high initiatives, which individually have a low probability, but collectively add up to quite a lot. One third of the time the winner will get 12 or more.

The graph of the loser's initiative isn't particularly illuminating. The loser gets a mean of 3.5, with a mode of 4. The system this replaced was opposed D20s with the winner getting the difference. That produces a mean initiative of 7 to the winner, with 0 to the loser (*). Therefore there's a net benefit of 2.5 to the winner and 3.5 to the loser.

Other points to note: 

• 7% of the time the loser still won't get any initiative at all.
• The mode of opposed D20 rolls is of course 1, so there's clearly less overhead involved in drawing dominos.
• The loser can get as much as 10 initiative. That sounds good until you couple it with the fact that it can only happen if the winner gets 20, 21 or 22. Because of the way the initiative interacts with the card decks the chances are quite high that the winner will end the turn with that much initiative and so winning an initiative of 10 is definitely not the same as getting to use an initiative of 10.
• D20s only give 20% chance of getting 12 initiative or more. 

So, my feeling that dominos give big swings to the initiative winner more often is (probably) correct. However, on average it's better for the loser, which was always the point. I still think I'd be inclined to take out all dominos with a six on, but basically, however unthought through the theory behind it was, it mostly works OK in practice.

 

* All the analysis excludes either the same domino or the same result on the dice, both of which indicate the end of a turn.

More Bell Curve Bollocks

 As will have been long apparent, my preferred approach to this blog is to write any old rubbish and then forget it, on the basis that no one reads it anyway. Occasionally this backfires, such as in the case of my recent post about dominos as a means of determining initiative in Piquet. I have been asked if I can justify my assertion that the result follows a normal distribution. In particular, the question was asked as to what specifically I was referring: the winner's initiative, the loser's initiative or the difference between the two? A reasonable question.

Well, the results of drawing a single domino and adding the pips follow a normal distribution. If both sides did the same then subtracting one from the other would be the difference between two independent normal distributions, which would also be a normal distribution. So far so good. But apart from the initial drawing of the dominos that's not actually how we allocate initiative. Even more importantly, what we do with the results of the draw renders the probabilities of the winner's and loser's respective initiatives non-independent. So, the answer to the question is: no, I can't justify it.

The author Michael Green wrote a series of books called 'The Art of Coarse Acting', 'The Art of Coarse Rugby' etc. He never got round to 'The Art of Coarse Mathematics' for some reason (*), but had he done so then I'm sure that he would have drawn the attention of readers to two cop-out phrases beloved of mathematicians who either can't or don't want to work everything out in detail: 'by inspection' and 'result follows'. Therefore, by inspection I'm going to assert that, under our methodology, both initiatives have a right-skewed distribution with the mean being higher than the mode. As for the net initiative - who knows?

This correspondence is now closed.

* I should point out that in geometry and topology 'coarseness' is a real and important concept

Kids in Bavaria

 It's been over a year since The Heimatdamisch, and Conny Kreitmeier in particular, featured in the blog, but I'm glad to say that she's back.

Apologies for the poor picture quality, but I took it on my phone in the Brudenell last night, the second date of their first UK tour. They were billed as 'the ultimate live party band' and judging by the way they were received by the packed and diverse audience there was some justification in that. For those who don't know Leeds, the Brudenell is bang in the middle of the main student area and one easily can see why the band might appeal to that demographic, and indeed why Conny plus half a dozen blokes in lederhosen would attract those whose taste runs to a bit of camp. Both I and my companion for the evening thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, although she did make one or two remarks about my obvious admiration for Bavaria's finest pair of lungs. Their repertoire ranges from AC/DC to Taylor Swift; here's the latter (for the avoidance of doubt this isn't West Yorkshire):

Bell Curve

The refight of Salamanca ended with a pretty overwhelming British victory. I came away thinking, as I often do after wargames, about probability theory. The ongoing rule changes to which I frequently refer are, as I hope you have realised all along, a feature rather than a bug. They are part of our (well James's really) Sisyphean attempt to develop the 'perfect' rules for any given period, usually but not always based on one of the Piquet family; a process which I rather enjoy and think the others do too. There are wargamers out there who indulge in a bit of Free Kriegspiel or in Matrix Games, but we in the Lower Wharfe Valley stick to the turning of cards, rolling of dice, drawing of dominos etc to establish the outcome of events. These randomisers usually involve probabilities which approximate a normal distribution (*). What we and other wargames developers are trying to do - although of course we wouldn't express it in this way - is to make sure that the centre of the bell curve is where it should be (**) on the x-axis, and that the outcomes which occur way along in the extremities of the tails don't ruin the game.

The second of those issues typically manifested itself in the original version of Piquet in the occasional very large swings of initiative leaving one set of players twiddling their thumbs while the other side got to move and fire all their units repeatedly. The second version of Piquet (i.e. FoB) got round this by giving each side the same initiative, while we adopted a domino draw mechanism that, for the most part, suits us by providing different, but mostly acceptable, initiative amounts for each side. It can occasionally go wrong though, and last night it did. The draw which one would most want is to get double six whilst one's opponent draws the six five. The chances of a particular side doing this are 1 in 784. Last night the British did it twice in an evening, say a dozen draws in total. I'll leave you to calculate how unlikely that is for yourselves (***). It did rather skew things. If I had been called in as a consultant by James, and I think you should assume that I haven't, I'd suggest taking out all the dominos with sixes on. As well as reducing the maximum initiative swing from 23:6 to 19:5 it would increase the odds of a turn ending early to 1 in 21, or virtually the same as in the original Piquet rules.

As for the other issue: is the centre of the curve for combat resolution where it ought to be? No, but it is of course still a work in progress. 

*     i.e. are normal in the limit

**   Given both our interpretation of history and our desire for a decent game

*** I believe that the number of times that particular draw of two dominos would be repeated in any given set of twelve draws would itself follow a binomial distribution, but I really can't be arsed to work it out.

From Salamanca to Elchingen

 I broke my recent wargaming fast in the form of the first evening of a refight of Salamanca. I wasn't at all familiar with the battle before, but if I've understood it correctly we're playing the part of the battlefield where the main fighting occurred and the British are not constrained by having to follow Wellington's plan. The main change to the rules in my absence seemed to be to do with infantry melees. The changes sounded interesting - I thought I detected some Black Powder DNA - but we managed not to have any infantry melees so I can't really comment. I'm on the French team and all is not going well on my side of the battlefield, although my reinforcements are about to rush out of the woods, so perhaps there's hope yet.

My knowledge of Salamanca is infinitely greater than my knowledge of Elchingen, of which I had never heard before Mark invited me round to try some DBN. Even now, I couldn't tell you much more than that it involved Austrians and French. We played it through twice, swapping sides, and the Austrians won narrowly each time.

It wasn't just my first time with DBN, it was the first occasion that I had ever played any of the DB family of rules. I have to say that I rather enjoyed it. The game was much as Mark had described it: entertaining and quick. One of the things I wondered about in advance was how it would compare to C&C Napoleonics. The best point of reference is the basic C&C game rather than the expanded EPIC version that I would play in the annexe, and despite very different mechanisms there seemed to me to be similarities. They are both easy to grasp and play, avoid minutiae, but yet have sufficient chrome (e.g. unit types, national differences) to render the period recognisable. Indeed they share the same fault, namely that because victory depends on destroying a certain number of enemy units it can all get a bit cheesy at the end when on is chasing the final elimination.

A very pleasant way to spend a couple of hours.