Soapy opera

And so to the opera. Opera North's revived production of Jenůfa by Janáček is very good, but the story is just horrible. It's well worth seeing, but the content isn't something to sit around and dwell on afterwards. I think I am pretty unshockable (in a moral sense - I'm a complete wuss when it comes to blood and gore), but the crime at the heart of this drama is one for which I simply cannot conceive there ever being a motivation.

The Guardian's review sums the whole thing up nicely: 'So she gets married to the one who slashes her face, not the alcoholic who left her pregnant? Indeed she does – though not before her stepmother has murdered the baby.' I've always scoffed at those who tritely claim that were Dickens alive today then he would be writing for Eastenders; perhaps they actually have a point.

In other news, I have been to Hebden Bridge (I told you that I was morally unshockable), but there was no bread and the wool shop doesn't open on Mondays. A good time was had by all.

Far Fiasco

"The cause of the six-sided shape of a snowflake is none other than that of the ordered shapes of plants and of numerical constants; and since in them nothing occurs without supreme reason—not, to be sure, such as discursive reasoning discovers, but such as existed from the first in the Creators's design and is preserved from that origin to this day in the wonderful nature of animal faculties, I do not believe that even in a snowflake this ordered pattern exists at random."- Johannes Kepler

I have been to Fiasco, which I'm afraid continues not to be very good. I find that a real shame. For many years, as a wargamer who didn't know any other wargamers, the two Fiasco shows each year provided an important connection to the hobby. However, at a point roughly coincident with, but presumably unrelated to, its move to the Royal Armouries the show started to steadily decline in quality. For the last couple of years I've helped James and Peter put on games at the show, but it's half-term and James has higher priorities. Sadly there were no other demonstration games there today that even approached the size and quality of that which won James the prize at Derby earlier this month. Indeed there was nothing much to look at at all.

On the other hand, there were plenty of places to spend money, and so I did. In a move that will not surprise at least one reader of the blog, I bought some Hexon terrain from Kallistra. I now have, I hope, enough to replace my homemade squex mats for C&C Napoleonics and also the basis for a more extensive future set-up that will eventually allow larger games in the annexe.

St James Infirmary Blues

I saw Gypsy Bill (perhaps inevitably, he isn't actually a Gypsy, but he passes for a bit of a hippie because he lives on a boat and has a pretty magnificent beard) playing in the pub the other night and he did a cracking version of St James Infirmary Blues. My companion for the evening professed not to know the song, so when we retired to the Casa Epictetus I played her several versions back to back, ranging from Louis Armstrong, surely the best known, through the very uptempo take by Tom Jones to the funereal effort of Georgie Fame. This quickly caused her to disappear off home; although not until after she had been very complimentary about the Pear & Chocolate cake. One of the performers that she missed out on because of her hasty exit was Sir Van the Man:

Deuteronomy 1:10

"The Lord your God hath multiplied you, and, behold, ye are this day as the stars of heaven for multitude."

Suddenly, this blog is swamped with readers, which surely can only mean one thing: the Russian spambots are back. But no! In fact, James has posted a link to here on his own blog and his fanboys have taken the hint. Well now you're here, how best to keep you? I know, an opera review.

And so to the opera. Opera North have revived their thirty year old production of Rossini's opera buffa The Barber of Seville, perhaps to complement last season's Marriage of Figaro (in which case why not the other way round?), perhaps as an attempt to beat the crowd to next year's anniversary, and perhaps just because it's popular with the punters. It was very full, with the area up in the gods which I frequent these days, being both crowded and hot. Never mind, it was as good as I remembered, although I was a bit less tolerant of the people on stage leading the applause this time; I'll clap when I feel like it, thank you very much. And applaud I did, especially for Gavan Ring's Figaro as spiv. The opera is sung in English and the translation is funny and pertinent. As Bartolo points out while lamenting 'modern opera', if something is too silly to be said it can still be sung.

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Sunk without trace

"My wife was immature. I'd be in my bath and she'd come in and sink my boats." - Woody Allen

We convened at James' last night for some more galley action and were joined for the first time by Paul, an experienced wargamer who has just moved into the area and who we had made contact with at the Derby show. Sad to say he clearly didn't enjoy his first game in the legendary wargames room, but frankly I could see where he was coming from.

James had translated the War Galley board game to the tabletop and there were certain immediate improvements on top of the obvious aesthetic one. The ships, being metal, stayed where they were supposed to be, and with his usual assiduity he had made any number of markers. The only cardboard tokens remaining were the little chits for the squadron commanders and so the problem of small printing and old eyes had also disappeared. However, the complexity remained.

As readers will know we often play Piquet, which is a reasonably involved set of rules. At any particular point a unit could have markers defining quality, losses, morale status, command status, whether it was loaded, whether it had fired at all, whether it had acted on the current card and probably others I have forgotten (Interestingly, this isn't the bit about Piquet that people complain about; it's always the command and control rules.). So I'm used to relatively complicated games. But for some reason this game seems to have a very high ratio of faffing about to the amount of fun generated. And, ironically perhaps given my own acceptance of the swings of initiative in Piquet, it seemed to me that the whole game would probably hinge on who won the initiative on the first turn when the fleets had closed to ramming distance; in other words, on one die roll.

There was a further issue which bothered Paul, who had neither played the board game nor read the rules before, and which on reflection I think was a perfectly valid point, possibly obscured to those of us who had played with paper and cardboard. In that version the ship tokens fill the hexes, meaning that the eye automatically accepts the rule that ships cannot pass through a hex containing another ship. Except, of course, when they can. There is a special diekplous rule that allows pass through of fleets facing each other head on under certain conditions. The rule is justified with reference to the actual tactic of the same name employed by the Greeks, but a moment's reflection will tell you that the real reason is that without it the game is broken. If both players deployed their ships in close packed lines of adjacent hexes then nothing could or would ever happen. On the tabletop the ships do not fill the hexes, and the space to either side gives some visual explanation as to how the diekplous would have worked. However, it also raises all sorts of expectations that interpenetration ought to be possible under other, less restricted circumstances. When Paul made his point, the best justification that the rest of us could come up with was that it was what the rules said; rather unsatisfactory I'm sure we'd all agree.

So, points to reflect on:

• These rules are not a hit with me as they stand
• Having said that I still think hexes are definitely the way to go for galley warfare
• As James himself pointed out, now the hexes are on the table they'd work well for WW1 aerial games
• I hope that Paul rejoins us for a game more to his taste; some FoB Punic Wars perhaps.

From Rameses II to Henry V

 I don't know if anyone else ever takes any MOOCs. I've got into the habit of watching a video or two while I'm having a cup of coffee and a slice of home-made cake (this week's is Pear & Chocolate Loaf and is rather good, even if I say so myself; if you follow the recipe add a heaped teaspoonful of baking powder) and am finding them all very interesting. Obviously as a wargamer what one really needs is constant temptation to start up yet another period and MOOCs provide a steady stream of possibilities to be enthused over and then discarded when something better comes along. For example, I've just completed a short course on the ancient Near East which included much material on Kadesh plus the fighting techniques of the combatants. I hope that my willpower is strong enough to resist the lure of the massed chariots of Rameses II, but the best way to ensure that is so is by quickly moving on. It being October 2015 then where better to go next than Agincourt, and so I'm going to be taking a look here at a brief course being led by Professor Ann Curry to mark the 600th anniversary.

Well, it's all right

Happy sixty-fifth birthday to Tom Petty. Here he is, featuring added Stevie Nicks for any of her fans who are reading this:

God it's so painful
Something that's so close
And still so far out of reach

And here he is with some other wannabes and hangers on:

Everybody's got somebody to lean on
Put your body next to mine, and dream on
 

See my tailor, he's called Simon

Rosalind, in 'As You Like It' asks the rhetorical question "Can one desire too much of a good thing?". One could ask the equally rhetorical, and unnecessarily self-referential, question of whether rhetorical questions are themselves too much of a good thing in this blog. As it happens the answer to both questions ["Can rhetorical questions have an answer?"] is "I should coco!". The answer to the rhetorical question about whether rhetorical questions can have answers is, as an example of Russell's Paradox, best considered alone over a nice cup of tea.

Russell's teapot

Why am I writing this drivel? ["OK", interjects the RP "I've let it slide up until now, but you have to stop doing this."]  Well, I have played boardgames for four days running, and even my enthusiasm is starting to wane. No one can live life in the fast lane continuously, especially at my age. As Lou Reed put it in the original, but sadly unrecorded, version of 'Walk on the Wild Side'

Graham is just boardgaming away
Thought he was building a railway across Europe for a day
Then I guess he had to crash
Valium would have helped that bash
He said, hey babe, take a walk on the wild side
I said, hey honey, take a walk on the wild side
And the coloured girls say

Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo
Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo
Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo
Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo
Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo
Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo
Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo

So it's time to pack up the meeples, dice etc and chill out. I shall be slowing things down with a few days of sex, drugs and rock & roll. In all honesty the drugs might be limited to my asthma inhaler; I'll certainly steer clear of whatever Norman Watt-Roy is on in this video:

I'll be back.

War Galley

It's been a long time since I played a hex-wargame on a paper mat with cardboard counters, and last night I realised why. It's fiddly, complicated and the markings on the pieces are difficult to read. However, there were enough positives from the game of War Galley to think that it might translate effectively to the tabeltop with models. In particular, I am convinced that hexes are the appropriate medium for rules involving ramming, raking, grappling and so on. It just makes crystal clear what actions are permitted and what aren't.

What was less than crystal clear was the prose in which the rules were written. Richard H. Berg (not to be confused with the Richard Borg who wrote Memoir '44, which I played the previous day) may be prolific, but it hasn't made what he writes easier to understand. In fact it may be part of the problem because there could perhaps be an assumption that one has played other games and is familiar with some of the conventions.

The game is part of the Great Battles of History [GBoH] series. Let me quote from the blurb on Boradgamegeek: "What is best about War Galley is how easy it is to play -- the rules are about half the length of the usual GBoH game -- and that means that most battles can be complete in several hours, at the most". Only several hours; sounds tempting. In the event our game lasted much less time as all my galleys got sunk. Games that rely on spatial awareness are really not my forte.

We had played the whole game getting the rules for failed ram attempts completely wrong and that may have altered the flow of the battle, although not I suspect the eventual outcome. We eschewed missile fire in this test run and every grappling attempt failed - another thing that may have changed if we'd played the ramming rules correctly - so there was no boarding. Also the command and control element seems a bit clunky. But as mentioned above they seem to have passed the first test and will now be tried in a second test on the table using some cobbled together hybrid of models and cardboard counters.

Operation Cobra

I played Memoir '44 for the first time last night, I have played both C&C Ancients and C&C Napoleonic before, so it was easy to pick up the rules, but more difficult to ignore things that are in the others, but not in this one. In particular I was thrown by the lack of opportunity for response by the defender during close assault.

We played the Operation Cobra scenario through twice and I won both times. I have to concede that my victory as the Germans was due to rather fortunate dice rolling on my part plus some aggressive (optimistic?) play by my opponent. I continue to be impressed by the simplicity and elegance of the C&C dice system, but this was my least favourite of the three iterations that I have tried. However, I I've only scratched the surface of the game and until I've tried all the elements - this scenario had no artillery for example - I reserve the right to revise my opinion. It could of course simply be that this was the first time I'd played with the boardgame pieces rather than with figures on a table top and that I was biased against the aesthetics; doubly so because Memoir '44 uses unpainted figures rather than blocks. Once again I instinctively felt that equal victory points is not at all appropriate; surely the Americans should be able to lose more troops and still win?

One small parochial reference if I may. One of the thrusts of Operation Cobra was towards Coutances, one of the twin towns of Ilkley, epicentre of wargaming in the Lower Wharfe Valley. Indeed the road out of Ilkley towards Otley is Coutances Way.

Coutances Way during rush hour

Minor Engagements of the Wars of the Roses

"Let us leave pretty women to those devoid of imagination." - Marcel Proust

I have mentioned before that of the set piece battles of the Wars of the Roses, Tewkesbury is the only one that seems to me to be balanced enough to refight enjoyably as a game, without either substantially tweaking history in some way or running the risk of a very short game. There is a place for invented scenarios of course, but they require a degree of imagination and inspiration that I seem to be lacking right at the moment.

In casting around for something suitable to set up, I decided on Ferrybridge which, as I'm sure that you are about to point out, is seriously unbalanced and requires an alteration to what actually happened in order to make a game of it. No matter; inconsistency is my forte. I have the requisite Yorkist commanders and so out came the paintbrush to prepare Lords Clifford and Neville. Balancing the scenario mainly involves assuming that the Lancastrians send some reinforcements rather than leaving Clifford in the lurch. The scenario in Peter Pig's Bloody Barons rules postulates that Sir Andrew Trollope would have been sent to command these, and while that made perfect sense to me, I couldn't find a suitable standard anywhere online. However, I eventually tracked one down where I should have looked in the first place: volume 1 of Graham Darbyshire's 'The Gentry & Peerage of Towton' published by Freezywater Publications. So Sir Andrew will take to the tabletop and get the chance to die the day before he actually did.

Naturally, being a wargamer, I cannot resist planning the next project before I've even got this one finalised, and so while painting and basing Trollope I started to pull together some figures for another minor engagement that I've long wanted to do: the bombardment of London by the Bastard of Fauconberg in 1471. Which in turn raises two questions. Firstly, is this a balanced historical scenario which will make for a good game without changing things? Well, don't be sceptical, it probably is; the trick will be to give the rebels the right length of time to capture the city and rescue Henry VI before Edward IV returns victorious from Tewkesbury. Secondly, are there any other minor engagements that might work? Funny that you should ask; I am thinking of Oxford's occupation of St Michael's mount in 1473, French raids on the south coast in the 1450s, and then the Battle of Sandwich and the Yorkist landing in 1460. I do have a very interesting book on Nibley Green in 1470 (astonishingly a second book on this most obscure of subjects now seems to be available on Kindle), but not only was that a miniscule action, but seems to have almost literally finished before it started. I'm sure that there are many other small encounters during the period that I have overlooked.

Love Is Like Stealing Electricity

Two hearts go d-da, d-da, d-da, d-da, d-da
D-da, d-da, d-da, d-da, d-da
D-da, d-da, d-da, d-da, d-da-da

 We climb so high in search of a kindred soul
Till we grab hold of a live wire up on a high line pole
The laws of nature say you get nothing for free
And love is like stealing electricity

 Two hearts go d-da, d-da, d-da, d-da, d-da
D-da, d-da, d-da, d-da, d-da
D-da, d-da, d-da, d-da, d-da-da

Tom Russell has featured on this blog a couple of times recently and he's about to feature again, because I have been to see him perform. Russell, along with Dave Alvin, is credited with inventing Americana, although judging by his comments last night he has no more idea what that actually means than anyone else. Russell's genuine sense of geographic attachment to the Old West, his ackowledgement that his route there came via Scandinavia, Ireland and California, plus his natural gift for storytelling, all shine through in his songs, the way that he sings them and the between song anecdotes that are an essential part of the show. Accompanied by the smoking hot Max di Bernardi on guitar he also referenced the influence of diverse acts such as Bo Diddley, Warren Zevon and Ray Davies. I'm not going to bother to tell you he was excellent, but I strongly urge you to check out his music.

Here's Gretchen Peters doing one of Russell's songs:

Here's Warren Zevon's Carmelita performed by Linda Ronstadt:

And let's finish with some more Russell, one of a number of his songs that reference Pancho Villa in the lyrics:

Thoughtful or empty

Here's some Ray Charles. Just because.

From thirty to forty

I promised myself that I would list boardgames played more frequently than once a month, so here, a mere forty days or so after the last such post, is the list for September:

7 Wonders: Leaders: I like 7 Wonders despite being really bad at it. The leaders aspect is clever, but from my perspective just gives yet more attributes to under-exploit.

Ad Astra: An OK, space-themed game with an interesting mechanism that's a cross between Race for the Galaxy and any number of worker placement games where one bids for turn order. There's an alien technology part to it that for some reason never got triggered in our game.

Codenames: A team word definition game that has nothing whatever to do with its ostensible theme - spy networks - but which is really good fun. It requires skills that the majority of gamers simply don't have, but is nevertheless very entertaining.

Condottiere: Great game and a way of sneaking in some almost wargaming to an evening of not wargaming.

Discoveries: A nice dice based game around the Lewis & Clark expedition. I played the boardgame on the same theme a while ago and enjoyed it. I think that this is better. The theme may or may not be of more interest to those from North America, but the fact that I know next to nothing about it (and have no desire to learn any more) hasn't stopped me enjoying the games.

Harbour: An interesting little game that outstays its welcome. We played with the auction house rule that arose originally out of a misunderstanding. To make the game shorter the target should be expressed in points (20 or 25 say) rather than in buildings built.

Mottainai: I had previously played a print at home version of this and didn't understand it. This time we played two shop-bought sets mashed together, and I didn't understand it.


Polterfass: This is a German bluffing and guessing game about ordering beer which I've owned for years without ever playing. I suspect I shall own for many more years before I play it again.

Quartermaster General: Air Marshall: An expansion that seems to improve an already excellent game.

Qwirkle Cubes: I like this although everyone who has played both says that the tile version is better.

Splendor: Good game, dodgy title spelling. I have trouble because not only are black, blue and green too similar in colour, but their shapes are also much the same.

Spyfall: I think I've done this one before. What sort of spy doesn't know where they are? Another game that requires players to extemporise under time pressure, but which on this occasion doesn't give much in return.

The Voyages of Marco Polo: A combination of the old Waddingtons travel game Go and Ticket to Ride with worker placement mechanisms; and lots of camels. I rather liked it.

To celebrate the new, improved, longer wait for a boardgaming report firstly here's a photograph of Brigitte Bardot:

And secondly here's Ronnie Hawkins' version of Chuck Berry's 'Thirty Days' which, presciently, he decided to record as 'Forty Days':

You brought me misery

"Make no small plans for they have no power to stir the soul" - Nicolo Machiavelli

This week's wargaming objective is sorting out my Warbases playing card tokens. When did my dreams become so insignificant? 

Not only are my ambitions pitiful, but I also making rather heavy weather of it. I have four sets of tokens and they need splitting between two bags - exciting update, the bags, plus an extra one to put some dominoes in, are already on order  - but, planning ahead, I also want to be able to use the sets separately if required. ["So," the Rhetorical Pedant asks "did you buy four bags?". "Curses," I reply " I can't even get that right."] In any event I determined to paint the back of each set a different colour. The best way to do it would have been to spray them, but I don't have any spray paint. I painted the first set green but the came a bit of a varnishing disaster. The backs are now so lumpy that I think one could learn to read them braille-like. The painting of the next set, in red, seemed to go alright and then I foolishly decided to do the third in white. Ten or so coats later they are getting close to being ready for varnishing. The fourth set will now remain au naturale. 

And so to the fronts. I have had trouble distinguishing the numbers on the tokens across the table and so decided to colour in the suits using permanent marker. The six and nine of diamonds are also difficult to tell apart and therefore they need some extra marking. A trip to the shop during a thunderstorm meant that I was soaked through, but now in possession of two permanent markers. The red one works fine, but the black doesn't seem to have any ink in it.So there we are: aim low, shoot lower.

But all that talk of diamond playing cards can mean only one thing:

Oh Tell Me The Truth About Love

It's National Poetry Day.

Oh Tell Me The Truth About Love

Some say love's a little boy,
And some say it's a bird,
Some say it makes the world go round,
Some say that's absurd,
And when I asked the man next door,
Who looked as if he knew,
His wife got very cross indeed,
And said it wouldn't do.

Does it look like a pair of pyjamas,
Or the ham in a temperance hotel?
Does its odour remind one of llamas,
Or has it a comforting smell?
Is it prickly to touch as a hedge is,
Or soft as eiderdown fluff?
Is it sharp or quite smooth at the edges?
O tell me the truth about love.

Our history books refer to it
In cryptic little notes,
It's quite a common topic on
The Transatlantic boats;
I've found the subject mentioned in
Accounts of suicides,
And even seen it scribbled on
The backs of railway guides.

Does it howl like a hungry Alsatian,
Or boom like a military band?
Could one give a first-rate imitation
On a saw or a Steinway Grand?
Is its singing at parties a riot?
Does it only like Classical stuff?
Will it stop when one wants to be quiet?
O tell me the truth about love.

I looked inside the summer-house;
It wasn't even there;
I tried the Thames at Maidenhead,
And Brighton's bracing air.
I don't know what the blackbird sang,
Or what the tulip said;
But it wasn't in the chicken-run,
Or underneath the bed.

Can it pull extraordinary faces?
Is it usually sick on a swing?
Does it spend all its time at the races,
or fiddling with pieces of string?
Has it views of its own about money?
Does it think Patriotism enough?
Are its stories vulgar but funny?
O tell me the truth about love.

When it comes, will it come without warning
Just as I'm picking my nose?
Will it knock on my door in the morning,
Or tread in the bus on my toes?
Will it come like a change in the weather?
Will its greeting be courteous or rough?
Will it alter my life altogether?
O tell me the truth about love.

                                    - W.H. Auden

To prove a villain

And so to the theatre. "Thank God," you all cry "five days wargaming in a row is not why we read this blog". That begs several questions, but we shall ignore them and plough on; and at least it's a play about a soldier. Accompanied once more by the elder Miss Epictetus - the younger Miss Epictetus does exist, but is far too cool to be seen in the company of her aged parent - I have been to the West Yorkshire Playhouse to see Reece Dinsdale give his Richard III.

The last time I saw him was in the same theatre last year where he played Alan Bennett. In a sense he is again playing another familiar character - although, unlike Bennett, this one is thankfully dead - because his Richard is quite clearly Hitler. As the Guardian review points out "in the early 1930s, the British press often made fun of Hitler, misled by his appearance into believing that he posed no real threat" and Dinsdale produces more than a few moments of real laugh-out-loud humour. I was wondering what his performance reminded me of, but I think that Jo Haywood has it right in the Yorkshire Life review: he's channelling Leonard Rossiter. Imagine a serial-killing Rigsby only using one arm and wearing one built up shoe and you're there. The WYP seems to be having a season of shoe based disability productions. In 'The Glass Menagerie' the actress represented lameness by only wearing one shoe wile the rest of the cast wore none. That felt crass, frankly walking with a limp would have sufficed, but Richard does need a bit more visible deformity.

The Richard as fascist dictator theme is not new - the last modern dress version that I saw was Sir Ian McKellen's iconic production twenty five years ago at the National Theatre where he played the part as Moseley - but that's because it works very well. So too does the stark stage design and the sound effects and intermittent background music. Less happy is having parts of the dialogue literally telephoned in from offstage, and some of the doubling up of parts caused a little confusion. Overall though it provided an excellent finale to my late summer and autumn of Shakespeare.

Velleity no more

I have tried twice before to write a review of the Derby show, but have continually been sidetracked by a cacoethes of making unsolicited observations - both good and bad - about other peoples' appearance and also some frankly delusional ones about my own. In the meantime everyone else has cracked on and done the job properly, usually with photos. Even James has broken radio silence to post on his blog about it. His is a fairly comprehensive run through of what happened, albeit excluding the fact that the reason we played it twice was that we got the rules wrong the first time. He also rather glosses over what he shouted out when it was announced that he'd won.

So, there isn't much left to say. The one game that I would like to mention myself is the participation game set in Tobruk. The notable point was the terrain cloth which was a piece of Hessian sack covered with scattered sand and scenic green stuff. Simple but effective. The chap who was running the game was not only very friendly and keen to explain the creation of his scenery, but was also - if I might be allowed one last comment on the physical stature of the wargaming sodality - about seven feet tall.

All that I actually bought - apart from a sausage sandwich on the first day and a full English on the second - were some playing card tokens from Warbases for use with To the Strongest!. I bought four 'decks' worth and am currently painting the backs of each in different colours to allow easy separation.

Wargamers, beards and bellies

"There is always a period when a man with a beard shaves it off. This period does not last. He returns headlong to his beard." - Jean Cocteau

Although, as can be seen from Modigliani's portrait above, not in Cocteau's own case. I seem to have been mistaken for a pognophobe, but nothing could be further from the truth. I recognise that, as Craig Brown wrote, "A decent beard has long been the number one must-have fashion item for any fugitive from justice".

I was intending to write a full review of Derby yesterday, but not for the first time was diverted by a pretty face, or in this case - and again not for the first time - two pretty faces. But, to slightly recap, I really enjoyed it. Great venue (once it warmed up) and very helpful and friendly organisers, contarsting favourably with the miserable jobsworths at Sheffield last year. All the gamers and traders that I spoke to were enthusiastic, friendly and polite. James did return to the table to report having witnessed someone directing racist abuse at the bar staff; completely unacceptable of course, but noteworthy in part because that one person and incident seemed so completely at odds with the rest of the event. Undeniably though, the attendees as well as being all white were overwhelmingly male and this may account for the neutral observer - me - thinking that there were a higher proportion of beards than usual. These ranged in design from the stubbly, few days unshaved type (the boyfriend of the young lady mentioned yesterday actually had one of these), through the lumberjack /hipster type to the chap that I saw playing Gates of Antares who appeared to have come in Rasputin fancy dress. My own clean shaven appearance has much to do with an inability to grow any of those, although - even if I say so myself - I do have an air of Ronald Colman about me when I grow a moustache.

A rule clarification leaves your bloggist puzzled

If you had asked me on Friday I would have admitted to carrying some extra weight round the middle. But having been at Donnington for two days I now realise that I am positively svelte and athletic. I am, as you know, a bit of a flâneur and am often to be found in large groups at the theatre or opera, in political salons, watching ladies tug-of-war or generally among the bon ton. In none of these places (NONE!) are there as many grotesquely obese men as there are at wargames shows. So, beards are OK (and cause a certain amount of envy on my part); huge great bellies, no, no , no, for god's sake no.

A quincentenary triumph

“It is deeply satisfying to win a prize in front of a lot of people.” - E.B. White

I have been to the Derby Worlds wargaming show in Donnington and very good it was too. It's a spacious venue with easy access and parking and was very busy throughout the weekend without ever being crowded. The catering facilities were adequate and cheap, although the coffee was no great shakes. We were celebrating the 500th anniversary of Marignano with James' very nice Italian Wars figures; and we won.

Your bloggist's crotch is the one on the right

That is to say that James won the prize for best demonstration game as voted for by the attending public. The skill and effort are clearly his and he thoroughly deserves the credit. My own role was limited to meeting, greeting and general bonhomie; and despite having to interact with me the punters still voted for the game. Congratulations to him for the game, and to them for their forbearance.

One visitor to the table early on Sunday was an extremely good looking young woman who appeared very taken with what she saw of Renaissance warfare in miniature. She didn't get to experience my personal charm offensive on behalf of the game as at the time I was on the phone to an even better looking young woman. However James did speak to the father of her boyfriend, who explained that his son had only revealed his shameful obsession (that would be the wargaming) to his girlfriend on the previous evening, and then only reluctantly and under parental pressure. And now here she was, apparently enjoying herself at a wargames show. Sadly I lost sight of her at that point, but I think that we can assume that she continued to be just as entranced as she walked round the show, and got the chance to see the mass of wargamers gathered there in all their rotund and bearded glory. "Yes," she would have thought "this is exactly what I want my boyfriend to look like in thirty years time; who wouldn't want to grow old with one of these?"

By the way, many thanks for the photo above to the excellent Will's Wargaming Blog For reasons that are all too well known I wasn't able to take any myself.

Well come on by and see me I’ll make it worth it to you

In a move that will catch regular readers by surprise - and which has not gone down at all well with one interested party - I'm off to Derby (well Donnington actually) for the wargames show. A report, but no photographs, will follow in due course. We're doing Marignano with James' lovely Italian Wars stuff. If you do stop by and take a look, please also have a chat. Obviously preferably a chat with James or Peter, but if they're busy then I suppose it will have to be me.

And nothing says World Wargaming Championships like a bit of Captain Beefheart does:

Paint touches plastic

Or to be more precise, paint touches undercoat that was put on weeks ago. Yes, wargames painting returns after a hiatus caused by who knows what. The Hamian archers and scavenged Celtic chariot have moved forwards a bit; hopefully the momentum that has now built up will see them through to completion shortly. There has also been some more repair work, this time on Napoleonic French skirmishers.

Finally, having decided that the next game in the wargaming annexe here at Casa Epictetus will be Ferrybridge, I am quickly knocking up some Lancastrian commanders. Step forward Lords Clifford and Neville. I've set up the third and main assault on the bridge and will be interested to see how To the Strongest! copes with something smaller scale, but more complex than two armies lined up facing each other. I shall post more details of the scenario - complete with bad photos - in due course.Things will be simplified in order to improve playability:

• the bridge won't be broken;
• the town will be ignored;
• it will be mainly an infantry action; and
• the Lancastrians will on this occasion get some reinforcements from the main body.

And now War will sing about paint:

Well that passed the time

And so to the theatre. I have been to see 'Waiting for Godot' which I enjoyed a lot, but about which I am not going to pretend to say anything insightful. When I've seen it previously I've seen the central question as: How does Man survive the waiting for death?

“They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more.” 

But now, perhaps being in a better place psychologically, I see 'Godot' as hope, and the boy as our subconscious telling us that we can go on, we must go on. Pozzo and Lucky don't really fit into this reading, but that's presumably Beckett's fault.

“There is man in his entirety, blaming his shoe when his foot is guilty.”

 Be that as it may, the hat swap sequence in the first act inevitably leads one to think of two other geniuses:

Morale chips in Piquet

No one has asked me to explain my exciting suggestions for the way morale chips are handled in Piquet. Presumably my public's apparent indifference is because they expect me to do so anyway, therefore here, as not requested, is the logic behind my proposals.

In setting up tabletop battles we quite rightly prioritise the aim of making it a good game. This usually means balancing the forces in some way; either the same number of units or perhaps one side having more, but lower quality troops. In Piquet the loss of troops means the loss of morale chips at, with minor exception, the same rate whether they are good, bad or indifferent. The side with the greater number of worse troops therefore needs more morale chips at the beginning because they would expect in the normal course of events to lose more units. A balanced game requires a not too extreme split of morale and that's why there is already a minimum amount defined. To balance it 'properly' would require taking account of not just each side's number of units, but also their quality and the ratio between the two sides' strength and quality. This is too complicated to even consider, so why not simply say that each side needs a morale chip level to start with somewhere between, say, once and one and a half times the number of units. This would contain any imbalance while still leaving the existence as a possibility. Too much morale would simply be swapped for new deck cards/ lower morale in a reversal of the current process.

The major morale mechanism that we play was designed by James, makes perfect sense, is rather longwinded and means one inevitably loses the game if one fails it. I have no problem with the impact if one fails it while having no morale left - although at that point the neatness of the design is paradoxically entirely superfluous - my issue is with failing it earlier in the battle. The morale cost (one chip per command) is simply too high a price to pay for one bad die roll given the overall number of morale chips one is likely to have to start with. I would not charge a chip at all when it drops to commands, or alternatively only charge commands which fail.

The features of Piquet that cause most confusion are shooting - which isn't shooting at all - and reloading - which isn't reloading at all. The shooting is best seen as the point at which the effect of ongoing, continuous fire is resolved, and the timing of this is at the discretion of the player, provided certain criteria are met. By extension I would suggest that we should view morale challenges as the point at which the ongoing, continuous test of nerve of men engaged in ranged combat is resolved and that the timing of it is likewise at the discretion of the player, provided certain criteria are met. The concept is that the firing side believe they have caused hurt and, expecting the enemy to falter in some way, issue the challenge. If the enemy do indeed flinch then that reasonably enough is a morale hit to them. If the enemy don't flinch when expected to then the firer/challenger should take a hit to morale because they have done their best and it didn't have the expected results. I have never understood why the challenging side expends morale having undertaken successful fire which has caused both physical and morale damage to the other side. In any event, and as at present, one would not be allowed to challenge when one didn't have any morale chips left.

Now like all variety artistes I usually finish with a song, but it's difficult to find one on the theme of morale, probably because there aren't many words that rhyme with it. I did think of going down the Billy the Kid route (OK?), but I'm in a musical theatre frame of mind and so here's something from 'Guys and Dolls' that has the word morale in the lyric. You'll just have to trust me on that because this is the instrumental version by Miles Davis.

Nice.

Let it roll, baby, roll

I have been to the inaugural Ilkley Blues Festival, which was ten hours of excellence and, towards the end, endurance. The performers ranged from solo guitarists, through power trios to larger bands and they performed in a similarly broad range of styles. Indeed they drew the boundaries of what might be considered blues rather flexibly. The last song played on the day was 'Johnny B. Goode', but it was preceded by a cover of Stevie Wonder's 'Superstition' and even more unexpected was the very first number of the day, a Captain Beefheart song. I am tempted to list all the bands, or indeed all of the tracks, as I do with boardgames played, but even I'm not that anal.

One of things I admire about musicians is the ability to cover the same song in different ways and make it unique and one's own. This was much in evidence on the day with a couple of versions of 'Smokestack Lightning', a couple more of 'Hoochie Coochie Man' and so on. Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters were probably the sources most referenced overall, although the record for one individual song fittingly went to a Robert Johnson piece, 'Sweet Home Chicago' with three separate acts giving it a go. As always with the blues multiple artists are associated with some songs and 'Walking Blues' is often seen as a Johnson song although originally written by Son House.

"Well some people tell me that the worried blues ain't bad

Worst old feelin' I most ever had,"

 I certainly recognise that sentiment, as at least one of my readers can testify. Another Son House song, 'John the Revelator', saw the audience demonstrate that blues lovers are as prone to white man clapping as any other music fans.

This being the blues, there was much reference to Gypsy women (hooray) and bad luck (boo). Infidelity loomed large as a topic and my personal favourite lyric came in the old Irma Thomas song "You can have my husband, but please don't mess with my man".

Of those that I hadn't seen before the one that impressed most was the Dan Hudson Band, who played some fine Chicago blues. Mr Hudson also caught the eye of one of my companions (I was surrounded by the usual coterie of women of a certain age) although she attempted to explain it away by claiming that she was merely admiring his stage presence. Such reticence was not for one of the others who, having taken a shine to the lead guitarist of Thieving Lloyd Cole, importuned him for a hug and a kiss; indeed she even got to finger his instrument during an extended workout of the Doors 'Roadhouse Blues'. It was like being on a hen night.

The whole thing was broadcast live on Wharfe Valley Radio, an outfit of which I had never heard despite having lived here for the best part of twenty years. It does occur to me that given the position of Ilkley as a great wargaming centre perhaps the radio station should be approached to see if they want to cover one of our games. One can just imagine the hushed tones of the commentator as he murmurs quietly so as not to break the players concentration. "And Jackson's rolled a one" he might say; or "Roach has banged his head again; he should really know that shelf is there by now"; or possibly "And that's a stroke of tactical genius by Hill, which he's neatly explained with a witty, amusing and interesting aside".  You get the picture.

Another Op'nin', Another Show

And so to the theatre. Opera North are putting on 'Kiss Me, Kate' thereby allowing me to continue my autumn of Shakespeare at one remove.

 "Brush up your Shakespeare
Start quoting him now
Brush up your Shakespeare
And the women you will wow"

At least according to Cole Porter; I couldn't possibly comment. It's not the sort of show I'd have gone to see were it not being put on by Opera North, but I thoroughly enjoyed it nonetheless; especially, and to my surprise, the dancing. The company are well known for occasionally updating lyrics to include topical references, but I think the pig's head that appears at one point was probably in the design before the emergence of swinegate (as it surely ought to be known).

In other news I have been to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park to see the Wave of Poppies, which is rather lovely. It originally formed part of the core at the Tower of London around which was added one ceramic poppy for each of the fallen. It suits its current setting very well and I can understand why it has proved so popular an attraction. YSP's permanent exhibition includes the work of Sophie Ryder, and one of her very large hares also currently stands outside Cartwright Hall, the City of Bradford's art gallery.

And, as it happens, I have also been there, accompanied by the elder Miss Epictetus. One of the current temporary displays is the Bradford Open, an exhibition of local artists. My daughter and I were in agreement with the judges and, even more oddly, each other. I particularly liked the enormous painting of Zeus on multi-layered reclaimed cardboard. The permanent collection is fairly wide ranging, moving from the sort of high Victorian bourgeois stuff endowed by nineteenth century wool barons through to Lowery, Lichtenstein and Warhol. And then there is Hockney, as always in Bradford, including my own favourite Le Plongeur. You will recall that Tory and Liberal Councillors recently tried to sell all of the above mentioned works of art plus many others, on the basis that only rich people should have access to art.

The philanthropic founders of the collection - Tories and Liberals to a man - must be turning in their graves.

We lost

I had a phone call at an ungodly hour this morning - I was still in the shower - asking why my blog hadn't been updated for a few days. That wasn't the main point of the call - the first question asked was about whether I had replied to an email from a third party about the possibility of hosting a game for three people - but it is nice to know that someone reads this.

Anyway, especially for my early morning caller, let me just conclude the report on the latest Seven Years War game we have been playing in the legendary wargames room of...well you know the rest. James' own blog has been even more lacking in new entries than mine, which I can exclusively reveal is because he's got better things to do. Oh, and like all the best wargaming bloggers he hasn't currently got a working camera. The game, which you will recall I wasn't especially enjoying, concluded on Wednesday and didn't really get any better. The evening opened, somewhat symbolically, with Peter rolling a 1 on a D12 and continued much in that vein. We actually got quite a lot of initiative, but the die had been cast the previous week and our right flank disintegrated while the attack on our left looked promising, but never delivered.

So, not a good advert for Piquet. But we've had so many enjoyable games with the same rules that we'll just file it away as an experience and move on. The as-written game has a large number of random elements in its set up and play. On this occasion they all fell one way and broke the game, but that is a very rare occurrence; normally they even out much more to provide games that are unpredictable and different one to another. Should anyone want to try Piquet and not run the risk of an overly unbalanced game, then all they need to do is remove any or all of that randomness, except for the initiative - which is the heart of the game. Unit and commander levels can be preassigned (or all deemed to be average) as can number of morale chips and the content of card decks. Even initiative can be managed - i.e. the size of swings limited - using various alternatives to rolling D20s. as mentioned before, we use dominoes. So, just to repeat, this game didn't show Piquet in its best light, but nevertheless it remains my personal favourite family of rules.

A few small changes that I would suggest concern morale chips. As well as requiring minimum numbers of chips for an army depending on how many units it contains, perhaps there should also be a maximum ratio between chips and units. Secondly, the current major morale rules (these are James' rather than the published version) cost too many morale chips if failed. I would do away with paying a chip per commander. Thirdly, and most radically, I would make a morale challenge cost only one chip in total; if the challenge is successful the challengee pays it, if it fails then the challenger pays it.

Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall

                                      "They say, best men are moulded out of faults,
                                        And, for the most, become much more the better
                                        For being a little bad."

And so to the theatre. I have been to London yet again and it goes without saying that my journey was made significantly worse than it needed to be by the incompetence of Virgin East Coast, which resulted in me being so late that I missed a big chunk of why I went in the first place. However, I suspect that you're even more bored than I am with all that so I shall swiftly move on.

It was to the Globe that I went to forget my disdain for beardy Branson and to watch a very enjoyable production of Measure for Measure. This is obviously one of Shakespeare's dodgier plays (I believe that to be the term commonly used in literary criticism) and is perhaps difficult for modern audiences. It's very hard to understand the motivation of anyone among the leading characters (Mariana in particular needs her head examining), or to navigate the path the playwright is weaving through the hypocritical sexual morals of the time. As expected, the Globe - which I enjoy more and more each time that I visit it - takes full advantage of the comic potential with Elbow, Barnadine and Lucio all outstanding (and I do realise that the first two are played by the same actor). The performance was being filmed and I'd urge everyone to catch when it's released; you'll just have to hope they somehow edit out the noise of the helicopter circling during the big scene between Angelo and Isabella.

Bob Dylan wrote a song addressing the same dilemma as that which forms the heart of the plot of Measure for Measure. One of this blog's few readers is a Tom Russell fan - as well as being the world's champion thrower of ones at the wargames table - so here's a cover version by the man from God knows where:

Exit, pursued by a bear

And so to the theatre. Northern Broadsides have gone for a two Shakespeare in a row strategy, which probably makes sense commercially. No sooner has Bazza given us his Lear than Conrad Nelson (is there a diminutive of Conrad?) gives us his Leontes, narrowly getting the jump on Sir Kenneth Branagh who is just about to do it, alongside Dame Judi Dench no less, in the West End. Now I am loathe to criticise the very talented Nelson, who also directs and writes the music in this production. His Iago to Lenny Henry's Othello was excellent and I fondly remember his Henry V. However, I found him - and only him among the cast - difficult to hear. It is understandably tempting to play Leontes with his head in his hands. He spends the first half of the play in torment because of what he falsely imagines is happening between his wife and his best friend and then he spends the second half of the play in torment because of the consequences of his behaviour in the first half. But, if I may be permitted to offer a word of advice to the Conman, metaphorically; his head should be in his hands metaphorically.

"Ay, but why?"

The production was otherwise noteworthy for the reintroduction of clog dancing. Since 'An August Bank Holiday Lark' - a play actually about clog dancing - the company have eschewed their traditional mid-show knees-up, but now it's back. To be specific the fourth act sees a hoe down followed by an Irish step dance, but given that the geography of "The Winter's Tale" is sufficiently all over the place to accommodate a Sicilian foundling in Bohemia, it can also allow the Munster diaspora to be there as well. As for the bear, it appears projected onto the backdrop.

Dark and full-bodied does it for me every time

A question has been asked regarding yesterday's picture of a pack of espresso beans. And it's a fair cop, as neither photograph nor the bag of coffee shown were large enough.

No sleep tonight I think. Anyway, over to you Steve:

Said, people worry I can't keep you satisfied

Jonathan Freitag commented on my last posting about Piquet. I thought I'd reply in the form of a full blog entry because a) more people will see it, b) it allows me to answer at greater length and c) it saves me having to think of anything else to post about. Win-win-win.

The first point to make is that everything he says is right, except perhaps when he implies that there is too much non-wargaming content on the blog. He obviously doesn't realise that if I lost the non-wargamers then I'd have fewer readers. ["Well," interjects the RP "in fact it is just possible that he might be able to work that one out for himself."] In particular your bloggist lives in constant fear of losing his lone female reader; indeed the thought of it sometimes keeps me awake at night.

Anyway, back to Piquet. As noted above, there's a lot in what Jonathan says. So much so that the current Piquet head honcho, Brent Oman (1) has developed a different, but clearly related, set of rules which addressed a lot of the shortcomings. The original version of these, suitable for horse and musket periods, was called "Field of Battle" and we always refer to this family of games as FoB (pronounced fob; saying F O B always makes me want to add "Scott" or "Virgil" on to the end). The major differences include equal initiative and variable movement distances, plus a series of tweaks to manoeuver, combat and morale. My advice to anyone wanting to try Piquet would be to start with these. Personally, I think that I prefer them to classic Piquet and interestingly the rules that James and Peter have written for the Punic Wars, the Crusades and the Italian Wars are all based on FoB (2), as will be my rules for Hussites should I ever actually do more than talk about it.

"Get on with it, man!"

So what of classic Piquet? Well James' set of big battle Seven Years War rules (provisionally entitled "If You Don't Want My Lemons Then Don't Shake My Tree") that we've been playing a lot recently are clearly based on the original master rules and have stripped out many - but not all - of the Ilkley Lads house rules that had accrued over the years. However they have at the same time added in one or two appropriate elements of FoB such as the ability to rally back stands. As previously mentioned on this blog we use dominoes rather than dice to determine initiative which ameliorates the danger of big disparities. However, it doesn't eliminate it. Peter, and to a lesser extent I, have played many, many games of Piquet. We understand and accept its vagaries and are prepared to put up with them because we think that overall the game is well worth it. But on Wednesday even we were completely cheesed off. As F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote "Nothing is as obnoxious as other peoples' luck".

All of which is a long-winded way of saying that while I love playing Piquet, my firm recommendation to those who wish to try (or retry) them would be the newer games within the family (3) and/or be prepared to put in some effort fine tuning them to your understanding of the conflict you are gaming, rather than use the original set as written.

A chap quite definitely without a beard

(1) Brent liked the rules so much that he bought the company. The original author, Bob Jones, has gone on to write Zouave and Die Fighting, both of which I own, but have never played..

(2) I can't for the life of me remember whether their rules for Ancient Galleys or the Western Desert are based on FoB or classic Piquet. In the first instance it's because I haven't played them for so long - hint, hint. In the case of WW2 there really is no excuse as we did the Sidi Rezegh scenario about two dozen times in a row a couple of years ago. I can only assume that the whole episode was so traumatic that I have buried it deep in my subconcious.

(3) Classic Piquet requires the core rules plus a specific period supplement. The FoB type rules are self-contained. I've never played any of the other FoB rulesets such as the ancient version "Pulse of Battle" simply because James and Peter wrote their own version before it came out. For completeness, there are two other games published by Piquet. The first is "Command Piquet", which I liked, but which, it seems to me, requires too much thought to be given to setting up the terrain before one starts. The second is "Jump or Burn", a terrific set of WW1 dogfight rules written by James and which bears no relation whatsoever to any other game labelled as Piquet. We haven't played this for ages as James received an offer he couldn't refuse for all his aircraft and the ingenious stands to which they could be attached.

All this talk of WW1 aircraft and of lemons can only lead in one direction surely:

An Epictetian 'return'

"Luck is of little moment to the great general, for it is under the control of his intellect and his judgement." - Livy

I really like the Piquet family of wargames rules. I didn't 'get' them at all when I first came across the Ilkley Lads playing them at a Society of Ancients open day at the Royal Armouries a dozen or so years ago. Some of it - the missile fire resolution/reload action for example - isn't intuitive. It was von Neumann who pointed out that in mathematics one never understands things, one simply gets used to them, and the same could be said to some extent of shooting in Piquet. However, for flexibility, adaptability across multiple time periods and geographical locations, and fine tuning to one's own view of how things should be they are excellent; they provide a toolbox with which one can let one's imagination loose.

I also like the unpredictability when the game hits the tabletop. The same scenario will never play out the same way twice even if the commanders attempt to do the same thing. There are too many random influences at play. I regard this as a good thing. Over time the luck evens out and in the short term it adds a bit of spice. However, as with any spice, a concentrated amount in one place at one time can rather spoil the taste of the meal. And so it rather proved last night.

We were back at James' for some more Seven Years war action. He was the Prussians, Peter and I were the Austrians. One might suspect that this is where my luck started to go wrong; Peter's wargaming karma is so bad that I've always assumed that in a previous life he must have stood on and crushed a whole regiment of H.G. Wells' troops or something similar. However, yesterday I matched him throw for throw in rolling crap dice. One of my first tasks of the evening was to establish the quality of the commander of our right flank. I threw a one on a D20, he was abysmal, and things went downhill from there. Pre-game preparations left us with less morale than the Prussians, a worse card deck and a plethora of poor units and commanders compared to a range of skilled and superior generals and troops facing us; our artillery is notably bad. Insult was added to injury when James then won all the initiative and advanced across the table and started knocking stands off our infantry line before we'd even turned a card.

The night ended with our right flank about to disintegrate. Our one small success, routing some infantry who passed by a village we had garrisoned, was undone when Frederick himself rallied them and sent them forwards again. So, am I downhearted? Well yes, actually I am. Our only hope rests on a spectacular cavalry victory on our left flank and then sweeping along behind the Prussian line. You will recall that I said exactly the same thing about the previous Seven Years War game that we played. It didn't happen then and it won't happen now.

"For this is the mark of a wise and upright man, not to rail against the gods in misfortune." - Aeschylus

And at last ends the age of cant

Politics, which was meant to have been driven out by culture in this blog, has obviously loosened the catch on its Browning, because it's back. Two short pieces worth reading about Jezza's victory are here and, er, in the new edition of Private Eye which you'll either have to pay for or read for free in W.H. Smith. If the latter, and you need to find it quickly before the staff spot what you're up to, then it's the first item in the HP Sauce column on page 11.

I don't sing no national anthem

I have been to London once more (it rained) and, yet again, Virgin maintained their 100% record for cancelled and delayed trains, plus sneaking in an extra 'socket with no power' just to pour salt in the wounds. I arrived home in the middle of the night via Derby.

For some reason I have got into the habit of recording boardgames played monthly in arrears. I would like to break that, but time doesn't permit me to do it now. Can I therefore just say that I have now had a chance to try the Air Marshall expansion to Quartermaster General and damn fine it is too. However, my opinion should be viewed with a slight reservation because despite playing twice I never used either of the two newly introduced mechanics. These are unsurprisingly air forces plus Bolster cards, which are essentially Response cards played directly from the hand. But observing others using them and listening to their comments convinced me that the expansion improves an already excellent game. For the record I won once as the Soviet Union (where I did nothing except keep building armies in the Ukraine while the US saved the world) and lost once as Japan (where I captured China, India, Australia and the Middle East and still ended up on the losing side; God only knows what the Germans and Italians were up to).

Now, this is an anthem: