Pompeii

by on January 11, 2020 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

The eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79 must rank as the most famous volcanic eruption in all of history, even over such titanic eruptions as Krakatoa, or such well-covered events as Mt. Saint Hellens. Of course, Vesuvius got extensive coverage at the time, with Pliny the Elder’s eyewitness account doing much to show just what a large eruption can do to a heavily-populated area. And of course, the uncovering of Pompeii and Herculaneum in the Twentieth Century has been a big boon to archaeology, and the fame of the event.

So, Robert Harris’ historical novel has a fairly solid set of known facts to build around. And he does a great job at structuring the novel around the timetable of events, and knowing that no matter what, the eruption is going to be the main star, keeps everything constrained to four days. Pliny the Elder comes in as a notable secondary character, and his known activities are part of the structure of the book.

The overall story itself is a little less successful. We start with the newly-appointed aquarius (literally ‘water carrier’, but here more ‘chief engineer’) Attilius of the Aqua Augusta aqueduct dealing with a recalcitrant crew, and a drought in southern Italy. There’s a bit of a mystery in the works, as the previous aquarius just up disappeared a couple weeks ago. This theme slowly deepens, with Attilius getting more concerned with just what exactly happened, especially as various people clam up when asked about him. Sadly, this gets somewhat summarily tossed out partway through, leaving the book to focus entirely on the natural disaster aspect. It does serve to properly introduce characters for proper impact during the final bits, but the novel as a whole feels a bit out of tune since it can’t quite decide what it wants to be.

Still, the writing is good, the overall depiction of Roman culture in the First Century AD feels well done, with a tight cast of characters instead of the ‘cast of thousands’ for an epic story somewhat typical of the ‘disaster’ genre. The overall action keeps up a good pace, and moves the reader along without bogging down, even (especially) as it goes into some of the technical details of Roman engineering.

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The Center Does Not Hold

by on January 7, 2020 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

Every year, I visit my parents for a bit over a week and a half, and often get some gaming in with my Dad. This year, I had more new shiny toys to show him than usual. I had also just recently tried out Ardennes ’44 with Mark and wanted to keep on that. I knew my Dad had enjoyed AH’s original Battle of the Bulge back in the day, but hadn’t known how much (he had a rep as ‘the expert’ for a while due to writing strategy articles for the IFW), and there was no trouble selecting that as the first thing to try out. We played it by ear at first, but ended up playing the 8-turn scenario with the west map active (since we hadn’t known how far we’d go at first). I’m writing this a bit late, so memories have already started fading a bit.

My Dad took the Germans, and spent some time setting everything up, with only minimal help from the example of play. Overall, the dice were not with him for the initial attacks, especially at first, though they warmed up a bit as combat continued. Notably, the main attacks in the center all ended up as ‘ENG’, hampering American reactions, but not getting the Germans anywhere either, and the north wasn’t a lot better.

After an initial delay for an ENG in the south, the Germans blasted the Americans out of Echternach in the PM, and a broken unit ended up retreating to the A entry hex (which still allowed my turn 2 reinforcements to enter the map). Diekerch held out with an ENG, and another ENG held the position at Hosingen (after reinforcements had come up to help hold the village). Things went better in the north, with American units scattering, and the Germans making their way through the woods near Honsfeld.

The first night didn’t have a lot of action, naturally, and Peiper attacked Honsfeld for an ENG+.

Bad luck for me is the Germans found good bridges over the Our, even if they couldn’t immediately get across (ENG), though they did force a crossing at Burg Reuland on turn 3. I managed to blow the next two bridges further north (the St Vith chokepoint & Schönberg). The 106 Division even partially got out of their pocket. In the north, I finally abandoned the line of improved positions that had been largely undisturbed because of the breakout at Honsfeld. However, the very north sector was solidly held, and stayed that way the entire time.

In the south, the advance was slow, but steady, as I managed to garrison Junglister (the first B entry hex) with less than would be demanded in a blocking position, and the main line started forming from Lintgen to Ettelbruck, though I was having no luck blowing bridges on the Alzette. Skyline Drive was finally clear, and Clervaux was cleared, allowing German units to drive west unopposed, while the 9th Armored blocked the intersection near Weiswampach.

My Dad’s replacement went into Clervaux, while I brought an armored element back on the south edge, and reconstituted an infantry battalion in Houfalize. St Vith held out during the entirety of the third day (18th), while north of it, a lot of work went into a new stable line that looped east of Elsenborn to the lake, and then near Waimes. Both of us were getting stymied by all the powerful units available to each side. The extreme south also stayed stable, with the Germans unable to find any good way of breaking the American line.

In between… was another story. A big problem was a lack of any coherent line north/west of Ettlbruck, and the 10th Armored was thrown into the area to hold up the Germans. Meanwhile, every unit I could scrape up was throwing zones of control over roads to keep the Germans from flying westward in the center. This was generally successful, and the end of the 18th saw the Germans still a few hexes away from Bastogne. As of turn six, the Germans had three victory hexes.

In the AM, the Germans broke into Mersch, which finally broke the Alzette river line, though by that point, all the bridges were blown, leaving Mersch the only way across. The 101st arrived just behind Bastogne, with engineer battalions covering them while they de-trucked. The 82nd moved further north, and started covering the roads in the La Roche area. A somewhat shaky, but solid, line emerged from Elsenborn to Waimes to Recht, with the flank hanging in the air near Beho. St Vith was largely abandoned, and the Germans managed to move into the north side of the lake near Elsenborn, promising further problems there.

And in the PM, turn 8, Bastogne fell. My Dad admitted that he probably wouldn’t have done it if it wasn’t the last turn. There was a fair amount of opportunity for me to potentially cut off his supply, and the Americans besiege the Germans in Bastogne. It certainly was going to be a fluid and unstable situation for some time yet.

Things weren’t going so well for me elsewhere either. My line in the north was holding, but it was a little more fragile than I hoped, and I was still looking for places to counterattack. The constant flow of reinforcements from the north gave me plenty of material for shuffling down the line, and trying to get all the components of scattered divisions together, but it was taking time, and the fighting was approaching Vielsalm, which was further back than I’d hoped. The Germans still had yet to take Ettelbruck, but both flanks were folding in fast, and I was in danger of losing a lot of good units in a pocket.

Final VP count was at 9 out of 14. A lot closer than the turn 6 total. Things had started happening after a slow start.

My Dad really enjoyed the game, and with any luck we’ll make another go of it next year!

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The War of the Spanish Succession 1701-1714

by on January 4, 2020 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

The Eighteenth Century saw a series of wars in Europe, that led up to the more famous ones towards the end of that century. I’ve been wanting good books on all of these for some time.

I’m still looking for a truly good book on the War of the Spanish Succession.

This one got better as it went along, but felt entirely too jumbled at the beginning, and never seems to give more than a surface appreciation of events. Notably, there’s a wrap up at the end that places the war into better context, and some of that would have been much better served at the beginning of the book, to get context there. There’s no really detailed looks at any of the principle figures involved, nor a lot about how they related to each other.

In some ways, Spencer’s Blenheim: Battle for Europe gives a better sense of the war as a whole even though it’s ultimately focused on one campaign. As such, there are things that are not in that book at all, but you still get a better sense of Louis XIV, Marlborough, and Eugene from that book than for anyone here. Worse, while the book is generally chronological, it doesn’t present things tightly enough for that to be evident.

Either I got a better sense for things as I went through, or the writing does get better as it goes. The feeling of reading a disconnected jumble grew less as I went along, and it does present all the major campaigns of the war. Better, there’s a good number of quotes from contemporaries to provide some color and sense of how things were regarded at the time. Overall, it’s a barely decent history that could have been a bit better with some reorganization.

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2019 in Review

by on January 1, 2020 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Life

Overall, it’s been a good year here. Work, for once, is being a bit more stressful, but hopefully will sort itself out. I’m carless, as my old car finally had a problem I wasn’t willing to fix. But thanks to the hit-and-run five years ago, it had lost its water seal, and was getting mold inside, so it already had a real problem.

Thankfully, that’s about all the mechanical issues around here this year. I didn’t get any of the round 2 of upgrades done this year, but Smudge got a Nintendo Switch for Christmas, and we’ve been enjoying the heck out of that. Oh, and I’ve found my Nintendo DS Lite has a bum battery, so I’d like to look into replacing that.

There’s also been a lot of activity with the gaming group this year, as Mark has been fairly available, and that’s driving a lot of extra sessions. This also means I got more boardgames, and spending is a bit up. I ended up getting five new games this year (two as gifts), along with more ASL stuff, some computer games, and the first expansion for Space Empires 4X. There hasn’t been time to try out everything yet, but both Commands & Colors: Medieval and Ardennes ’44 have had successful sessions, and I want to get back to both.

My Dad and I are still playing Stellaris every week, and I managed to find time for Paradox’s other games mid-year to keep my review series moving. I’ve got Patch on Vassal on Wednesdays, and and getting Mark used to the same on Mondays, so my week has gotten a bit crowded. I’m also keeping a couple games going by PBeM, which just adds to all the gaming fun.

I spent a decent amount of time this year finally playing Kingdom Hearts II, and definitely enjoyed it. Like last year, I was coming up on vacation by the time I finished, and have spent the last couple months trying to finish off the initial campaign in Pokemon Conquest, which really is a well done game. Since Christmas I’ve been playing the remastered Final Fantasy X on the Switch, and will be concentrating on finishing that as well. Past that, there’s a lot of possible games for my ‘console slot’, and I don’t know what I’ll do.

Smudge and I are still playing Final Fantasy XIV. We haven’t caught up to the current content, but we’ve gotten close, having gotten through the story for Shadowbringers, which I need to write about soonest. We’ve done some of the post-Shadowbringers content as well, but haven’t started the post-expansion story yet. Speaking of, the story keeps getting better, and the latest expansion was excellent, and I’m recommending FF XIV more and more despite the slow start. We’ve also started playing through the early game again on a pair of alts, and streaming our adventures as something of a ‘live podcast’ every Saturday at 9:30 PM Pacific.

Speaking of blog posts, I’m overrunnning with them right now, with about five in the queue, and another two-three to write. Overall, I had 102 posts this last year, and was on a three-day posting cycle fairly often. I contemplated moving to two days/per post for a little bit, but got lazy and let the queue burn down again instead. In fact, that’s the biggest challenge right now: keeping on top of all the writing I want to do when I know I have a couple week’s worth of posts stocked up.

My reading ‘fell behind’. I only managed 50 of 52 books for the 2019 challenge. There were a couple of 2-in-1s at the beginning of the year, but I was pretty much through the first book of the first of those at the beginning of the year, so I can only really claim one extra book from those. On the other hand, it’s been a pretty good year for good books with few disappointments. Non-fiction, The Shadow of the Sword, Persian Fire, Defending Heaven, and The Roman Empire and the Silk Routes are all worth a read (in approximate order of recommendation). In fiction, Spinning Silver was an excellent fantasy novel that lives up to other reviews; I finally got around to trying His Majesty’s Dragon (by the same author), and found it lived up to its promise despite a premise that promised disaster; sadly it sounds like a serious case of sequelitis takes over from there, but I’ll try more at some point. The Tethered Mage also lived up to its reviews, and I need to get to the rest of the series; I finally did get to the rest of the Borderlands series by Lorna Freeman, and wish there was more, because it largely kept up to the quality of the first book.

That’s most of the general news. The big thing I’m staring at right now is seeing about modernizing Smudge’s system and getting both of us on Windows 10, as Windows 7 is about to go off of primary support. We actually stuck with Win2K long after it ended support, so it’s not the biggest thing right now, but Smudge’s system is having trouble anyway. Also, while I’m managing fairly well without a car, I should either do something about that, or finally get a cell phone….

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K Elite Troops on the Attack

by on December 30, 2019 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

Since we had a bit of delay getting our next ASL game going, Patch and I played a game of Up Front on Vassal during November. I had found the two-round ‘Elite Troops’ scenario interesting when we first played it, and wanted to try it again. This time, I ended up defending (again) as the Germans versus Patch’s elite Americans.

Unfortunately, I forgot to record a log for most of our first session, so I can’t give a lot of details for the bulk of the first round. Patch split into two groups, while I split into three (partially for the extra range from his A to my C). For once, I had movement cards, and started all three groups forward, but had trouble finding terrain cards. I had intended to stop and entrench if need be, but largely forgot that. I mostly held up under pressure, and managed to get one of Patch’s men to rout (sadly, not what I really needed, as he’d be back), and ended up with A in Brush, and C in a Marsh (I accepted when Patch played it on me as it was still terrain of some kind), while B was in open ground. Patch had only moved his B up, getting to Woods at range 2.

Just to make things more complicated, as I tried to get back out of the Marsh, Patch put Wire down on my B, which was the central firebase with the LMG. A Hero helped my A Fire on his B and pin four men and kill one outright (my only kill of the first round, sadly. I finished moving out of the marsh into open ground, and Fire 1 from A pinned his SL in B, but couldn’t touch his pinned men, while I put Smoke down on my B since I couldn’t get from under the wire.

Patch Rallied most of his B, and then Fired 2+2 to pin two men in C even after Concealment. I Rallied them, and Patch Fired 3+2 on my B to pin the entire group. I Rallied the MG crew, and then Patch Fired 4 at them, killing the ASL (and LMG crewmember) outright, and panicking one of the others. Both of us Rallied the one pinned man we had left, and I Moved C up to range 3 (a mistake, really). This allowed him to Fire 8 at C (after getting into Brush) to kill two men outright and pin the third. I Rallied the last man and re-crewed the MG, and then Patch Fired 6 at B to kill the new crewman, leaving just the LMG pinned, which I then Rallied. A Fire 7 pinned the last man in C, who I Rallied. I Moved up A to try and get my last multi-man group in to effective range, and Patch Fired 3 at them, but did nothing but malfunctioned the BAR.

Patch Moved up his A, while I slipped into some Buildings and Fired 2 at them to pin one man and malf the LMG. Patch also entered Buildings and I repaired the LMG. Patch sent most of B to Infiltrate my C, and got two men in. I Fired 3 on them, hoping to pin some of them, but merely malfunctioned the LMG again. C Moved back to keep Patch from getting CC against the lone man there, and accepted the Marsh that Patch discarded on him to keep from being forced back into CC. He then Rallied A and B and repaired the BAR in B over the next couple turns, before pinning the LMG with another Fire 5, and panicking him with a follow up Fire 3.

That broke my squad, so we reset for round two. Patch kept pretty much the same split as last time, minus the one man I killed, while I went for a simpler two-group setup this time.

Patch started B forward, while I rushed both groups forward again. He moved into Woods while my B went into some Brush, and my A stopped in open ground when no other terrain showed up  after a couple of turns. Patch used a Hero to get a Fire 5 off, and pinned most of B. I Rallied the ASL/assistant MG and Fired with A, but Concealment spoiled the shot. Fire 3 at my B routed a member, and pinned another.

We both had to cycle for a while after that, and then when I Moved A up again, Patch Fired 5 to pin three of them even after -3 Concealment. A follow-up Fire 1 panicked one of them. He then Rallied his one pinned man and Fired 4 for no effect thanks to more Concealment. His A Moved forward, and I Fired 3 to pin two of them right before they ducked into a Gully. A Sniper killed one of the pinned men in my B, and then my LMG malfunctioned when I tried a Fire 1 at his B, only to be repaired a turn later.

After that I finally saw a Rally card, and got A into good order. Patch followed that by Rallying his A. My A Fired 3 on his B, followed by a Fire 2 from my B, for a grand total of one pinned man, who immediately Rallied. Patch returned fire, pinning a man in A again, but malfunctioned a rifle. Patch repaired the rifle, and we ended up churning through the rest of the first deck. After that, he had a Fire 1+4 at my B to pin the LMG assistant. Thankfully, another Rally showed up for me before Patch made any more mischief, and a Fire 5 from him instead pinned two more men in my A, but a Rally 2 got one of them, and the man who’d been pinned for some time.

Hoping that Patch had burned through his available Fire, my B Moved forward, and took a Fire 2+2 before getting up a Hill, though thankfully no one pinned until his next attack after that. I still managed a Fire 4, and pinned a man in his B, but lots of Concealment kept more from happening. Patch got his A onto a Hill (quite a climb from a gully!), and then put Concealment -3 on each of a pair of attacks I made on that group (pinning one with the second). He then had a pair of attacks at my hilltop, and pinned two of the three men there. The next turn saw a Fire 6 from him to pin the third man, but do nothing more.

Patch’s B moved forward after that (to relative range 5!), and fire from my A pinned three of his men. I then put a Stream on his B, but Patch immediately Rallied All and Forded it, ending in Woods. I Rallied the LMG team, and Fire from my A pinned a man and killed two while he forded (two black 6 RNC in a row…). I rallied my one pinned man in A, but Patch panicked my third man in B, and then sent two men in to Infiltrate the LMG’s position. I didn’t have anything I could do, and he attacked in CC with one man on each of mine. Not only did he have good odds to begin with, but he drew a +6 vs my LMG gunner, to bag both men with no trouble (an assistant gunner has a 0 CCV; with more experience, I might have thought to de-crew in the between-turn). That left me with four men in Group A, and a broken squad for Patch to get the win.

Afterword

As ever, Up Front is a fun game, but the cards certainly lead to their own brand of frustration. In the Commands & Colors games, the cards are flexible enough that it’s hard to be truly unable to do something. Here, the cards are so single-purpose that it can be easy to be painted into a corner. Usually, my frustration has been a complete lack of Move cards, rendering me immobile, and unable to get to any terrain. Worse, this time, was the second round, where I went the entire first deck with only one Rally card showing up. That was deeply frustrating, and left me with very little to do, as I had little firepower, and no ability to move, while Patch slowly chipped away at me.

The second deck started making up for it, with rallies, and moves, and wire, and nearly anything I could want, but it was all way too late. My force was so attenuated that I couldn’t get going with what was left… and Patch’s luck was almost as good.

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