Three Medieval Battles

by on August 15, 2019 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

Mark came over back on July 6th for one of our two-player days. It had been my ‘pick’, and I went for trying out my just-stickered copy of of Commands & Colors: Medieval. I’d gone through the rules, and had been following things on BGG, so I was aware of many of the changes from Ancients. However, a detailed review of the unit reference card with Mark revealed more there than I’d thought.

We started with the first scenario in the game: Utis River, a large scenario (9 banners!) with the Byzantines vs the Huns. I had the Byzantines, and got to a very strong start on my left, taking three banners for a cost of three blocks. However, the Huns struck back, and while it took a bit (and two more banners for me), he demolished my heavier units, broke up my center, and nearly eliminated my right. As I tried to get at the various weakened Hun units scattered in the back, the tension ratcheted up as the score climbed, until it was 8-8. I eventually managed to get a last unit on my left for the win.

That had taken quite a while to go through, and certainly didn’t match the extremely fast playing time that I’d seen some report. This was a long, drag-out, bitter fight. After that, we switched to Thannuris and did a two-set of that. It’s an interesting battle, with a Sassanian line with infantry on some hills on their right, and the rest of their line being cavalry. The Byzantines have two compact wedges of MC and HC, with a mixed line on the right nearly back at the baseline. All cavalry is bow-equipped (which took us a bit to get used to), and the Sassanians have two Cataphracts, while the Byzantines have one on their right baseline.

I had the Byzantines again for the first fight, and went down pretty hard 3-6. My losses were the two cavalry wedges; I had a good early opportunity to engage with them at the start, and took it, but it completely backfired. The fighting ended up getting in range of the rest of the line, which is what largely let me get three banners at all, but I could not recover from that start at all.

The second round went worse for the Byzantines (Mark; 6-1 I think). He tried a similar opening, and did a bit better, but still ended up losing his left and middle. He wasn’t able to get his Heavies into action like I did, and my units migrated left into my center as I broke down his center, and started looking for opportunities against the defensive line on my left.

I’m still getting a feel for the set. It is different than CC:A, but it’s still hard to say how different. Certainly, heavy infantry isn’t as scary as it was, and we could see how the smaller battles can resolve very quickly with lots of heavy cavalry moving around, and various ways of getting them an extra die, but it did not happen with us. Also most of our inspired actions went to the minor uses, as actually having a useful leadership card is a bit rare.

It is definitely another good entry in the system (the third one I’ve tried), and am looking forward to more time on the table for it.

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Anime Spring 2019

by on August 12, 2019 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Anime

Again, running late with a post here. Still on a comparatively minimal schedule (two nights a week) to support the MMO habit.

Rise of the Red Comet — This is the current one to watch with the guys, and the best of the season. Sunrise is celebrating the 40th anniversary of Gundam with a set of prequels/re-tellings of the original material, and this one covers a lot of history more-or-less following Char Aznable around, showing a lot of the later developed backstory in sequence. It’s not as good as Yamato 2199, but that’s a really high bar to hit, and this does come close. Really recommended.

Rising of the Shield Hero — I started this around the beginning of the season, and have now caught up on both seasons. I was a little doubtful of it as the ‘big push’ anime, but it has done a fairly good job with its big idea. I do find Naofumi overly grating on occasion, but overall he’s a good character, and the plot has been good.

Fairy Tail — …which is still in its ending sequence. One big fight. Well, not quite, and the mini-arcs in it are quite good; its maintaining a pretty solid pace for me.

Violet Evergarden — This is a slightly older series that we’re watching with the guys (Smudge has seen it before and recommended it). I’m not quite enamored with it. I like it, I like what it’s doing, but I do find it drags out past its welcome a little. Well, we’re still in the middle of it, so we’ll see how it ends.

Pokemon Sun & Moon Ultra Legends — Continuing to be solid fun. There was a after-show bit for a few weeks… that turned out to be entirely showing how an Eevee got to Alola for one of the characters to catch. The last bit I’ve seen has been the fourth island trial, which was pretty well done.

Dark Clover — It keeps going, and it keeps not padding itself into oblivion (the underwater temple did go an episode or two long, but that’s nothing compared to some…). There’s still a fair number of things to complain about, but am happy to keep watching as the plot lines have been getting more solid as they go along.

Pokemon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea — Caught this movie just a couple weeks ago. It’s kind of a crossover between the then-current Pokemon Ranger game and Ash’s adventures, but in the end it is Ash as the central character. Not one of the best movies, but certainly far from the worst too, and it was nice that there was a particular thing being worked with, and not a save-the-world scenario.

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Legend in Moonlight

by on August 9, 2019 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: MMO

Well, Smudge and I have beaten my estimated FF XIV schedule. Kind of. I figured we’d finish off post-Stormblood content about a month after Shadowbringers came out. We actually beat that by a couple of weeks, finishing off in mid-July. However, we have yet to dive into the new expansion, as I’m trying to get Paladin up to 70 first. Apparently, they’ve largely skipped class quest chains this time (too many to do), and instead have chains by role (tank, healer, physical DPS, magic DPS), and I actually have a class ready in each, except for tank, which I was already leveling. So, we’ll dive in once that’s done. I have a feeling we’ll be pausing a few times in main questing for me to get four different classes up to speed….

As far as what we’ve actually been doing for the last couple months, the STB+ story was once again well done, though there’s still an annoying dangling thread or two. The first two parts concentrated on the fates of the two villains that were central to the two tracks of Stormblood: Fordola for Ala Mhigo and Yotsuyu for Doma. Fordola gets attention first, but after some good development, she just gets dropped from the plot, and never shows up again (though there is a short story giving what is next for her).

Yotsuyu gets a lot more attention; I always get the idea she was a favorite of the developers. Her arc is longer, and more developed, though Fordola’s probably asked harder questions. Yotsuyu also, in the best traditions of Japan loving Shakespeare, gets to be in a tragedy.


↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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My Enemy, My Ally

by on August 6, 2019 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

The professional fan fiction of Star Trek novels are useful for finding new authors, and the biggest find I’ve ever had from them is Diane Duane, who had written many very good books outside that universe. This is where I first discovered her, and it is also one of the best Star Trek novels I’ve read. Thirty years after I last read it, several scenes still stand out in my memory.

There are, perhaps, a few too many MacGuffins floating around. There’s artificial ion storms, 4D chess (with a mini-transporter to ‘time’ pieces in and out), and the big problem of the book, a Romulan project to enhance psionic potential. But all of them relate to the plot fairly strongly.

Part of the main point of the book is to take a closer look at the Romulans. About half the book is from the viewpoint of Ael t’Rlailiiu, a Romulan starship commander who feels that the Empire’s latest project will only lead to ruin, and so makes common cause with one of her gravest enemies. An interesting touch is that Romulan dialog is given untranslated, with only a character’s reactions and internal thoughts providing a sense of what is being said. Thankfully, it isn’t done much as it would get wearying, but it is an interesting device for what we do get.

There’s plenty of action, and it’s all well done, but there’s plenty of build-up and planning before that. Duane introduces a number of new characters here, including Ensign Nahraht (the only Horta in Star Fleet), which have been fan favorites since. The characters are smart, and generally act like it (there’s an amount of ‘but of course I planned for this’ that borders on the excessive), and of course there’s the wonder of early Star Trek unburdened by special effects budgets. Recommended for all TOS fans, and action-adventure fans.

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Glory in Jerusalem

by on August 3, 2019 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

Jason came over on June 24th for another round of Pursuit of Glory. Everything went better this time, with Jason getting through traffic somewhat better, and both of us in good practice with the rules and early game events. We reprised our roles from the previous game, and I stuck with the standard opening at Fao, though I went for a bigger Russian attack, rather than trying to pick off cavalry divisions.

Mobilization went about as normal through most of Turn 2. Jason, fearing a repeat of last time, got troops up to the Suez canal during Turn 1, and that’s where things started going wrong for him. Churchill Prevailed, and the British fleet made it all the way through the Bosporus and shelled Constantinople, though it failed to reduce the final fort to open a real supply line to Russia. However, the two elite BR divisions were sent to Pt. Said, and from there I was able to break the Ottoman line and threaten the rest of the area. The Indians also made a little progress in Mesopotamia, knocking out a Marsh Arab tribe on the way, and Secret Treaty allowed me to get parts of Persia, while Jason was too busy to interfere.


End of Turn 2.

I pushed further in Turn 3, taking Jifjaffa in Suez, and Isfahan in Persia. The Russians were doing most of this activity, and also attacked out of Azerbaijan and took Van. I was also having to spend some effort trying to sort out my supply lines as pressure started mounting in the main Russian/Ottoman border. During Turn 4 The Turks hit the Russians hard, defeating Yudenich, and a panicked call to Save Tiflis drove the main line back to Kars. The Indians finally organized two corps in Mesopotamia, and after a lot of back and forth in Sinai, the British landed in Jaffa to support the advance (I really hadn’t wanted to do that, but there was a corps waiting in Adana, and the advance really needed the help in the face of two other corps in the region. In other news Parvus went to Berlin, and Bulgaria entered the war.


End of Turn 4.

Turn 5 saw more pressure from me on all fronts, as the Russians took Hamadan and threatened Mosul. Indian troops in Mesopotamia started advancing, taking Kut, and Commonwealth troops stormed Gaza. VPs fell to 6 during this turn, Jihad was down to 4, and RU VPs were also at 4. CP war status was slightly ahead (8-7), and Gorlice-Tarnow had removed a RU corps.

Turn 6 saw a real setback for me as Jason threw the Brits back out of Jaffa, defeating Maude, and threatening my hold on southern Palastine with his corps. However, Armenian Uprising, while it couldn’t really break any supply, did make things uncomfortable for the Turks around Mus, and took temporary control of Diyarbekir.

But things turned back around as I pushed back onshore with a combined attack (to avoid the water crossing), and then took Jerusalem, and headed north. Meanwhile, the Indians occupied Ctesiphon and Museyib, preparing for a simultaneous push on Damascus and Baghdad at the end of the turn. Jason wasn’t able to re-take anything important enough, and lost at the end of the turn with 0VP.


End of Turn 7, and game.

It was reasonably sure, but I did gamble hard on that last turn, since I burned through a number of units and CC card, leaving me four OPS plays and two 1-OP rounds. If I’d had to go to Turn 8, I might have had some real problems. Jason was having the usual CP problem of recycling units, as the eliminated pile kept growing even with moderate RP use, while I mostly managed to empty my eliminated units box again.

As mentioned, the real trouble started with shelling Constantinople, and getting a good combat on Romani. That turned Palestine into the center of gravity for the rest of the game, followed by my invasion in Jaffa, which gave me the ability to supply regular BR corps in the area, which completely outclass the TU-A ones that are easy to raise there. The advance in Mesopotamia started slower than I wanted, as I took a while to get Indian Reinforcements so I could organize their two corps there.

Jason really needed to find time for at least some action in the Balkans. Any sort of distraction would have been good, and taking Belgrade would have made my end-game push a lot chancier. He also needs to get more used to using SR instead of transferring a bunch of units a little distance, to completely re-organize threatened theaters (I admit to having the same problem as the CP…).

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