Limited Pursuit

by on June 6, 2019 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

Jason came by back on the 23rd for a game of Pursuit of Glory. I’m guessing that he’s in a mood to get back in practice with it, which I certainly can’t blame him for. Sadly, neither of us are used to actual weekday traffic patterns, and he got stuck for an hour, giving us a late start as well as getting refamiliarized with the rules again.

I took the Allies and took the standard opening at Fao, and my standard attempt to knock out a couple of Turkish cavalry divisions. However, Only one attack worked, with the Turks successfully Withdrawing from the other two. We missed the fact that even if it isn’t ‘win’ by final loss numbers, the Allies can always advance after a Turkish Withdrawl. That left me stalled in Mesopotamia for a while, as all my attacks would meet a delaying action, and then he’d move back before I consolidated the gain (too used to Evades in CC:A I suppose). Other than that, the first turn was fairly standard, though I got a fair amount of events played, and in fact, during the first two turns, got all six War Status available from the Mobilization deck.

Churchill Prevailed during turn 2, destroying everything except the Bosporus Forts, and I managed to get some spare OPS to advance though Sinai before the Turks got there, assembling two good stacks from at-start and reinforcements. Jason managed to reinforce the area, and it was static for the rest of the game, though I did get the Sinai Railroad started, so I would have been able to form a LCU there as of Turn 7. The Russian front got less attention from me, with a definite crisis on low simmer there, not helped by Save Tiflis disordering everything.


End of Turn 2.

Turn 3 had bad news: Parvus went to Berlin. However, I got a couple more divisions ashore at Abadan, and at the end of the turn eliminated the tribe that was holding the flank at Ahwaz. At the beginning of turn 4, the two move-6 units at Abadan raced forward to cut off the Turks in Basra, and got just short of Baghdad. Jason SRed divisions in to block further progress, and I pulled back before he could cut off my leading units, and consolidated, eliminating two divisions at the end of the turn from OoS. Jason used Marsh Arabs to tie me up a bit, but I cleared them out over the next couple of turns. Both Indian corps got formed in there, and the next turn would have seen me trying to get him out of Nasiriya and get on the road to Baghdad again, hopefully threatening to cut off more divisions in the process.

My main problem was the Russian Front. A Winter Offensive helped on Turn 3, but while I’d been able to chew up a decent number of Turkish units and tribes, I hadn’t gained much ground, and Jason was able to take and eliminate the fort in Kars. I had managed to move the east flank up to take Van and threaten Mosul, which had caused more reshuffling of units, but I had to keep being cautious of getting my supplies cut off, since a neutral Persia really limits routes into the area. At the end of next turn the Revolution would hit, and there was no possibility of delaying it.

Also, I was going to lose the VPs for Romania. I tried to play it on Turn 6, and got through all of setup before realizing that I needed a LCU in the Balkans, which I had no way of doing. So it wasn’t going to get played before the Revolution. And slightly later, Jason did play Bulgaria. No action actually happened in the Balkans, but the theater was finally open.


End of Turn 6, and the day.

So we left the day with Jihad stalled at 4, and none of the revolt events played, and the VPs slightly on the AP side. But the Revolution was going to give me a really hard time, and start freeing up TU troops for other crises.

And there were some. I was going to be pressing forward in Mesopotamia. Also, a big problem had been dealing with the invasion cards (I had two during the winter turn 5), and getting decent British troops for an invasion together. I had originally planned on trying a Gallipoli invasion, but Jason had denuded eastern Anatolia of troops (except for one elite division in Adana), so I was planning on invading at Adana next turn. And of course, I’d make what use I could of the Russians in the time left me.

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His Majesty’s Dragon

by on June 2, 2019 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

Napoleonic naval adventure plus dragons. That does pretty well sum it up.

Of course, there’s more to it than that. I’ve gotten lots of recommendations for this book, but have put off trying out for a long time as while the high concept is one that could be a lot of fun, it’s also one that could go disastrously wrong, especially if you know something of the history of the era.

Thankfully, it does work, and there is some nice worldbuilding around making it all work. Once into the main part of the book, the sharp-eyed will soon see that it is 1805 (I recall no year being given in the novel), and the campaign that ends in the Battle of Trafalgar is in motion.

But this is about dragons, and not ships, so that’s not the focus nor climax of the novel, even though it provides a very good framework for some of the action. Instead, we have an introduction to the world of dragons (which is conveniently gauche enough that our ship captain main character needs as much introduction to the Aerial Corps as we do), with training, integrating with a unit and social norms, etc. This is a lot of the backbone of the center of the book, and is well done with a fairly appropriate feel for the society of the era without going overboard in it (not that I’m an expert, but it sure felt true to what I know).

The dragons are intelligent, and therefore characters in their own right, as well varied in form and function, having been bred for different roles about as much as dogs have been. You can’t stare at them too long, as there’s no way for a smaller dragon to really work without a fair amount of magic (and so far there seems to be none past the dragons and some having breath weapons of fire and acid and the like), and most of the dragons here are huge. A true ‘combat dragon’ carries a load of marines (for boarding actions) and gunners to fire at the enemy, along with gear and tackle for all them, and the space to put it all… goodness. There’s a number of nods the problems inherent in all this, but just enjoy it and don’t think too hard about it. But the tone is small ship actions, not fighters (though there’s some of that too, since the dragons attack each other directly as well).

That was a lot of what gave me pause going into this, but it works out. The characters are well worth reading about, the action is well done, and overall the plot works out very well. Certainly recommended.

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Stormblood

by on May 29, 2019 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: MMO

Smudge and I recently finished off the main story for Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood. I’m amazed, I figured we’d still be at it when the Shadowbringers expansion comes out at the beginning of July. Not that we’re caught up or anything, there’s five big patches of content to get through too. If we take three months on that… we’ll be about a month behind when the expansion comes out.

First off, the Stormblood storyline features a fair amount of travel. And they provide a pretty decent map of the world as it’s been revealed so far:


↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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Fifth Quarter

by on May 25, 2019 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

This isn’t quite a sequel to Sing the Four Quarters, since the locale and characters change. However, the world is the same, and the magic is the same, though it ends up elaborated a bit more here.

It does take place a bit after the first book, and over the border in the Empire. This means that bardic magic doesn’t appear until about halfway through, and is never a prominent force. However, this is the one place where someone who hasn’t read the first book might be a little lost. Explanations of exactly what the kigh are, and bardic commands are possibly a bit lacking. The ‘fifth quarter’ is more than just a four+one title though. The four quarters are the elemental spirits that bards can command, and the fact that bards can also directly affect humans implies that they have a kigh as well. This is something that should probably have been seen in-universe before now, though Shkoder does seem to be a small country that is the only place trains bardic talent.

Which brings us to the story, which features body swapping and necromancy from singing the fifth quarter. It juggles four different plot lines as part of this, and pulls that off well by being very focused on one, which the others flow towards. The main content… gets a lot of comment, and understandably so. After the first book, one wonders if this series is all a vehicle for various types non-explicit sexytimes, with the first book having a fairly sexually liberated society, and this one having a bit of incest along with other complications.

I think this book is overall a bit better than the first one; it’s paced better, it doesn’t have a need for a truly over-the-top ending. But in both cases, what makes it work is the same: the characters are complex. They bend against their central core concepts in personal ways that don’t feel forced. Hmm. Except perhaps Karlene (the only major character bard), who remains a bit flat as a character despite some extensive screen time in the second half of the book, perhaps because her role is a bit functional as well as character driven.

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Anime Winter 2019

by on May 21, 2019 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Anime

As is the standard at the moment, my anime watching is lagging behind a bit, but this post is probably lagging behind more. My general weekly watching for the last few months:

Sword Art Online: Alicization — So… second season, second half of the story, right? Of course right. Except it’s not. It does actually go through and have the climatic showdown you know has to happen. And the entire sequence for that was very good. Really, I tend to get tired of the ‘series of fights with climbing levels of bossiness’ trope, but this season did it well, and I enjoyed it the entire way (with the exception of recap episode). But then we get a cliffhanger for a new problem, and the series… stops. So, I might recommend not going for this until it returns, but overall Alicization is the best SAO has been since first season.

Land of Lustrous — I just got to watching this a month ago or so. The bad news: it stops partway through the full story, and needs another season. However, the good news is that it stops at a good, and fairly satisfying point, and is a very good series overall.

Fairy Tail — Continuing to be good with moments of great. The fact that they’re on course for an ‘end’ that’s already out in the manga I think helps a lot, as the writing is staying reasonably tight. The fighting is sprawling out all over the place, but it’s not feeling drawn out with too many ‘and now our 5 minutes with this character’.

Pokemon Sun & Moon Ultra Adventures — Sometimes you’d think that the entire franchise would just be tired after this long. And… sometimes it does feel like it (really, Team Rocket doesn’t need to be in every episode, though this series is being better about that), and sometimes it doesn’t. The main thing I think I can say is that I want to see more of the Masked Royal, the episodes dealing with Kakui’s double life have been hilarious.

A Certain Magical Index III — Not a bad wrap up, and this season was definitely the story they were rushing through everything else to get at. If anyone else has seen it, you want to try explaining it? We’ve got a lot plots and magical MacGuffins running around, and I don’t think the creator really has a handle on it all, so it just dissolves into nearly-random events.

Baron and Dave occasionally watch with us, and here’s what they just caught up on:

Ancient Magus Bride — You know, the second time around, I like first season even more than I did the first time. I think not watching the excellent OAVs beforehand helped, since those are very good, and the series suffered a little in comparison. Also, second season did a bit better for seeing it faster than one episode a week. Anyway, we watched everything (OAVs last), and they were happy with it, and I really want to see a third season now.

Also, Smudge and I caught the two ‘reboot’ movies for Pokemon recently:

Pokemon: I Choose You — This was disappointing. Part of it was, I was expecting a buddy movie of Ash and Pikachu concentrating on the original first couple of episodes. I think that would have been better than a completely alternate version of… probably about the entire Kanto adventures. The two new characters were there to externalize Ash a bit, but that also left him feeling a bit flat.

Pokemon: The Power of Us — On the other hand, this is one of the best Pokemon movies there’s been. The plot has a difficult job, as there’s five primary characters, and the movie follows them all about equally. However, the various threads cross frequently, and naturally, and overall its a very strong plot. Better yet, there’s no Team Rocket (really, they don’t need to be there every time). There are complaints that Ash isn’t the primary focus, which is true, but he is still what ties major parts of the movie together. And I’m fine with seeing people other than Ash on center stage.

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