Francis I

by on April 11, 2019 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

Frieda’s biography of Francis I is certainly on the popular history end, and is well written and accessible. Moreover, not only did I find it accessible, but it gave me some desire to get back to Here I Stand, which covers the period, and includes much of what she goes into.

However, she does not deliver on her promises in the subtitle or the introduction. Freida mentions she first got interested in Francis by seeing his symbol (a flame-wreathed salamander) everywhere in buildings while doing research. This shows the impact and involvement he had on France at the time, all the projects he had some sort of hand in. And not much of this really shows in the main part of the book. Similarly, she does not really show how he determined the course of France in the Renaissance, which would earn him the title of ‘maker of modern France’.

Coverage of the period in general also suffers, with very little attention paid to the rising religious tensions in France. (In fact, if not for the Affair of the Placards, you might not realize the Reformation is happening at all.)

She is much more successful in showing Francis as a person, and some of the court around him. She also shows how much of his reign was defined by his continual rivalry with Emperor Charles V, and how it affected the future Henri II. Francis I is largely known as a poor king and person for some very good reasons, but Frieda does a very good job of rounding out his personality and accomplishments, and while this book isn’t a great look at the early 16th Century in France, it is a good look at Francis himself, and is recommended as a deeper look into the person.

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162 Armored Car Savikurki

by on April 7, 2019 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

Patch and I decided to go back to the Finns for our next ASL game, which led to us selecting 162 “Armored Car Savikurki” from Hakkaa Päälle. During the Winter War, a small group of Finnish troops (4 squads), aided by a single armored car, is trying to break out to their own lines, blocked by seven squads of Russians. The Finns have winter camouflage (though ranges are a bit short for it to matter), and the Russians suffer from Early War Doctrine, which only means that conscripts suffer a automatic -1 to CC attacks against them.

The Russians are mixed 1st Line and Conscripts, with a Commissar and a 7-0, LMG and HMG. The Finnish 648s enter on the first turn, with the AC following on turn two with a 9-1 AL. They have seven turns to get across half of board 42 and exit 5 EVP (other than the AC or its crew), which isn’t much, and yet is over half their force. I had the defending Russians, and set up a loose line to try and delay the Finns as much as possible. I mostly covered the more open southern route which wouldn’t hamper the AC as much. The north is all woods with a clearing and a single road, and got two conscript squads to hold things up until I might redeploy to cover it. Also, the HMG was in the back as a second line, and placed to fire straight down the road deep into woods. I nearly put the boresight in T9, but decided I was more worried about him avoiding that obvious shot, and put it in V4.

Patch came in on the north route, and his third move put him into T9. The HMG fired down the road (Patch: ‘Did not even think about that. :P’), for a NMC which he passed. His last move gave me an un-Hindered shot from U8, which revealed to do a 1MC which he failed.


Situation, Finnish Turn 1.
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Off Armageddon Reef

by on April 3, 2019 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

David Weber is a good author with a few glaring weaknesses. Sadly, all of that is readily apparent in this novel.

The basic setup is that humanity gets to the stars, runs into an alien race apparently intent on wiping out everything other than itself, and after a tough war, looses. Earth, and all of the colonies, are destroyed, leaving one fleet with a last-ditch plan to start a new colony somewhere out of the way, avoid technology, and tell-tale high-energy emissions that will give the new colony away.

The prologue for all of this is excellently done, but is big and detailed enough that you’d think the point of the series is the buildup of Safehold to where it can try for a round two against the aliens.

Apparently not, it’s all set up for a long series of novels with lots of Age of Sail-style action. Not necessarily a bad thing, and let’s be honest, it’s Weber’s first love. But after all the initial high-tech setup, and the fact that that is the supposed end goal, I was hoping for a thick novel that deals with, shall we say, an inflection point in Safehold’s history, and then the next one could be a couple generations later, and so on, back to actually revisiting that prologue.

Inside of what we do have here, we Merlin, who’s basically Superman. As a high-tech android with the personality of a dead Earth naval officer, he’s got everything you can ask for: super strength, lightning reflexes, a library full of banned scientific knowledge… and a lack of allies. Actually, he does find those, and of course, war and action result.

The world building that surrounds this is excellent. That’s always been one of Weber’s strengths, and it is on display here, and is one of the primary reasons to read this. The plot is fairly strong as well, though it’s not really an 800-page plot; the book doesn’t need as much trimming as some other reviews say, but it does need some overall tightening up. If you want some lower-tech space opera, definitely read this, and I certainly plan on going on with the series eventually, but I can’t give it much more than a weak recommendation for particular audiences.

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5 In Sight of the Volga

by on March 30, 2019 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

In my efforts to finally play all the original Beyond Valor scenarios for ASL, I’ve had two attempts on scenario 5, In Sight of the Volga. As is popular for the system, it’s a Stalingrad scenario. This one takes place in September ’42 on boards 1 and 20, with the large board 20 building counted as a factory near the banks of the Volga. The Germans are trying to get into the factory, and have more GO squads in it with a LOS off the board edge than the Russians have GO squads in the building, presumably so they can prevent further reinforcements from being ferried over.

Which is a concern here. The Russians start with 20 squads (in a mix of 1st Line types), with decent leadership, a pair of MMG, a 76mm INF, some “?”, 6 trenches, and 4 squads HIP. Every turn, they roll a Reinforcement DR, and if the colored die is less than the turn #, they get that many 628 squads, and the total DR determines if a leader comes with them. Also, the Russians are suffering from Ammo Shortage, and if the DR is doubles, supplies arrive, and the shortage ends. There are ten full turns, so while the Germans have time, there will be a good number of reinforcements over the course of the scenario.

The Germans are attacking with 25 467 squads, with good leadership, including a 10-2 and 9-2, and comparatively few MGs for the number of squads. Considering the distance to go, the relative number of squads, and the reinforcements, they have a tough job. But the initial concentration vs a defender that needs to defend across two boards can do a lot. Also, they can exit men off the board to stop future reinforcements (at a rate of stopping one squad per HS exited). Complicating matters, a fair number of building hexes have been rubbled, with more rubble spilling out into the streets. The Russians also have a SAN of 7(!), while the Germans only have a 3.

Back in 2013, I advertised for a game of this, and set up with Luke Sineath, and took the attacking Germans. He concentrated his defense on board 20, so I lined up on board 1, and did my best to overrun the defenders there. This is what things looked like at the end of the first movement phase:

As you can see, I was directly threatening the forward few squads on board 1, and was already moving around the end of the line. Things continued in this vein, with the Russian defense struggling to re-orient, and a nasty fight developing in front of the factory. Sadly for me, he had good luck with his Reinforcement DRs, so he was able to feed 628s directly into it before I could arrive. The INF turned out to be in 20B4, and that clear shot all the way to L9 was a major problem for me. By turn 5, almost all resistance outside the INF and the factory had collapsed, and I was struggling with how to leverage what was left of my forces to blast my way inside before the reinforcements got even worse.

That is what things looked like during my Turn 5, when Luke just… vanished. On me, and several other PBeM players. I’ve always regretted this game going unfinished. I’d managed to pry apart the defenders, but the trickle of new 628s meant I still had a challenge, and I had a real struggle in front of me.
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Sertorius and the Struggle for Spain

by on March 26, 2019 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

This is mostly a reconstruction of the Sertorian War. There’s also some notes of the larger history of the Iberian peninsula, and people with an interest in the history of Iberia in general may want to pick this up too.

Back to the main subject, Sertorius is considered one of Rome’s best and least known generals. While I generally agree, I can’t help wondering if Sertorius was only successful because he was well-suited to the mixed force he had and the guerilla holding action he fought. That is, put him in charge of regular Roman legions in a more normal Roman war, would he have done so well, or would all of his superb qualities have been wasted in the standardized system, away from terrain he knew well? In any case, he was the perfect person for the role he did play, but that was unfortunately on the losing side of the civil wars of the early 1st Century BC. And the upshot of that is despite some glowing praise for his generalship, we don’t know a lot about what exactly happened over the course of eight years of fighting.

However, scholars have combed through all the various references that do exist to what happened, many of which are just particular incidents without a lot of context, and assembled them into a framework that seems to work. This book is Matyszak’s presentation of this framework for a popular audience. As there is so little go off of, a high percentage of the book is direct quotes from the ancient sources, woven together with explanations and probable interpretations.

As such, this is a very important book for those wanting to know more about Sertorius’ campaigns, as this is about as fleshed out as it gets at the moment (and quite possibly, ever). I have some quibbles with yet another unneeded in medias res opening to a history book, and Matyszak is still too unforgiving on the character of Gaius Marius (but that’s much more peripheral than it was in Cataclysm 90 BC). There’s three maps of Iberia at the beginning of the book, and the fun one is ‘from a campaigning point of view’, and is keyed with ‘merely unpleasant’, ‘rugged and mountainous’, and ‘practically impassible’. Overlaying the apparent routes of march of various campaigning seasons on that one would have been interesting.

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