Catseye

by on November 24, 2018 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

Catseye features Norton’s usual broader theme of the main character finding his place in the world, but isn’t really a coming-of-age story like many of her books. In fact, Troy Horan doesn’t need to be exiled or otherwise lost to find his place; he had it, on the plains of Norden, but he was evacuated for a war, and the planet of Norden is lost, no longer part of of the Council.

Troy is stuck on Korwar, a gathering place of the rich and powerful, and with a chronic job shortage. A temporary job using his rusty animal handling skills starts to lever him out of the slums, but it is quickly apparent that his employer is engaged in something outside the law, and involving exotic animals imported from Terra. The action moves quickly and smoothly, with a lot of twists and turns. The story stays focused on Troy, and his struggles against a restricted society, so that you never quite find out exactly what happened in a couple of critical places.

Technically, those missing parts are outside the plot, and aren’t really needed. Indeed, the lack doesn’t actually detract from the book, as Troy (and the reader) gets just enough knowledge to be getting on with.

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Two Rounds of Issus

by on November 20, 2018 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: CC:Ancients

Patch and I are continuing our between-larger-games sets of Commands & Colors: Ancients, and we are continuing our current tour through Alexander the Great’s career with Issus from Expansion 1. It’s a large battle, with both armies having more units than could fit in a single line, and going to eight banners. Alexander has a distinct edge in quality, and gets six cards to the Persian four. Hills on one side, coast on the other, but the Pinarus river is not only fordable down the entire length, it doesn’t even limit the number of dice rolled, so its only effect is to stop movement. Alexander adds a die to any unit he’s attached to, the Companions can ignore a banner and a sword, and the Immortals are medium infantry that can used ranged combat.

I had Alexander for the first round, and led off with Order Lights to bring a couple Auxilia up, and pepper the advanced Persian units with sling and bow fire, forcing a Persian LS to retreat, doing a block to a second one, and two blocks to a Med. Patch Counter Attacked to bring up Auxes on his left, and I used a Line Command to start engaging them in the hills, driving off the lead unit, and doing a block to another. Order Three Left brought the Auxes up again, and drove back one of mine, while we did a block to each other. I moved up a little, and another Order Three Left did one block to each of two units of my Auxes, while I did two to one of his, and he got solid control of the hills. Order Three Right brought my Heavies into contact, where they knocked out a weakened Auxilia, and I did a block to another for no damage.

Patch used Order Mediums to organize his center, while MCs moved on the flanks, doing a block to a LC for no damage. I Ordered Heavies to bring up a couple units in the center, send a Heavy to hit his MC, and the one from my right advanced to the river to engage an Aux, doing a block, and driving it off. Patch used Line Command to get his center past the Pinarus and engage my leading Heavy and wipe it out, but took three blocks in return. Darius used Momentum to hit the second Heavy, doing three blocks to it, and taking three in return. I used Mounted Charge to bring Alexander through a gap in my line and pick off a weakened Med, and then do a block and three banners to a second one on Momentum, another MC picked off the remnants of the Immortals, and drove Darius off to his HC; Momentum bagged the other Med from the assault, and drove off a leader to a LC.

Patch Counter Attacked again, reducing the right Heavies to one block for no loss, while my left Heavies took two hits and did a hit and two banners to reduce a MC to one block. Inspired Center Leadership started moving up some spare Mediums, while my MC did two blocks to an Aux while taking two, and I did a hit to the HC. Clash of Shields activated five units for Patch, which knocked out the right Heavy, an Aux, and a MC, as well as doing a block to a LB, and nearly forced an Aux off the board. I used Leadership to engage his right flank, driving off a LS and LC, and eliminating a weak Aux. Darken the Sky finished off an Aux, and did two blocks to a LB. I used Order Lights to re-dress the line a little, and knocked out an Aux as well as driving off the HC.

Order Four Left gave Patch several shots at the one unit left on my right (a one-block LB), but he couldn’t connect. Order Two Center sent Alexander over to the right, where he did a block to a MC for no damage, while a Med moved forward. Order Three Left finished off the LB, and did two blocks to the Companions, while they did one to a MC, which I then finished off with an Inspired Right Leadership. Order Two Center forced my Med back with ranged fire, but Double Time got my right in contact, and wiped out an evading LC. 8-6

For the second round, Patch led off with Order Four Center, and started forming a more solid line, while doing a block to a LS with ranged fire. I Ordered Three Left, and brought up units while doing a block to the center Heavy. Patch moved up a couple units, and then a Order Four Right eliminated a LC by forcing it off the board and my MC did a couple hits to a LB that was blocked from evading. Patch Out Flanked to bring up the wings and drive off my two cav units with a loss apiece, and followed that up with Darken the Sky which did two blocks each to to LS.

Line Command allowed me to get one of the LSes out of the way, and move up most everything else, driving back an Aux, and doing a block to a MC with ranged fire. Patch Ordered Lights, and mostly stood in place, doing three hits to one Med with fire from three units. Line Command got me into contact with much of his line, driving back his right flank Aux with a loss, but only after he’d done three blocks to an Aux of mine, and took out his center heavy at a cost of three hits on a Med; a Momentum attack did hits to a blocked Light, but he hit back for a block, while I got another Light for three blocks between an Aux and missile fire. Inspired Center Leadership let Patch rework his right and pick off an Aux and Med, while doing a block to an Aux in return for three on a Heavy; my forward Med took two blocks and three banners to retreat to the main line. A third Line Command allowed me to engage parts of his line again and pick off the Heavy and a Light, while driving back an Aux and another Light, one of my Auxes was driven back, and a Momentum against another Heavy did two damage in return for me taking three.

Order Two Center brought in Alexander who finished off a Medium, and eliminated Darius, doing two blocks to an Aux on momentum, then Craterus took out a Med, and finished off the Aux on Momentum. Coordinated Attack allowed some ranged combat, doing a block to a LB and the Companions, while I moved my HC into position for next turn. Inspired Left Leadership brought that flank into contact, and took out a LS and Med. 4-8

Afterword

Both battles saw a lot of carnage and both sides trying to figure out what to do with smashed units. These are large well equipped armies, and eight banners gives lots of time to see them in action. Four cards is a heck of a handicap for the Persians, but they got strong cards both times to put up a stubborn fight. I was about to use a Mounted Charge card, who knows how much it would have done, but the HC had a good shot at Craterus, and then Momentum into the Companions and Alexander.

And there’s some interesting wrinkles here too. I had to give up on the Macedonian right flank the first game because I couldn’t afford to be fighting uphill. The initial deployments take a little working with to get a real line going, which was what my first few turns as the Persians was all about.

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Alas, Babylon

by on November 16, 2018 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

Another book from the ‘Dad always recommended it, and I should have gotten to it faster pile’. This generally gets classified as science fiction, though I have trouble doing that. It is a novel of ‘tomorrow’ (that tomorrow being 1959 at the time), like a lot of good science fiction, but really, it doesn’t feature anything that was not known at the time, it’s just events that could have happened and thankfully didn’t. As a book featuring military hardware, and WWIII, you could consider it a technothriller 30 years ahead of its time, but it isn’t that at all. The scenes dealing with military goings on are short, and are there merely to give you a real idea of how all this came to pass, and just how easy it can be to stumble into a war.

I’m not convinced on some of what is presented of the course of the war, but some of the problems do stem from it being written in the middle of the ‘missile gap’, a period where we thought we were significantly behind the Soviet Union’s ability to cause nuclear devastation from afar. A perception, that like so many in the Cold War proved to be illusory. I did have to look up Conelrad, which turns out to be the predecessor of the Emergency Broadcast System, which also dates things, as the Conelrad system worked fairly differently to its successors.

But never mind all of that, that’s not what the novel’s about. Welcome to Fort Repose, Florida, a small town that is about to be cut off and thrown on only its own resources when all else around it is destroyed, and the winds keep the fallout away during the critical first few days. Much of the point of the novel is certainly pointing up just how dependent on the rest of the world even a small town is, and this is merely in the electrical age; it’s all even more true is the electronic and internet age, though I think we might be a little more aware of that fact today, even if we’re just as used to everything else being there for us.

It’s a book that wants to make you think, and it does, though many of the things it wants to present have been picked up and done as well later. But this is one of (if not the) first serious literary look at what a post-holocaust world would look like, and does it very well, Pat Frank had definitely spent a fair amount of time thinking through the consequences. It also has one of the more balanced perspectives on the aftermath. Order breaks down, there is looting, gangs attacking people… and there are people who come together to take care of each other, conserve resources, and form a small community of their own.

Part of the accurate depiction of 1959 America involves, of course, the attitudes of the time. It’s obvious that Frank thinks well of blacks, and the main character does as well inside his cultural box as he can (and far better than most everyone else), there’s no equivalent progressivism for women here. It’s quite understandable, though a shame. Its a decided weakness, though the ‘thought experiment’ model of the book weakens more it from today’s perspective as it means that it doesn’t have a very strong, cohesive plot, and is somewhat episodic in its structure.

Sadly, this is yet another book converted to ebook format that needs another pass through edit. The bulk of it is in good shape, but the text starts coming apart near the end with a good number of errors that still need cleaning up.

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FB13 Don’t Economize

by on November 12, 2018 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

It was finally time to return to Festung Budapest for me and Patch (I had figured our previous game would be FB, but ended up in an early-war adventure instead) a couple months ago. It is now February 7th, and the food shortage rules have taken effect for the Axis, as well as Ammo Shortage 4. The food shorage means the Axis troops cannot use double-time (oh dear, we forgot that towards the end), and lowers broken morale by one (that one we got). There is still ground snow, and the outlying areas of the map tend to be a level higher, meaning the extra MF does come up at odd times.

The Germans are defending a couple of large blocks in the southern section of the FB maps against a Russian push, with Hungarians holding part of the line nearby, and more in the Postal Palace. The Germans get nine SS squads of varying quality (which boosts broken morale against the lowering of the food shortage…), 18 factors of mines, three hexes of wire, two roadblocks, a DC and a PSK, while the Hungarians have another five squads, and 3 1/2 squads inside the Postal Palace. The Russians enter on turn 1 with fourteen squads, good leadership, a FT, a couple DCs, three T-34/85s, and can set up up to six squads on board; up to three in the Postal Palace, and three more in a nearby building. On Turn 3, 3 squads of BVR enter from the west. Both sides get reinforcements on turns 2 through 4 by means of purchase points, and a fairly diverse schedule of things to spend them on. Both sides get 4 VP for control of the Postal Palace, 1 for each building controlled in the victory block, and 1 for each unbroken squad-equivalent in the victory block at the end of seven turns.

I had the defending Germans, and the pre-game rubble check was interesting. Three hexes of the building the Russians can start in rubbled, and four of the gigantic rowhouse/block the Germans can set up in outside the victory area rubbled, leaving debris all along the street between them, and three hexes of debris between the setup building and the victory block on the end that the Russians will approach from. Also, two of three hexes of a building on the west side rubbled, knocking down a hex of an adjacent building, putting rubble in the street, scattering debris around, and leaving the BVR entry area a bit exposed.

I put the three wire on the rubbled hexes of the setup area facing where the Russians could set up, and put two six-factor mine hexes at the north end of that block. The last mines went in CC17, since it seemed an exposed location that Patch may want to advance into. One roadblock sealed off one of the main streets into the victory area, while the other was clogged by debris, and the second roadblock sealed off the opposite end of the block from any daring T-34 flanking moves. I had dummies on one of the mines, and my HIP PSK squad adjacent in the debris, hoping to get a shot off before having to leave.

Patch set up with a strong MG platoon in Y15, and the allowed three squads plus all his Dummies on the ground floor of the Postal Palace (I knew some had to be Dummies… but which stack?). Meanwhile, more set up off board to get into the Postal Palace, and some from the NW, but the main thrust was towards my outer defenses, and on the flank of his on-board setup.

Patch admitted to some mistakes with the first turn; he forgot some prep fire (I assume from Y15), and headed an entering armored assault stack in the wrong direction, which I assume left them a bit behind schedule. Overall, his advance was cautious, and I had no fire. Y15 did fire in APh, but got no result on Y17. The T-34s got acquisition on a couple of my forward positions… and U14 in the Postal Palace, which surprised me, but the top of the building (where I was…) was visible from behind a rowhouse. That last did set off my Sniper who ended up reducing Patch’s Sniper to a ‘2’.


Situation, Russian Turn 1, showing the entire board. North is to the left, blue hexes are the Axis entry area, red hexes the Russian entry area, and yellow is the BVR entry area. The German crosses are the limit of the setup area, while the blue dashed line is the victory area.
↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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Warlord’s World

by on November 8, 2018 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

Warlord’s World is decidedly pulp. The Interstellar Patrol is a service in the Federation of Humanity with excellent ships and technology, and a fair amount of latitude in powers (one wonders just what the organization of the Federation is, but this is obviously out on the outskirts or frontiers).

The first section of the book starts the action immediately when Vaughan Roberts senses an appeal for help from a beautiful woman (who of course turns out to be a princess), and rescues here through quick reflexes and bluff. He swears her in as a candidate member of the Patrol—which of course entitles her to the protection of the Patrol. And then the novel does not go anywhere you might expect from that, and while an important act for the plot in a couple of places, it doesn’t really come up again until the denouement.

The middle section is interesting in it’s own right, as Roberts goes on an ‘inside job’, where his consciousness is transferred into the princess’ brother, and they’re combined competences allow the defeat of a wide variety of dastardly plots. It’s actually well done, but not what you expect after the first few chapters. The ending section leaves that behind, with both protagonists getting screen time, and finally setting things to rights.

One of Anvil’s strengths is he does very well with action and derring-do, and this novel has lots of that. It’s a light, fun, uncomplicated book in the best pulp tradition, and keeps a fast pace throughout, with a couple pauses to transition from one overall section to another. The ending section gets a bit overdone, with more complications and curves thrown at it that it needed, but it still doesn’t bog down.

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