A4 Beyond the Blue Beach

by on October 31, 2017 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

A while back, I proposed the first Annual scenario to have not been reprinted as my next game with Tom Arnold, but we went with the much shorter 195 “Rocket’s Red Glare” instead, as there was limited time before he was unavailable for a few months. We went back to A4 “Beyond the Blue Beach” after the break. With its record on ROAR, the original intent was to play it with the American balance, but that plan got lost in the delays.

Tom took the Americans, who are defending the Salerno landings against a German counterattack. They get fourteen first-line squads with pairs of HMG, MMG, and MTR, and four BAZ 43, with two 105 ART arriving by truck on the first turn. The Germans have six first-line squads with a HMG, two MMG, and three LMG (one MG per squad!), with four Pz IV Hs with an AL entering on turn 1. The Germans have 10 turns in which to exit two tanks off the opposite edge (or exit one and generate more CVP than the Americans). The area is three boards, with Americans setting up in the west on board 19, and the Germans setting up in the east on board 4. The catch is that any time a tank is eliminated, the AL must make a TC, or the surviving tanks must go back to board 4 to regroup before they can try again. Presumably the long time limit assumes that there may be one or two false starts on the German offensive.

The main American problem is that they have to guard an entire long board edge. They can concentrate once the Germans are underway, but have to be wary of the tanks using their good speed to try to just get around them. That and the fact that the ART has no AP and HEAT 6 means that killing tanks is going to be hard. I initially looked at advancing near the center, where board 16 has some walls and buildings to take as cover before pushing into a thin line of woods near the board 16/19 join. But Tom’s main defense seemed to be in that area (and if he’d had the American balance of three foxholes, where I’d expect some of them to be), so I eventually went for a north-edge approach. There was less immediate cover, but some woods and brush between his setup and mine, and I could use the long Y/Z wall to cut off LOS to my advance from most of the rest of the board. Both sides get some “?”, and I used mine to create a Dummy as well as cover everyone, but then I never had anything to do with the Dummy with all the open ground around.

I sent a squad and two HS forward as fast as I could, and sent a MMG squad forward, but two squads and the lesser of my two leaders stayed back to see how it went. On the edge of the board, the HMG and 8-1 moved forward to a woods half-hex, where it could see through some of the gap as Tom moved up. This last move was the only one to draw fire, a range 16 MMG shot that did nothing. The tanks entered as a group, and it was only after I started that I realized I should probably have set up CE to gain some distance from the initial road; I did put the last one CE so he could catch up (going BU during APh). The first tank halted to provide covering fire, while the others stayed in Motion to gain some distance (the AL was in the second tank entered, who ended up in the middle of the Motion group).

Tom’s DFPh had one effect: he malfunctioned the 60mm MTR in 19CC5 on its second shot; it had been trying to shell the stopped tank in 16AA10 (which could have turned into a problem, immobilizing tanks is a mission kill in this scenario with only four of them).


Situation, German Turn 1, showing the full board. North is to the left.
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The Burning City

by on October 27, 2017 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

Niven had a few things to say in The Magic Goes Away, and said them, so I’m always surprised when I see another story set in that world. But they’re generally good, and seem to be a way for him to have a bit of authorial fun. As is usual with Niven and Pournelle book, this possibly better than anything else set there; it’s a little hard to judge because it’s longer and a more involved story than any of the others I’ve seen.

However, the first half of the book is a very slow burn. While much of it is important, one way or another, to the rest of the book, I found watching Whandall grow up a bit wearing on my patience, and which that it had been cut down a little. The rest of the book somewhat surprisingly breaks into two very uneven sections. The first (technically part of part 1, but it has more of the feel of the rest of the book) deals with having gotten out of the confines of proto-Los Angeles and is more of an adventure in spirit. Once the plot is really moving, the book suddenly skips twenty-two years, to where Whandall is established with his own family when events finally circle back to the first part of the book.

Yes, part of the idea behind this book is that it deals with the area of Los Angeles in the prehistoric time of The Magic Goes Away universe, with the rest of the book happening in the central valley. There’s a number of references to the modern area (the La Brea Tar Pits are naturally a major location in the story), some of which I probably don’t get because I’m not that familiar with the area. (And some are no doubt in-jokes; I have a feeling that Condigeo is a reference to Con Diego, a spectacularly unsuccessful convention attached to San Diego Comic Con at one point.)

Despite my grousing at the pacing, overall this is another good Niven and Pournelle book, and as with the majority of them, well worth reading. Despite the physical setting, most of the attention is on the various societies involved in the area, and the interactions between them as well as personally shifting from one to another.

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Anime Summer 2017

by on October 23, 2017 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Anime

I went into this season thinking there wouldn’t much I’d watch. But after rejecting one or two shows, and then nearly rejecting two more, the list really filled out, and the viewing schedule’s been very full for the last three months.

Little Witch Academia — So, Netflix finally got this over here. My coworker AJ and I are a bit concerned that by that point they released it, all the hype was over. But, as I expected from the short and OAV, the series was very good, and they came up with a good full-season story arc. It… gets a bit odd towards the end, and the last third rates a “Trigger warning” for going off into their tropes unexpectedly.

Last Man — A French production that’s just coming over here on VRV, it’s apparently the prequel to a graphic novel series (with the same name) that I’m going to have to look up. The characters are all great, and the writing is extremely tight and snappy. A real joy to watch, and very highly recommended.

My Hero Academia — Mostly actual ‘superheroing’ this season, with a big, well-handled fight that also is leading to further plots, and shows the aftereffects of the previous season. The fact that all the major arcs are having an impact on the series as a whole really helps keep this one together. I still can’t help but be concerned that it’ll dissolve into the usual Marvel soap-opera mess of unresolved plotlines in the long run, but so far, so good.

Restaurant to Another World — The foodie show of the season. It maintains a manga translation format of two stories per episode, but was very sweetly done. A (Japanese) Western Cuisine restaurant is mysteriously connected to a fantasy world every “Day of Satur”, and the stories are all about the patrons who come through the door—and the delicious food they eat. There’s an interesting mix of stories, like the one about the lizardman tribe picking their champion to visit the restaurant done as something of a documentary.

Knight’s and Magic — Apparently this is based off a series of stories on the web (i.e., fanficish). And I assume that’s why we have the Engrish title (which they really should have cleaned up). Gundam-loving otaku dies and is reborn in a fantasy world where magical giant robots are used to fight demon beasts (with spillover into regular wars). Horrible, horrible premise that should be a mess of a series. But it works, and it’s actually a very good series. There’s some problems (especially later) with things coming too easily and working right the first time, but that’s not entirely true, and overall the writing is pretty good.

Voltron: Legendary Defender — With only seven episodes, one has to wonder just what happened with season three. Still, the writing is very good, and Prince Lotar is being a very competent villain (as opposed to the goofball of the original).

The Ancient Magus’ Bride — This has been a very charming OAV series, in which the third one just came out. It’s a prequel to the main story, and apparently that’s about to start in a regular anime series, which I’ll be more than happy to watch after this.

18if — This was a strange one. Apparently, most episodes were farmed out to different studios, and the art styles can be very different. Which works, since almost everything is happening in various dream worlds. From the start, its obvious that there should be an overarching plot as while the main character is helping various ‘witches’ who are girls effectively stuck in comas, he isn’t ever awake either, and there’s no explanation as to why he’s stuck in the dream world. However, this doesn’t get any real acknowledgement at all until the final four episodes, when it’s suddenly time to tie everything off. Other than that problem, it’s a good series worth watching, and I really appreciate that the end involves more discussion than fighting.

Elegant Yokai Apartment Life — Standard Japanese contemporary fantasy: young man stumbles into the world of spirits and the occult. In this case, after the dorm for the high school he was about to attend burns down, Yushi ends up at an apartment were most of the tenants are in the spirit world. It manages to be be very charming (and the building itself is beautiful), with a large cast, and the main character grows nicely, and goes through different struggles, both internal and external. It seems to be continuing straight into a second season, which I’m happy to see.

Katsugeki/Touken Ranbu — Heard about the recent genre of anthropomorphizing just about anything (like warships) as young girls? I understand I’m not missing anything by skipping it. This, however, is anthropomorphizing famous Japanese swords as pretty-boys. I was pretty much giving up on this series at first, as it was just a bunch of fighting against enemies who didn’t have any real motivations given (though they’re nicely creepy). But, as the series goes on it turns into a ‘man [sword] vs self’ story, which gets pretty good. It turns out this is the second anime done off the Touken Ranbu browser/card game, so we’ll give the first one a try too soon, though it’s obviously very different.

Pokemon Sun & Moon — As I was expecting last time, the expanded use of secondary characters is paying off. Also, they seem to be trying to round out their depiction of Pokemon a bit, like with Litten being a stray and on-again-off-again character over several episodes before joining Ash.

Classroom of the Elite — I also call this ‘Classroom of the Elite Bust’ as all the females are a bit overendowed, though there’s not a lot of direct fanservice. Plot-wise, it’s pretty good, and very intelligent, though it has something of a Lord of the Flies vibe, which is something of a turn-off for me, despite good writing.

Chronos Ruler — Smudge and I nearly dropped this several times, but it kept turning around the writing at the last second and keeping us going. (Like one over-done over-dramatic fight that had us rolling our eyes in disgust… and then we lost it when it’s shown the ‘villain’ is really a nice boy trying so very hard to be evil, and he allies with one of the heroes because ‘that’s the most tragic backstory I’ve ever heard!’) The concept with monsters that eat time, and are attracted by regret is good, but the writing keeps veering back and forth between good and bad.

Children of Ether — This was a one-shot that promises more. Worth seeing, as the characters were well done, though the plot and setting are a bit cliche without enough chance to get their own feel.

A Centaur’s Life — We nearly gave up on this one several times for excessive fanservice. It seems to be an off-branch of the recent ‘monster show’ fad, and is at least a lot less fanservicey than those have been. The excuses given for all the various types of people doesn’t really fly, but some of worldbuilding on top of that gets interesting. When they aren’t going for the cheap fanservice, there’s some really sweet stories, which get more common as it goes on, which is what kept me and Smudge on board. But it’s over, I doubt it’ll come back, and I’m fine with that.

And there’s been some watching of other things, and older series, though not a lot, thanks to the crowded schedule.

Your Name — Got to see this a few weeks ago, and it is excellent! There’s a very good reason why this is one of the highest-grossing movies of all time in Japan, and it really needs to make more of a splash here. Our copy was borrowed, which is a pity, because I’d like to re-watch a few bits, because I know you don’t catch it all the first time.

Sweetness and Lightning — This was in Smudge’s queue of ‘things to try out’ a season or two back, and we happened to see a clip that was extremely adorable. And the series as a whole lived up to that. I think this is part of an effort I vaguely remember hearing about of a Japanese cultural office funding series to promote ‘cultural’ activities (in this case cooking); certainly there’s a fair amount of practical advice on more intermediate/advanced cooking tasks in here. But they’re part of the story instead of taking the place of it, and it’s amazingly sweet.

Kokoro Connect — The series came up in connection with Your Name at one point, so we tried it out. Smudge had originally skipped it as it looked like standard high school drama. No, not quite standard. A club of the school misfits keeps getting screwed with by bored ‘Q-like’ being (starting with body swapping). I think it doesn’t entirely live up to the premise, but I did find it interesting that despite what gets said, it seems like the real point is for the club members to get over some problems.

Pokemon Advanced — The latest boxed set collection. Ash being on his own for a couple episodes was interesting, but it went back to the usual party pretty fast. May is a nice changeover in viewpoint that was echoed with Serena, Max is annoying, and Brock… is actually being allowed to be in domestic mode instead of girl-crazy mode most of the time. This is also the generation where they start spreading out the starters among the crew instead of giving them all to Ash, which I think is a good idea.

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya — Got the boxed set on sale, and found even more annoyance than I expected. Not only is the original series shuffled into chronological order, but both seasons are shuffled into each other for chronology. So I’m stalled partway through, hoping Dave and Baron will catch up before continuing on to new episodes.

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The Last King of Poland

by on October 19, 2017 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

Adam Zomoyski starts his book by noting that there’s no truly adequate biography of King Stanisław II Poniatowski in any language, and his doesn’t measure up either. He figures Stanisław deserves two fairly large volumes to trace down every tangent related to his life. It would be a thoroughly scholarly work, and I doubt I’d read it, but after reading the book he did write, I can understand the desire.

Zamoyski paints a very positive picture of Stanisław, and while he not hide his problems he does not dwell on them either. As Poland pre-deceased him, it should be obvious that Stanisław has come in for a lot criticism and finger-pointing over the centuries. Unlike a lot of assessments of Stanisław (mostly starting right after the fact), Zamoyski generally celebrates his life and accomplishments. And there’s a lot to admire; he was obviously a very intelligent man, who on several occasions took effective control of councils or parties designed to limit his power. An Enlightenment idealist, he managed to get elected King of Poland and start reforms while being pragmatic about what could actually be accomplished inside of Poland’s delicate situation in the 18th Century.

And as in any good tragedy, these positive qualities are at the center of his problems. Zamoyski shows how he constantly wavered between his pragmatic and idealist impulses, eventually getting swept up in the Great Sejm and drafting up the constitution which led to the final partitions of Poland. He does not discuss the fact his ability to change position, and re-align with which way the wind was blowing also probably caused a fair amount of trouble, as it would be harder to trust him; and yet there was often little choice, as his actual authority was low. Similarly, he showed an interest in all sorts of pursuits (very much a Renaissance Man), and spent a great deal of energy diverting himself between all of them, and I wonder if more may have been accomplished with better focus.

Stanisław was not a military leader, and the couple of wars that occurred in his reign are not covered in any major detail. Poland’s military had been kept purposefully weak, and had to build up the army in a hurry after the new constitution. Given the challenges, it seems have performed well in the Polish–Russian War of 1792, and I’d like to see more about that.

An unfortunate final note is that my copy is a scan-and-OCR Kindle edition of an early 90’s work, and it shows. The early part of the book is in very good shape, but as often happens, the cleanup of the text slowly degrades through the course of the book. Mostly, the problems are more minor than usual (a number of extraneous periods), but a number of ‘e’s have become ‘c’s, and very late in errors like “l)evichy” (Devichy) occur. This is a shame, as the text deserves better.

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Two Rounds of Leuctra

by on October 15, 2017 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: CC:Ancients

Patch and I’s latest round of Commands & Colors: Ancients depicts the Battle of Leuctra where the Theban commander massed all his best infantry on his left to face the elite Spartan units on that flank and smash them. The setup encourages this with the opposite wings being much further away from each other than the heavy flank. There’s a mix of units on both sides again, though the Thebans are light on Hoplites, with their left being composed of Heavies (with one of them ‘special’—acting as if they always have a leader), while the Spartans have their extra-big MH to oppose them.

I had the Thebans the first time, and spent the first couple moves Ordering Two Right to line up for an Inspired Right Leadership before realizing that my only leader was on the left. Meanwhile Patch used Move-Fire-Move to get his center deployed and Ordered Two Left to tighten up that flank. I then Double Timed my Heavies into the Spartan right and reduced an Aux to 1 block, Patch’s led MH to two blocks while doing a block to another, with two of my Heavies reduced to two blocks in return. Patch Ordered Medium and swarmed the Sacred Band (special) to wipe them out. I Double Timed on that flank again to rearrange my units and knocked out the wounded Aux, drove another one back after taking a block, reduced a full Spartan MH by three blocks and drove it back, and reduced the two wounded ones more, and in return had an Aux reduced to one block and driven off.

Patch Ordered Three Center to pick off my leader/Heavy, but only drove him back a hex with no losses. I Ordered Four Left continue pushing at the Spartan MH and pull my Aux further out of the way. I finally finished off one of the Spartan MH, did a block to another, and traded two blocks from my leader/Heavy with his Aux. Patch Ordered Three Center to hit my leader/Heavy again, knocking it out this time, but the leader evaded back to a full-strength Heavy. I used Coordinated Attack to bring up a couple units, and pick off two wounded units, getting his leader in the process. 5-2

Patch started the second game with Order Three Left to start moving up the heavy flank, and I Ordered Mediums to fill in the center and start picking on the heavies while the Theban leader was slightly behind. I picked off the Sacred Band in two combats, but couldn’t quite finish off the other heavy, and took five blocks across three units. Patch Ordered Lights to bring up units across his line, but got no results from ranged attacks. I Ordered Two Right to finish off a Heavy, and Patch Ordered Lights again, doing a block to a Spartan MH and a MC which was forced to flee to the baseline.

I used a Line Command for the entire right and center, and forced one of his MC back to the baseline with ranged combat, while picking off an Aux and reducing both of his remaining heavies to two blocks while he reduced two Spartan MH to one block. Patch Counterattacked for a two unit ‘line’ of his heavies which picked off my weak Spartans while reducing the last one to one block. My leader evaded to just off the end of the rest of my line and Leadership Any Section allowed me to move new units up while the leader attached himself to the center of the new line. I reduced a Heavy to one block, but it wiped out a full-strength Aux. Patch Ordered Three Center to bring up some MH and hit my new line with the MC, doing two blocks to another Aux, but a hit and two banners in return easily took care of the MC. I Out Flanked to start moving up the left while the remaining MH with support from the wounded Aux (and leader) to hit the remains of the Heavies and did a block to end the game. 5-3

Afterword

Both games gave me lots of tense moments since I was gambling my most effective units against ones about as good. The first game was more of demolition derby as almost nothing happened away from the engaged flank. The second game was a little more fluid, but only a little; it was still decided in the same place. With the wide gap on the setup of the opposite flank, this’ll almost always happen, though we were also constrained by our cards. If the first game hadn’t ended when it did, I was completely out of options on that flank.

There’s something about the five dice from Heavies that really inspires confidence, though the five-block Spartan MH can probably take it. On the other hand, the four dice of the Spartan MH doesn’t feel as potent.

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