Catherine the Great

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

Massie’s book on Catherine the Great is first and foremost a biography, and never loses sight of this fact. As an empress, there is a temptation to equate her with the state, and end up with more of a history of Russia during her reign. I wouldn’t have minded that, but instead the focus is mostly kept on Catherine herself.

However this is one of the best biographies I’ve read (I don’t read a lot of them) for getting a true sense of the person that is the subject of the book. It is a decidedly sympathetic view (aided by the extensive use of her autobiography for the first part of her life), but this helps with gaining a sense of the ideals she aspired to. Further, the focus is not so narrow that Catherine is the only person you get to know in these pages. Naturally, both Peter III and Empress Elizabeth get a lot of time and attention, and while there there are a lot of other people in these pages, they are the only other ones that get a lot of attention.

As ever, Massie is a great writer, and really brings the 18th century to life. Chapters are generally organized around a subject, so while this is generally a chronological telling, there is also a certain amount of back-and-forth, which gets annoyingly prominent right at the end. Since Catherine did not directly lead in her few wars, there is less of that side of things compared to Massie’s Peter the Great, and instead there is a lot of attention paid to her relationship with Enlightenment values.

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ASL Upgrade Round 1

by on May 23, 2017 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

Much of my base ASL set dates to the mid ’90s. I originally got the rule book and Paratrooper at a flea market at DunDraCon in ’96. I remember specifically getting West of Alamein in a visit to the Oceanside GameTowne (which closed a year later), but I can’t remember where I got the other core modules. Anyway, while I mostly play on Vassal, the physical set does come out every once in a while. So I’m finally getting around to upgrading my copies of Beyond Valor and Yanks from the AH versions.

Eevee wanted to see what was going on. And yes, I also got an Action Pack so I’d also have something new while spending all this money.

This gets me the newer, nicer counters (without the annoying side-nibs) for the main system markers, the Germans, Russians, and Americans. (I’ll note that I ‘gain’ a half-sheet of counters going from one set to the other. I also get the light gray Finns to go with the ones from Hakkaa Päälle.) I transfer 9 boards to the newer SK-style, which helps on storage space. I managed to get most of the old SL-boards back in the 90s, so I’m getting several duplicates of boards that aren’t scheduled to go out with the sale of my old sets (1-5 and 8, 40-41 will someday go out with CdG, and this is my second SK copy of 24) the only ‘new’ board I’m getting is 46, which was originally from Action Pack 2 (and the other board from that was in Rising Sun; now if MMP will just release the scenarios…). There’s updated scenario cards, which mostly just update small bits of language, though “Gavin’s Gamble” is practically an all-new scenario, and can’t be played with just the contents of BV and Yanks since it also wants a couple overlays. Finally, there’s also all the ‘new’ reprinted scenarios in BV3 (123-136) and Yanks 2 (178-202), but I should have the original versions of almost all of those.

Round 2 of upgrading should be getting For King and Country and Hollow Legions 3rd Ed to replace West of Alamein and Hollow Legions 2nd Ed (this plan is part of what prompted this round, as I want Soldiers of the Negus, which will be included in the new HL). Of course, FKaC has sold out, so it will be trickier to do round 2 as I wouldn’t be surprised if HL3 sells out by the time MMP can get around to reprinting FKaC….

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Zita the Spacegirl

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

Zita is young girl (I’d guess around 10) who gets whisked away to wild adventures in space where she survives with courage, daring, and a number of friends she makes along the way. In this, it reminds me strongly of Mark Crilley’s Akiko, especially as they both are well-written adventures that kids will enjoy just as much as adults, but where Akiko tends to be quiet and thoughtful, Zita is headstrong and rambunctious (“Grabbing my notebook out of my hand isn’t ‘finder’s keepers'”).

A very good touch is that Zita doesn’t immediately throw herself into adventure. When she presses a red button on a strange device, and a portal opens and something reaches out and grabs her friend Joseph… she runs away. She has a very human reaction, and only later goes back and reopens the portal to throw herself in and rescue him. From there, there’s the usual ‘stranger in a strange land’ bit, as Zita lands in an alien city, has problems, runs into both nasty and nice people (and lots of indifferent ones), while getting one glimpse of Joseph.

The initial adventure wraps up in the first book, but Zita actually getting home takes the next two as well. As with anything, it’s hard to follow up a strong beginning, but the second and third books are just shy of the first one, and do a great job developing Zita and allowing her to get herself into trouble. The ending of the trilogy leaves things open for more stories, though at the moment Hatke has sadly moved on to other projects (which I will have to try out soon).

A highlight of the series is Hatke’s ability to design all sorts of odd creatures and whimsical places (which also reminds me of Akiko), and he also understands when to pull back and have a quiet moment contemplating the scenery. This is my favorite new discovery I’ve had in a while, and highly recommend it.

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Two Rounds of Lechaeum

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

Patch and I had our between-bigger-games round of Commands & Colors: Ancients on Tuesday. This time it was the Battle of Lechaeum from Expansion #6. It’s a tiny little battle; Patch commented that it looked like I hadn’t pulled the pieces out yet when he saw it, and it only goes to three banners instead of the usual 4-5. The Athenians have two more units, but are all Lights with a couple Auxilia, while the Spartans are mostly the much-nastier Spartan MH. However, the Spartans only get three cards, while the Athenians have five.

I had the Athenians the first time, and led off with a Line Command to bring the Auxilia up to the front and start peppering the Spartans with arrows, doing a block each to two units, and force one retreat. Patch Ordered Two Center, doing two damage to an evading unit, and taking a block to one of his damaged units after doing nothing to an Auxilia. My next turn did nothing, and Patch Ordered Mounted to pick on my right flank, wiping out my Auxilia, and doing one block on an evade in return for three damage on one of his Spartan MH. I got lucky on archery to wipe out his two-block unit, and Patch rolled with Order Two Left in to force me back on evades, doing one more block. I got no result from an Order One (Heavy), and Patch moved up his right flank.

I used Leadership Any Section to activate most of the center, and forced two units to retreat, one of them with a loss. Patch used Mounted Charge to get three units into contact, forcing my Slingers to evade back to the base line while doing a block to them, and did two damage to the other Auxilia, who did three damage in return. I then used Clash of Shields to activate four units; the first attack knocked out the Spartan MH I’d just damaged, but the Spartan leader got away. On the other end of the line, I did one damage, while two banners in battle back forced my Light to retreat to the base line. Patch Ordered Medium to knock a block off my leader+Light while it evaded to the base line. I Ordered Three Center to pick on his 2-block MH and got lucky with archery to finish it off. 3-1

For the second round, Patch started with a familiar-looking Line Command maneuver and did one block each to two units, and forced one to retreat (he actually got two other banners, but they were both against a supported unit). I Ordered Light to bring up the Light Cavalry and start peppering the Athenian line back, forcing a retreat of his Bowmen. Patch forced a retreat on my left, and I Darkened the Sky with my Light Cav, doing one damage to a Light before forcing it to retreat. Patch Ordered Three Left to reform his line and do a block to one of the Cav. I Ordered Two Left (with only one unit there) to get him back in line, and he immediately did two more hits to the unit. A Coordinated Attack got him and his neighbor into contact while part of the right flank started moving up. I did one hit and was forced to retreat before a First Strike took out my weakened Spartan MH. Patch Ordered Light to do one block each to two units.

With both Spartan MH near my leader down a block, I Rallied to get them up to full strength (I could have rallied a third, wild, block, but the only other thing adjacent was the undamaged LC) and advanced to do a hit to his Auxilia while taking two in return. Patch Ordered Light again to pepper my line, forcing a retreat, and doing another two hits to my leading Spartan MH while only taking two hits in return and retreating out of the line. I Ordered Medium to pursue, breaking his line up with evades but no hits, but my 1-block MH forced his 1-block Aux to retreat and then Momentum Advanced to hit him again to finally knock out the unit, while the leader retreated to his base line.

Patch used Order Two Center to join him up with a unit, but his archery missed. I Ordered Three Center and knocked out his other Auxilia while my more distant units tried to reach the battle. Patch Ordered One (Mounted) and missed with archery on my 1-block unit again, and I Counter Attacked for Order Mounted to force him to evade, but only did one block of damage. Patch used Leadership Any Section to finally knock out my 1-block unit, and my leader joined a full strength Spartan MH right behind him, while he did a block to another unit. I Ordered Four Right (only three units) and I hoped to force his Bowmen to get trapped between the city walls and my Spartan MH, but my LC couldn’t get a result on him, and I simply forced his Light to evade with a block of damage. Patch used Order One (Mounted Charge) to force my weakened LC to retreat, which eliminated the unit. 2-3

Afterword:

Frankly, my hands were terrible both times. In the second game I finally chewed through bad cards to have some some ability to maneuver, but at one point in the first game my hand was a pair of Order Heavies, an Order Light, Clash of Shields (with no one in contact), and Counterattack (with Patch not using anything that I wanted).

The scenario really does a great job at presenting the heavy force that just can’t come to grips with the light force. The Auxilia are the only things that hit on swords in the Athenian army, and since they can’t evade they’re going to be the first casualties. It’s probably worth just keeping them behind the main line, and let the Spartans have to force the Lights to evade before getting to them, but I wanted every unit I had doing archery to whittle down the Spartan extra-large units. I really didn’t want to put the Light Cav in harm’s way, and it killed me the way I was afraid it could, but with three cards and my starting hand, I just couldn’t let Darken the Sky clog up my hand all game.

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The Restoration of Rome

by on May 11, 2017 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

Peter Heather’s study of Western Europe after the fall of Rome comes in four parts, with the first three being similar, and the fourth different. Each one is about a separate attempt to restore ‘imperial’ rule to the Western Roman Empire.

Part one starts with the background of Theoderic, specifically his time as a hostage in Constantinople, and his exposure to Roman civilization. It moves onto Gothic politics, and does a good job looking at them, and how through a series of gambles, and deals, he ended up as the leader of a reduced, but cohesive group of Goths, and took on the job of expelling Odoacer from Italy. The resulting Ostrogothic Kingdom is shown as an attempted restoration of the Empire to Western territories. Despite later disagreements, Theoderic had started with orders from Constantinople, and his later effective control over Visigothic Kingdom in Gaul and Spain allowed him to dominate most of the Western Empire’s former territories, and the intent was purely to be seen as the Western Emperor.

The problem was the conjoined Gothic states did not stay so after Theoderic’s death, which leads to the second part, Justinian’s reconquest of substantial part of the Western Empire. Heather shows that Justinian attempted to legitimize his reign with a couple gambles, law reform and war with Persia, which did not work out. The expedition to Africa and invasion of Sicily were very opportunistic schemes to restore legitimacy. The eventual Justinian law code only went forward based on the political capital gained from success in the west, and the section ends with analysis of the idea that Justinian’s wars crippled the Eastern Empire in the long run, and generally comes up negative. I think he didn’t consider the impacts on manpower nearly enough, but economically, he’s on reasonably solid ground.

The third section is about Charlemagne’s crowning as Emperor in 800, and the subsequent collapse of the state over the next few generations. There’s some very good analysis in here about how the need to reward followers both allow a moderate sized state to grow quickly (when there’s plenty of rewards to give out), and forces it to come apart once that growth slows or stops. Each change in rulers requires a new round of payments to make sure of loyalties, and a few years to ‘feel out’ which members of the court are the most competent and loyal.

The common thread through the book is the idea how the Romans saw divine approval and power as intertwined. In Christian terms, if God wanted you to be Emperor, then no force on Earth could stop it, and if you were the Emperor, then obviously God wanted you to be so. And since the Emperor was chosen by God, then he had authority over the Church. The fourth section shows this being turned on its head.

Charlemagne’s administration produced a set of standard texts for education inside the Christian Church. There is a good discussion of the forgery of the Donation of Constantine, which claims the Western Empire was effectively handed over to the Pope in Rome. The idea presented here is that this was not a Roman (or Papal) forgery, but actually came out of the Carolingian churches. Until this point, the archbishops were the main authority, but if the (distant) Pope was the real head of things, then the bishops didn’t need to listen to the (nearby) archbishops. Then, a generation or two later, officials brought up in this tradition end up installed in Rome by German Emperors, and they worked to reform the Papacy into what they thought it should be, an ultimate source of ecclesiastical and temporal authority.

Trying to see this last as an ‘imperial’ project (so that it fits in with the rest of Heather’s theme) hurts this last part of the book. But overall, it is, like the other parts, an interesting look at the post-Roman/early Medieval West. Each part of the book interleaves with the rest, and while it is by no means a complete history of the period, it does a lot to examine just how the Western Empire did not manage to get reestablished.

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