Medieval Siege Weapons: Western Europe

by on June 4, 2017 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

Osprey’s book on siege weapons does it’s intended job of introducing the subject, but that’s about it. Sam Thompson’s gouache illustrations show a nice variety of specific examples of machines, but the rest of the book tends to be unspecific and feels lost in the weeds.

Now the main culprit for this is just the lack of real evidence. The book spends a lot of time looking at various terms used in manuscripts, and is good for showing region variations, but since most times its just the term with no description, it’s nearly impossible to know how technically precise any of these authors are, and therefore more than the most vague generalities. Since this was a New Vanguard book, I was wanting a fairly detailed physical analysis and description of the parts, but it just doesn’t exist here. The main chapter on throwing machines is nicely divided up into sections on the basic types, and gives some indication of when certain types were known to be in use in various parts of Europe, though a timeline for the major pieces of evidence would have helped there too.

That said,the 585-1385 time period fits with the dates of the first and last solid examples that are given, though there’s nothing else to really give a reason to those 400 years. I think I’d much prefer a book more like the Elite-series one on Roman siege engineering, which went a lot more into how sieges were conducted.

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En Garde!

by on May 31, 2017 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

Mark and Jason came over Saturday for some gaming. Dave was unavailable, so it was just the three of us, and we went for a ‘long game’ of Blackbeard.

I went for the same pattern as our previous three-player game, and deployed two pirates at the start, one in the Atlantic and one in India. Mark put one in India with me, and another in the Caribbean, while Jason just deployed one in the Caribbean to start with. The good news is that I had drawn Edward Teach (Blackbeard) as one of my three, and kept him in reserve at first.

I managed to swoop in and take the merchant that had started in India before Mark could, and he ended up sailing for the Gold Coast. I managed to get a decent start on VPs with a couple early retirements, and brought out Edward Teach in the Atlantic. Jason had taken the lead with a very nice retirement on his Caribbean nest egg, but I managed a very good career with Teach, living up to his name by taking prizes up and down the Atlantic coast, and getting a decent amount of ransom. He successfully retired with a Notoriety in the mid-20s and a decent net worth, which shot me  up to ~120 VPs, and well past Jason (Mark had been somewhat even with me).

Further retirements pushed Mark and Jason past 100 VPs, but I was climbing into the high 100s. As the game was coming to a close, Jason’s latest captain did very well in the Caribbean, getting a good amount of Notoriety and several high-value cargoes, as well as staying too strong to be challenged by warships and King’s Commissioners. All this time, I had been holding a Duel-4 captain to possibly get someone else’s ship, but I didn’t have the Piratical Ambition card. I finally drew it in between the turn that Jason converted all his booty to net worth and bought a safe haven, and the turn where he used it. With four dice for the duel, I rolled poorly, burned a Cunning and re-rolled just about as bad, and then used his last Cunning to re-roll a 15, which Jason couldn’t match on a 3-die Duel rating. Sadly, all I got was an empty ship with poor crew loyalty, and a captain with no Cunning left, but I had kept Jason from retiring with 7900 Net Worth. Between that and double Notoriety, he would have gone well into the 200 VP range.

My previously-active captain was on the Atlantic coast, following in Blackbeard’s footsteps (wake?), racking up a decent score, but I got the third draw of the General Pardon card on the turn that he would have gone in and retired, getting me 12 points for his Notoriety instead of 24 for that and ~14 VP for Net Worth. My final score was 210 VPs, while Jason had 104 and Mark managed 111 at the end.

One really good retirement put me in a strong lead, and I managed to do fairly well for the rest of the game to keep it. Getting that duel to wreck Jason’s main chance really shows how powerful keeping the right captain in reserve can be. I think Anti-Pirate activity was overall down from our previous game, though I certainly gave it a few tries. I pretty much ended up sticking with the Atlantic coast the entire game, but there were consistently merchantmen to be had there, which made up for the poor cash value. I should probably try concentrating on the Caribbean next time, as I’ve never really done that, though it tends to get attention from everyone else.

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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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