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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J167 Hart Attack

by on May 7, 2017 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

While looking through the ASL Journal 11 scenarios back in January, Patch saw that J167 “Hart Attack”, featured some Grants, and wanted to have a go at it. We’ve actually used them before (or at least some Lees), but I got to drive them that time, so I took the Germans defending against Allied forces in Tunisia. This is technically a re-release of the early ’90s scenario ASLUG7, but frankly, it’s a completely new scenario from the same designer. The German forces are about the same, the British have been cut down, it’s two turns shorter, and gone from a three-map area with overlays to just needing board 7a. The VCs and SSRs have also gotten a lot simpler. That said, someone could probably talk me into trying it for comparison’s sake.

The Germans have 8 squads and 3 HS of 548 elites, with MGs, a pair of 50mm MTR, an ATR, DC, and a 40mm squeezebore ATG, and then get three Pz IIIs with a 9-1 AL on turn 3. The Allies enter from the west with thirteen British squads (mostly first line, with some elites), good leadership (four leaders with -4 in leadership mods between them), HMG, MMG, a couple 51mm MTR, an ATR, and five American M3 Grants. The Allies have six turns to get 7 VP; getting one VP per building they control (there are seven on the board), one per every other tank they exit off the east side (i.e., 1 for exiting one, 2 for exiting three, 3 for exiting all five), and a VP per German tank they kill. The Tunisian setting means that orchards are olive groves, and hedges are cactus hedges. The Germans are considered Elite for Ammo Depletion (…I think I forgot that), and the British get to use ATMM to represent Gammon bombs.

There’s one building at the west edge, and then two widely separated clusters of three buildings on the board. This gives the Allies two general approaches depending on which cluster they want to go for first. One set is tucked way back, and is hard to get at unless it’s the primary target, while the other is much more central (and nearer the odd, ‘close’ building), but is made of stone in fairly dense terrain with walls, olive groves, and a couple hills, and features the only two-hex building in the lot. I set up blocking positions on both western roads, one MMG overlooking the further buildings, the other in the two-hex building, with a MTR adjacent that it could spot for (which was bore-sighted on the hill overlooking the compound). The ATG went on a hill where it could boresight a woods-road that Patch would almost have to use if he went north. I figured if he went south, he’d still come for the final buildings anyway, and I’d push the gun down to where it could trade shots from either side of the walls. The ATR went in the center, where it’d have a chance at an underbelly shot at a tank going over the wall that lines the area; about the only good shot I figured he’d let me have with the thing.

Patch took the northern route. In fact, more northern than I’d figured. I’d kind of mentally shrugged off the most-northern section of the board, which would require going around a fair amount of terrain before getting anywhere. So naturally, half his force went there, and made me wonder if he’d be trying to overrun my ATG before it got a shot at a tank. I didn’t have any fire against most of that, but the rest of his forces lined up at the wall, with a large stack headed for the close building just across the wall, and a lucky shot broke his 9-2 as he entered, and the resulting LLTC pinned the two squads with him. Two of his tanks went over the wall, but my ATR shot went wild (Final 12), while one of them stopped long enough to reduce my forward squad with a BFF K/2, and three of his tanks parked around a concealed HS in D5. His AFPh scattered a number of acquisition markers about, with no other effect, despite a NMC against the squad in E4.


Situation, British Turn 1, showing the full board with my boresighting and ATG.
↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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Kismet

by on May 3, 2017 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

Set an unspecified time in the future, humanity has spread through the inner Solar System, and established a large number of bases and arcologies in the asteroid belt in the vicinity of Ceres. (This allows a certain ‘spread out’ feel between some major locations in the book, but travel times are in hours instead of days or months.) Gail, the main character, is something of a loner, with a small ship named Kismet that she uses for a salvage business. A tip off on a wreck turns into trouble that keeps getting bigger at every turn and drives the plot to a surprisingly high-stakes climax.

Along the way, Gail is pushed back into the unfinished business of her own life, and the novel does a great job driving the action forward, expanding the scope of the mystery, and making the situation matter more and more to Gail herself. I actually have some trouble with some of the early ‘pushes’ into the plot, but that fades fast.

An interesting major theme is transhumanism-as-furry. “Totemics”, people who have undergone a combination of surgical and genetic alterations to take on anthropomorphic traits, are a major part of the background. There are some minor improvements to senses and the like available, as well as much more capable (and tempermental) bio-mechanical options, but most modifications are more cosmetic. There’s a number of examples of more individual forms of self-expression with these mods, but the totemics are the most cohesive group, even though their own motivations behind their modifications vary. There’s a number of fragments of interesting philosophical arguments along the way, and one that caught at my attention towards the end dealt with the choice of form inherent in the modifying process.

It all makes for a satisfying and well-rounded SF novel. Action, mystery, philosophy, and a glimpse of a possible future all coexist gracefully between two covers.

Finally, I’ll note that FurPlanet’s hardcopy version has an elementary formatting mistake. The body text margins are weighted on the fore edge of the page instead instead of the spine, pushing the text towards the spine. Thankfully, there’s still room enough that there’s no real reading problem, but it gets uncomfortably close. It’s like they got their left/right templates reversed.

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Terrier

by on April 29, 2017 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

Having previously read some of Tamora Pierce’s earliest works, I’ve now read one of her more recent. To a certain extent, not a lot has changed: female-centric YA fantasy (in fact, it’s in the same world as those earlier books).

There are some important differences though. The Alanna series felt predictable to me, whereas Terrier had a more solid and cohesive plot that never telegraphed more than broad outlines to me. Less importantly, but more obviously, the book is written as a series of first-person journal entries, a device that generally works for the story, though elements of it are repetitive and grating. (I’m mystified by the blurb making such a big deal about it; stories that are better told in first-person are, those that aren’t aren’t.)

On the similarities side, it sticks to the formula of a strong young female, with magic as an important, but not central, part of the world and plot. Beka is more rough-and-tumble than other main characters, having a lower-class background, though she has moved up.

There’s an indication that the tension between her desires and that of her immediate family could get more treatment in a later book; it’s a theme that gets a couple scenes here, but is otherwise ignored. Pierce is not a favorite author of mine, but she’s always more than good enough to return to, and I want to get the next two books.

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