Stilicho

by on April 25, 2017 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

The end of the Western Roman Empire is a hard subject to get a real grasp on. Ian Huges’ book about one of the final magister militums of the western empire does a lot to explain conditions during the beginning of the 5th Century.

Stilicho has generally been a controversial figure, either vilified or celebrated by most histories (this book’s subtitle, “The Vandal Who Saved Rome” is a direct reference to that latter tradition), and Huges’ intent is to do a more evenhanded account (which I think ends up giving him more credit than is due in a few places).

The story starts with Theodosius defeating a western ‘pretender’, Eugenius, reuniting the Roman Empire, and then dying a few months later, leaving the Empire to his two children, who were both underage. Stilicho was one of Theodosius’ generals, and was married to his (adopted) daughter, and claimed authority over the Empire as… legal guardian (parens principum) of both emperors. This was never accepted in the East, and led to a strained relationship between the two imperial courts for the duration of his rule. In the West, Stilicho followed the arc of so many regencies, starting with a good amount of power, then falling into political power struggles with the court and the maturing Emperor, and in this case executed.

The book provides a very good overall study of his thirteen years in power (which is a pretty impressive amount of time for someone at the top of Roman politics in an unstable reign), maintaining a mostly chronological account, but dividing things up into specific subjects which are each examined in turn (sometimes round-robin style; coming back to previous subjects in the next year, etc.). I would have much preferred that a few things were handled in greater detail (like his relationship with the Gothic general Alaric), but presumably there isn’t enough in the sources to say more. At the same time, there are ideas introduced (like the attitude of the Senate in Rome) that I’d like a better idea of where he’s pulling it from, of if it is all assumption.

The good news for the Kindle version of this book, is that there’s a lot of maps scattered throughout the book, generally close to where they’re needed; I could wish for better quality or focus on some, but they are there. The bad news is that it seems the formatting did not entirely make it into the Kindle version. All the section headers are presented in normal text, with no bolding, extra space around them, or anything else to set them apart from the text.

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J32 Panzer Graveyard

by on April 21, 2017 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

After finishing up Lagus Assault Guns, Tom suggested trying out J32 “Panzer Graveyard” from Journal 2, and we got going at the beginning of March. A January ’44 scenario in Italy, it has a worn-out German force with a lot of tanks assaulting a stiff British defense in the board 46 town. The Germans attack with twelve squads (ranging from first line to conscripts), a few MGs and four Pz IV Hs with a 9-1 AL and four Pz III Ns. The British are defending with ten first-line squads, a HMG and a MMG, two PIATs (who are assigned to 1-2-7 crews), a 6 pdr AT gun, a Churchill IV and a Sherman III, and some concealment markers. There’s a small cluster of buildings added across the street from the main town that serves as a possible jumping-off point for the Germans.

This ordinarily should be a 1/2 map scenario. But instead, it uses all of board 46 and 18 (including an overlay with another level 2 hill). This is for the use of the Pz IIIs, which set up on the various hills, ready to shell the defenders, or smoke them in. The Germans have six turns and need to control 20 buildings (out of 30) in the British setup area at the end of the game. While they have lots of armor support, they have problems; all German MMC are Lax, and their ELR is only 2. Finally, there is a +1 LV on the final turn.

I took the British defense, and spent some time trying to figure out what I wanted to do. There’s three main ways for the Germans to approach this, the main obvious one is the center area, jumping off from the built up area. I figured an approach from the east had a lot of open ground to go through before reaching the first buildings, and then tended to hit the least-dense parts of the town, with the graveyard, woods, and orchards, though all of that was harder to defend. Meanwhile, the west side had some open ground as well, including an extra small hill, but with some cover just on the other side of the road that forms the setup areas. I put some light forces (including a Dummy in 46W7) to slow down an east-side assault slightly, while defending the west more heavily with the HMG in EE4 and a PIAT in the brush in DD2. Another HS was in the brush in EE1, which was as far forward as I dared to go there (and there was no concealment terrain forward of there anyway). LMGs were in Y5 and W5 to provide Fire Lanes against advances in the center area, with the HMG centrally located in BB5. I had a hard time figuring out where to put the tanks and ATG, since anywhere exposed could lead to them getting easily swarmed, with eight German tanks out there (though the Pz IIIs would struggle to kill either of mine even with a rear shot with a Final TK of 3; 5 with HEAT on a 9 or less), and a good number of PFs available. The Churchill anchored the main line of defense in the northeast in Z7, with help from a PIAT in Z9 (with a crucial error that I’ll get to later), and a 7-0 Z6 to act as a preliminary rally point. The Sherman was in CC7 to cover the central street, and possibly anchor the defense once the first line of buildings had fallen. The ATG went in GG7 facing SE, in case armor tried to go around the west flank and cut off my defenders (and I had problems finding anyplace that could see terrain I wanted to cover).

Tom’s setup surprised me, with the bulk of his forces in the center, but largely a hex back, and out of sight from my line, and three squads (and two HS, with his HMG & MMG) on the eastern flank backed up by two of his Pz IVs. He had figured my ATG was around EE2 (exactly the type of forward position I avoided) and stayed away from the brush. Most of his Pz IIIs were behind them on the board 46 hill, but one was backing up the main force in 18Q2. One Pz III fired, placing Smoke in V5, while the eastern Pz IV first pinned my HS in U7, which then ELRed to fire from his MGs. Most of his center forces fired on my other visible unit in AA2, forcing a 1MC which they passed. The last Pz IV fired on W7, but missed.

Tom then started showing off aggressive armor tactics my moving the second eastern Pz IV into Motion VBM of V8. I attempted CCRF, but pinned instead. Having locked up my primary defense, he advanced two squads and a 9-1 towards the building, but a good roll from W5 managed a 1MC that pinned the leader and broke a squad. This activated his Sniper, who broke the squad that had been the target of all his fire earlier. Past that, there was little left to move, other than some of the Pz IIIs advancing up to the rest of his troops.

My LMG squad Final Fired on his MG stack, and with another low roll, broke both HSes with MGs. Not only that, but my Sniper activated, and hit the same hex, with a three-way tie (out of four units), to fatally wound the 8-1 and then break the squad in the hex. The only CC was with the VBM Pz IV in V8, and my squad only missed because of being pinned.


Situation, German Turn 1, showing the full scenario area, and my HIP Gun. The blue ribbon is the dividing line between the British and German setup areas.
↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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Trading in Danger

by on April 17, 2017 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

Elizabeth Moon’s Trading in Danger seems at first that it should be an action-adventure tale like the Vorkosigan series or maybe Honor Harrington. The opening of the book is the main character getting tossed out of the military academy for accidentally causing a scandal. Since she’s part of a successful merchant family, this leads to a quick shuffle off-planet, as captain of a cargo ship on its last run; at the end it will be sold for scrap, and the crew will need to pay for passage home. The ship has a few more problems than anticipated, and a diversion for more cargo ends up with the ship being in the middle of a war zone.

This is all very well handled, and the plot is well put together, but there’s no real daring heroics, there’s no rushing in to save the day. The order of business is survival. And it’s at this point that it becomes obvious that this book is more like some of C. J. Cherryh’s merchanter books, and some other older novels.

The main problem with is that the larger situation has one large dangling end that is not tied off. This is acceptable, as it’s not really part of the main focus, but it seems to get set up… and then evaporate. I assume that this will return in the next book, but its the one thing that keeps this one from being truly self contained. Other than that one problem, it’s well written, and recommended.

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Manzikert 1071

by on April 13, 2017 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

Osprey’s Campaign book on the Battle of Manzikert continues their proud tradition of featuring just about every military disaster Rome had. (Well, yes, we are just a bit ‘post-Rome’ here, though it’s still the Roman Empire.) As usual, it’s a well-produced book with plenty of maps and pictures (including of a fair number of buildings that survive from the period, though some may not have made it through the four years since it was published).

The maps are the main weak point in this one. They are very well done, and informative, but three of them in particular try to convey too much information at once. They’re maps of the region, showing movements of armies over a few years, keyed to entries describing what’s going on. However, when there’s 30-50 entries per map, it gets difficult to pull out what’s going on. Worse, the maps are rotated sideways (the area that needs covering fits much better that way), leaving the keying on the opposite page hard to look at at the same time as the map.

The main description of the campaign is interesting. With help from the maps, it gives the general background, including just where the Seljuks had come from, and what other groups they were dealing with at the time. Very interesting is the idea that neither side was in any way anticipating a climatic battle in the region around Lake Van. The Byzantines were busy in the region trying to strengthen their border and stop Türkmen raids (which were often blamed on the Seljuks, but were generally independent), while Alp Arslan was concentrating on fighting the Fatimid Caliphate.

With everything else, the course of the battle itself doesn’t take too long to tell, and the Byzantine defeat mostly comes from poor coordination in the army after a hard day of advancing without being able to force a setpiece battle. More of the problems come from disastrously bad intelligence leading up to the confrontation. The maps are not a great help here, being done in something of a muddy ‘natural’ style that doesn’t point up any features of the terrain.

The defeat of Byzantium still shouldn’t have been nearly the history-changing even it was, but Emperor Romanos IV was captured, and before he was released eight days later, a new emperor had been crowned in Constantinople, leading to a civil war that, combined to concessions to the Seljuks, allowed the border region to collapse and Türkmen tribes to gain control of most of central Anatolia. Sadly, these afterproducts of Manzikert aren’t treated in any detail, even though they’re usually blamed on the battle itself.

With all of that, this Osprey book feels a bit more limited than some others, and seems like it was struggling with the demands of format and the fixed page count. That said, it’s still a good look at the battle itself, and provides (often contrary) details from several first-hand accounts.

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Anime Winter 2017

by on April 9, 2017 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Anime

The latest anime season wrapped up a little bit ago, but I’ve been slow in getting to the new one, as ‘simul-dubs’ are actually a couple weeks behind.

Konosuba — This series is all the wrongs. And it’s hilarious. I think it helps that I’m watching it with Smudge, and she’s got Phalloide to add comments, but each episode has generally had screamingly funny moments. We weren’t really expecting a second season of this, but the first half especially was really on the mark.

Tales of Zestiria the X — And we get a second season of this. The story has really picked up, and I’ve been enjoying it this season, whereas parts of first season felt more like a chore to get through. I was expecting this to go on for quite a bit longer, but the last few episodes suddenly fell into a final boss climax.

Smudge hasn’t really gotten to trying out anything new from this season, so that’s been largely it. Though recently she introduced me to a few things from previous seasons:

Rage of Bahamut: Genesis — Smudge wasn’t entirely sure I’d like this, but there’s a new/sequel series coming up, so she tried it on me. And I liked it quite a lot. I think I would have gotten thoroughly annoyed with the main character in pretty quick order, but the main plot kicked in in the second half of the first episode, and it drove everything in the rest of the series. Definite recommendation.

Selector: Wixoss — Just recently finished the first storyline, which went two seasons. Take… Madoka Magica and add a CCG as the maguffin. I kind of have to wonder if the creator has ever really played a CCG, as it seems a bit odd. On the other hand, the series stays as far away from the game as a game as it possibly can; it just exists to support the existence of the maguffin. Instead it concentrates on a few characters and the slow reveal of just how messed up the situation is.

Blood Battlefront Blockade — Three Word Title Lotto! The title makes some sense if you stare at it a while, but not really. While does all build to a climatic finale, the first half of the series is more about introducing the cast a bit, and showing just how strange this place is.

And there’s been more Pokemon, but we’ve largely caught up with the collected DVD sets, and the rest is still of fairly scattered availability.

Pokemon XYZ — Well, I’ve seen through the end of the story on this now, and they did a really good job with the wrap up and ending. I’ve also seen the “Legend of XYZ” episode, which was also a really well-done one-off. The final episode still has yet to hit Pokemon TV (grrr), so I’ve seen a horrible fan sub, and it was also good.

Pokemon: Adventures on the Orange Islands — The ‘we need to fill in until there’s more source material to work with’ season. In line with the first part, when it’s on, its good. I definitely appreciate the idea of Ash getting a non-league award to show his progress.

Pokemon: Johto Journeys & Johto League Champions — That last title was way too ironic, considering the bulk of that season is consumed with the trip to one gym. The stories are good, and I definitely appreciate the fact that the three ‘starter’ Pokemon that Ash gets all have their own quirks and problems to work out.

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