2015 in Review

by on January 1, 2016 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Life

Well, I managed to greet the new year last night. Was ready to go to bed at 11 though.

I need to get back to paying more attention to the blog, there’s a number of things I still want to write up. But, for much of the year I was maintaining a pretty good schedule. This next year, I plan to be a bit more aggressive about spacing postings out, so if I can get another big batch going, it’ll cover the dead times, and I won’t go 10+ days without a post.

Gaming has been something of a mix this year, with the usual dead spots for FtF gaming, but we also had a bunch around November. Patch and I got in three games of ASL, and are currently mid-way through AP17 “The Dead of Winter”, which has had a number of problems for Patch, but is still fairly tense. We got in one SFB game, and I soloed a monster scenario, and I’m hoping we’ll do the next one soon. I spent $325 on games, which is a little low for me, but not quite a low as I’d hoped, with a couple larger purchases near the end of the year. I’m currently behind on RPG reading, and not sure if I’ll continue my Pyramid subscription.

The beginning of the year saw Smudge and I say good-bye to ArcheAge, setting us adrift on the MMO seas again. We spent a fair amount of time back with Neverwinter, got our mains from level 70 to the new limit of 80, and got through a couple of the campaigns (harder than it might sound, with much of the content having been shifted up ten levels on us). A few months back, both Wildstar and Guild Wars 2 went Free 2 Play, and we’ve been spending most of our time since on Guild Wars 2. Wildstar is good, but has a poor UI experience, but I hope we can get to it some more some day. Smudge is also starting to talk about doing more in FFXIV again, so we’ve gone back from famine to feast.

The holidays have been fairly quiet as usual, but I got some good gifts. Smudge gave me a wonderful watercolor piece of my main character in GW2, Lunysa:

Lance got me a Kangaroo PC, which is mobile desktop system. I’m not just sure what I will end up doing with it, but at the moment, it’s hooked up to the TV, and allows us to stream Funimation without going through the somewhat flaky iOS app. So, meet Akatsuki:

The stats for the blog show that I had 124 posts last year! I’ve been hoping to get up to an average of a post every three-four days, which I am in excess of, now to continue to spread them out a bit better. Looking at the categories (instead of tags), this breaks down as: 25 books, 11 boardgaming, 8 D&D, 7 ASL, 6 CC:Ancients, 5 BvR – The Wind, 4 each anime, Four Vassal War, 3 each computer games, MMO, 2 each life, F&E, SFB, and 1 each GURPS, comics.

So a lot of my posting comes down to trying to give some sort of review for most of the books I read. The fact that I have three or four reviews that I need to get explains why the blog’s been a little silent lately. And speaking of reading, my official count was 47 books, though I’ll note that one was a three-in-one of The Darwath Trilogy and another was The Legacy of Gird, a two-in-one of the Paksenarrion prequels, so it’s actually more like 50.

A final bit I meant to post on a month ago when it happened: While I was visiting my parents, I naturally got to help solve (or try to) some of the little technological glitches they’ve been having. It beats trying to do it over the phone. And then Smudge’s machine back home suddenly had an error, saying that her second hard drive was failing. This is especially annoying, as we just had to replace her main drive a couple months earlier. Since it was the data drive, I had her go down to Computer Central, get a new hard drive, and talked her through installing it in the machine over the phone/Skype. Then had her format it and copy everything from the old one to the new one, unplug the old one, and shift the drive letter. As far as Myzal’s concerned everything’s right were it was. And with Smudge able to take photos or send video of what was happening over Skype through her iPhone, it wasn’t too hard to do.

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The Four Vassal War Coalition Turn 3

by on December 22, 2015 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Four Vassal War

Crossposted from the SFU blog on BGG.

And with turn 3 this truly becomes the Four Powers War as the Lyrans attack the Kzinti in support of the Fourth Klingo-Kzinti War.

Thankfully, the Lyran border with the Kzinti is in much better shape than the Hydran border. The Count’s Fleet is in position, but everything else has been needed against the Klingons, giving a much better fleet ratio. The opposite is true for the Hydrans, with the bulk of the Hydran navy sitting in or near Lyran space.

The Lyrans are still struggling with a lot of cripples, though the last of the repairs from the recent civil war are done, and a DD from the Far Stars fleet became active (now that the entire fleet is repaired, one random ship from it becomes available each turn). Meanwhile the Klingons have enough extra money to start the process of turning various inaccessible base stations into battlestations (which is worth VPs… or rather, not doing so is worth VPs to the other side).

Builds:
Klingons: D7, TGA, F5L, F5, 3xE4, E3, D7->D7C, D6->D6D, BS-BATS
Lyrans: BCE, CA, 2xCL, 2xDD, 2xFF

Raiding continued to go poorly for me. I put repaired both ships from last turn and sent them raiding into Kzinti space. Despite attempting to stay away from heavier ships, a Kzinti CC reacted to the Lyran BCE and destroyed it while the CC was crippled. The Klingon D6 only had to deal with a called up POL, and successfully disrupted a province.

The Klingons counterattacked at four Hydran bases along the border, while Lyran efforts focused on getting at the logistical train that had moved up to 0513 (a convoy, FRD and TG hauling the parts for a mobile base).

On the Kzinti front, I spent a lot of time and effort trying to avoid confronting all the Kzinti forces on the Klingon border while still conducting an offensive, but couldn’t manage it. Bel aggressively reacted to all my province raiders, which helped dilute the base defenders, but not by enough. I ended up by concentrating on the west side of the border, with the real drive at Zelkrat in 1105, while Lyran forces took on two border bases unopposed.


Combined assault on the Hegemony


Counterattack into Hydran space


Limited operations in Lyran space

Combat:
0703: Kzinti: dest BATS, crip CL; Lyran: crip FF
0803: Kzinti: dest BS; Lyran: crip FF
1004: SSC: Kzinti: crip CL, retreat; Klingon: crip E4, retreat
1205: SSC: Klingon: retreat
1105: Kzinti: dest FF, 2xPDU; Klingon: crip D6, F5, capture planet
1304: Kzinti: 2xSIDS, crip CL; Klingon: crip D6, D6J, F5, F5S, dest E4
1605: Retreat on refused approach
1219: Hydran: dest BS; Klingon: crip F5
1217: Hydran: crip SA, dest BATS; Klingon: crip 2xF5, F5G, E4, E4J, dest E4
1116: Retreat on refused approach
0915: Hydran: crip HNG, dest BATS, POL; Klingon: crip D6, D6J, 2xE4, dest F5
0211: SSC: Lyran: crip CL, dest FF, retreat
0513: Hydran: crip TEM, RN, dest 2xLN, FRD, Convoy; Lyran: crip CC, 2xCA, CL, dest DD, FF
0412: Unopposed defender withdrawal
0512: SSC: Hydran retreat

Both 1004 and 1205 were province raiding missions gone bad when Bel proved more willing to react off of bases than I had supposed. Neither of us rolled very well in either of them, which was fortunate in 1205 since I was overmatched.

Our lack of experience with the ground attack rules showed at 1105. I sent in the D6G, and directed on a FF. Bel took some of his leftover damage on a PDU, which gave the defense gap needed for a bonus on the ground attack. If we’d looked at the modifiers, I’d have directed on the PDU. As it was, the ground attack took out the remaining PDU, and Bel retreated out.

I’d sent a reasonably sized force to SB 1304, which drew the Kzinti reserve. Without that, he only had a pile of cripples stationed there. I went in for one round, then retreated, but between cripples and SIDS, his repair capacity is overloaded there….

1217 had about half a line protecting it, which with all the fighters was able to do a good amount of damage before retreating out right before the BATS blew.

Bel was determined to make my raid on his support units as painful as possible, and succeeded. We went five rounds, increasingly desperate to keep a viable force together while I tried to kill the valuable units. Eventually, he retreated out, and I was just able to kill the FRD and Convoy in the slow unit battle. (For some reason, hauling around a MB doesn’t make a tug slow….)

0512 was another in a chain of SSCs with low rolls. I did one casualty to him, which he used to retreat out. However, he’s stuck against the edge of the LDR, and was forced into 0511 and out of supply.

Killing five bases this turn does a lot for my score, as does capturing a Kzinti planet. My VPs are up to 63.25, and a healthy percentage of that is in points that can’t be taken away later. The Alliance is up to 73.2, thanks to the ships I’m loosing, which shifts me up to a Minor Defeat.

A big problem is that just to do this much, I had to use just about all my available ships, and my reserves are small for the upcoming turn.

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Sing the Four Quarters

by on December 18, 2015 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

A friend who has been the source of a number of good recommendations over the years recommended Sing the Four Quarters back when it came out. It always stuck in my mind, and I’ve meant to get to it for… yeah. Anyway, I got the Kindle edition a while ago, and finally read it.

It’s good, but a little vague in places. The general fantasy premise is that there are kigh, who are elemental spirits, that some people can sense and influence, generally by singing. But while there are fire spirits, and fires would attract them, and they can affect the fire, the fire exists in the absence of the kigh, and still I don’t know just where they really exist in the nature of the world (though it does come out that they avoid the interiors of large buildings, but not really why).

This is something of an idealized ‘living nature’ magic, when you get down to it, which goes along with an idealized kingdom, with a good king, and an idealized other expansionist enemy kingdom across the border. There’s also what appears to be an idealized ‘free love’ aspect, but this is pretty obviously part and parcel of how this society works, and adults are left to be adults, and to work out the consequences of their own mistakes.

However, the characters, as people, do not fall into any of this idealization. The background may be painted in broad strokes, but the people involved are complex and fallible, and can have a heck of a time getting along with each other, even they do care about each other.

The plot takes a little bit to get going, and suffers a bit in places from a number of quick cuts as the action gets more complex than the narrative can handle. Also, its a bit transparent, and telegraphs where, in the main, it is going. But, it’s not plot by rote, and the journey is quite enjoyable. Definitely recommended, and I’m keeping an eye out for the later books, which I understand are not direct sequels.

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Two Long Turns

by on December 14, 2015 at 9:12 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

The latest FtF gaming day was plagued with uncertainty as to who would be attending, with possibilities ranging from three to five (which implies fairly different sets of games). Eventually, we ended up with four this Sunday, and we went for our first game of Virgin Queen in quite a while (I actually like Here I Stand a bit more overall, but it really wants six, which we very rarely have; I really like the ‘active major powers’ rules in VQ).

Random draws gave Jason the Ottomans, me the English (and initial control of the Ottomans), Mark got France, and Dave had the Protestants. Since it had been quite a while, things were slow, and we only got through two turns.

Jason neglected to spend influence on a marriage with Anna of Saxony (he and Mark did stick with Phillip II and Elizabeth de Valois’ nuptuals), so I spent my influence to marry her to the Earl of Leicester, while Elizabeth I was betrothed to William of Orange in exchange for a promise to play Tilbury Speech on my behalf and a possible later minor favor.

My main activity on the board was to besiege Edinburgh (after playing John Knox to give me a proper religious mandate), only to lose one unit while doing no hits, even with the extra rolls from Dave. I think I need a new speech writer. The Ottoman fleet went out and looked menacing, but I didn’t have the cards to back it up. Jason confronted it twice, and blew his rolls both times to let me sink much Spanish shipbuilding when I couldn’t do it myself.

We all sent an expedition to the New World, and founded colonies, but never managed to spend the CPs for piracy. My captain got distracted by the Northwest Passage, and the Treasure Fleet sailed with no one in position for it (Jason had the card). Late in the turn, German Intervention came up, and France got control of the HRE (I noted that I need to pay attention when Mark starts putting influence on a power), and then they launched the Irish Rebellion, but were unable to take Dublin (looks like we missed some of the effects of the card while going through the notes on Irish activation in the rules).

Dave mostly contented himself to positioning for the future by holding on to two cards after spreading Protestant religious influence in Holland and France though his home card and Tridentine Catechism.

Late in the turn, Elizabeth I decided against marriage, but gave William enough gifts to be worth two cards (highest result!). Philip and Elizabeth did well, gaining a VP and card for each power (and an extra Valois VP for France); the second-highest result. Sadly, Leicester and Anna produced no children (no effect).

VQ-1-1
End of Turn 1

Not caring for extra wars, I negotiated peace with the HRE and a mercenary in return for promising Elizabeth’s hand to Charles II (Mark didn’t realize at first this restored peace to Ireland with me still in control of Dublin, but he came out of it well with an extra card draw). Mary Queen of Scots was promised to William of Orange, but we didn’t get to the wedding phase, so we don’t know how that turned out.

The Ottomans had some unrest blocking routes out of Istanbul, but moved 5 units down to Athens in the Spring. They then managed a two-impulse offensive that put the troops ashore in Italy and took Messina (the new Spanish fleet was building in Cartagena, and had taken a loss from piracy after the Sultan’s Harem got involved in politics) and successfully besieged Naples. A naval battle drove off the Ottoman fleet, but with losses to both sides. The Ottomans were done for the turn, and then The Sublime Porte put them inactive, and at peace, still holding part of southern Italy, giving me 1 VP for my efforts. Jason had the card, and wanted to do something about the situation first, but didn’t have any good options. (Selim II came early in the turn, having been given to the Ottomans as a bonus card—I don’t think I’ve ever seen it get naturally dealt out.)

While it was a shame I wasn’t going to get a crack at Rome on turn 3, there’d been quite a build up on the HRE border, and I didn’t really have the attention to spare for a war there too.

Meanwhile, as England, I’d played Jeanne of Navarre on the Huguenot’s behalf (not that I said anything to Dave), getting them established in La Rochelle. Dave decided to go all out, playing Calvinist Zeal to start a rebellion in Antwerp. Neither rebellion saw much action, but were going to be a problem for France and Spain to deal with.

One of the last things to come up was Papal Bull, which was used to convert spaces in France back to Catholicism, but if play was going to continue, there was serious talk of excommunicating Elizabeth.

VQ-1-2
End of day/Turn 2

Things were shaping up pretty nicely at the end of the day; the Protestants were up to 9 VP, and likely to go further. France had 10, but had to worry that he’d taken over the HRE while they were sitting in the 4 VP ‘sweet spot’ of balanced tolerance, and he could end up letting them go after they lost VPs if many more spaces went Protestant. I had gotten up to 12, but was going to have trouble keeping both Edinburgh and Dublin, so I’d be fighting that slide while slowly getting Virgin Queen VP. Spain was down to 14 (and had just gotten a New World treasure VP), but probably couldn’t go down any further.

We really need to get this to the table a lot more if we’re going to do better than two turns, but Dave isn’t really a fan of the game, and since he’s one of the more likely people to be available, that limits options a bit.

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Lookout Mountain & Missionary Ridge

by on December 3, 2015 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

While I’m down south with my parent’s for vacation, it’s time to do some gaming with my dad again. Given a choice, he went with a return to the GCACW series that I introduced him to last year, and we played scenario 6, “Lookout Mountain & Missionary Ridge” from Battle Above the Clouds, that I had borrowed from Mark for the purpose.

I’m sure this scenario has more special rules than any other I’ve played. A couple of them are enforcing some reasonable limits, but most of them are odd.

The Confederates have a set of six infantry units which set up in six hexes along Missionary Ridge (the last hex actually goes off the ridge into clear terrain), and the Confederate player chooses who goes where, and keeps them hidden until they move or are attacked. Most of the Confederate units might be entrenched, but this is only found out when they are attacked.

Both sides kind of ignore corps. Any Confederate corps commander can activate anyone in any corps (but only three at a time), and the three Union Army commanders act like Corps commanders, but can activate anyone, in any corps (or army), but only four at a time, and only Grant, the Military Division commander, acts like an army commander.

The Union is expected to attack, with points for taking Missionary Ridge (9 per hex, up to four hexes worth), 15 VP for Chattanooga Station (back behind the Confederate line), and 20 VP for taking Summertown (in the south, on Lookout Mountain). There’s also a 40-point penalty for losing Chattanooga, and the usual 3VP for Confederate casualties and 2VP penalty for Union casualties.

We were both inclining to the Union side, so we rolled off, and I took the Union forces. The Union goes first with two automatic activations for Hooker.

Missionary-Ridge-1
Beginning of the game

I got good movement rolls (5+1) for both automatic activations and moved up Cruft’s division into a flanking position on Walthal (only realizing later that it didn’t do me any good), and then moved up Osterhaus’ division and did a prepared attack with an overall +1. I had the bombardment bonus, but the Confederates were found to be in breastworks, and I rolled one less in the combat for a 0 and both sides became disorganized. Finally Whitaker’s brigade came around the south into the trails around Lookout Mountain. On the second activation, only Whitaker activated, and got another +1 attack against Walthal, but I rolled one higher this time for a +2 to force him to retreat, and advanced onto Craven’s House (forgot to apply the -1 Army of Cumberland modifier here. >.>;)

I got the first regular activation, and had Hooker activate Geary’s division to bring them in to attack Moore, who was in the next hex in line on Lookout Mountain, with no fortifications. I attacked for a +1 that did 1DR, and allowed me to advance into that hex.

My dad passed Wright down to the southern end of his main line at Rossville, covering Moore, and somewhat later moved Grigsby to the south end of the ‘mystery line’.

I decided to activate Sherman with the XV Corps and Davis’s division of the XIV Corps. Davis went to the north end of the southern ‘mystery line’ and tried an attack. Turned out that the strongest position was there with Cleburne’s division and the Art Reserve. Combined with a poor roll, I got a -8(!!) for 5D and no effect on the Confederate position (which had breastworks to boot). The XIV Corps couldn’t get any farther than crossing the Tennessee River with all the crowding.

Next, I assaulted with Howard on the third hex of the ‘mystery line’, and successfully pulled it off, and got a grand assault with Wood’s division of the IV Corps (and artillery reserve). This turned out to be Manigault’s division, with breastworks, for a 1:1 attack that ended at a -1 for me to take 2D.

Next, the XIV Corps moved into position, and Sherman activated Ewing’s division (the only one he was stacked with) for an assault on the second position of the ‘mystery line’. The good news was that there were no fortifications here, but the bad news was that Stewart’s division was there, and the attempt at a grand assault failed, leaving me with another 1:1 attack, and a poor roll ended at -1 for me to take 1D.

That pretty much ended the day. I didn’t have much more that I could reasonably do, but I moved up RW Johnson’s division from Chattanooga to where Sheridan was, with an eye to assaulting on the second day, after transferring an Army leader into the hex.

Missionary-Ridge-2
End of the first day

I transferred all three Army leaders at the beginning of the second day, in preparation for a fresh round of assaults (I don’t think I’ve ever bothered with that many transfers before, and got the first activation to lead off with the assault on the south end of the ‘mystery line’. Or tried to, as a ‘6’ halted the entire thing. My dad moved Moore (still Demoralized) on to Force 4 to shore up part of the line. On the second try, the assault went in with two out three units, to find Gist’s Division who was in a fort. The end result was a -1 on a 1:1 attack for me to take 2D.

Next Sherman ordered an assault on Stewart’s position (the only place I’d found without fortifications) with the bulk of the XV Corps, but couldn’t get a grand assault out Grant, and a 3-6 die roll ended up as a -2 and another 2D for me.

Finally, Hooker brought up one of the fought-out divisions from yesterday onto Lookout Mountain (took two activations) to get over 12 strength points in his hex. I figured the most likely result in Summerville would be both Confederate units to be in breastworks, which would count as 12 strength (both are 3s). Hooker got an assault with all three divisions—and Stevenson’s division was in a fort! Thankfully, Pettens had no fortifications at all for a final 12 strength, and I rolled slightly better for a final +2, Dr/1Da, which let me take my first, and only, victory hex of the game.

I technically had more troops I could throw in towards the middle of the Confederate line, but there just wasn’t anywhere that looked vulnerable, so that was the end. I had taken Summerville for 20 VP, and caused 1 Confederate casualty for 3, but had lost 14 strength points doing for -28 for -5 score and a very Decisive Confederate victory.

Missionary-Ridge-3
The end

My dad was talking about how the major Confederate problem was that they had built most of their defenses too high on the hills, and couldn’t really fire at the Federals until they were too close, and he thought the uncertain fortifications was not a bad way to emulate it. However, this is one of those smaller, tighter scenarios that doesn’t really play to the maneuver strengths of the system.

There wasn’t any real chance for flanking, I couldn’t get better than 1:1 odds (and sometimes not even that) against the fortifications, leaving the bulk of the combats at an overall even, or maybe +1 adjustment, and then I couldn’t get any good rolls/results against Missionary Ridge, giving me nothing to do there.

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