Queen of the Conqueror

by on September 7, 2014 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

Tracy Borman’s book about Queen Matilda (William the Conqueror’s wife, if you’re not keeping score at home) does a very good job with tracing the live of a medieval woman (much better than Weir’s Eleanor of Aquitane, but it is also only 3/4s the length of that book), but manages to be irritating on a regular basis.

The introduction of the book gives a commonly told story of Matilda, upon hearing that she was to be betrothed to Duke William “the Bastard” of Normandy, rejecting the idea that she (related to the King of France) would never stoop so low as to marry a bastard. William, hearing this, rides to her family’s palace in Flanders and finding Matilda beats her mercilessly. Matilda then decides that she would marry no one else as he was a man of high courage and daring. When Borman gets to this part of Matilda’s life in the narrative, she repeats the story, and then starts casting doubts on the story, pointing out that it is first mentioned about two hundred years after the fact, and that one of the primary sources for it has a strong anti-Norman bias. The section ends with a conclusion that we just don’t have any clear picture of what, if anything, happened between the two before they were married.

This pattern is followed in many parts of the book. Tales are given with a straight face, and only afterward are problems or alternate versions talked about. Worse, are the cases where something is mentioned as being from ‘a nineteenth century chronicler’ with no discussion as to where he got it from, or why we should think he knew anything about it. After the number of other unsubstantiated stories that are discussed, it raises alarms.

But despite these problems, it is a good book about Matilda. It is not as comprehensive, or detailed as, again, Allison Weir’s Eleanor of Aquitane, but that book failed at being the biography it was supposed to be, while this one is a good biography that gives a much clearer picture of its subject.

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Kawanakajima 1553–64

by on September 6, 2014 at 11:25 am
Posted In: Books

The Five Battles of Kawanakajima are not that well known in the West, but they are one of the most celebrated incidents of the Warring States period in Japan (right behind those parts that are better known in the West, such as Nobunaga’s career and the Battle of Nagashino that forms the climax of Ran).

Turnbull starts with the most basic rundown of the situation, including the fact that while all the battles occurred near the plain of Kawanakajima, most of them could properly be termed something else entirely, and that you could count eight battles of Kawanakajima, by including three more that fit the pattern of the other five. But, most Japanese histories consider the same five battles between Takeda Shingen and Uesugi Kenshin as ‘the battles of Kawanakajima’, and this book focuses on them, and especially the Fourth Battle of Kawanakajima as the main confrontation.

As usual with Osprey’s Campaign series, the background and events are well presented, with plenty of clear maps that show what was happening. Turnbull’s analysis is good, and only occasionally breaks down under the weight of the number of different things to keep track of. A very good book for anyone who has an interest in Japanese military history.

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Freezing Insects

by on August 24, 2014 at 12:49 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

Had the gang over yesterday (the five regulars) for a game of Dominant Species. This was our first five-player game, and the first time Mark had played the game. We handed out random animals, and ended up with: Mark–Mammals, Jason—Reptiles, Dave–Amphibians, me–Arachnids, Patch–Insects.

The early game featured Mark getting off to a roaring start, and building up a nice 20-30 point lead after 3-4 turns. Most every one was trying to adapt to take more food sources, but regression and events conspired against that.

2 turn5
Beginning of turn 5.

My position slowly fell apart during the course of the game (not that it was ever all that good). The four action limit really hurt, since I could never come up with a plan for the turn that worked. Worse, Omnivore and Intelligence came up on the same turn, and I missed what was going on. Patch had the first Domination, and took Omnivore for the extra action and left Intelligence to Jason, so Dave and I were left at four actions while the other three got five. I hadn’t really thought about that, and just expected Patch to take Intelligence.

A couple turns later, Patch got in first to take Parasitism, giving him (alone) six actions. Most of the pack was catching up with Mark at this point, while I finally started falling behind. Dave had some trouble also, but he managed to mostly keep up despite some disasters nearly wiping him out (he was at four water elements, and there were only two water elements on the board… and then one was lost to Wasteland…).

2 turn6
Beginning of turn 6.

Jason had worked on his usual survival strategy early on, but kept being limited to one tile, so it wasn’t actually generating any VPs. Patch finally took over from him in the second half (after two turns where they were tied), and started getting good bonus VPs for it.

I was down to about four dominances on the last turn, and saw it cut down to two during the turn (this usually where I do well…), and all I could do is block one or two to reduce the size of other player’s bonus VPs… not that it did much good. Other than me, the final turn was pretty tense, as everyone tried to squeeze a few more points out of a volatile race. Patch won with 112 VP, Jason had 103, Mark 101, Dave 96 and I had 83.

2 end
End of game.

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Two Rounds of Plataea

by on August 19, 2014 at 11:29 pm
Posted In: CC:Ancients

Patch and I went through our usual round of CC:A recently, doing the revised Battle of Plataea from Expansion #6. (I think we’ve played this FtF before, but I’m not sure if it was 1 or 2 rounds, and it would have been the Expansion #1 version.) Both sides have independent flanks, though the Persians have a three unit force in the center rear, while the Greek center is open. Also, it’s a combined Athenian/Spartan force, so the Greek left has hoplites, while the right has 5-block Spartan hoplites. The Persians have two units of Immortals, who are Mediums with archery capability.

I had the Persians for the first round and opened with Three Units Center to fill out my line. Not much happened for a few turns (I was struggling with a poor hand, including an Order Heavies, when there’s no Heavies in the scenario). We finally came into contact when I played Inspired Right Leadership, and I lost one more block than Patch, and then he Counter Attacked. That wiped out a Med and reduced another to one block, while I reduced two of his units to two blocks each.

I Ordered Mediums to try and redress the line, but my MC fled to the back line, and while I took out one of his units, it was with a 1-block leader-led Med who had to advance to get the job done. Patch wiped that out with Order Mediums, but the leader survived the loss of his unit. Patch marched up, and I anchored my center on a couple hills.

I advanced on my right, and traded four blocks for almost taking out an Aux. After a bunch of inconclusive skirmishing, I Rallied to get two units back to full (Aux and Immortals). Patch finally made contact on his right again, and knocked out an Aux, and nearly got may rallied Immortals at a cost of three blocks on his Spartans. I played I Am Spartacus to order a Aux (my right), Immortals and MC (both left). Patch used First Strike to chase the Immortals away (four banners!), but the MC took out his weakened Spartan MH. They then momentum advanced to take out a weak Aux his leader had fled to, and killed the leader as well. My Auxes finished off a Greek MH on the other flank.

Patch Coordinated Attack to finish off my Immortals, and chased off my cavalry. I mad another two attempts on the remains of his left flank before finally getting an Aux to finish a very long game. 6-4

Plataea 1

The second round went much faster, helped out by me leading off with a pair of Line Commands. I used them to bring the Spartans to bear on the right. Patch had opened with Move-Fire-Move to fill in his center, but my charge knocked an Aux there down to one block, as well as doing the same on his left flank, and wiping out a unit of Immortals at a total cost of two blocks for me.

Patch Ordered Left to get a unit of Spartan MH, and weakened an Aux, while I Ordered Mounted to get MH on both flanks in motion. Patch Ordered Left again, and I Counterattacked which wiped out the other unit of Immortals. Patch switched to Order Four Right and traded blocks with me. I Ordered Two Left to finish off an Aux and Medium. Patch Ordered Three Right to get an MH, but lost his MC to battle back, and then I Ordered Heavy (‘One’) to pick off a weak Aux. 6-2

Plataea 2

It’s an interesting situation thanks to the open center and emphasis on the left flank. The first game really dragged out in the middle when neither of us had any decent cards nor real advantage, while the second one took half the time thanks to aggressive play.

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The Trojan War

by on August 15, 2014 at 1:16 pm
Posted In: Books

I was expecting Strauss’ The Trojan War: A New History to be a scholarly study of every detail we have about the Trojan world; basically an updated version of In Search of the Trojan War. Instead, it is a more scholarly Age of Bronze. The book is structured around the story of the Trojan War, which is then clothed in modern archaeology, and decorated with Homer.

And it works. Taking the view that the Trojan War is based on something that happened, the book gives the ‘history’ of the war, cross-referencing with what we know of other nearby Bronze Age cultures. There’s plenty of passages where something from the Iliad is compared to existing Bronze Age writings and shown how it is typical of the time. In fact, the book hides a fairly good overview of Bronze Age politics and warfare.

In all, it is a short but quite worthwhile book.

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