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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Kernstown Again

by on August 10, 2014 at 12:01 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

Patch was over yesterday, and I introduced him to the Great Campaigns of the Civil War series with the same scenario I played against Mark in May (that long? yeesh), Kernstown. I had contemplated going for scenario 2 in Stonewall in the Valley, but I figured this is a good one for learning how the system works. I took the Confederates, so I could try to figure out how to get anything done with such a small force (one of the Union brigades is a strong as Jackson’s entire command).

Patch sorted himself out fairly well, and I started falling back from Winchester, looking for opportunities. Some rain slowed things up, and took my chance early. Abercrombie’s brigade of the first division starts out separated and ahead of other Union forces on the SE flank, and had stayed so. The problem is, that is the large Union brigade. It turned into the Battle of Opequon Creek (a couple years early…), with three combats in quick succession. My initial attack was not that good an idea, and my brigade ended up disorganized (with a starting strength 2, it was an effective ‘1’, and vulnerable to massive odds shifts). Patch counterattacked… and completely blew the combat, rolling a ‘1’ while I rolled a ‘6’. This was about a final 0 or thereabouts, which didn’t do anything more to me, but cost him one strength point, and disorganized the unit. The Stonewall brigade then attacked, which exhausted it, but cost Abercrombie another couple strength points, and then another during the rout away from the field.

Kernstown2-T2

Despite the bulk of my force being in really bad shape for the next couple turns, I managed to get a chance to rest, and then slip away. I was planning to slip over the North Fork of the Shenandoah River at Guard Hill, and possibly even into Front Royal, and try to threaten to try and get around him with the river between us, but hard rain came (three days of rain), and I had to hurriedly slip west to Cedar Creek, where Patch caught up to me, and nearly trapped me. I exhausted the troops getting out  of that.

The next confrontation was down near Stony Creek, and Patch managed to inflict a crushing defeat on Fulkerson, putting him under Demoralize-1, and he eventually caught him and wiped out the unit.

Kernstown2-T6

The end of the game went out with a whimper as I managed to dodge getting trapped against the edge of the map to keep away for the last couple turns. (Patch tended to win a lot of initiative rolls in the later stages of the game, and nearly got me before I managed to slip away.

Patch had sent a few units out of theater, but not that many, and his losses were fairly bad, while I’d only lost three strength points. The final total as 97 VP for a Confederate Substantial Victory.

It was definitely nice to play the game again while I still had a pretty good memory of how the game worked, and Patch was definitely liking it. If not for the one disastrous die roll early on, things would have been very different, as I should have lost the brigade, and Patch’s losses would have been much less.

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