Two Rounds of Hippacritae

by on March 12, 2013 at 10:53 pm
Posted In: CC:Ancients

Well, with a very long ASL game, and then another one that we needed to continue when that was done, it’s been a while since Patch and I have done any CC:A. So, tonight we played the battle of Hipparcritae from the Truceless War pack.

I had the Carthaginians first, and lead off with an Out Flanked to put the cavalry on both sides in motion. I had a couple Left Flank cards and figured to keep peppering him with archery there. The Med Cav on my right picked on a Light Cav that couldn’t evade, and picked it off for no losses. I then drew a second Out Flanked, and made the mistake of abandoning the plan and trying it again. This time the MC picked on an Aux, who battled back for two banners that killed the first unit (I lost a block on his turn), and the second lost two blocks, all for doing one block to him.

Patch played Line Command, which nearly surrounded the remaining MC, and killed it despite evading. In addition, archery took out a block on my right flank elephants. I moved my Med Inf up to fill out a line, and advanced my elephants to get them into range. Patch moved up with Inspired Leadership and killed the elephants. I moved up two of my Med Inf and took out a unit of Warriors in exchange for two blocks. The second unit had Hamilcar, who advanced and tried to take out his remaining Warriors, trading two for one (I thought I’d gotten away clear with two banners, but I’d forgotten that the fresh Warriors could ignore one along with a second for his leader).

Both of us re-dressed our center lines at that point, then Patch used a Double Time to go charging into my line. It cost me five blocks across two units, while he lost two. With the end of my line of Med Inf down to one block, I gambled on a Rally, but only got one block back. Patch got his heavies into contact with it to get the two hits and win. 2-5

Flipping sides, Patch led off with Order Two Right to get the elephants in motion, and take out three blocks on my Light Slingers. I got a banner on the battle back, and he finished them off with the trample. I mostly had Right cards, and started trying to develop that flank when a Move-Fire-Move knocked my LC back to the base line and reduced it to one block. He then moved the other two units of elephants up and reduced both of my Heavies to two blocks and forced them to retreat.

I Ordered Heavy to kill an elephant and force the other to retreat. He brought them back up with an Order Three Right (along with ordering two LC), and forced one Heavy to retreat again. I decided to take a chance, and blocked the retreat of the other unit to pull them out of range of further archery. He killed one block, and I got the elephants on battle back.

I dressed my line, and Patch brought in the remaining elephants to kill a Warrior unit (two swords->two triangles), and kill two blocks on the other with momentum. I Ordered Light to deploy my left flank (was was short of left cards all game). The elephants came in again, finishing off the Warriors (forcing Autartas to evade) and reducing an Aux to two blocks before succumbing to battle back.

The elephants were finally gone, but I was seriously short of units in good shape, while Patch had only taken one other block. My plan at that moment was to move Autartas into the middle of the left line where he might still do some good with a couple Aux, but I managed to forget that by the time I played the card and getting him to the line took an extra turn. Patch moved up on the right, and killed one Heavy, reduced the other to one block, and then nearly killed it when the last archery die came up red, but he’d fired on the LC stuck at the base line instead.

I could have taken a turn to try and move my two one block units on the right out of the way, but I figured either he didn’t have any cards for that flank, or the LC would catch up to anything I could do anyway, and shored up the center. Patch played Darken the Sky to knock out the LC and win. 3-5

Not my best play or dice in either game. Patch had good luck with the elephants for once, which really hurt in the second game.

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J45 The Last Roadblock

by on March 10, 2013 at 10:35 pm
Posted In: ASL

Patch came over today, and we took the chance to use my French and Allied Minor counters in anger for the first time. (I’ve had Croix de Guerre for over 15 years by this point, and I’ve played with both nationalities before, but only on Vassal, so it was the first time using the actual counters.)

We picked out J45 “The Last Roadblock” from Journal 3, an interesting little fight between the Germans and the French Foreign Legion with support from the Norwegian Army. It uses half of boards 18 and 9 (which I don’t see enough of), with Mud and Alpine terrain. The Germans start with six squads (elite and 2nd line) versus twelve French elite squads (with underlined morale and broken morale increased to 8), and eight Allied Minor squads (elite and 1st line). Both sides have one 81mm MTR. Technically, the Allies are attacking, since they need to take half of the level three and four hexes in western hill of board 9 (the one completely on board) in six turns. However, the Germans move first and get eight elite squads on the east edge, and win immediately if they get 25 CVP. Finally, the Allies get some 70+mm OBA and a elite squad on the north edge on turn 3.

I took the Allies, as they set up first, though a lot of the setup is fairly restricted for both sides. The general idea for me was to press forward with the French (who start near the goal, with the Norwegians splitting between moving east to guard the MTR against the German reinforcements, and the rest headed for the hill. Patch effectively split his reinforcements between boards 18 and 9. Things started out poorly for me as I could not roll under an ‘8’ for a Morale Check for… oh, about the first turn and a half. Since Patch kept rolling 1MCs, French troops started breaking fast. However, my MTR got a ROF tear on my turn 1, and really pounded his troops up on the shoulder of the second big hill, breaking a couple units, and killing a squad.

J45 1F
Situation, Allied Turn 1. North is to the left in this shot. Grain is open ground, roads actually exist to negate mud penalties, but do not confer movement bonuses.
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FB5 Siesta Time

by on March 7, 2013 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

Around the middle of last year, Patch and I played a couple FtF games of “Siesta Time” from Festung Budapest, only to realize late in the day, we had gotten the directions ninety degrees off. So we decided to play a third game purely via email while continuing our regular games, running from November 2012 to February 2013.

I took the defending Hungarians again, and set up specifically to make sure the N31 victory building could hold out the required three turns, while positioning squads to be able to try and break and run for the east edge to claim the exit victory. In the face of Soviet firepower (including a DC and two FTs), I had no confidence in actually holding building N31 for 6.5 turns. Figuring that a fortified location was of no help against a FT, I actually fortified the rear of the building (N30), my one hex of wire went in P32 to keep him from advancing on the south face of the victory building down the road, and set my one hex worth of mines (6 factors) in Q30, as it looked like a likely jumping off point for the Russian pursuit of my forces in the second half of the game. The one hidden squad went in the cellar of N31 with the DC.

Patch entered over half his forces up on the hill, which is slightly surprising given that ground snow demands one extra MF going up or down a slope. He ran into fire from my outpost in O34 on his second move for a 2MC which he passed. Worse, the squad had cowered, undercutting my plans for lots of residual coverage. Another squad moved adjacent, and FPF could only manage a PTC, which he also passed (at least my squad did not break…). My MMG and 7-0 were in L33h1, which opened up when his second FT showed up in K35 with a FFNAM/FFMO shot, which generated a PTC (which he passed) and malfunctioned the MMG (darn ammo shortage).

Patch unloaded on what he could see, starting with the FT in K35 breaking the leader and squad in L33h1. His main line could only get a NMC against O34, which they passed, and then Patch lost his second FT when he turned that on O34. This left O34 to get piled upon by two squads while L33 fled across the way into the victory building (leaving the MMG, sadly). Luckily, Patch rolled a ’12’, allowing me to withdraw out to O33.

FB5-3 1R
Situation, Russian Turn 1. Red hexes are ‘offboard’ Russian entry hexes, or Hungarian exit (depending on the side of the board). Weather is ground snow, with heavy falling snow.
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How Rome Fell

by on March 4, 2013 at 9:14 pm
Posted In: Books

As of about AD 200, the Roman Empire was by far the most powerful state within its known world, and had been for over two hundred years. Three hundred years later, the western half of the Empire had ceased to exist, and the remaining part, while still powerful, no longer held the clear advantage over its neighbors that the earlier empire had. Adrian Goldworthy’s How Rome Fell is technically a re-examination of how this came about.

However, while this thesis is talked about at the beginning of the book, and then discussed at the end of the book, there’s no real reference to it during the book. Instead, it is just a general history of those three hundred plus years. However, it is a very good history of the period, and I think this would be a great place to start for someone wanting to study Late Antiquity. Not only is it generally well-written, but it spends a fair amount of time showing how little we truly know (about the population, economy, actual size of the Roman army in many periods…), and exploding old certainties.

The concluding chapter is also short on certainties, but long on thoughtful commentary about the various ills of the Empire. The main conclusion is that the Empire weakened itself through interminable civil wars. Worse, the reaction to these civil wars was to attempt to remodel the Empire to protect emperors from assassination and rivals, and fail. One of the points that Goldsworthy proposes as key, is the removal of the vestiges of political power and importance from the Senate. When senators stopped being the primary pool to get new emperors from (when the chancy business of dynastic succession fails), the pool of candidates actually became larger, more dispersed, and impossible to control.

His thoughts on the separate fates of the Western and Eastern Empires mostly come down to geography. Among other effects, the various tribal leaders to cross the frontiers had nowhere else to go than the Western Empire. There were no comparable threats to most of the Eastern frontier, and that part that did have power tribal confederations was the Danube. Thrace and Greece were not places they could get very far in, they couldn’t cross the Bosphorus to Asia Minor, and that left… the Western Empire. In addition, most of the rebellions and usurpers came from the western provinces, why is not clear, but it may just be success breeding more attempts.

And then there is the quasi-subtitle (only seen on the title page): Death of a Superpower. Goldsworthy equates Rome as a superpower in that there was no other entity that could come close to matching it’s size, wealth, manpower, or ability to project power. (Well, China would be an exception, but since it had no way of getting at the Empire, or any of its neighbors, it is ignored.) The final epilogue (and much of the introduction) talks about the inevitable parallels people try to draw between the Roman Empire and the United States, and dismisses many of them. But he does meditate a bit on the problems of bureaucracy, and the dangers of any institution forgetting what its primary purpose is.

Circling back to the content of the bulk of the book, it is a well done survey of the period, and an excellent place to start if you are not well aware of the history of those three to four hundred years. It is less useful to those who have studied the period (I found most of the book familiar ground), but it is still a good single reference book, and there will be some new touches for most people.

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Cape Henry

by on March 3, 2013 at 1:39 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

Mark came over yesterday, and we played a game of Flying Colors. Mark had played it once before with Jason, so he picked the second scenario (Cape Henry) to introduce me to the system. I decided to stick Mark with the outrageous French accent, and took the British.

In fact, I’d only managed to read up through the movement section of the rules ahead of time, so the beginning went very slow, as I tried to sort out just how combat worked. Thankfully, the opening is somewhat simple, with the French line reaching (really, broad reach) directly towards the British line, which is beating against the wind toward the French line.

Not liking the idea of cruising my line right down the similarly-equipped French line trading broadsides all the way, nor the fact that I had a mere 2 movement while beating, I started wearing the leading elements of my line to port to rake the French as they approached. However, this left them out of command for a couple turns, as I overestimated my ability to get a commander in range for a group command (especially as the commander with the higher range was in the rear). However, things degenerated into a pretty dense melee with the leading ships, so that my out of command ships were always adjacent to an enemy at the start of their move, and got to fire normally.

Both of us stuck to our national ‘strengths’, with me firing at the hull, and Mark going for the rigging, so that even my ships that were now reaching didn’t have much movement, as their rigging was too damaged. On the other hand, I was taking lots of raking shots, and getting good die rolls, and the leading two French ships were forced to strike their colors rather than sink.

I was just starting to reassert proper command over my leading elements, having driven the Royal Oak into a gap in the French line, and reasserted command, when turn 5 came up, and the wind adjustment check. The roll shifted the wind two points (of a hex map; 120 degrees) clockwise. This meant that suddenly my main line was running with the wind, and the French line was taken aback. This changed the nature of the battle immensely. The rear portion of the French line wore to starboard, and beat against the wind toward the initial, and continuing fighting for the rest of the game. I reached the French flagship with mine on that turn, and the only two 2nd line ships nearly crippled each other with very little input from the rest of the battle.

Mark was finally dismasting my ships while I struggled to get my line re-sorted and effectively fight back. The lower chances of striking the colors from a dismasting helped, as only one of three ships actually did (and that was on the third turn of rolls). Mark’s third ship had been heavily damaged, but managed to get out of the action before I could get its hull points to zero, and the modifiers for that kept it from striking the colors.

The scenario ends at turn 8, and I won on VPs at that point, 10.5 to 8. Mark had been having to roll for his fleet breaking the final three turns, but the odds of that were low. I also had to roll on the last turn, as one ship finally struck the colors. So for the final act of the game, both of us rolled ‘2’s (with the fleet breaking, and granting a decisive victory to the other player on a ‘0’), and Mark had a -1 on his roll…. Very close there.

At any rate, the game was fun, it seems to be a very good system that captures the flavor of Age of Sail naval combat quite well. We used the status markers all day, and didn’t have to write anything down, which was very nice. The markers got a little crowded, but the fact that the ships are 1″x0.5″, giving them room for two stacks of markers makes it work out, at least at this size of battle. It took all day (10 to 5, with lunch), but that was after a very slow start, and the later turns were going very fast as we continued getting used to the modifiers.

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