Two Rounds of Mt Vesuvius

by on March 9, 2024 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: CC:Ancients

After the Incident at Morkedia, Patch and I did our usual round of Commands & Colors: Ancients. Up this time was the start of Spartacus’ slave revolt, with a battle at the foot of Mt Vesuvius from Expansion #2. Spartacus is hitting the Roman camp, so there’s slave units on both sides, with Romans in the middle, with a wall on one side. There’s four Roman camps as well, which can be looted for banners. Two of them are merely occupied by leaders at the start.

I had Spartacus for the first battle, and I started with Order Two Right Left (thanks to the upside-down setup, I just realized I mixed up my right and left flanks in Vassal) to send in two Warriors, who lost four blocks between them doing three hits to a single Aux. Patch Ordered Lights, which he used to occupy his camps and finished off a Warrior. I Ordered Mediums to hit both sides of the Roman camp, finishing off the Aux, and then lost the second Warrior to blocked retreat. I also did a block to an Aux, and two to a Medium, but lost six blocks across three units to do it.

Patch Ordered Three Center to knock out a weak Warrior, and do a block to a Medium, and a block to another Warrior, who “retreated” to a camp Patch had just vacated to man the walls. Clash of Shields got me that Warrior and a weak Medium, who finished off a Medium, forced an Aux off the wall, and did a hit to a Light at a cost of one block. Patch Ordered Lights, got himself into a really compact mass, and finished off my two units at the walls. 3-5

Patch started the second game with Double Time, with a Medium killing a leader (Varinius) and taking a camp, while a Warrior forced an Aux to retreat, advanced, did a hit to a Medium, and was forced to retreat over the wall with two losses. I used Line Command to get a good chunk of the Roman army in motion, supporting my remaining leader, finishing off the Warrior, and trading blocks with Spartacus’ Medium.

Patch Ordered Three Center, sending two units across the abandoned wall, and a Warrior from behind. He knocked out a Medium with a blocked retreat, and did two blocks to a Light. My Order Three Center got a Medium back in the fight, and let me work with two Auxes stationed to one side. First Strike caused the Medium to retreat again before they could try to get Spartacus, while an Aux and Warrior traded three blocks, and my other Aux did a block and forced a retreat.

Clash of Shields ordered four units for Patch, and lost his just retreated Aux as they attacked across the wall. My Light took a hit, Patch finished off an Aux and attacked the Light on momentum, getting three banners—all ignored (leader, support, and camp), and Patch lost the Warrior on a blocked retreat. An Aux was also reduced to one block by taking a hit and three banners, which took him to the baseline. I Ordered One (Mounted Charge) to finish off Spartacus’ Medium, and he evaded to a Warrior. Patch Ordered Two Center, but got no result, while I Ordered Two Left, and advanced over the wall to force a Light to retreat off the board. 5-4

Afterword

The first game saw a really weak hand for me (my starting cards were almost all ‘order two’), and then the dice favored Patch. However, he used the fortified camps and walls well, and ignored a lot of sword hits thanks to them.

One of the annoyances of the slave army is the mix of Warriors and Mediums. Notably, the ‘surrounding’ force has two of them, and they are out of range of the Romans, forcing the units to break up, while already broken into three groups (the units on the ‘regular’ or ‘wall’ side at least are bunched up).

And the usual complaint about “surrounded” or “ambush” scenarios applies here. Forcing the second group of slave units to retreat away from their start, and through the Roman camp messes up what is actually a fairly fun small scenario. The Romans technically have the advantage of defenses, but just don’t have the units to cover everything, and so have to make some hard decisions, while Spartacus is too broken up to use several cards easily.

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The Citadel of Weeping Pearls

by on March 5, 2024 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

As with other Ailette de Bodard stories I have read, this is a largely character-focused story with unfamiliar signposts.

In this case, we have three different stories going on at the same time, but they’re all focused on the same thing: the titular station, which disappeared thirty years ago.

It was a place of beauty and science, of wonders the likes of which have not been seen since.

Of a daughter of the Empress, who was driven to flee to the far bounds of space and time rather than fight her mother, who had become too worried over what this place could become.

Thirty years later, the disappearance of the Citadel of Weeping Pearls is still such a turning point that it attracts the attention of the three plot lines mentioned before. This gives the book a mix of mystery, time travel, and court intrigue. All three are well done, but I do find the structure a bit bare for my tastes.

However, the atmosphere and tone of the book are extremely well done. Again, that’s less to my tastes, but I do recommend it because it’s that well done. I’d recommend The Tea Master and the Detective as my favorite of the Xuya stories so far, but there is no reason to avoid this one at all.

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Pursuit of Glory for Vassal 2.0

by on March 1, 2024 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

I took over maintenance of the Pursuit of Glory module ages ago, because I had a lot of trouble with it wanting to use shift-commands, which caused me to keep firing off commands while typing in the chat box. It was also using an older version of the map, which implied you could get around the water obstacle for the Suez Canal (you can’t).

The second edition of the game came out last year, and changed a few things, so I’ve been needing to update the module ever since. I finally started real work on it in January, have finally finished it off, and it is now available from the top entry on the Vassal Engine page.

Major features:

  • Map and cards have been updated for the changes in 2nd edition.
  • Counter graphics updated, including changes like Italians being dark green.
  • Top bar extensively reworked and standardized to 30-pixel images.
  • Symbolic die button used.
  • Solo mode added.
  • All markers and units from cards should be in the reinforcements windows.
  • Added overview and notes windows.
  • Enhanced chat log reporting.

While this is technically not an all-new module, very little has not been changed. You can load a previous game in this module, and after doing a counter refresh, everything should work (though control markers will definitely all revert to AP control), but I don’t think I can recommend trying it.

This is my first time doing a module with a complete toolbar replacement, and I developed a few graphics which I will hopefully get a chance to re-use in future projects.

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Post-Roman Kingdoms: ‘Dark Ages’ Gaul & Britain, AD 450–800

by on February 26, 2024 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

This is a bit surprising as an ‘Elite’ book in Osprey’s line, but it is certainly worth the extra pages over a regular Men-At-Arms book. I am also happy to see post-Roman Gaul and Britain considered together, especially as this is the period were Brittany developed its separate identity from absorbing refugees from Britain (which is touched on here).

Even at 64 pages, this is still too thin of a book to go into any real detail, and as ever, the strengths are in the visual reference. Sadly, Andrei Negin’s color plates are workmanlike, but hardly a source of inspiration. All of them at least have some form of background to place the type of environment these people are dealing with in, but they are solidly in the camp of standing around posing for the viewer instead of interacting, showing movement and use of equipment, and overall just being a rough miniatures painting guide.

The text itself also feels more surface level than usual. The initial sections do discuss the different paths of the various parts of Gaul, and then the notional high-level military organization of each, and then tackles Britain. Then we get the usual discussion of period equipment, with good notes of who was likely using what, and the likelihood of items being handed down (some more meditation on just how much equipment was made in Roman Gaul compared to sub- or post-Roman Gaul could be interesting here, but probably too scholarly for a enthusiast-facing book).

Beyond some of the general history, and brief mention of some of Arthur’s campaigns in the earliest sources, there’s not a lot of history here. No recounting of some of the battles of the period (admittedly, sources are the toughest part here, but it is still non-zero), to pick out bits about how armies in this period campaigned. Overall, the book feels very light and unfocused because of it. That said, there is reference to many of the early sources, some thoughts about the worth of some ‘later’ ones that seem to go back in oral tradition to this period, and as ever there is lots of good photography of artifacts and art, leaving visual reference as one of the stronger points of the book.

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SH169 Incident at Morkedia

by on February 22, 2024 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: SFB

After our latest fight in Hatten, Patch and I turned to SFB for our next main fight. Patch settled on an unusual fight with the Jindarians as our next scenario.

In “Incident at Morkedia”, a Jindarian caravan does a rare unprovoked attack on a small settlement, apparently after supplies. They have three of their asteroid ships (a CA and two CLs), while Federation forces show up for the defense at the start of turn 5 with a CA and CL. However, the settlement is well defended with a FF and pair of POLs on hand, along with a mobile base in orbit and a pair of ph-4 batteries, with a mining base and military garrison at the settlement.

The real goal is for the Jindarians to win control of the surface, bring a bunch of supplies up to their ships, and then get out again, with victory determined by how much they grabbed. I never even got close to that, and didn’t even get to the point of really worrying about it, because I had enough problems dealing with everything else around. But, we did get some practice with a lot of rules we’re not used to, starting with the Jindarians themselves. But ground bases, atmosphere effects, and the like are not things either of us is practiced in.

The Jindarians are pretty different on their own. They’ve been living in asteroids for millennia, and their ships are their homes. They only have minimal shields, but have lots of armor representing the bulk of the asteroid for each shield facing, and can even repair a certain amount of the armor during the scenario (and the shields at the same time, so they can potentially get a fair amount of protection back in one turn). The interiors of the ships are protected by special rules designating that none of them have a standard layout, and ‘anti-transporter fields’ that require power to operate, each cover one shield facing, and are hit on flag bridge hits. They have a few option slots, which are limited here to mostly cargo and hull, with one set of barracks. There’s extra fluff in fabrication and works boxes (destroyed on lab and cargo hits respectively). Shuttles are plentiful, and weapons are powerful, but few in number; movement costs are lower than expected of their class (and therefore much lower than you’d expect of a flying rock), but power is inadequate even for the low MC, making them overall power deficient.

Total armament across a CA and two CLs is nine WRGs (warp-augmented rail guns) and ten phasers. With those classes, I’d expect eight to ten heavy weapons (and the WRG is a good one), but a minimum of fourteen phasers, they have the Fed problem writ large, with a few internals compromising phaser coverage. Worse, they’re evenly distributed in various arcs, so there’s no good concentration of firepower to be had.

Once we sorted through a few difficulties in the rules (generally dealing with small base operations), we got going with my speeds meant to get me near the planet in one turn (20 for the CLs, CA 18), while the Federation ships cruised at somewhat lower speeds. Patch started with an instant minefield to interfere with those plans by putting three transporter bombs three hexes each from the planet, and then transported a fourth on impulse 3. The Federation ships then left, and later started swinging around onto my flank. The CLs stayed together and were on final approach to the planet by the end of the turn (taking a transporter bomb on the way in) while the CA cruised straight ahead all turn.

The two ph-4s fired on the CA as it dropped below the horizon on impulse 25. At range 7 they did 23 damage to punch through the #1 shield and do 13 to the armor (about a quarter of it). On 28 the two CLs each fired a WRG at the FF, with one hit through a +1 shift to do 17 damage (at range 4; the WRG has a scarily flat damage and to hit curve, with the to-hit dropping every ten hexes and the damage dropping every five, so that range 1-5 is all 5 or less to hit with 17 damage), and nearly collapse the #6. The next impulse another WRG fired and hit to do 14 internals to the FF, while two phasers from it nearly got the #5 shield of one of the CLs. On 30 a POL fired a photon at the CL but thankfully missed. On 31 the lead CL crashed into the minefield knocking out its #1, and the MB followed up with 2xph-1 for another 8 damage to the armor. On 32 the MB’s orbit brought it to range 1 of the lead CL, and it fired bearing ph-3s to do another seven damage to the armor, while the CL hit it with a WRG and 2xph-1s for 25 damage, leaving shield #5 at one box.


Turn 1, Impulse 32, showing movement from 16 on.
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