The Intrigues of Haruhi Suzumiya

by on March 18, 2022 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

Even for a Haruhi novel, this was a bit of a strange ride.

First, it starts off wrapping up a loose end from The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya, with another bout of time travel. What is done seems inconsequential, especially for the amount of space the prologue its in takes up. However, the real purpose seems to be to set up time travel as the main theme of the book.

Because once the introduction is out of the way, things quickly get strange, with Mikuru showing up in the clubroom’s broom closet, and saying that she just went back in time eight days at the insistence of Kyon, with the instant acceptance of her superiors to the request.

And of course, this sets up the main plot and tension of the novel. First, there’s now a second Mikuru that needs to be kept hidden. Second, while she knows what’s going to happen in the next eight days she has no idea why she needed to go to the past, or what she’s supposed to do there. Kyon certainly has no idea what he was thinking over a week in the future, and why he didn’t provide any instructions.

Of course, instructions start appearing in his school locker. The origin is fairly easy to figure, but the instructions seem to be fairly random acts of no consequence….

Structure-wise, this resolves down to to a mystery novel of the ‘whydunnit’ variety. The mystery deepens as more letters arrive, and then things start to come into focus. And then there’s a very sudden action sequence.

That last comes up very suddenly, but as it turns out, is also an integral part of the plot. As usual, Intrigues is a very well put together story, and is probably one of the betters in the series. (I think the translators are also getting better with the idiosyncrasies of the writing, which is also helping a lot.)

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Two Rounds of Magnesia

by on March 14, 2022 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: CC:Ancients

After our adventure in Hatten, Patch and I did our usual between-big-games set of Commands & Colors: Ancients, and up this time was the Battle of Magnesia from Expansion #1. A river cuts off some of one side of the board (particularly, the Roman left), both sides have elephants, while the Seleucids have a heavy chariot and a camel unit. Overall, the Romans are down on cavalry, but have a solid infantry center.

Patch had the Romans for the first game, and we both started moving units forward before an Order Three Left let him do a block to my Warriors with a ranged attack on the first die roll of the game. Order Four Right let them engage (with other units moving up behind), doing a block to a Light, and then Patch Out Flanked to finish off the Warriors. Mounted Charge got me engaged on both flanks, with Elephants pushing back a Medium and taking a block in exchange for doing two (basically two hits on twelve dice….), and I lost a HC after only doing a block to a Medium. The other flank did better, doing two hits and forcing an evade on his MC while taking one hit on the Camels. Patch drove off the Elephants and HC, but caused no losses, and they came back with a Order Two Center, and lost the Elephants to do one more hit to the Medium, while also doing three hits to a Light.

Line Command swept Patch’s center into motion and did a hit to the HCH, and I tried the cavalry again with an Order Mounted to engage on my left, and did two blocks to an Aux and one to a MC for no losses. Patch got behind the HCH with his own Mounted Charge to finish it off and reduce my Camels to one block as they retreated. Darken the Sky got a couple of blocks, and for Patch’s MC to retreat to the base line. Patch moved up in the center, and I Ordered Four Left to drive off a Light with two losses. Patch announced that He Was Spartacus to get… one medium and one wild (and three banners!). His MC went after my Camels… who survived thanks to being able to ignore a symbol hit, and he lost the MC. His Elephants went in and did three blocks to a Light. I Double Timed my heavies to the Elephants, and got them, at the cost of a Light and two blocks on a Heavy. Move-Fire-Move let him reshuffle his line and did hits to three different units.

Order Two Left let me finish off a MC and do a block to an Aux, who finished off my MC. Patch drove off my Camels with ranged fire, and Inspired Right Leadership let me bring up my main solid units to pick off two Mediums. Sadly, my Medium was taken out by a Coordinated Attack, after finishing off another of his Mediums. 6-7

The second game started with me having limited choices, as I had two Counter Attacks (not usable as the first action of the game) and Clash of Shields (and there was certainly no one in contact). Of the two choices left to me, I Ordered Two Center to move up some of the back units, and then followed that up with the Line Command I drew to push most everything forward. Patch used a couple of Coordinated Attacks to move up, and I Counter Attacked the second to get my Heavy to the front and miss completely with archery.

Patch Mounted Charged on his left, and destroyed a Heavy, took a LB to one block, reduced a Light to two blocks, and drove off another with one loss. In return, I did a a hit and banner to a MC. Order Mediums got my center in motion, with one unit getting in contact with a LB to nearly destroy it. My MC went after his HCH, but did nothing while taking a hit. Patch Ordered Three Left to destroy the MC and LB, while doing two blocks to a Medium for no losses. I Double Timed to get the line of Mediums up to Patch’s line, and picked off two LBs and a Light with nowhere to go.

Order Three Center let him plug the hole with a Heavy and Elephant, while his other Elephant came around the rear, he got the weakened Medium, and reduced another to one block, losing an Elephant and one block on the Heavy in process. Clash of Shields let me finish off the Heavy, drive off his other Heavy with losses, drive back the remaining Elephant with a one-block loss, and drive a Light to the baseline. Patch Ordered Three Right and brought in his Warriors to finish off my weak Medium, and then do two blocks to another on momentum, taking a block in return.

Move-Fire-Move let me set up a secondary line with my light units, and drove off a couple of his units, but did no damage. Patch Ordered Two Left to do destroy an Aux, but his Elephants retreated, and two of his units took a block each from rampage. Leadership Any Section kept my center moving, and I finished off the Warriors, and got his HCH as they tried to evade. 7-6

Afterword

Both battles came down to the wire, and I feel I had real card problems both times (which sorted out after that rough start in the second game, but I never could do much in the first). And while I had strong dice at times, my Mounted Charge in the first game is the biggest flop I’ve ever seen that card deliver.

At any rate, it’s an unusual mix of units, with the first camel we’ve seen in action, so that and reasonably balanced, so it’s well worth a play or two.

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Anime Fall 2021

by on March 10, 2022 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Anime

Okay, this is ages late. In my defense, I’m not even sure what there was new last season.

First off, I was in the middle, or more likely, near the end of several series last time, and they all carried through to good endings. Megalobox II and The Great Pretender especially were very good from start to finish.

Arcane — Smudge and I decided to try this out at the tail end of the big push on it. We watched the first episode, and put it on the ‘to watch with the guys’ list. And now we’re… two-thirds through? At any rate, this is a very well done series on several levels. This is the best-developed steampunk world I’ve seen since Girl Genius started (and may well beat that). Lots of very believable, if often not very nice characters. The writing it top notch, and is doing a good job with a complex structure.  And then there’s the animation, which also top-notch on several levels. This is easily some of the best CG there’s been, because they went for a style, they stuck with it, and they made it work. And then the quality of animation itself is just wonderful with lots of natural motion and real emoting.

World Trigger — I have recently gotten through all of the very long first series, and am now into the second one (I started watching about when the third one started). It continues to be quite good, and I think the current juggling between the usual ‘shonen fight tournament’ and outside events is helping the pacing. And of course, while the series is half about what’s going on outside of combat, the combat itself is dominated by tactics and teamwork, and not “powering up”.

Restaurant to Another World — Okay, this is the new thing from last season I’m aware of. But we got a late start and are about halfway through. And it’s pretty much the same as before. Nice, fairly simple stories wrapped around food porn. It’s wearing a bit thin for me, but it’s still an enjoyable series, that you should not watch while hungry.

Wakfu — By happenstance I noticed that Wakfu had gotten a third season while we weren’t looking, and was available on Netflix. We’ve just just started this, so there’s not a lot to say yet. It is looking to be an extended ‘climb the tower quest’ all season, which isn’t the most promising, but there’s enough going on character-wise that it will probably pan out.

Edens Zero — Okay, SF done by the creator of Fairy Tail. If you’ve seen that, you know what you’re in for. Smudge and I are finding it fun, the plot is maintaining a good pace, there’s certainly been some good humorous moments, but it’s nothing really special either. I really want a guide to the cosmology of this universe, because there’s a lot of places for ‘I don’t think that word means what you think it means’.

Kingdom — This… can be good, and when it is, it can be very good. And as a historical on the Chinese Warring States, has interest there. However, the production is fairly low budget, and the Funimation dub is also low budget (it’s bad when the narrator is your best voice acting). Despite being generally historical in nature, it does suffer from showing its shonen marketing too much, and the depiction of battles is fine… until it turns into Dynasty Warriors. So much promise, under delivered.

Pokemon Journeys — This has gotten better, but is still bottom of the heap, especially for recent Pokemon series. Showing all the various regions of the games at various times is not a bad idea, but it still needs a better continuing plot and character arc than the World Coronation Series worldwide tournament.

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Across the Potomac/Johnston vs Paterson

by on March 6, 2022 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

One of Mark and I’s long-deferred projects (there are many) is getting back into the GCACW series. We finally did so around last Thanksgiving, playing the first two scenarios of All Green Alike, the First Battle of Bull Run section of Stonewall Jackson’s Way II.

The first scenario deals with the initial Union offensive into Virginia at the beginning of July 1861, and goes for four turns (/days). The Union forces all start out in Williamsport (except one regiment back in Hagerstown), with two divisions, a cavalry detachment (which at that point in the war was considered part of the 1st Brigade of the Cadwalader’s First Division), and another separated regiment which becomes available on turn 3.

They’re trying to take a crossing on the Potomac, and then press on for pairs of deeper objectives (just needing one of each pair). The only Confederate troops nearby are Stuart’s cavalry (at Falling Waters), and Jackson’s brigade (south of Hainesville), with the bulk of Joe Johnston’s army back at Winchester (with another three brigades), and it isn’t allowed to move far on the first turn.

We actually did two tries on the first scenario. The first try had a series of really bad march rolls, and Mark let Stuart stand in front of a Union brigade that could just barely reach them on their second action, and found just how bad the early cavalry is against anything, as a Column of Route attack wiped them off the map and allowed an advance into Falling Waters. Jackson exhausted himself (and Thomas’ 1st Brigade of Cadwalader’s division) in an attack, and better rolls allowed the rest of the division to start getting behind him, while Kelm’s division started crossing the Potomac to the east.

In our next Vassal session we started over with what had been learned. Cadwalader’s initial activation went a lot better, and occupied Falling Waters after a quick cavalry retreat. The Union had several more activations, and Cadwalader found Jackson south of Hainesville and started deploying to fight. Jackson finally got to activate, and pulled back to Martinsburg. Kelm started his division around the long way to cross the Potomac at Sheperdstown while Patterson detached a brigade (Abercrombie’s) under his own command to follow the Opequon south.

Thomas’ cavalry was posted to guard the bridge near Martinsburg, and Jackson came out and scattered the unit (poor retreat roll), while Stuart moved from covering Jackson’s flank to protecting Kearneysville.

Johnston got the initial activations for the second day, but made bad time, leaving Jackson to face the approaching army on his own. However, Cadwalader kept rolling 2s to keep him from getting far either, and Kelm barely did any better. Abercrombie (under Patterson) got across the Opequon and onto one side of Jackson, while Williams’ brigade came up on the other side (becoming disorganized in the process) to close out the second day.


End of turn 2/July 3; Johnston’s stuck another nine hexes off the bottom of the image. Arrows are colored by the current fatigue level.
↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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Trial by Fire

by on March 2, 2022 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

The second volume of Sumption’s massive, and excellent history of the Hundred Years War covers just over twenty years, from 1347 to 1369. The first volume ended with the siege of Calais, which the English ended up occupying for 212 years.

Of course, a city on the coast by itself is not a very secure, nor self-sustaining location. So even as a truce is agreed to, it becomes a friction point as English troops start taking over other nearby locations and building up a proper defensive zone for the city, which became the Pale of Calais. This was made all the more important by the collapse of Flanders communes, and the Count of Flanders’ reasserting control, which meant that Calais was now the only realistic point of debarkation of an English army in northern France.

So even as repeated efforts at truces and real peace are made, there’s plenty of friction and not a little actual fighting. A few things complicate what would ordinarily have probably led to a renewed round of hostilities. First, the arrival of the Black Death disrupts plans, and more seriously(!) France’s finances are a shambles, and collecting money to collect troops is nearly impossible in any great scale.

Fortunately for France, England’s financial woes are also serious. There’s actually a fair amount of money coming in (unlike France, which misses out on a decade of economic prosperity enjoyed by the rest of western Europe), but just garrisoning Calais and other ‘static’ military expenditures eat up most of what is left after paying off the debts caused by the previous decade of warfare.

However, the real action is in south-western France, where all this trouble began. Companies of military adventurers had gotten fairly well organized (as far as such things go) and were carrying out operations of seizing local castles and fortified points, and then effectively holding the surrounding region for ransom. Then, they find somewhere else in reach of that point and take that.

This isn’t armies on the move, and sieges, great or small, these are quick operations done by surprise at night, generally by escalade (and I’ll save you trip to the dictionary; it means taking the place by putting ladders against the walls, and climbing over; this is also a commentary on how boring guard duty is). A lot of the book is actually taken up describing the course of these campaigns and showing how widespread they ended up. The upshot is that these regions are effectively no longer administered by France, and aren’t contributing any taxes, and most of the rest of France was insisting that taxes collected be used for local defense instead of providing an army to defeat the English and retake strategically important castles.

The ending portion of the book deals with the sequel to all of this as the formal Treaty of Bretigny puts these companies out of any official work, and both sides are trying to get them out so that the terms of the treaty can be implemented. This turns into several years of trying to corner and ship out of the country bands of experienced military adventurers.

Meanwhile, we have the King of Navarre, who has extensive holdings in France, has a number of grievances with the French court, and quite a lot of ambition. He murders one of John II’s advisors and launches several rounds of civil war with France. There’s the battle of Poitiers, in which John II is captured, and the interminable treaty wrangling after that (and need to gather a ‘king’s ransom’ for real). The Estates General and the Dauphin struggle for control, and neither can raise the money needed for the war effort or ransoming the king, and Paris ends up cut off on all sides and controlled a middle-class council. All of this erodes the power and prestige as France as a nation.

But all of this is not enough to actually dissolve it as an entity, and end of the book shows how French authority recovered in the late 1360s, as well as going into the complicated situation around Pedro of Castile and Henry of Trastamara, which both sides get involved in. Sumption takes his time with all these complications, which is why this is such a massive series, and of course, why it such an informative one. This is definitely an essential work on the period.

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