Two Rounds of Cynoscephalae

by on December 7, 2021 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: CC:Ancients

After Patch and I finished up in Budapest, it was time for another between-games bout of Commands & Colors: Ancients. Up this time was the Battle of Cynoscephalae from Expansion #1. Somewhat unexpectedly, the Romans have a unit of elephants, and a mix of Medium and Heavies, largely back near their baseline, while the Macedonians have a string of light units in a line of hills, with a number of Heavies further back. Both sides get five cards, and we used an optional scenario rule where unsupported Macedonian Heavies only get three dice in battle back, to represent the ability of manipular legions to get around the flanks of a phalanx.

Patch had the Romans first, and Ordered Three Center to get that in motion, while I Ordered Heavies to start getting them into play. Patch then used Line Command, which moved almost everyone, and started getting him into the hills. This put him into range for a few shots, and he managed to pick a block off a LS. I used Double Time to get some Heavies into his line, however hills limited what could be done, and I did three blocks to an Aux, two to a Med, and took five blocks in return across three units.

Patch Ordered Mediums, and tried hitting a damaged Heavy, but only took a block and banner in return. He did a block to an intact heavy, but took two and a banner on his Med in turn. I used Move-Fire-Move to get better positions in the hills, and got lucky with two hits on an Aux, and three on a Light (two from a blocked retreat). Order Three Center let Patch take out an intact Heavy, but an Aux took three blocks and retreated in the process, and then momentum let him take out another Heavy. Order Three Right let me start bringing up my MC over there (I thought they’d get to Philip V, who had just lost his Heavy, but miscounted). Patch pulled out a unit and shifted another with Order Two Left, and I used Order Two Center to push the remaining Heavy forward, and join Philip V to it, knocking out a Med, and bringing another to one block which retreated to the baseline.

Inspired Center Leadership (…with only two units) knocked out my Heavy, and Philip V managed to survive retreating through a Light to one of my Lights, who lost three blocks on the next attack. Order Lights let me rearrange much of what was left, but did nothing to Patch. He then closed the gap with Mounted Charge, and did three blocks across two units, taking two blocks on a MC. I drove that unit off with Out Flanked, and then Patch moved in on my last remaining intact line with Inspired Right Leadership, forcing a Heavy to retreat. Line Command let me reorganize that flank, and knocked out a Med on the hills, taking a block on an Aux  in return, and trading three blocks on one of my Heavies for two on an Aux. Order Four Right let him wipe out the weak Heavy with his Elephants (who’d been a while moving up), and do three blocks to a Heavy, while I did one to a Med in return. I tried a Clash of Shields, doing one hit to the Elephants, but taking two in return, and doing two blocks to his Heavy, but losing mine in the process. Patch then finished off the Heavy with his Elephants to end the game. 2-6

I started the second game with Order Four Right, and Patch used Move-Fire-Move to take control of the hills, and do a hit on a Light. Order Two Left let me drive off an Aux, and get a MC on the hill and then do a block to a Light. Patch Ordered Lights, did a block to a Heavy and forced a Med to retreat. Order Two Left let me push a little further, doing a hit to an evading Light, and forcing a retreat and hit on another Light. Patch Ordered Three Center to do another ranged hit to my weakened Heavy, while starting one of his Heavies forward. I Double-Timed my center, getting close, but not really into contact, though I forced another Light to retreat.

Patch Ordered Lights again, which allowed him to start assembling a real line, and did a block to a Light, who then forced his Aux to retreat. Two Center put my Mediums into contact with his units on the center hill, one of which evaded, and the other took a banner. Order Heavies didn’t cause any action, but Patch was getting a nice force in position on my right. With no leaders on the right, I used Inspired Leadership Right as a ‘or one unit’ card to move up a MC, and Patch Ordered Two Right to drive off my other MC there, and do a block to an Aux. Double Time let me move a Heavy onto the center hill to help my Mediums, and getting two hits on one of his Heavies, while the others went right, driving a light to the baseline, and occupying a corner of that hill.

Patch Ordered Four Center, bringing three Heavies to bear on my Heavy, forcing it to retreat twice, and doing three banners in four battles (including momentum), while doing five blocks to two units. I went for Clash of Shields, which only activated two Mediums (on hills) doing one hit each to two units, forcing a Heavy to retreat, while my other Med retreated. Patch Ordered Three Center, forced a Med to retreat, but took a block and retreat on a Heavy that assaulted another Medium. I called out I Am Spartacus, to order three lights, and traded one block each on an Aux and Heavy.

Patch used Line Command to order about half his army, causing three units to retreat, and costing me two blocks, and I Counter Attacked with the bulk of my army, finishing off a weak Heavy at the cost of a block, and driving off a Aux with two losses. Order Lights didn’t do much than cost me two blocks, on units that were already a bit ragged. Mounted Charge let me go after a couple of 1-block Heavies, getting both of them (with Philip V evading to the baseline). However, I also lost a MC to battle back from a Aux I did one block to. Patch Ordered Three Center to get Philip to his MC, and did a block to one of my MC.

Rally gave me two blocks back on a Heavy, and one on an Aux, and managed to knock out a 1-block Aux of Patch’s, and then do a block plus two-hex retreat on a Heavy with momentum. Patch Ordered Three Left to get his remaining Heavies in action, and knocked out my Heavy there, however, I caused the first unit to retreat, and then a First Strike took out two blocks of the second Heavy before it could finish me off. I used Double Time to get my middle Mediums towards the action, and chased a Light to Patch’s base line. Order Mediums was restricted to Patch’s two MC, and we did two blocks to each other’s MCs. Counter Attack let me do a broad offensive, largely against units back on the base line. Two attempts by Mediums on a Light did nothing but retreat a Medium two hexes, but then I picked off a two-block Heavy, and momentum did nothing but cost me three blocks on a Medium, who retreated back onto the hill. My last attempt did nothing at all.

Move-Fire-Move put Patch in motion, and he picked off a one-block MC. I Ordered Two Right to do two blocks to a Light on the baseline, taking a hit on each unit. Coordinated Attack picked off one of my Aux, but an attack on my one-block Med did nothing, and I did two blocks on battle back. I Ordered Lights, and finally got that Light. 6-4

Afterword

The second fight dragged out a while, with the first banner not being scored until nearly an hour in. Also, if I hadn’t missed some relatively easy combats at the end, it would have been 6-2, like the first game.

Part of what lengthened the second game was all the retreats. I rolled a fair number of banners, and the opening setup isn’t very cohesive, so there just wasn’t much support available most of the time. Also, neither of us had great hands.

The hills in the center really dominate the thinking in this scenario, since anyone on them generally has an advantage, and it’s terrain where the lighter units can hold their own pretty well. That and the setup make it unusual, but it will tend to go long as

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The Planets of Tripoli

by on December 7, 2021 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: SFB

Last year, I had an itch to try out “The Admiral’s Game” campaign, especially as re-done by Jeremy Gray and Dale McKee, and reported on in “Day of the Eagle Comes Early” on ADB’s forum.

So, I wrote up a new set of campaign rules, reverse-engineering everything I could from that, and adding a fair number of new things besides. I pitched it to Mark, and talked him into the general concept. My original idea had been to pair off a couple empires contemporary to our main group games (i.e., Y161), and advance the group and the campaign in tandem, but… Mark eventually gravitated towards seeing the Carnivons in action, especially as he’d been going through the General War-era version of them in Module C6.

I don’t have that, but I (and Mark) do have Y1, where they were first introduced. In addition, I had recently read an update for The Admiral’s Game for the Early Years in Captain’s Log #39, where the Federation has to cycle through the various member navy’s ships in the W-era.

So, the campaign got set at the close of the W-era, with the Y-series ships about to come in, with a fight between the Carnivons and the Federation.

Now… “historically” they did not border each other, but there doesn’t seem to be any big technology mis-matches going on, and if they had, it’s not too hard to believe the Federation would quickly get fed up with the constant raids by various “packs” and feel a need to use their new navy to mount an expedition into their space to put an end to the raids on far-flung colonies and merchant vessels. So, I am playing the Federation, which is attacking the Carnivons.

This campaign is starting in Y77, and each strategic turn in it takes one year. One ship can be a prototype each turn, with cruisers available as prototypes one year before their service date, and smaller ships two years. The structure is explicitly allowing me to build a Federation YCA in the second turn, but we’ll both be fielding mostly W-series ships for a long time to come.

Both sides have six each FF, DD, CL, CA, plus 2xCC and 2xDN. On the first turn, the Carnivons do not have access to half of these (strategic surprise). We both get EPV for new ships, refits, and such, but we must build 2xFF and 2xDD each turn, and then get to do what we like with the leftover budget.

Carnivons:

This canine-like species historically existed between the Kzintis and Lyrans, and getting rid of them was one of the few things they’ve ever agreed on. They generally never developed any stable central authority, with lots of temporary ‘packs’ raiding their neighbors.

Their heavy weapons are Death Bolts (a type of drone with annoying problems reloading), and Heel Nippers, a nearly point-blank weapon that automatically destroys one warp box if it hits, and causes the ship to miss its next move, and turn in place. That last is bad enough, but on the early underpowered ships, the idea of guaranteed power hits through shields is scary. In the Y-era, they get Disruptor Cannons, which is a two-turn version of the familiar Disruptor Bolt.

At first, they had somewhat limited ship classes, but Y2 and Y3 built them out so they have CCs and DNs like everyone else. They hit the Y-era slightly later, but they start with the smaller ships, and should be able to eventually refit all the W-series ships up.

Star Fleet:

I’m attacking as the United Star Fleet of the Federation of Planets. As these are all ships converted to tactical warp from the various member planet’s navies, I will be learning to deal with six different design styles. Also, my new W-series ships must cycle through the six different navies, so I can’t just pick a favorite design in each class and go straight to that.

Earth, Alpha-Centauran, Orion, and Rigelian: These all use the good old photon torpedo (though there’s no overloads, and, worse, no proximity fuses, in this era). Phaser coverage and other details vary from fleet to fleet, but I have no feel for common design elements yet. [The Orion national guard ships never actually directly served in the Federation’s early wars, but they were part of Star Fleet, and I figure it’s the only way we’ll ever get around to seeing them in action.]

Andorian: These ships use drones as the heavy weapon. They’re fairly close to Kzinti drones, but not identical, but the only direct-fire weapons are phasers.

Vulcan: Their CA and DD have a pair of special sensors (the only things outside of a base with them in this era; this is important, as I have a bunch of base battles in my future). The others have the usual photon torpedo, and they all mount phaser-1s (everyone else is stuck with ph-2s on their ships in this era).

The nomenclature for the Star Fleet ships is inconsistent (largely in Y1), and I’ve cleaned them up for reporting here (so, they are all prefixed with “W”, and the Orion ships are WOx). Also, trying to back-port earlier NCC numbers is a mess, so I’ve figured that the initial Star Fleet ships got sequential “SF” numbers as they were converted and commissioned into the fleet. Once new ships are built in the Y-series, then they start using “Naval Construction Contract” numbers.

Y77

So, we’ve assembled the fleet lineups, done the initial builds, and finally assigned everything to the eight regions of the first defense line.

We’re trying a system where the Command Rating of a ship is multiplied by 35 times the current year/100, and it can command that many EPV of other ships (this means a CR 10 dreadnought can command 270 EPV this turn, and 273, next time…). This maxes fleets out somewhere around six-seven ships, and I (with all my ships available) couldn’t fill them out.

Half of the defender’s fleet is in reserve (not including his five new ships), which gets me a fairly free pass to get through this defense line, and why Mark is so thin on the ground right now. This will change. Any ships of mine that disengage this turn will be unavailable next time.

Region 1: Two ships on each side permanently damaged, and the YBS destroyed:
Planets of Tripoli Y77 Region 1

Region 2: Open space fight where a refused close-range pass led to armor being stripped from a C-WCL before disengaging.
UR1 Y77 Planets of Tripoli Region 2

Region 3: Instead of playing another lopsided base battle, we mirrored the approximate results of Regions 1 & 5, with the YBS destroyed and Beast of Beasts and USS Ferocity losing all armor.

Region 4: Mark’s force was completely outmatched, so it was surrendered without a fight.

Region 5: One ship on each side took serious damage, the YBS was destroyed, and USS Mare Serenitatis took two of eight armor damage.
Planets of Tripoli Y77 Region 5

Region 6: My force was not quite minimal in hopes of catching a pair of FFs. Instead, the Carnivons had a heavier force, and I disengaged to Reserve instead of risking my ships.

Region 7: My force was minimal so I could concentrate elsewhere, so I surrendered that region without a fight. And those two ships will be in Reserve next time.

Region 8: Short skirmish that did nothing beyond a few shield boxes:
UR1 Y77 Planets of Tripoli Region 8

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Mistborn

by on December 3, 2021 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

I haven’t kept any sort of real eye on new releases in decades, so I’ve only been peripherally aware of Brian Sanderson and Mistborn. And it’s popular enough that I couldn’t not be aware of it.

Generally, it lives up to its reputation. This isn’t deathless prose, but that’s certainly not a defining element of genre fiction. But the plot is solid, the characters get your sympathy early, and the world….

A lot of the raves are about the “magic system”, and make no mistake, it is quite unique. Personally, I was more interested in what we see going on it this partially-broken world. The motto for this series is stated by one of the main characters early on, “there’s always another secret.” There’s things that do get explained, and a lot that doesn’t. A thousand years ago, the typical epic fantasy quest to save the world with the help of prophesy happened. We find out the main part of what went wrong with that, but… there’s a lot left unsaid too. Sanderson does a nice job setting mood early on with constant ashfalls, and while the characters shrug off where it comes from and goes (they, after all, have no way of looking into it), I’m fairly certain that the causes were all part of the initial worldbuilding (and have suspicion of how it fits in to other things).

Now, this is a trilogy, but unusually, it’s actually a pretty good standalone book as well, with just the unanswered questions demanding more (including an obvious thread to pick up in the second book). A main plot is set into motion, with two viewpoint characters, and finishes with the book; since I can take a while to get to further books, this was nice to see. Best of all, it avoids the normal epic fantasy disease of needing half of the first first book just to set things up so the plot can get going. So far, this is not a favorite of mine in the genre, but it is quite good.

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SL298 A Measure of Fear

by on November 29, 2021 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: SFB

Captain’s Log #43 had a very interesting idea for the main story and associated SFB scenario. The premise is that the Romulans tested Federation neutral zone defenses in two groups. One was a single War Bird which got chased down by the Enterprise as it picked off listening outposts (the episode “Balance of Terror”), while a larger group waited in ambush at the other end of the line. The USS Alfred the Great walked into the trap, and was lost with all hands, after destroying a War Bird with a photon volley.

The story/scenario is about the latter part, with six Romulan ships using hidden cloaking, and able to set up hidden mines. Since there’s no experience with cloaking devices at this point, there’s no tracking of ships at all (normally, with hidden movement, you regularly indicate the general direction of the ship(s)). Once one ship starts decloaking, it is placed on the board, and the others are also placed… somewhere within five hexes of its true position. The Alfred needs to go to a large asteroid (that used to have an outpost on it), and send down a landing party, and get it back a turn later (not 32 impulses, nor even 8, for that matter, just on a different turn), and get off the map, within 5 turns. The Romulans win a marginal victory for destroying the Alfred, with their level of ‘victory’ lowered by one for each ship they lose (two if it’s one of the larger ships, like a War Bird; historically the Romulans had a minor defeat).

This takes place back in Y154 (our group is playing Y161 currently), so Mark and I went back to give it a play. I took the Romulans, and set up my ambush. The King Bird (my command ship) was near the asteroid, with the WB a little further back, and the Hawk on the opposite side. The three Snipes, were further out near various possible approaches. One mine was next to the asteroid with two more five hexes further out (the minimum allowed) on the most likely approaches.

…And we had some confusion about that. Our instincts (and my setup) assumed entry from the top edge of the map, but it seems (and we went with for play) it enters on the left of the map, at maximum distance from the asteroid. This definitely puts time pressure on the Alfred to get there and exit in five turns, after hanging around the asteroid for a turn. Which, it needs to be mentioned, is an unusual ship. It is an “Old” Heavy Cruiser, which is the Federation light cruiser design grown up to heavy cruiser size. It has armor, but the shields are weaker, phaser coverage is better, and there’s slightly more power, but there’s not as much hull to take damage on (actually, it might about the same, but more of it is rear hull, which doesn’t come up quite as often as forward hull). Overall, its very close in capabilities to the regular CA (maybe too close), but it does fight a bit differently.

Mark entered at the lower corner of the map (…and I’d been expecting the upper edge…), at speed 25. (The Romulans are all sublight, and are either tactical impulse or speed 1, and they all went speed 1.) He largely sideslipped over, maneuvering to pass by the asteroid from below. In so doing, he passed a couple hexes behind one of the snipes near the end of the turn, who turned to face where the OCA was going (along with everyone else maneuvering similarly).

On impulse 17, the OCA turned to make its direct run at the planet, and two impulses later, the WB started decloaking, 7 hexes away from it.


At the moment of decloaking. The ‘outline’ ships are the sensor ghosts Mark got to see, while the others are the actual locations.

Mark dropped the forward shield as he came into range and beamed a boarding party down to the asteroid. Mark slipped away from the WB, which also had the effect of passing him directly through the KB’s location. The WB launched its plasma on 23 and immediately started recloaking. On 26, the KB and HK started uncloaking, the KB one hex behind the OCA, and the HK seven hexes in front.

On impulse 31, the KB and HK finished decloaking, and the HK launched both of its torpedoes. The OCA had gotten outside the KB’s firing arc, but it turned on impulse 32… and then held fire until the next turn so it could power the plasma-R torpedo in EA rather than out of batteries. The OCA dropped speed slightly to 23, and fired 2xphotons and the four bearing phasers at the HK on impulse 1, missing with a photon, and getting poor phaser rolls (two 6s) to do 14 points to the Hawk’s #6.


Point of impact

Mark slipped into the plasma-Gs from the HK, which also caused the R from the WB to impact at the same time. But they hit on different shields, and if he had dodged them, they would have all hit on #5 an impulse later. As it was, the #6 and #4 collapsed, going through the armor, for 29 internals. Nine impulses later, the plasma-R from the KB hit, knocking down #5 and doing another 17 internals. During the early part of the turn, he also dropped a shield and recovered the boarding party, getting the shield back up before the final plasma hit. Since the sublight Romulans have very limited range on their lasers, lowering shields around them isn’t a big deal as long as you’re not on top of them.

Afterword

And… that was pretty much that. Even after all the damage, the OCA could do speed 19 on turn 4. As he was still in 2502 (and needed to get to, effectively, 00xx), he wouldn’t get off the board, but he’d be in easy range of it for turn 5.

The OCA had lost all hull, half the lab, all phasers, two photons, all impulse, and ten warp, but still had two APR and 20 warp to work with. It couldn’t fight, but it was comfortably above the 10 warp minimum the scenario gives for disengaging off the map.

I still had the Snipes, but their plasmas didn’t reach out to where the OCA was. The WB was in plasma-R range, but was going into second turn of arming, so all it had was a fast-load F, which is worse the the G’s on the Snipes.

There’s no levels on a Federation victory, which this is. It looked scary while the plasmas were moving, but the OCA had the bulk, and I needed a to get the plasmas on two shields instead of three (which took fancy maneuvering). That said, there’s not a lot better I think I could do in the setup, but more extensive mining near the asteroid is must.

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Nelson the Commander

by on November 25, 2021 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

Bennett’s main goal is to examine Nelson as a naval commander, and see if and why he deserves his plaudits as the greatest naval commander of all time. Despite the focus, it turns into a full-fledged biography of Nelson, albeit with an unusual focus.

This is a 1972 book, and Bennett served in the Royal Navy during WWII, which adds certain biases, and some interesting background on how Nelson was viewed in the navy at the time. Most of his research seems to go back to primary sources, but he also quotes other biographers, most notably A.T. Mahan’s The Life of Nelson. I’m also happy to say that my Kindle edition from Endeavour Press was in very good shape, and I didn’t spot any errors that would trace back to unedited OCR text.

Overall, I think it safe to say that Nelson is one of Bennett’s heroes, but that does not make him safe from censure. He is quite critical of a few actions (most notably Tenerife), and while he admits he glossing over elements of his affair with Mrs. Hamilton, he doesn’t shy away from saying he needs to talk about in a military history book because of the effect it had on Nelson’s judgement.

In the main, Bennett defines a standard to hold commanders up to at the beginning, and regularly goes back to this to define how Nelson’s actions live up to (or occasionally don’t) these standards, and how this makes him a great commander. Despite this overarching thesis, I do find this is more a biography than an analysis, but a good one, with a very well-done digression on how combat worked on board age-of-sail ships, making a handy starting reference on that in general as well.

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