Star Viking

by on November 21, 2021 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

A while back, while talking about smaller games, I introduced Mark to the old Dwarfstar microgame line, which is largely available for free print-and-play, which also makes them good for Vassal play. We ended up trying the one game I have an actual physical copy of: Star Viking. It’s basically the high idea from H. Beam Piper’s novel Space Viking, but with a functioning central government defending things from the ‘vikings’ (so maybe set most of a century before that novel). It features a neat idea of mini system displays which are hidden away from a player who has nothing there.

My one attempt at this game before ended with a frustrated Viking player, and despite warnings about that, Mark volunteered to try them. Overall, the Vassal module for the game is pretty good, but for some reason, it doesn’t have a proper Viking strategic display for him to commit his moves to, so we had to fake that. At any rate, I worked out the starting Federate deployment, Mark purchased his starting units, and I told him which systems were in play. (Another problem is that damage is marked directly on the unit markers… but ‘repair’ requires looping through the entire sequence.)

Mark went with two Viking sloops (SL) instead of one BC, and sent them to a pair of low-priority systems, Raneb (Tech C, Wealth 8) and Nebka (Tech D, Wealth 6). At the latter he found a Federate Escort (FE) and immediately withdrew. Raneb just had local defenses, with three Militia units showing, but with plenty tougher under them (including an air unit; ground units have trouble fighting ships and fighters). Mark decided to be cautious and landed in the one area with a wealth rating (E) that I hadn’t garrisoned, and plundered it (for 1MCr). I stayed huddled in the other wealth-generating areas, and the turn ended with us inactive.

The administration phase at the end is where you build new units. The Viking problem is ships are expensive, and their base income is really just for repairs and maybe a new ground unit to carry on board. Federate base income is about seven times as great, with as much again staying with individual systems for new local defense units. However, victory is with Victory Points, which you buy, and they’re more expensive for the Federate player. Also, there’s random events for Federation politics every turn, and the first turn I rolled “Bloated Bureaucracy”, which makes everything (including VPs!) 1MCr more expensive.

Most of the local defense units start in play (you randomly draw 10 that do not start the game), and I built a new Army Group (AG) on Raneb, and a couple more elsewhere, as well as building a new Frigate (which requires a die roll first). Mark bought a new ground unit, and 4 VPs.

For the second turn, the SL at Raneb left (in case a Federate force showed up, which it didn’t), and he showed up at Horus (Tech C, Wealth 8) and Sanakht (Tech B, Wealth 16). At the former he found a FF (loaded with combat pods) waiting and pulled out. Sanakht had a FE and two armed merchantmen (AM; local defense) at it, but he went into the orbit that they weren’t guarding. I moved in after him, and after a round where we all missed, he withdrew from the system again. This time there was no random event, and I passed a die roll to build a BC, and put the rest into 3 VPs. Mark put all his income (10) into VPs.

On the third turn, both SLs arrived at Tiergran (Tech B, Wealth 14). There were no Federate units present, but the local defenses included three patrol boats (PB), a fortress (FD), a pair of powered armor units (PT), grav armor (GA), and security forces (SF). Mark went into the inner orbit and engaged the PB stationed there for another round of misses. I pulled out and landed fighters (FT) from the second PB at the capital (the third stayed on watch in the outer orbit). The SLs went down to the main planet, and engaged the PT there, with both sides doing one hit to the other.

This was important, as taking a hit destroys one unit carried aboard as cargo. A better idea would probably have been to set down in an empty space and unload, though that would allow me to send everything on-planet after him (at the cost of uncovering spaces for plundering). Anyway, he lost a raider detachment (RD, and about equivalent to a SF) without it firing a shot. I moved in one of the PBs (and the one in the outer orbit moved to the inner orbit), and the FT, doing a hit to both SLs, destroying a PT that was still onboard the second one. Mark left the planet, and eliminated the PB that had moved to deep space, while it got a critical hit to eliminate a SL. I gave chase, and he eliminated the FT while taking another hit on the remaining SL, and then jumped out of the system.

I repaired the damage the PT, and loaded the BC up with some new-built fighters, and bought 12 VPs. The Vikings bought another 10, while the SL went home for repairs on the next turn. The SL returned to Raneb on turn 5, found a FF waiting and left again. On 6, it showed up at Zoser (Tech A), found lots of ships there, and withdrew. On 7, it went home and picked up new units, arriving at Demar (Tech B) on turn 8. Despite PBs and a FF, he hung around, unloading a PB in combat. He got a hit on the FF, then the PBs arrived, and he destroyed one of them, and pressed on to the Inner Asteroids. I followed, and another critical hit destroyed the SL. The FT was then chased down and destroyed, after doing more damage to the FF.

Afterword

It’s a 12-turn game, and we did crank through the turns to see where VPs ended. Final score was 124 to 99 Federate favor. I has more inflation/graft on the last turn to drive up prices again, but I was already ahead of the Vikings.

There’s a lot of neat things here. The combat is a little fiddly (it uses a fairly large differential chart), but there’s some interesting ideas there. The system displays are the centerpoint of how the game works, and I’m always irritated that there’s no terrain on the planets (well, some spaces do cause modifiers, which is interesting), so I always have the idea to do something a bit more elaborate.

Getting going as the Viking player is definitely a pain point in the game. I hope to get a chance to try them out at some point and see if I can pry things open. I think I have some understanding on what needs doing, but I will say that it does feel like too many Federate (not local defense) units are allowed at the start. Reducing the initial Federate presence may be needed for balance so there’s more of a chance of not always running into good space assets for the first few turns.

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The Norman Conquest

by on November 17, 2021 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

Too often, brief looks at the Conquest start at Stamford Bridge and end at Hastings. Well, this isn’t a brief look. Morris starts with nearly a century’s worth of Anglo-Saxon politics, including the fact that much of Anglo-Saxon “England” had been under Danish rule for a while. That entire period is easily worth a longer treatment on its own, but Morris gives all the essentials in a nice readable format that leads into the twenty years or so before the central date of 1066.

This section is very informative, and demonstrates how much the British Isles had become attached to Scandinavia instead of Western Europe. But more importantly, we get a very fleshed out cast of characters around Edward the Confessor. The English court was something of an unstable place, thanks to the various transfers of power from one external faction to another, and the power of various magnates (notably the Godwinesons). Very interesting is Morris’ look at the story of Edward naming William of Normandy as his heir. It’s not nearly as unlikely nor coerced as it seems at first glance. Also, he takes a look at how English kingship operated, and especially how and when a new king was acknowledged.

After Edward’s death, and the very confused year that follows, the book takes an extensive look at the approximately twenty years after 1066 as well. In many ways this isn’t as detailed or as coherent as the the first parts of the book, but the actors on the stage are a bit more fractured. This part is a story of repeated rebellions, and repeated voyages by William across the Channel in both directions. It’s also the story of how much of the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy got replaced by a largely Norman one. Not all in one big transfer right after William is crowned King of England, but in a series of large grants and appropriations, and on a smaller scale by various Norman lords grabbing whatever they can get away with.

The book largely ends with the Domesday Book, or more properly the Survey which ended up by producing the two books (Great and Little). Morris has some interesting things to say here as well, and wraps things up with a bit on the eventual Anglicizing of the Norman conquerors. From start to finish, he does a great job presenting the history, all the various problems with the sources, and talks extensively about the major sources for any section. This is on the ‘popular history’ side of things, and is extremely readable, but it also has high-level discussion of just how we know what we know.

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Jena Chase

by on November 13, 2021 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

Back on the 30th, Mark came over for some face-to-face gaming. The headline item was Atlantic Chase, which Mark had gotten just a little bit ago and wanted to try out. Considering the physical presentation of the game, I wanted to try it in person with the actual components, instead of on Vassal.

Mark had generally gone through the rules, but hadn’t really done anything more, and I was still working through them, so we really just spent the morning working through the first three tutorials, and working out the components and some slightly better storage (splitting up all the task force markers into smaller baggies).

It’s a really inventive game, that tries to abstract out the process of discovering what the enemy is doing, and then trying to do something about it. The primary conceit is that a task force is often represented as a line of markers showing its course through the Atlantic Ocean. This is part declaration of intent, part general intelligence on the part of the other side, and part quantum waveform. Time itself is partly abstracted away as the task force is simultaneously in all the positions of its current route.


Opening setup for the first tutorial. That’s the courses for two task forces (in this case, one ship each).

However, passing near enemy watchers (air bases, other ships, etc) provides intel on your movements, and those parts are where your ships are vulnerable. One of the activities of the game (tied into your main actions, but not one of the main actions itself), is ‘time lapse’, where you get to fairly freely remove blocks from your course, representing the ships actually moving, and no longer being present, even potentially, in those areas. Sections that have intel attached are harder to remove, and acting to do so slows the process and gives the enemy more chances to do something. And if the enemy crosses paths with you, he can change from a path to being ‘on station’ (using a cylinder instead of one of the long blocks on the map), fixing his location in that place, and then force your task force to do the same thing.

The third tutorial is a very good introduction to all of that, with few German freighters trying to slip down the coast of Norway to home past a couple of British cruisers at the very beginning of the war (the cruisers operate by simple robot rules, leaving you to figure out how to get past them). The obvious route down the coast is something of a fool’s mate, and the tutorial book devotes a page to it. Most likely, just trying to slip past will end with the freighters having a an intel marker attached where the cruisers are, and the cruisers will perform a ‘signals’ action to locate them and force them to stop and surrender. The tutorial book then spends three pages on a cat-and-mouse effort going around England and through the Channel (picking up intel markers, but since the cruisers aren’t right there, it’s not as dangerous).

This is another GMT production with an amazing amount of paper in it, with four fairly meaty, and very extensively illustrated, books: the main rules, tutorials, solo scenarios, and two-player scenarios. The latter are split into minigames (just a battle between forces already in contact), and operational scenarios. I’m figuring one of next steps is to do a minigame to see combat in action, before diving into the full thing.
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Scions’ Flight

by on November 9, 2021 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

The second half of Lisinthir’s Heirs is just that, the second half of the story begun in Dragon’s Fealty.

It does have an interesting way to to begin, with two characters waking up and recovering from the trauma at the end of the previous book. As they need a bit of time and calm to get going again, so does this novel.

Interestingly, while it’s all one story, and basically the same cast of characters, there is some real shuffling on who is prominent in this one. A set of Eldritch who were returning from the Chatcaavan Empire were briefly introduced in the first book, but we get a few well-developed scenes with them here, where their personalities and friendship really come out.

I will say my biggest problem is with the ending, where a couple things drop out of the ether as a deus ex machina. However, there is a bit mentioned just before that which shows we’re dealing with yet another character who has prior existence, but hasn’t been mentioned before. And who he is and what he’s doing answer’s question that should growing in the reader for the entire duology. However, motivations here are entirely opaque, but that’s probably intentional.

Having just seen the entire list of characters for the books, I can’t blame myself for having trouble keeping them all straight; this is way too short a space to be introduced to that many characters without prior reading, which again is no surprise; go read some of the other books in this universe first. Despite the trouble, it’s still well put together, and a satisfying story, even if we are left with a major dun dun dun! and “to be continued” tag right at the end.

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Fighter Rush

by on November 5, 2021 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

After my knife fight with Demon finished, we immediately went to a second SE:4X game on the small two-player map (which is, amazingly, still bigger than the previous game. This time we used all the base set regular and advanced rules, and threw in ship experience from Close Encounters.

The beginning went as usual, though I was slightly behind on initial colonies, as the placement wasn’t as good (nothing but minerals adjacent to my homeworld). To my surprise, Demon explored into deep space at the end of the second cycle of movement, with ten hexes of his own space left to explore. He found a 10 mineral and a barren planet, where the aliens promptly shot up his SC. Meanwhile I was down to seven unexplored hexes, but colonies were still slightly behind, as I was having trouble finding the planets.

His second SC died to a Danger! at the beginning of the third round of turns, while one of mine survived an encounter with the home-area black hole. Demon struggled to finish exploring his home area, while I finished up, and explored two hexes of deep space in the third round, losing a SC to another black hole, and finding a nebula, which gave us a clear route to each other. I was still a colony behind, but I had some pipelines in, whereas Demon had yet to build any. Demon built two forward shipyards and a pair of new SC, while I upgraded my homeworld SY and built one forward one, rounded out my colony ships, and replaced a SC.

I lost a SC to another deep-space black hole, and then another to Danger! Demon sent a pair of groups through the “pass” to my space, but thankfully I’d have another build before they could arrive. (Even if he’d bought move 2, the deep-space nebula would slow them up.) As he slowly explored his own space, a SC and colony ship stumbled into his black hole, but both lived. I got DD technology, so I could put a base up at the colony he was approaching, bought a DD and a SC, along with more pipelines. Demon improved his shipyards and deployed a new SC.


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