Gold Brick III

by on November 30, 2020 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Comics

The Gold Digger color series starts out big. Three multi-issue stories flow directly into each other before there’s any sort of break. In the middle of this, Brianna, Julia, and company finally return from Jade after being missing for several issues… and no one’s talking about what happened.

The third part of the lead stories features one of my favorite names from Perry, Uhm Di Turrok, The Halls of the Extremely Dead. This is a bigger, badder, trap-filled complex (and poor Stripe gets pretty beat up!)… that Gina eventually gets through, and the guardian of the place tells her to come back in one year, when she’ll be ready to learn the secrets of what all this is protecting. (Now, how can he know ahead of time just when everything will be right…?)

My understanding is that Perry started working out a really big story about the time he did Beta. And this volume has a lot of groundwork for that story. And even then, it draws on earlier bits. Gina is getting hints of the mystery of the nomad artificers, who date from the beginnings of the universe, and first came up in the limited series.

After that winds down, we finally find out what happened on Jade: Julia’s nemesis, G’nolga held Brittany hostage to force her to throw a match and lose honor. Much of the rest of this volume deals with the Arms-Master tournament, as she tries to reclaim her title. It’s the biggest story yet, all on Jade, as there are plans afoot to effectively take over Jade by use of little-noticed privileges that come with the title “Arms-Master of Jade”. The final few issues break up into a couple of smaller stories, and the first half of a two-parter.

Physically, this volume is a bit smaller than the previous ones. The page count of the color series (understandably) went down to 24 pages, so this volume is a mere ~450 instead of 600, and is shrunk a little from standard comics size (~9.5″ instead of  ~10.5″ tall), which does occasionally make some of the lettering a bit small. Though the paper quality is much improved the binding is iffier; my copy of this tends to creak and pop alarmingly, and a couple of pages are partially lose.

Overall, this is very solid volume (well, solid story) of Gold Digger, with over half dedicated to one really well-done story. There’s been a couple of printings, I don’t know how they differ, if there’s any real differences between them. So while it’s out of print, it doesn’t seem that hard to get.

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Operation Dauntless T9-T11

by on November 26, 2020 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Boardgaming

It took a while, but Mark and I finished going the Operation Dauntless tutorial scenarios a little bit ago. All of the last three were certainly interesting exercises, and the last one in particular has had some knock-on effects (which I’ll mention later).

T9 is focused on the transport pool, which is a part of the rules I felt I already had a good grasp on, and we did one play through in one session. The British have three groups loaded MG sections (which must stay that way), while the Germans get a few Sd Kfz 250/9 units. Both sides get VPs for causing casualties and for transport losses, and the Brits get VPs for successfully exiting units.

Mark set up a little too clustered, and one group immediately exited without him being able to take more than a couple shots, which missed, while the other two moved up to near 1204 (Bellemare). However, he sent a pair of units to assault one of my groups, and caused a transport loss in the AT stage, and I then withdrew out. His other two units assaulted the same group but didn’t get any hits before I withdrew out. The combat phase didn’t get him any luck either.

The British get a couple of recon platoons and a armored car troop on turn 2, which advanced all the way from the southern area to 0802 (Le Haut d’Audreiu). The group Mark had picked on was in a relatively poor position, but managed to get out with no losses and then get off the map. The last group had no problems exiting since the Germans couldn’t see them from where they’d ended up.

Mark tried assaulting my remaining group (where were much more capable than the MG sections), and I knocked out three out of four steps, one on the way in (20 AT roll…) and two during the assault, after which I withdrew out having lost a AC step. The second pair came in, and Mark finished off the AC unit in an assault, and I withdrew out again. I circled around to exit off of 1001 on my turn, taking a tranport loss on the way.

Overall VPs were 17:4. It’s a little hard to say how to do really well as the Germans here. There’s too many hexes to cover for exiting to really stop the British, and assaulting MG sections is essential (they can’t cause losses to the Germans), but the British can generally make sure the Tactical Advantage draws aren’t too good. Admittedly, actually failing a transport loss check would have hurt.

T10 is more of a proper dress rehearsal for dealing with towed units. The Germans begin in control of the goal, 0807 with two Pz IV, and one AC unit. They get a bunch more on turn 2, but that’s the initial defenders. The British start with three recon platoons, two 6-pounder batteries and an AC section, and get a full battalion on turn 3. The general idea is that the British should capture 0807 at the start, and then fend off German counterattacks for the rest of the six-turn scenario.

I started by bringing the three recon platoons in and assaulting the lone AC in 0806. I managed one AT shot in the assault to reduce the unit, and then set up 6-pdrs in 0705 and 1006, with my AC unit swinging wide around the NW corner of the board to end in 0606. In the combat phase, I managed to knock out a Pz IV unit (with help from a high roll and fire from the AC while the Panzers were faced towards 1006. However, Mark had good return fire to kill the AT in 1006. 0705 thankfully survived, but the lighter terrain it was in was a worry.

For my second turn, the scout platoons circled around to 0907, taking Friction Fire from the AC. This was ineffective, but set off an ARC with my AC missing, Mark’s AC reacting into 0807, my 6-pdrs missing, and Mark missing a return fire at them with the Pz IVs. I passed at that point and assaulted 0807, getting Tactical Advantage thanks to having the only infantry there for a DDA killed the Pz IV unit with good chit draws (and thereby skipping the “A” as the ACs had no AT capability). On the other hand, he didn’t have to take any results from the assault itself (and I took none; 0/3). The AC unit was finally taken out in my Combat Phase as the AT unit finally connected. (In an interesting wrinkle of the victory rules, that gave me control of victory hex 0807 as I had an uncontested ZOC on it).

On German turn 2, they get four Panzer IV platoons, already lined up in north edge of Fontenay, and six infantry platoons, an MG section, a mortar battery, and a AC platoon, all of which start at the southern edge of the board. With all the infantry having organic halftrack transports, Mark was able to drive them up to just east of my positions, out of site, and then do a one-hex move into close terrain, while the AC moved to 1309. Two Pz IVs stayed in 0710, while one unit moved west around to 0407, and the last moved east up to 1205.

The rest of my forces became available on my turn, and Operation Dauntless doesn’t disappoint on showing why tanks need infantry support. A two-company assault on 1205 got me an AA chit, and both shots got good modifiers (+7 and +14) to destroy the Pz IV unit in 1205. The other pair assaulted 1206 and forced a three-hex retreat to 1008. On the other hand, I tried moving my new 6-pdr unit down to 1606 to chase the Germans away from that part of the board, and Mark’s ACs shot up the transports, and I failed the survival check.

I tried suppressing 1107 for an assault, but failed, while the one platoon in 0907 moved out of the hex, and the last started digging in. In the combat phase, I went after 1107 with with the contents of 1106 and 1206 and plenty of support, while Mark with his available units, with only his AC managing a suppression, but it was still a 7:1 combat, which forced a three hex retreat to 1110.


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The English Civil War: A People’s History

by on November 22, 2020 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

Purkiss’ history of the ECW was something of a slog for me to get through. The general idea as given is admirable: to look at the English Civil War as something that involved people, and see how various people were impacted by it.

In general, the technique for this is good. She’s gone through a lot of primary sources, and found ones with fairly consistent records for an extended period of time, and used them to generate narratives at the personal level, with lots of extensive quotes. There’s a lot of contextualization around this, and it pays off.

However, outside of that, the results aren’t nearly as good. I suspected that Middlekauff’s The Glorious Cause rested too much on ‘everybody knows’ facts about the American Revolution, and I’m sure that Purkiss has done this here. She’s English and writing for an English audience, so I can’t say how on-target she is on her assumptions, but I found her brushing by statements as if they were self-evident, and they were not for me. The trained bands of the early fighting are mentioned but not described. I know generally what they are because I’ve read Haythornwaite’s book on the ECW, which goes into them. Here, they’re a blank spot.

And that’s a symptom of the larger issues of the book. It’s roughly chronological in format, but has extended breaks to talk about particular social issues at length, which breaks up the chronology enough to make it difficult to keep track off. Some of the major battles get very good treatment, using descriptions from participants to at least show how the action felt for some of the non-commanders (actually quite valuable). Certain areas get similarly good treatment, as one of her sources has a bunch of letters showing what was happening around a manor in hostile country. But there’s not a lot of consistency or solid presentation here.

At best, this is a good second or third book to read about the ECW. Find a good regular general history first, then turn to this to start filling in some of what was going on away from the most dramatic parts.

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217 Gloster Hill

by on November 18, 2020 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

I finally got the ASL Korean War module a couple months ago, and Patch has had an interest since it was announced (he preordered it), so it was inevitable that we’d try that for our next game. Patch looked through the scenarios, and picked “Gloster Hill”, and I took the defending Brits.

It’s during the initial Chinese offensive, and the Gloucestershire Regiment is getting overrun and surrounded. The Chinese attack the board 82 hill with 16 squads, two crews, a good number of leaders, a few MGs, a captured British MTR, a couple DCs, and some Dummies as they come on board. They also get another squad and three HS with one leader, one LMG and more Dummies entering on either turn 1 or 2. The main force come in on three sides of the playing area, while the second one comes on on the fourth side where the British will want to escape. The British have six squads and four HS, and two squad-equivalents are Walking Wounded (the second time I’ve seen that concept borrowed from Pegasus Bridge for unrelated scenarios), an MMG, a MTR, minimal Dummies, three hexes of Wire, and a good number of foxholes. The Chinese have six turns to have more squad-equivalents at level 5(!) than the British, and the British can auto-win by exiting 6 EVP on turn 4 or later.

Between using part of the large, rough hill provided in the Korea set, and the steep hills rules, this would provide a climbing challenge for Patch, akin to what I’ve had with board 25 twice now. On the other hand, the short distance to go helps a bunch. Both of us had to mediate over LOS for a while at the start, since there’s a lot more up and down than normal to wrap our heads around. Double-crest lines abound here. The Communist Chinese also have fairly extensive special rules, starting with using step-reduction like the Japanese, and having to use Infantry platoon movement and restrictions on firing. However, there’s so many exceptions that this didn’t hinder them nearly as much as I had figured on. Lastly, they use two-tone counters with the ‘main’ color being… British tan, which adds plenty of extra aggravation to this scenario. (Especially since even their concealment counters are two-tone, which brings up the question of why they’re two-tone at all?)

The British get a ‘drum major’ (effectively a 0-0-9 hero who becomes a 8-0 if he ever moves, but causes Fanaticism within four hexes) by SSR in E4, and naturally I set up around that to an extent, with three surrounding hexes occupied, one by a squad and 9-2. A squad and a half backstopped the center board edge, and my MTR went in B1, where it had a good LOS down the eastern board edge. A couple of Dummies went out on the NW ridgeline (not my smartest move), with the MMG and 8-1 in I5, with a couple hexes of wire to slow down advances on the position. The north edge got a squad, two HS and the 8-0. Patch set up in four rough groups, the largest on the east side, and the smallest on the west, and two lose groups coming from the north. Technically, they can enter on any turn (“Turn 1 or later”) but Patch entered them all at once, while the southern force (which must enter on turn 1 or 2) waited for turn 2.

I was expecting some movement trouble from having glanced at the North Korean rules, but there’s a number of exceptions, including for entering the board. Not that Patch necessarily poured on any speed, being generally happy to AM and keep concealment in Steep Hills. Things were smooth until we had to think again about how many blind hexes some of these crest line were producing, and Patch starting having to wonder about how he was going to lug some of the heavier equipment up Steep Hills with crags. I had a couple shots, but nothing effective, though my MTR did surprise Patch.


Situation, Chinese Turn 1, showing full setup. Note the transparent Chinese sniper in G4 is a lot harder to see than the older dithered style British sniper in D6. N1 was an unnoticed crags hex and therefore illegal; it was shifted to M2 when we noticed.
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Evermeet: Island of Elves

by on November 14, 2020 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

In the original Forgotten Realms boxed set, Evermeet is a somewhat mysterious place off the map, where the elves have slowly been retreating to as their continental holdings fall. It’s impossible not to compare with Tolkien at that point, with the elves going over the sea to the West.

However, it’s not really meant to be that mystical of a place. Magical yes, but still a part of the Realms. And this novel explores its history in a format similar to Spock’s World. Major incidents in its history are presented, culminating in a major invasion of the island in the present time, which serves as the main framing story. It starts with the earliest history of the elvish pantheon, and then the arrival of elves in Abir-Toril, and a couple other things before even getting to the creation of Evermeet.

So, this is really broad sweep of history, with chapters being separated by centuries if not longer. The impressive bit is that each section feeds into and informs the ‘present’ framing story. That starts fairly simple, and then layers in complications as the novel goes along, and gains a lot of interest because of it, though it starts reaching past what is easy to keep track of on a ‘casual reading’ level.

I do feel the ending went for a cop-out. A bit more willingness for a permanent change was called for, though at the same time, things do change, and it opens the door to some interesting possibilities. As a last note, I do wish more time had been spent getting to know Evermeet as a unified place. There a few pieces you get familiar with, but never a feel for just how big it is, or overall geography. At least in the Kindle version, there’s no map.

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