Blogging through the slog

"Incoming!"
The slog? Yep. Not just the mood swing - which had already slowed down the lickety-spit with which RD/KA! began 2009; but also a flash of déjà vu when three out of four of the easter extravaganza reports (count them: #1, #3, #4) were marathon sessions at the GIMP, working on yet more "ever thinner Combat Commander battle reports... become uninspiring drudgery to this blogger", to remind readers what I wrote last September. This time, the drudgery was at least productive (all hail the GIMP!); not just nineteen new maps, but a new avenue in fleshing out battle reports with real history and geography.

Even so, that game of Rogue Trooper came along in the nick of time. All the more so since there's shedloads more Combat Commander on the way.

A parcel of rogues...

Rogue Trooper
Donald, Gav, Tony and I made 4 for boardgames on Sunday. Casting around for the main event as you do I spied, tucked away almost out of reach on a high shelf, my as yet unplayed second hand copy of GW's Rogue Trooper boardgame from 1987.

I confess I was never a big fan of the Rogue Trooper story, which made its debut in the galaxy's greatest comic - 2000 AD, in 1981. To paraphrase a friend at the time, there are only so many ways to ring the changes with "Eat chemcloud Norter scum!" The story was very popular though, so it was hardly surprising that a Rogue Trooper game was added to the series of licenced 2000 AD products which came out of the young design studio's halycon days.

For the record

Ivanhoe
No sooner had I returned from sunny Anstruther in Fife than I got a call from Antony (a.k.a. the mighty Grundi), who was at a loose end. His visit concluded with an outing to the tournament field in Ivanhoe, which I suspect is Antony's favourite game.

Long story short: Antony had skillfully fought his way to 3-2 up. It was late and time was getting on, but I psyched him into another game, which I won, thus forcing the inevitable tiebreaker (Antony no more wanted to surrender the night's knightly honours than did I). I won that too.

Score
Headstrong youth 3
Wily old dog 4
:)

History of the World
Tony's absence gave us 5 the following Sunday. There was a great appetite for giving History of the World another try after Easter Sunday's first play. Andy was content to go along with this.

Notes were taken of the scores at the end of each epoch, but again the intervening week has cleared the interesting little details from my mind. What I can report is that the Romans did make their appearance this time- in Dave's hands, and they were truly mighty, especially with the addition of weaponry; that I held the lead until epoch 5, when it was stolen from me by Dave; and that my best efforts with the British empire in epoch 7 (and they were a lot better than last time too) weren't enough to prevent Dave sneaking past me in the last turn of the game to win by a mere 6VP (216 to my 210).

Score
A man who needs no introduction
(Because he's not getting invited back) 1
The civilised world 0
:-\
;)

Easter extravaganza #4: Rumble in the jungle

Our trip to the chateau of doom done, we proceeded to what, for Martin, was the main event: a trip to the PTO and Martin's first taste of Combat Commander: Pacific. A noted player of the Japanese in Up Front, Martin was looking forward to seeing how they shaped up in Combat Commander, a game to which he rapidly took, pronouncing it the most exciting WW2 tacsim he'd seen since Up Front.




Send out the scouts!
We started at the beginning, as you do, with Scenario A. Grassy Knoll, which Badger and I had played in our first CC session of the year back in January. Since then, the scenario has acquired a reputation as being too tough on the Americans, as witness this thread on CC:P@BGG.

Slaving away again at the GIMP (where do you think I've been all week?!), I went first to Wikipedia in search of the Battle of Mindanao to see if I could find any information that'd clue me in about the map's orientation. That search proving fruitless, google followed, which led me to HyperWar: a hypertext history of the Second World War.

Easter extravaganza #3: Country-house carnage

Preliminary reconnaisance

After a short night's sleep and a journey across the country to the east coast Martin and I sat down to the main event: Combat Commander. We decided to start with Scenario 4. Closed for Renovation. Could one of us gain the American victory which has eluded everyone so far?

Working at the GIMP to get files ready for RD/KA!, I searched for Humaine, Belgium on googlemaps, as I'd done with Scenario A. Ichiki Attacks from CC:P. I was able to find the town, but neither googlemaps nor google earth are detailed enough for me to pick out the chateau itself, so north is purely conventional on the maps for this scenario. Still, I found some pictures which show the piece of real estate to which those Germans clung so stubbornly back in December 1944.

Easter extravaganza #2: Limbering up

The Easter holidays brought a visit from 'Uncle' Martin for a WW2 tactical megasession.

Up Front
Beginning in the wee small hours, we opted for a couple of quick games of Up Front. We managed 2 games. Turning to Scenario A. Patrol as ever, random generation pitted my British against Martin's Germans, then I took the Americans in against Martin's Germans.

The details of the games escape me at week and a half's remove, and I wasn't taking notes. What I can remember is that, continuing my setup experiments, I decided to give my Germans a chance to gain a manoeuvre victory with a strong 4-man assault group on my open flank. I managed to pull this off.

I tried something similarly unusual with my Americans, setting up:

• The 2 ML1 wimps with Cpl. Moores at group A.
• A 6-man firebase at group B.
• Sgt. Burnett with Myers and a ML3/Panic 5 rifleman at C.

Sgt. Burnett and his lads got into close combat, and amongst the game's high jinks were:

• I took a prisoner.
• Burnett junked a tommy gun (what?!), then picked up the dead Bernhoff's rifle from the German group he was infiltrating.

In the end, Martin's assault group died in a hail on fire and on the points of my bayonets, and I won again.

Score
Aging reservist 0
Combat-ready veteran 2
:)

Afterthoughts
These games were part of my ongoing consideration of Up Front tactics, naturally enough. Isolated data insufficient for the drawing of conclusions, the results are grist to my mill nonetheless.

Key for the Germans was the decision to keep open the option of the manoeuvre victory with 4 men at range chit 4. Historically authentic for the Germans, this aggressive strategy is also eminently playable with their hand in Up Front. Going with a strong 4-man assault group raises the question of how to build your firebase. I opted to put the ML1 Beck and the ML2/Panic 2 Wollack at group A, and to transfer Wollack into the firebase at the first opportunity:

• The firebase has to have at least 5 men.
• ML1 wimps shouldn't be in your firebase.

In addition, I would consider pulling Beck back to range chit -1 to keep him out of range of the enemy. That way, he'd be able to run around for the sake of card cycle without coming under too much fire.

Unlike the Germans, neither the American hand nor their firebase favours the manoeuvre strategy. So I prefer to go with a 3-man assault group whose role is to hold out against their German opposite numbers. The novelty in this game was to put Cpl. Moores with the wimps in group A instead of with the firebase in B:

• Moore's tommy gun makes him largely superfluous in the firebase.
• His smoke capacity is likewise mostly redundant.

So, putting Moores in group A with the wimps means that:

• The wimp group can lay smoke to enhance their own survivability and to increase card cycle.
• Group A will be more durable because of Moores' higher morale.

These strategies worked against Martin on Easter Monday. Even so, the vivid memory of the utter tankings back in 2007 which refuted my alternative Japanese strategy means that I'm not leaping to any conclusions about these setups, all the more so given my concerns about the scaling of Up Front's firepower engine. Still, I know I'm going to try them both out again the next chance I get. ;)

Related@RD/KA!
Easter extravaganza
- #1: The long weekend
- #3: Country-house carnage
- #4: Rumble in the jungle

Easter extravaganza #1: The long weekend

Diversions, dinner, then duel in the depths

The long weekend brought Badger round on Thursday night. Events elsewhere diverted us unexpectedly for a few hours, so that our anticipated WW2 tactical megasession turned into a single visit to Stalingrad in Combat Commander, but not before dinner, naturally enough. Dinner was another new recipie from Nick Nairn's Top 100 Chicken Recipes: chicken with butternut squash and bacon.

I like cooking chicken. It ticks a lot of healthy eating boxes; is available prejointed in portions ideal for freezing, and easy to apportion to appetites; it cooks quickly and easily; and is adaptable to any and all culinary styles. Truly, the pack of chicken portions is a boon to the busy modern cook. Butternut squash was new to me, even though they've been around for ages.

The recipie was a success, just like all the others I've taken from this book by Nick Nairn. It'll be revisited, and I'll be looking for other ways to use butternut squash just as soon as I can.

Doom, despair, devestation, dastardliness and dinner

Andy, Donald and Gav turned up for last week's Sunday session. Dinner was going to be a French classic: chicken cassoulet. The recipie was a quick and easy modern version from Nick Nairn's Top 100 Chicken Recipes, suitable as ever for advanced preparation and last-minute finishing.

The dish was a great success, which was nice. I took special pleasure in the lip-smacking appreciation of my favourite spicy Italian bangers, which I believe were new to everyone else.

Doom

I was keen to have another go at the final Doom mission Donald and I had lost so pitifully last month. We were humped, again, even with 3 marines and a reduced difficulty level. Our humpage was of a degree less severe than the last time - we did get out of the first room, though only as far as the second area; but it was humpage in the extreme nonetheless.

A night on the Russian front

Up Front

Badger and I began last Friday's session with a game of Up Front, another Patrol because Badger's still green despite his excellent record. Random selection gave him the Germans against my Russians. He chose to go with a variant of his winning setup from 4 weeks ago. I went with my now standard 3-group Russian setup.

Routine trash talking aside, I was quietly confident as this game started. The Russians are probably the best force with which to take on the Germans. Sheer weight of numbers, a capacity for insane charges, and the best discard in the game are strengths which I reckon give them the edge over the British or the Americans. Plus, Badger's run of luck surely couldn't continue?

"We go!"

The unstoppable charge of Chad Jensen's Combat Commander continues with the addition of Battle Pack #3: Normandy to GMT's P500. Scheduled to include 17 new scenarios (1 a campaign), 8 new maps, extra counters, and a host of new rules to cover the terrain, units and operations in the Normandy bridgehead in the summer of 1944, BP#3 looks set to provide hours of fun for CC fans everywhere.

There is no release date as yet, as you would expect from the nature of the P500 system, but there is every reason to expect the pack to appear this year: at the time of writing there are 320 preorders, and that's within 24 hours of the announcement of BP#3's addition to the P500 list. I imagine a fair proportion of them are automatic preorders. Even so, I'll be surprised if the crucial 500 preorders hurdle hasn't been crossed before the month is out.

In other news

Badger's coming round soon for another session of WW2 gaming, so I've just got time for a couple of quickies.

Space Hulk rumour mongering
A recent visit to the Bell of Lost Souls GW fansite and a quick search for 'Space Hulk' has updated the rumours about the rerelease of this classic boardgame. The talk at Bell of Lost Souls is of "a full bore rework with all the bells and whistles you could ever want." You can find the full story here.

With as many as 6 months before the much-touted Q3 2009 release date, there is plenty of time for GW to do some serious viral marketing by drip-feeding rumours into the online GW community. As the comments at Bell of Lost Souls and elsewhere demonstrate, this could bring the Space Hulk fanbase to a pitch of excitement perhaps exceeding even that of playing the game itself! Myself, I want pictures.

Now that was a bughunt!
Google have finally got round to fixing a bug with the user stats for blogger, one I seem to recall arriving when they upgraded the system back in 2005.

The 'Profile Views' stat is the only counter of any sort I use here at RD/KA!. That upgrade all those years ago had the unexpected consequence of making the counter increment whenever I looked at my own profile, so I'd half the number and round down conservatively to get any idea of how many visitors had clicked through to check my profile. I actually sent google a bug report on this back when the issue arose. Is the delay in fixing this an indication of how backlogged their inbox is, I wonder? ;)

This and that

Something fishy going on
Alert readers might've noticed a recent weekend passed without a Sunday session. This was because that weekend saw a night out in celebration of my 46th birthday. I had decided weeks ago that I wanted to make the occasion the excuse for my eagerly awaited second visit to the delightful Two Fat Ladies West End.

Snappy dressers set their own style!

Andy, Badger, Donald and Gav had all heard me sing the restaurant's praises more than once, so it had quite a reputation to live up to. For my part I was wondering how my second visit would go after the first had been such a landmark in my fine dining experience. Opinions were a bit mixed in the end.

Andy, Badger and me in the Three Judges

Several people had the Cullen Skink, which was unanimously highly praised. Andy and I started with a squid salad. I found this quite delicious, the tenderest and most flavourful squid I've ever eaten. My main - scallops with Stornoway black pudding - slightly let down my high expectations. Stornoway black pudding is a modern food legend, and justly so. Perhaps Two Fat Ladies sources its supply from a butcher other than that whose pudding I've enjoyed so much in the past. I don't know for sure, but I have to say that it lacked the pepperiness which to me characterises Stornoway black pudding.

The lads were mostly happy elsewhere around the table, although Donald was a bit disappointed with his first taste of fresh tuna, which was too mild in flavour for his liking. A wee taste and subsequent pondering has left me thinking that this was mostly bad luck: Donald's a confirmed lover of red meat, and the idea of fresh tuna steaks probably conjures up certain expectations of strong, meaty flavours. Maybe he should try the meat dish on a future occasion.

Badger, me and Gav in Two Fat Ladies

Andy, Gav and I were on our third bottle of a sluggable fresh and fruity white wine by the time the desserts came round, so my memories of that course are vague. I'm pretty sure Donald was pleased with his pudding though (and so the day was saved for him: puddings are second only to red meat as essential components of Donald's ideal meal); I certainly enjoyed my chocolate pot.

The matter of the black pudding notwithstanding, my second visit to Two Fat Ladies lived up to the promise of the first. And, although perhaps not sharing the degree of my enthusiasm (Badger took to accusing me of turning into John Torode of BBC TV's Masterchef), I think everyone agreed that we'd been served top-quality food at fair prices.

Cheers!

I don't know about the others then, but I know I'll be making another visit just as soon as I can find the flimsiest of excuses.

My life in the mob
In the months since I became an active facebooker, I've been invited to join and otherwise taken a look at many of the little games people play there. Of all of those, only one has managed to hold my interest: Zynga Inc's game of gangland empire-building Mafia Wars.

I'm really not sure what it is about this game that appeals to me so much. I mean, I'm a fan of The Sopranos, a big enough fan that I still expect to hear the Alabama 3 signature tune kick in every time I hear the chords and static hiss that are HBO's station credit. And I like resource management in games in general. But that doesn't really explain why Mafia Wars is the facebook game which first successfully lured me into this genre.

No, really: this doesn't explain my fondness for Mafia Wars; and I really don't know why I like it so much. What I can say for sure is that I'll be playing this one out as far as I can take it. Oh, and I won't be paying for it either. ;)

PS. I just want to add a note of thanks to Donald and Gav who took the photos of my birthday night out. Cheers lads.

Related@RD/KA!
- Sweat the small things?

A world at war

The history
Lugged home 5 weeks ago amid much grump and bitching, and having started to lurk on the sidelines just a bit too long, my shiny new Axis & Allies: Anniversary Edition finally hit the table yesterday; and in a full 6-player game to boot. This was a landmark Sunday session for more than one reason:

• We hadn't been 6 on a Sunday since the first session of my WFRP campaign (back in the days before RD/KA! believe it or not!).
• This was the WW2 strategy game I'd waited all my life to play.

The setup
Saturday night gave the first hint of what the A&A:AE experience was going to be about. I'd read somewhere that setting up in advance was advisable to speed play, and I could easily see the point:

• There are a lot of pieces to set up.
• I wanted everything to go off as smoothly as possible so that everyone would like the game.

The subsequent hour and some spent sorting out and deploying pieces across the expansive board gave me a foretaste of what turned out to be Sunday's key experience, that of a game strangely compelling despite being uncommonly gruelling.

The choice of sides thrown open as we awaited Dave and Tony, Donald chose the Japanese, and Andy plumped for the Italians because he thought that their tiny forces would enable him quickly to cut his losses should his worst fears about the game be realised. My suggestion of smokers versus non-smokers lined us up thus:

Axis

• Germans: Me.
• Italians: Andy.
• Japanese: Donald.

Allies

• Americans: Dave.
• British: Tony.
• Russians: Gav.

We played the 1942 scenario because I assumed that starting later in the war would shorten the game (an unfounded assumption it now seems); and I'd figured we should play the short 13VP game, because I thought that'd give us our best chance of getting finished (another unfounded assumption it turned out).

The game
We started at 2pm and played until about 7. It was taking us an hour per game turn, which meant that we each played 5 turns in 5 hours. That was a bit of a shocker. I mean to say, we've all become used to playing games in which you get a turn every few minutes or less, and in which you might well be engaged during other players' turns in any case. This is very much the cutting edge, be it Euro, Ameritrash, or just plain wargame.

By contrast, 45-50 minutes downtime per 5-10 minute turn is about as 'old-school' as it gets, and it certainly proved distracting, if not outright burdensome. Turn structures of this ilk are not to everyone's taste, and it has to be said that some were heard yesterday to wonder why they were bothering at all. The turkey's clucks were almost audible.

Yet, the game's qualities rode out our frustrations so that we're all looking forward to the next time despite yesterday's inconclusive outcome after all that effort. We realised that it wasn't just a matter of the first-game learning curve; A&A:AE just isn't a game for a Sunday afternoon with a Monday morning to follow.

I certainly enjoyed my first taste of the A&A economics engine and combat system: attacking with the Wermacht at the height of its powers; capturing Leningrad, Stalingrad and Moscow by early 1943; Russia was mine as the game came to its inconclusive end. Andy - a possible sceptic because of his professed lack of interest in WW2 boardgaming - was pleasantly surprised by how much he enjoyed his ramage through the Mediterranean and into Africa. Tony's highlight was surely his 2-phase 2nd front which captured France while I was preoccupied with conquering Russia.

These and other events in the game were really exciting. As the battles unfolded round by round we often found ourselves stood around the table, cheering our sides on. And I relished the groans of dismay (echoed even by my allies) as Germany's resource base and income burgeoned thanks to my exploits on the Russian front.

Teething troubles aside then, Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition was a success, if not an instant hit. As Gav said, it's "advanced Risk". This mechanical simplicity makes the game accessible and quick to master, while the wider range of units and the expanded economic system give it real depth. The secret of the game's success yesterday, I expect these qualities will be put to the test again just as soon as enough of us can find the time. ;)

Addendum
For those who might want to take a look at the rules before their next game, look here: A&A:AE rules.PDF.

Will I? Won't I?

HERO Games have confirmed a release date for the first products of the new 6th edition of the classic rpg, formerly known as Champions. These products are:

• HERO System 6th Edition.
• HERO System 6th Edition: Combat and Adventuring.

They will be released at the Origins game fair in the US in late June.

I love the HERO system. It's still the strongest and most flexible rpg reality engine out there, and certainly my go-to game for flashing blades or gunplay. But I barely used my 5th edition HERO rules in 7 years (those few games with Katana back in 2007 are all, IIRC). Also, I thought that HERO5 was something of a bloated monstrosity compared to the sleek 4th edition, and I fear that the 6th edition will turn out grosser even than the infamous HERO 5th edition revised.

One thing I think I can say for sure: I won't be loading up on 6th edition product the same way I did with 5th edition, which occupies shelf width surpassed only by my WFRP2 collection. ;)

[From Purple Pawn]

A small but satisfying landmark

This is my 300th post, a landmark I at first would've hoped to have reached long before this, year 5 of RD/KA!. After all, I managed 99 posts in the 5 months of 2005 after I launched this blog with my impressions of the Glasgow Worldcon, a 20/month posting rate which'd've put my postcount in the region of 2000 if I'd kept it up in subsequent years. Ah well, such are the vicissitudes of the bipolar blogger's life.

Still, 300 posts is quite respectable for a hobby blog, representing:

• 1½ posts/week for 186 weeks.
• Remainder 21.

Or, in the form of a viable publishing schedule:

• 1 post/week.
• 2/posts/month for 44 months.
• Remainder 26.

Everything else aside for the moment, my biggest hope for the future of RD/KA! is that the 7-month bloglag of 2007-08 will be the last such massive writer's block I have to endure. Time will tell. Fingers crossed! ;)

A moment to marvel at...

As regular readers might already've guessed, and as my facebook friends will already know, the old mood swing kicked in recently, slowing down to a near trickle the flood of articles which already promise to make 2009 RD/KA!'s best year since 2005. I first noticed this a couple of weeks ago in the form of a change in my sleep cycle which signalled my mood swinging below the median.

The inevitable next phase began just this week, with decreased energy levels, poor motivation and attendant psychological disturbances. The upshot of all this is that the various activities I've been enjoying for the past few months start to become painful to contemplate, let alone engage in.

I actually have a better plan than ever to deal with this: exercise. I'm going to have to start to make good on last year's idea of regular gym attendance and swimming. I'll keep you informed.

Meanwhile: onwards, to bigger and better treasure!

Cards, command and combat #2. Fun in Stalingrad!

And so Combat Commander hove to on the table late last Thursday.

Offered his choice of revisiting the 2 already played CC:P scenarios (we couldn't play any more because I've not yet got round to clipping the rest of the CC:P counters); playing some of the new C3i scenarios; or trying out the new Battlepack, Badger plumped for the latter. I confess I was a bit surprised, knowing how much Badger hates cityfights. All the better for me then. Off to Stalingrad it was.

Scenario 35. Spartakovka Salient
Actually we began in the small town of Spartakovka on the northern outskirts of Stalingrad itself. Set in late August, Spartakovka Salient features the early phase of the battle, as German units raced for the Volga, and a city whose name they'd've recognised, but which would otherwise have looked as if it was going to be just another landmark in what was turning out to be a glorious summer for the German army on the Russian front.

It's official, and now public!

Yesterday was my birthday, and it came with an unusual present. Regular readers will remember my posting, only last January, about my intention to GM a Combat Commander tournament at UK Games Expo 2009. A recent flurry of activity saw the official tournament page uploaded to the UK Expo site yesterday by event organiser Richard Denning.

Thanks to Richard for his efforts getting my stuff sorted. Thanks are also due to Rob Bottos from CC@CSW, whose advice helped me decide the event's format.

Andy and I have got our hotel booked, and we're now just waiting for tickets to be available. After that, well, I guess I'll just have to make sure that everyone has a good time. And there will be an 'everyone'! The tournament already has 5 confirmed entrants, and 2 or 3 times that many possibles. So, dear readers, wish your humble scribe good fortune if you will, and see if you can't make it to Birmingham for the 5th, 6th and 7th of June 2009.

Cards, commands and combat #1. Golden Oldies

Badger and I enjoyed something of a WW2 tactical megasession last Thursday as I'd said.

Up Front

As brilliant as is Combat Commander, 2 years solid play had left both me and Badger looking to ring the changes a bit in our gaming sessions. And as much as I want to see Conflict of Heroes in action again, there really was nowhere else to go to reopen our gaming horizons than back to the great grandaddy of CDG's, Up Front.

Badger was quite happy to have a go. He'd won his 1st and 2nd games against me after all, way back in 2005 (although I must point out, for Badger's benefit, that our Up Front score stood at 2-1 in his favour on Thursday night, not 2-0 as he'd imagined). I gave Badger the standard scenario I offer to players new to Up Front: Germans against my Americans in Patrol.

Appetisers...

Badger's been on holiday from work lately, so we sat down yesterday to a long-awaited WW2 tactical session. The evening also saw me cooking the first of several seafood dishes I'll be doing over the next few days. Something I've hankered after for a while, I think I've indulged the whim now to cheer myself up a bit in the face of my mood's recent slide below the median.

Last night's recipie was Oven-roasted Fish with Potatoes and Salsa Verde. This is another Delia, originally from her How to Cook Book Two, the white series infamous for teaching such things as how to boil an egg. At least she wasn't suggesting people go out and buy pre-fried onions as in How to Cheat at Cooking (sheesh).

This recipie has all the hallmarks of a classic Delia:

• Simple ingredients list (don't be fooled by the long list for the salsa verde - you can pick it all up at a half-decent supermarket).
• Easy preparation using basic techniques and few processes.
• Ideal for preparing in advance for last minute heating in the oven, this dish could even be kept in the fridge overnight.

It was a success, although I did overdo the pepper just a bit (Badger didn't have to order pizza though!).

Tonight's menu...
...is Fennel and mascarpone risotto with scallops and prosciutto.

I'm busy working on the report of our games from last night. In the meantime here is the 2nd of those 3 seafood recipies. I've never tried this before, although I've been cooking risottos for years, and I like fennel - as regular readers might remember. So I'm looking forward to trying out something new; just what I need to cheer me up, like I said. ;)