Wargames, politics and ethics #2: Politics? You can run, but you can't hide

Broad-brush polemic ruffles feathers

A book I picked up on sight from a recommendation on the WW2 SS Counter Colours thread, Ronald Smelser and Edward J. Davies II's 2008 scholarly study, The Myth of the Eastern Front: the Nazi-Soviet War in American Popular Culture was going to become an article even as I first read it – avidly – over xmas last year. Researching for this series- in which The Myth of the Eastern Front was going to feature centrally, I found the military hobbyists' inevitable internet hot flushes in its wake. Inevitable? In response to an academic tome?

The biggest invasion of the
biggest war in history:
a lot there to forget

Yes, because The Myth of the Eastern Front is part analytical historical deconstruction, and part broad-brush polemic against the 'romancers'- promulgators of an idealised vision of the Wehrmacht and the SS as honourable soldiers fighting a 'Lost Cause' against the Red horde. Smelser and Davies root this mythology in the Wehrmacht's 'last campaign': the ex-generals' postwar years of networking and spin aimed at rehabilitating the image of the German armed forces on the Eastern front.

My first (and last?) game of España 1936

A long time coming

Regular readers will be well aware that I'm not a negative reviewer as a rule. It's too easy to find negativity on the web, and the first editorial decision I made way back in 2005 was that I wasn't going to contribute to it here at RD/KA!. Also, when I review anything, I've paid for it and therefore have a good reason to want to like it. Every so often though, something comes along which disappoints me sufficiently to prompt a distinct lack of enthusiasm to which I cannot but give vent. Antonio Catalán's game of the Spanish Civil War- España 1936, is a case in point. 

Dust off and dust-up

Waiting in the wings

España 1936 is a game I bought on sight when I saw it in Static Games, an FLGS: the subject of the Spanish Civil War interested me and the box ad-copy showed nice-looking components. It then joined my collection of dust-gatherers, where it stayed for a good three years. Only recently, with Liam's newfound enthusiasm for strategic boardgames, did I begin to think that I might finally get a chance to bring España 1936 to the table. My thinking was this game would serve as a useful bridge between Labyrinth and Twilight Struggle on the one hand, and games like Unhappy King Charles! on the other.

And so, on Wednesday night Liam and I sat down to have a go. Five hours later, I'd won the game, but España 1936 had lost the vote of confidence.

Wargames, politics and ethics #1: Ah, that old bugbear

Reality bites

They're just games, yes?

At some time or another, many wargamers will have found themselves pondering the political and/or ethical implications of their passion for revisiting the past, present and future battlefields of the world with their maps and little counters. This reflection leads some to create boundaries and/or preferences: periods they won't game, sides they always prefer to play, and so on. For me this began in my teenage-tankie youth, when I drew a boundary at 1945. My reasons for this were twofold:

• In the late 70s and early 80s- with Thatcher and Reagan's 'second' Cold War at its height, modern warfare was too closely linked to the spectre of global thermonuclear holocaust for it to have any appeal to me.
• I felt uncomfortable with the idea of playing games about wars the casualties of which would be actual people living in my own time.

I abandoned this boundary as I grew older. That's not to say that I 'grew out of it', because that would be to imply that there's something immature about the choice to draw and to exercise such boundaries. I've no wish to be so insulting to others who've made these choices.

A bit of this and a bit of that

Technical problems stop the Panzers in their tracks

Just don't aim for
the window...

Badger came round last night for what was supposed to be another session of Fighting Formations and perhaps some Combat Commander. Unfortunately events were to intervene in the form of the shiny new desktop PC which I had taken delivery of just the previous day. I hadn't had time to set everything up that Thursday, so on the Friday I decided just to wait for Badger's arrival so that he could offer his assistance. It's not that I'm a complete tech-idiot or anything but there are always risks associated with transferring your old system to a new machine, so I felt it would be useful to have Badger on hand.

Just as well too it turned out.

The long dark night of the dice rolls #2: light at the end of the tunnel

Give me hexes, counters
& CRTs, goddammit!

I wrote last time about some of the highlights in recent multiplayer gaming. Today, I'm going to look back at some of the 2-player fun I've been having. When the Sunday sessions dried up I came to realise that the last couple of months of Sunday gaming had been slightly frustrating: we'd been playing too many light Euros. It's not that I don't like these games- I do; it's just that I wanted some meatier fare, with the lighter games filling their proper role, namely filler. I'm pleased to say that I've managed in the past couple of months to satisfy this desire to a significant extent.

Combat Commander

Regular readers won't be surprised that Badger and I have been keeping up our regular Combat Commander games. We've mostly being playing our way through the Combat Commander Battle Pack #3: Normandy. The scenarios start at the beginning, with Operation Deadstick- the Ox and Bucks' coup de main at the Bénouville (later Pegasus) Bridge in the early minutes of June 6th 1944; and finish at the end, with the 1st Polish Armoured Division's stand on Hill 262 ('The mace') during the battle of the Falaise pocket in late August. In between there are beaches to fight your way off of, beachhead fortifications to overcome, lots of bocage to fight your way through, villages to capture, and a couple of scenarios featuring French Resistance forces to boot.

The long dark night of the dice rolls #1: a little light relief

I mentioned last Tuesday that I've played hundreds of games during the months of my depression, nearly 600 in fact. Still getting back into the swing of things here at RD/KA! as I am, I thought I'd run through some of the highlights of that epic series of games, and cast a quick eye over some other games which I've bought recently.

Ivanhoe, Ivanhoe and yet more bloody Ivanhoe!

The impressive statistic of nearly 600 games played since last September is put in its proper context by the fact that more than half of those were games of Ivanhoe. My neighbour Liam (last seen swigging wine at Sioux's gallery launch in May last year) came round on xmas eve keen to play a game to which he'd taken an instant liking way back in October 2009. We played a 24-game session. And so began a marathon run of 325 games, all but 9 of which were played in the 6 months up to May. That's averaging 14 games/week, in a couple of sessions each week. Whew!

Changes, changes

Old habits die hard: tabletop miniatures games

"Very pretty John, but
what does it mean?"
(Damned if I know BTW)

When you're depressed you often become withdrawn to the point of being reclusive. The resulting emotional disconnection from so much of your life means that a period of depression really isn't the best time to make decisions of any consequence about your life, not least because coming out of depression means that you face putting back together everything which has been disrupted when you were down. So you could easily dispose of things or give up on activites which are really important to you because you take your depressive emotional disconnection at face value, when you're really just expressing your dread of the effort it'll take to get everything sorted out when you're feeling better.

Memories, sigh

All of which is by way of preamble to an explanation of some changes in my gaming tastes and habits which have come upon me in recent months. First and foremost is that I'm giving up tabletop miniatures gaming. This is something of a painful break, and even as I type this I'm struck by a sense of unreality, not to mention wistful nostalgia. After all, my life as a hobby gamer started nearly 40 years ago when my brother and I made up our own rules for playing proper games with our Airfix 1/72^nd Napoleonic toy soldiers.

"Another fine mess..."

Woah, a tale of woe
Well, it was kind of a close run thing this time but here I am, back at the keyboard. There are several reasons why I almost succumbed to the urge just to disappear from the pages of RD/KA!. I'm just going to let them lie. I will however briefly explain why this particular bloglag was so long (at 9 months it's been the longest ever).

Sometimes people just won't own up...

It'll come as no surprise to my regular readers that a serious depression was to blame. Why so serious? Long story short: a home support worker who'd been visiting me for some 4 years took the huff with me one day and indulged in some unprofessional behaviour. The next time we met he manipulated me into withdrawing from the support service against my will. With hindsight I realised that saving his job was surely his primary motivation for being such a shit. We'd talked often of the difficult funding situation in his workplace and of how staff were worried about their jobs. So I think he feared a black mark if I was to ask for him to be replaced, which would've led to questions being asked about why I no longer wished to work with him (which I didn't, naturally enough).

"Kick Ass!" 5th birthday blogparty #4. The final countdown

Life's little ironies or, "It's my party and I'll cry if I want to"
What's a man to do? I mean to say, after some ups and downs you finally hit your blog's 5th anniversary and manage to put together an impressive bunch of prizes for your readers. Just how can you follow that? Ah, I know. How about taking a mood downswing and disappearing from the site for a month? Yeah, that's a really good idea. Really.

Anyway, here I am. I'm not swanning about in sunny Acapulco with all that lovely swag offered up by my generous donors (chance'd be a fine thing). Nope. I'm living la vida loca in the slough of despond in rainy Glasgow. There've been games at least, a lot of games, Dominion especially. So it's not been all bad. But that's not really the point of this post, oh no. This post is about prizes (remember those?).

"Kick Ass!" 5th birthday blogparty #3. First prize draw winners!

Who are this week's lucky readers?
The entries for last week's draw have been counted and the draw has been made, using my shiny Conpulsion 2010 random number generator. I am pleased to announce the winners in the first RD/KA! 5th anniversary bumper prize draw bonanza. My congratulations to all the lucky winners; my commiserations to everyone else. Don't give up yet though: there are still three more draws to go and you can all (previous winners included remember) enter those too.

A Bill King Gotrek and Felix omnibus
Trollslayer.net.
I am delighted to be able to announce that, fresh from the trials and tribulations of flitting, Bill has been able to unearth 2 English-language copies of Gotrek and Felix: the First Omnibus which he has generously donated to the spoil heap. One of these will go to Chazz Kellner. The remaining copy will be added to a subsequent draw.

"Kick Ass!" 5th birthday blogparty#2. Draw the first

Four, weekly prize draws

-#The spoil heap#-

The RD/KA! 5th anniversary bumper prize-draw bonanza will consist of four, weekly draws. This week's draw runs until midnight (BST) on Sunday 22nd August. The draws are all open to all of my readers (yes, that includes friends and family).

Draw the first's prizes
There are 5 prizes up for grabs this week.

A Bill King novel.
Trollslayer.net.
Choose any one.

"Kick Ass!" 5th birthday blogparty#1. Prizes! Prizes! Prizes!

"Lights... Cameras... Action!"
Alighting on this page as you have dear reader, be welcome to the 5th anniversary of "Roll dice and kick ass!". Yes, it's been 5 years to the day since I launched myself into the geek blogosphere with a report on Interaction, the 63rd Worldcon. I took to blogging a hobbyist wanting to write. What I didn't bargain on were the technicalities of creating an illustrated webzine: hunting down links and references, image work, layout; all suprisingly labourious and time-consuming. Enough already with my blood, sweat, toil and tears. Feast your eyes, dear readers, on the booty below...

Matt Forbeck
Hot off the presses, Ghosts of Ascalon — "the first original Guild Wars novel" — is Matt's and Jeff Grubb's spin on the popular fantasy MMO Tyria. I am told that Guild Wars- soon to see its first reboot, disposes of that WoW-grind by the simple expedients of a level cap and rapid character progression; which reads to me like a recipie for playing more characters having more adventures which play out more quickly. That sounds thrilling and action packed. Expect no less from messieurs Forbeck and Grubb.

Prize #1
Signed author's copy courtesy of Matt.

-#!#-

Meeting Richard Williams

The best laid plans
Unfortunately last Saturday's planned trip to Claymore fell through. I'm in a bit of a downswing just now and my main symptom is sleep disturbance, typical phase 1 for me. And so Friday night dragged on into Saturday morning leaving me facing 2 hours sleep before I was supposed to get up to catch an early bus to Edinburgh. The result was inevitable. Ah well, c'est la vie.

But still...
I did manage to make it to GW Glasgow on Friday afternoon to meet Black Library author Richard Williams. Richard proved friendly and easy-going as you'd expect and I passed a pleasant hour or so sharing his company with the other fans who'd turned out to meet him.

The inevitable signage
I'd taken along my copy of Liber Chaotica as planned. I'd thought that'd be all but Steve- the local manager, had managed to rustle up some copies of the currently out of print Reiksguard, in search of which I'd visited the store only the previous day and which had then been strangely absent from the shelves; so I bought that. As William and I prepared to pose for a couple of photos I figured that it'd be churlish not also to pick up a copy of the latest- and current, BL book in which Richard's writing has seen print: the anthology Legends of the Space Marines.

Of GW, the lure of Chaos, gribblies, and stuff

Space Hulk wins 2 Golden Geek Awards
My recent visits to the pages of Black Library novels: Graham McNeill's Heldenhammer- which I picked up at Conflict 2010, and Nathan Long's Bloodborn- which I reviewed last month; these visits to the world of the book have revived my interest in tie-in fiction set in two of my favourite gaming universes. And so it was that last Saturday saw me dropping in to my local GW in search of new reading matter. Also available was the new issue of White Dwarf. I confess I'm in the camp who finds GW's house magazine to be of limited utility in terms of adding value to my GW gaming interests- namely 40K, but I always like to read interviews with the creative types at the Design Studio. White Dwarf #368 features two, so I bought it.

One mighty game; two well-deserved awards

Skimming through the pages of news and new releases, as you do, I was pleasantly surprised to read Jervis Johnson's grateful acknowledgement of the two 2009 Golden Geek Awards the BGG community had awarded Space Hulk, whose 3rd edition was released amid great fanfare last year. The awards were:

• Best 2-player game.
• Best artwork/presentation.

Pleasant: because it was good to see that Space Hulk had received these accolades from the BGG community, and because it was nice to read Jervis' appreciation of this in the pages of White Dwarf. Surprising: because, regular BGG user that I am, I had no idea of these awards- the official awards ceremony was in November last year, until I read of Space Hulk's 2009 success in White Dwarf.

Q-workshop STRIKE!!!!

Journey to the unknown land of dice manufacturing
Remember that mention I gave back in June to Q-Workshop, the novelty dice company? I thought I was just honouring my side of a bargain made at UK Games Expo 2010, when I wangled a small discount on some dicecups in return for a promised mention here at RD/KA!. Little did I know then the ancient emnities- as long as beards and as sharp as ears, with which I had become involved for the sake of those two quid. What am I talking about? Watch this video and you'll see.



It seems then that the introduction of new design and manufacturing technology means that big changes are afoot at Q-Workshop, including:

• New cheap classic RPG dice sets.
• New premium 3D dice.
• New deluxe metal dice.
• New box packaging.
• New lower prices for older dice sets.

"New" and "lower prices": phrases which are bound to delight dice geeks everywhere, especially those who are already fans of Q-Workshops' wide range. But is this really good news all round?

Not 'just another' Claymore

Convention off the starboard bow
August is waiting at the door and so Claymore is manoeuvring itself into position again on the local convention calendar.

My plans aren't in place yet but my intention is to attend as ever. The success of last year's new venue means that I await 2010's Claymore with anticipation tangible enough to feel quite novel.

Zombies and Daleks, oh my!
This year's programme of participation games looks interesting all round. I can honestly say that I'd be happy to play in any of the games in this year's programme. Needs as needs must though, so here is my shortlist of 3 games for the day:

• City of Prosperity: 15mm Zombies.
• Dumfries Wargames Club: British Civil War 1938, 28mm.
• Edinburgh League of Wargamers: 28mm Daleks.

Daleks, zombies and an alt-history British civil war? Truly messieurs convention organisers, you are spoiling us.

Rain starts play

Get down, deeper and down!
Tuesday's visit to G3 was just the icing on the cake of what had been a bumper few days gaming for yours truly. Such a big night took priority over the weekend's gaming here at RD/KA!, which- thanks to my trip to Edinburgh and the recent good weather, saw our first Sunday session in a month. Donald, Gav and I made three on the day. First choice was down to Donald, which put him in the Overlord's Seat of Power for a long-awaited return to Descent, my favourite dungeonbash boardgame.

A dynamic duo?
With only 2 heroes a solid tank was a priority. Gav chose that role and quickly settled on Mordrog. I decided to run a rogue , choosing Kirga for his ability to keep the spawning monsters at bay. And so we had a pair of scurvy greenskin 'heroes' we hoped would be fit to tackle the best that the Overlord could throw at us.

A big night out

Small beginnings?
In part 1 of my 2010 gaming wishlist last December, I wrote of how I needed to find new opponents to maintain my regular fix of WW2 tacsim gaming. I finally took steps towards this end last month when I posted an 'Opponents wanted' thread on BGG. The thread resulted in one reply which I confess wasn't encouraging, but it was enough.

And so it was that last night saw me lugging a big bag full of Memoir'44 down to a local municipal hall- conveniently located a few minutes away, there to attend the very same Glasgow Games Group (G3) which had been my old stomping ground in the years before I started blogging, and whose 10th anniversary celebrations I had attended back in June 2008.

As you can imagine dear readers, returning to an old haunt like this involved meeting with a few familiar faces. The first was Barry, whom I'd introduced to Memoir'44 when it was still new back in the days before I took my break from the club. What a pleasant surprise that was. This led to another entertaining little moment when, chatting to Barry about what had brought me back to G3, I mentioned the person I was to meet that night. He was lurking nearby earwigging, naturally enough, and so I was introduced to Gregor.

"Trapped in the netherspace, the void between the worlds"

WARNING!

- MAJOR Doctor Who season 5 spoilers ahead -
WARNING!

Oh. My. Goodness!
I may only have written about Doctor Who once before here at RD/KA!- at the end of David Tennant's first season back in 2007, but everyone who knows me knows only too well that I am a devoted fan of the show, albeit not a Whovian geek as such. As I set to writing this I've just come from watching for the 3rd time the 2-part finale to Matt Smith's first season as the inimitable Doctor, to refresh in my mind what made this season so striking as to prompt me to give vent to my enthusiasm for what has been 13 weeks of truly matchless television.

Brace yourselves dear readers!
In light of what I said last Sunday about the pointless sound and fury so often aroused in geek culture by clashes of tastes driven by blind partisanship, I want to begin with a warning and a clarification. If you don't like Doctor Who, or you do but don't share my high appreciation of the merits of this season: that's all well and good, but I don't care. Mule headed blind partisanship? No. I simply can't. This is just the blunt end of my critique of what I was hinting at last Sunday when I referred to how "personal tastes are justified against other people's by being raised to the level of intellectual generalisations".

Death becomes them all

Again with the old pals routine
My old pal Rob- whose job regularly takes him to Sweden for weeks at a time, was back in town last week so we decided a trip to the cinema was in order. We chose to go see Black Death, a film which has been on my 'would like to see' list ever since I noticed its release. Regular readers should have no difficulty in guessing why a film set in plague-ridden medieval England should appeal to me, but I'll come back to that later.

The critic's eye
There is a lengthy review on the IMDb Black Death page in which I think the reviewer is quite quite wrong. The IMDb page correctly tags Black Death with the horror and mystery genres. These features of the movie are nowhere addressed in that review; poor form and a shame, because these were the movie's strengths.