Degrees of Abstraction

Proper Old School - the early pioneers were all different sizes, as you see

One of the characteristics of Old School wargaming, as we grew up with it, was that everything appeared on the table. You want skirmishers? – no problem – there they are (mind you, the rules don’t work too well for them, and it takes so much time to manoeuvre them that we normally ignore/forget them after Bound 4). You want a honking great model of La Haye Sainte on the battlefield? – there it is (yes – agreed – it takes up the same space as the city of Brussels on the tabletop, but just look at it, and you can get an entire Division in the farmyard, too).

As we all got more and more enthusiastic about reflecting every known (or suspected) aspect of warfare in the game (mostly Napoleonic in my case, and the words National Characteristics still cause me to shudder), so we found it harder and harder to finish any of our games. Speaking for myself, my growing interest in looking for new approaches and greater pragmatism came from my frustration at finding that the widely accepted, latest forms of my hobby didn’t actually work very well. I remember being embarrassingly close to tears trying to get to grips with the latest version of Halsall & Roth’s rules (as used in the national championships – I only bought the very best...). I realised that this was no longer fun – at least not to me. I became very interested in the reasons why board war games seemed to work better, without people coming to blows, or taking their troops home in disgust.

Many years later, after my wargaming sabbatical, I got myself involved with more modern rulesets, and a lot of what I read made a whole lot of sense. Dr Mustafa said that in a big wargame it was impracticable to fuss about with skirmishers, for example – it was a distraction, something which in any case would be beneath the attention of an army commander. In his Grande Armée rules, the idea was that, surrounding the main columns and other formations on the tabletop, there were invisible little clouds of light troops, scrapping away. They were abstracted – a new word for me in this context then – and only existed by implication. They appeared as adjustments in combat calculations, and as “SK” numbers associated with the parent units. This seemed a more businesslike approach, though I did have a few slight traditionalist pangs. Just a minute – I actually enjoy fiddling with skirmishers – and what about all those lovely voltigeurs and people I’ve painted and cherished? What are they going to do? There does seem to be a slight tension here – if we agree that a particular style of skirmishing was an important characteristic of the Napoleonic Era – something, in fact, which served to make it different from the Seven Years War – is it OK to remove Napoleonic skirmishers from the miniature battlefield?

Hmmm. This wasn’t as easy as I’d hoped.

Out of all the reading, scribbling and reconciling necessary compromises, I came to terms with the fact that I probably needed at least two sets of rules for each period. One was for big battles, where the emphasis was on speed of movement, simple-but-robust mechanisms and games which were capable of being played to a conclusion in a sensible amount of time. The other would be for smaller fights, where it was required to consider a more detailed level of tactical behaviour, where forming lines and wheeling and deploying skirmish troops were still appropriate, and even necessary.

My decision to start dallying with the English Civil War – something over a year ago – required a whole new dose of considering available rules. After a lot of reading and soliciting of advice, I plumped for Victory without Quarter as my main rules. The game scale and general philosophy fitted well with the list of personal likes and dislikes which I had built up over the years. Having reached the point of actually playing some games, I now find I have the familiar two-level situation – I have a home-brewed adaptation of Commands & Colors to handle the bigger battles, and I have VwQ for the smaller stuff – my proposed provincial, North-country ECW campaigns will certainly throw up games for which C&C is too blunt a tool, and for which it becomes necessary to worry about which direction units are facing, how they are formed up, the advantages of march columns on roads, the exact point in a charge where the defenders got off a volley and all that.

My relationship with VwQ is still evolving. The only time I have used the rules in anger (grrrr!) was when I visited Old John in North Wales last year. We found that the game was fun, but there were some chunks missing (dragoons didn’t work properly, no advantage for a flank or rear attack, no explanation of how artillery should be treated in a melee, for a start). Concentrating on positives, I spent some time adding extensions to the rules – suggestions came from various sources, including Harry Pearson, even some ideas from Clarence Harrison himself (the originator) - and I have reached a fairly robust version for playtesting.

The one area which still bothers me about this game is Activation. Broadly speaking, the game uses cards to activate units – there is a card for each, and there is also a card for each commander at brigade level or higher. Drawing an officer’s card allows orders to be given to any of his subordinate units which are within shouting distance, which allows some decent progress to be made when moving troops about. Last year, Old John and I found that – as often as not – drawing a card for a single unit would produce no effect at all, certainly no movement, since advancing a single unit without the rest of its brigade was usually not a great idea. I’m still tinkering with this, which remains the one weak spot. I have even given thought to having cards only for brigades and higher formations – single unit cards being dropped. John and I had certainly deduced that any group of units which was expected to move anywhere had to be provided with an on-table brigadier.

I hope I’m not anywhere close to going back to the research phase. VwQ is designed to support the smaller type of game which I expect to feature a lot in my campaigns – my commitment to these rules, albeit expanded and tweaked, is such that I have based my troops to suit (which is not a problem – whatever rules I use can handle these bases) and have even produced (and now tested, honest, Clive...) a computer-managed version to facilitate solo play. Maybe copious provision of generals is the answer, maybe the single-unit activation cards are a bad idea, but – whatever the answer might be – I have a faintly worrying recollection of our game in Wales, during which there were lengthy periods when some parts of the armies were left stranded by the original card drawing system.

Hooptedoodle #87 - Let him who is without sin cast the first stone

Because of family and health-related issues which I have no intention of describing in this blog, there has been precious little wargaming or hobby stuff going on around here of late, so I do not have much to write about that is relevant.

This last week, though, I’ve been a bit taken aback by what I perceive as the breathtaking hypocrisy of our dear chums at Auntie BBC. I’m not exactly sure of the latest details, but there is (or has been) some further inquest going on into the tragic suicide of the unfortunate nurse who was tricked into giving confidential information on the Duchess of Cambridge’s medical condition, as a result of a so-called “prank” hoax telephone call from some Australian DJs.

This week, the BBC was full of self-righteous horror in a radio item about the inquest – as usual, assuming the role of guardian of public decency – as usual, referring to “the media” as though somehow they were talking about someone other than themselves.

Morons - and scapegoats

Just a minute, there. This particular BBC licence-payer wishes to point out a couple of things:

1. I cannot receive Australian radio – if knowledge of the prank had been restricted to listeners to the station in question then very few of us in Britain would ever have heard about it.

2. The nurse, as I understand it, is believed to have killed herself because she could not live with the humiliation or the public ridicule which followed from her having been duped and having compromised the Duchess’s privacy. No-one could reasonably have anticipated such an extreme reaction, however brutally stupid or unkind the prank might have been. It makes no difference – tragically, she killed herself.

3. As I recall, I heard about the matter in the same way as all other UK residents – I heard it on UK radio – “just fancy that – someone has been tricked into answering questions about the D of C – isn’t that shocking? – here’s some edited highlights of the phone conversation...”

4. I know nothing at all about it, of course, but I suggest that the degree of humiliation and ridicule was directly related to the extent of the media coverage the incident got in the UK. In all the sanctimonious clap-trap I have heard on this topic – and there has been plenty of it – I have never once heard anyone from the British press or the BBC express the slightest concern that they themselves had more to do with the catastrophic publicity - and thus the nurse’s death - than did the imbeciles who perpetrated the original practical joke.

Hooptedoodle #86 – The World Is Getting Faster

This is not a rant. I state this right here, up front, so that I can refer back to it if I forget.

A gentleman on the radio this morning was waxing positive about how technology has speeded everything up, and how much better our lives are as a result. He may be correct. If he was on the radio, then it’s bound to be true, isn’t it?

I have expressed concerns here before about the risks to mental health and society if the entire population has too much information, most of it distorted by marketing and vested interests, too little imagination and judgement to make use of that information, and a compulsion to multitask between trivial, inconsequential, purely transactional exchanges. That was beginning to sound a bit rantish, so I’ll stop that paragraph.

The world according to my desktop is not getting faster. It is continuing to slow down. As I have mentioned before, I live out in the countryside, and my broadband is slow. This means that most of the cyber world is now specifically designed not to work properly for people like me. The charming little lady illustrated here is someone I see a great deal of. Since my internet provider is BT (British Telecom), and since they are sort of poor relations within the Yahoo edifice, I am unable to open any page in my email service until I have been provided with an advert for an American charity – they even have 800 toll-free numbers, which of course are meaningless outside the US. I can’t switch this feature off, and the ads take on average about 22.46 seconds a time to retrieve from some remote server. Every single mail item, every index page – everything – has to wait for an ad which I’ve seen before and is of no relevance. You can see that would begin to grate after a while.

As I type my mail, the browser is constantly jamming the buffer, trying to check what I am saying, so that it can target advertising at me which is relevant to what I’m writing about. I constantly have to retype bits where it got stuck, or where it dropped characters while it was distracted. I’ve started using WordPad to type my bigger mails, and pasting them into the browser – I hope the text interpreter gets very serious indigestion as a result of not being able to chew its food properly.

As I type anything into the input field for a search engine, the poor thing has a brave attempt to predict what I’m going to type, but always gets it wrong, since the time taken to realise that I am typing in the search field and call HQ results in its losing the 2^nd to 5^th characters – so its predictions are not worth the effort. Not helpful.

Well, I’m fighting back. We realised that, despite everything, my wife’s new laptop works much faster than my desktop does when it’s online, so we deduce that more modern designs cope better with all this friction and superfluous junk. I shall buy a new desktop machine next week, and set about the (estimated) 3 month project of transferring software and documents from the old one. I shall, however, keep the old computer – it is still of a high spec, although it is coming up for 7 years old now, and the processor and video components are fast and efficient, if left to themselves and not constantly interrupted.

I intend to strip back the old machine – remove Internet access, take off the virus checker – XP will no longer be supported very soon so a static OS should be OK. I shall remove everything I don’t need to be on it. Goodbye Google Toolbar. Goodbye RealPlayer. Goodbye DropBox. Goodbye Spotify. I shall use it for typing, and utility jobs like writing CDs, graphic and photographic work and desktop publishing. When I need to move files between the machines, I shall use USB memory sticks. The computers will share a printer, but it will be hard-wired so that there is no need for WiFi.

I can sense the beginnings of a smile playing around the corners of my mouth. With luck, my future sightings of the little Unicef girl will be instantaneous, since my new computer will be designed to cope with her as part of the mail service.

The broadband will still be slow, though.

Maybe it won’t work any better.

Hmmm. 

The Thunderer

The general in this picture has appeared here before, and there was some helpful discussion of how I could use him. Generals on foot have always been a problem for me, since I find it unlikely that even infantry generals would have led their men into action on Shanks's pony.

As a result of suggestions made, I resolved to get him a held horse to add a little potential mobility, and I have finally done it. You can't rush these things, of course.

This is Sir Nathaniel Aspinall, known to his men as The Thunderer, and occasionally God's Trumpet - I sincerely hope this was because of his very loud voice. A noted lay preacher, and sometime Member of Parliament for Bury, in the Hundred of Salford, Sir Nathaniel was unusually well qualified to be a general of foot, since he had served some years of his youth as a professional soldier in Germany in the Wars of Religion.

He is here seen with his horse, Herod, and a horse-holder who was formerly in the artillery. Hinton Hunts to a man - or horse.

This sets a useful precedent - I'm quite pleased with Sir Nat (this is about as close to a diorama as you get in my armies), and will follow a similar grouping style with other suitable Staff castings which I have.

 

Filler

Years ago, when life was simpler and I had more enthusiasm, I used to do a lot of figure conversions and scratch-build scenery items, and I used to use a Humbrol filler, and sometimes I used to use Plasticene, coated with banana oil in the celebrated manner mentioned in all the old books.

Recent hobby work - especially on resin buildings - has brought to my attention that I don't really have much idea what to do about filler now. Banana oil, if it isn't prohibited by Euroregs, is almost certainly plantain oil these days, and it was always dodgy stuff anyway. I have various clever two-part epoxy fillers and things which you mix together and knead by hand for half an hour before you find they have passed their sell-by date and will never set. I admit that I have even used Polyfilla on occasions to fill bubble-holes and graft-gaps in figure castings - at least it sands down nicely. I covered the brass plate on the front of a Hinton Hunt Old Guard Grenadier drummer's bearskin with Polyfilla once, and textured it with a pin, so that he could transfer to the Chasseurs. He's still serving in the ranks - no problems. Not something I would normally brag about, though.

Looking around, I see that Humbrol Model Filler is still on the market, and I believe that is the sort of thing I'm looking for - a simple, relatively non-toxic, one-tube gloop which will set quickly, sand smooth and take any kind of paint without blistering. I would happily order up some of the Humbrol, but felt a nervous twinge - in this day of wonderful acrylic things for modellers, is there something better I should be thinking about?

Yes - correct - replacing the bathroom wall heater would be a useful thing to do, but that's not what I was addressing here. Any gloop-lovers prepared to offer a little advice?

ECW Playtest - Action at Meols Harcourt 1643

With my feeling a lot more energetic, a little sunshine outside and a spare Saturday to fill, Nick and I took the opportunity to give the new ECW armies a bit of a run out, and do some further testing of the ECW variant on Commands & Colors which I produced over the Winter.

This was real toe-in-the-water stuff. We deliberately kept the armies small – Parliament had 5 regts of Foot, 2 of Horse, a medium gun and 2 Leaders; the Royalists had 4 of Foot, 3 of Horse and 2 Leaders.

The action took place in April 1643 around the mythical village of Meols Harcourt, which controls some key crossings – a ford and an ancient stone bridge – over the River Hassop, which might well flow into the Lune further west. We also kept the game simple – since it was an early try-out we did not categorise any of the units as Veteran or Raw or Militia (though we could have done) – the only complication we deliberately included was that we made all the Royalist Horse Gallopers and their Parliamentary opposite numbers Trotters.

It went fine. We were a bit slow, perhaps, because of all the checking of rules and general unfamiliarity, but we hit no problems. It’s a nice, crisp game.

The action suffered a little from having no real objectives – obviously the forces had blundered into each other, and the idea was just to cause maximum damage. The Royalists had cavalry on both flanks – Lord Byron’s regiment crossed the river early on at the ford. Philip Egerton’s foot regiment hurried to prevent the crossing, but they were driven back and then very roughly handled once the horse were safely ashore. On the opposite flank a lengthy and vigorous fight between the remainder of the horse (2 regiments on either side) caused heavy loss to both sides, but was not decisive.

Eventually, the infantry forces in the centre came into contact, and the Royalists just about won the day in this area – a bit of a grinding match. On the Royalist left, Byron’s horse – delayed by a lack of orders (i.e. suitable cards) eventually rolled up the Parliamentarian right and the King’s men had won. Lord Byron and Sir Wm Fairfax were both wounded in the process. They’ll be back.

Observations on the Rules:

The Chaunce Cards had no effect at all today – only one was played, and it was a False Alarum. I would expect a typical game to have more of these.

We saw none of the unstoppable, rolling cavalry melees that Clive and I experienced at the first playtest. The Gallopers had an edge in the first round of any melee in which they were attacking, but did not necessarily sweep away the opposition. In this action the cavalry pretty much cancelled out, though I think the Parliament guys might have had some lucky dice to sustain that.

Artillery in melees, as designed, cannot fight back. The best they can possibly hope to do in such a situation is somehow survive until someone rescues them. If they are isolated, they are dead ducks in a melee.

Command Cards worked well – the Evade card was well used (one for each side) and a card called The Lord Is with Us produced a good advantage for the Royalists at the end, contributing bonus dice in three simultaneous close combats.

Harcourt House, home of Lord Meols

Meols village

Rigby's men [P] behind the tavern

Parliamentary horse on the left - Dodding's & Lambert's

The ford

Sir Wm Brereton's RoF [P]

Rigby's again - waiting for orders...

Belching Norah

It is recognisably C&C

Lord Byron's Horse [R] ford the river

The cavalry action beyond Harcourt, which lasted most of the afternoon

Philip Egerton's Foot unsuccessfully try to prevent the Royalist horse
crossing the ford

Prince Rupert's Horse just about hold on to defeat Dodding's

General view from the Parliament left, mid afternoon

Gallopers from the Northern Horse [R] attack Lambert's Trotters (who held them)

The infantry battle in the centre develops...

...and things look very bad for Rigby's, who should have stayed at the pub

As is usual now, Nick did the photos. Thank you, Nick.

Hooptedoodle #85 - Earliest Memory?

Tonight I saw some of a British TV programme featuring Maureen Lipman, the Yorkshire actress. I found the idea behind the programme interesting - a study of why we remember some things clearly throughout our lives. One fact that emerged is that children do not seem to remember much before age 3 - at least not clearly enough to retain details into later life.

It was well done. Naturally, I checked my own memories, and I guess I found that I conform pretty well to the sort of average profile they described. I can remember a lot of unspecific stuff which must come from early childhood - the sound (and smell) of potato peelings on a coal fire, my teddy bear and a blue and red humming top, and sitting on the kitchen table watching my mother doing the ironing - but relatively much less about specific events - things I could attach a date and a place to.

I can remember being up very late, down by the River Mersey, watching the fireworks which were part of the Festival of Britain celebrations in 1951. I can remember getting a lift home in my Aunt May's black Vauxhall Velox afterwards, but I know some of this is faulty because I was told recently that we were at Birkenhead Docks, and I do not remember the trip through the Mersey Tunnel which this would have involved. It does have a definite date, though.

After due thought, I'm pretty sure the earliest datable event I can remember is my being in hospital. I hurt my leg falling off a swing when my mother was away giving birth to my sister (I would always go to any lengths to steal the limelight), which I can obviously date very accurately - about a week after my 3rd birthday. I remember very clearly playing with a Dinky Toy on a tray on my hospital bed - it was a brand new Bedford Refuse Truck, just like the one in the picture above (though this is a stock picture, and not my truck), and it was bought for me by my dad's eldest brother, who had been the one unlucky enough to allow me to fall off the swing. There were funny blue lights in the hospital ward at night, I remember, and they used to reflect off the shiny new paint on the Dinky.

That's it, really. Anyone else like to have a shot? How far back can you go?

If, like me, you have difficulty with what happened last week, this might be a pleasant therapy.