11.28.10
Posted in Books and Audiobooks
at 6:10 pm
I have enjoyed most of the things Stirling and Drake have put out (c’mon, Drake is an ex-11th ACR guy so he’s got an automatic in). This is one of the books I keep as I cycle through paperbacks and jettison most of those I dislike or don’t care to read again.
Raj Whitehall and his computer pal have now reunited their planet (Bellevue) and are extending their reach to the stars in an attempt to recreate the Federation of Man. In this part of the saga, two young boys handle a “meteorite” that is in the process of being shipped to a new location on the planet Visager. Through this physical contact, Center has made some type of connection to their brains and can not only communicate with them, but also allows them to communicate with one another mentally and with the avatar of Raj Whitehall. (OK, so this is science fantasy.)
Civilization on Visager broke down into several competing societies on one large horseshoe shaped island and another smaller island. The bad guys, known as the Chosen, were defeated in an earlier conflict and booted off the main island to the smaller one. They have created a militaristic society with the goal of reuniting Visager under their control. If you have read any part of the Draka series you will be familiar with the tenets of this dysfunctional country. Several other countries exist in semi-harmony on the main island continent and all have turned their face away from the long term Draka… I mean Chosen… threat.
The two boys represent agents of change and are guided through their lives by Raj and Center, the computer.They become industrialists and developers of technology on their planet under Center’s guidance. Their long term planning allows the Chosen to be defeated in a series of wars that wrest away the initiative from the Chosen.
I enjoyed the book mainly because it has a lot of military action in it and I think the underlying idea is fun. More important, it takes place in a 1915 to 1925 type technological environment so the era is not one I am completely familiar with and gives me a break from other wars in which I am interested. I think it shows how one can take this period and construct ImagiNations out of it that could be fun to build up and in which to game.
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11.23.10
Posted in Miscellaneous
at 9:11 am
stupid parrot
A young man named John received a parrot as a gift. The parrot had a bad attitude and an even worse vocabulary.
Every word out of the bird’s mouth was rude, obnoxious and laced with profanity. John tried and tried to change the bird’s attitude by consistently saying only polite words, playing soft music and anything else he could think of to ‘clean up’ the bird’s vocabulary.
Finally, John was fed up and he yelled at the parrot. The parrot yelled back. John shook the parrot and the parrot got angrier and even more rude. John, in desperation, threw up his hand, grabbed the bird and put him in the freezer. For a few minutes the parrot squawked and kicked and screamed. Then suddenly there was total quiet. Not a peep was heard for over a minute.
Fearing that he’d hurt the parrot, John quickly opened the door to the freezer. The parrot calmly stepped out onto John’s outstretched arms and said “I believe I may have offended you with my rude language and actions. I’m sincerely remorseful for my inappropriate transgressions and I fully intend to do everything I can to correct my rude and unforgivable behavior.”
John was stunned at the change in the bird’s attitude.
As he was about to ask the parrot what had made such a dramatic change in his behavior, the bird spoke-up, very softly, “May I ask what the turkey did?”
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11.10.10
Posted in Miscellaneous
at 8:19 am
M. Campbell conducted a non-scientific survey of the members of the Old School Wargaming mailing list recently. Here are his findings:
Well, the numbers are now officially crunched, and I can share the info with you, so without further ado…
QUESTION ONE: How old are you?
The average age of the respondent was 45 years old. The oldest respondant was 71 years old, and the youngest was 20. At 42, I’m a relative youngster 
QUESTION TWO: How long have you been involved in wargaming?
The average respondent has been involved in the hobby for a mind-blowing 34 years! This is mind blowing because according to hobby industry experts, the average persons ‘serious’ involvement in a hobby is only seven years….The longest respondent has been active for 54 years. The Shortest, only 5. At 15 years, again, I’m a relative lightweight
On a side note, I crunched a few additional numbers and found out that the average age that a person gets involved with wargaming as a hobby was 15 years old. This is entirely within range of the ‘golden age of 14′ theory in pop-culture analysis, which postulates that for each individual person the ‘golden age’ of anything is the way it was when they were 14 years old…
QUESTION 3: How did you initially hear about the Old-School Wargaming movement?
Someplace on the web: 29.5%
From someone in person: 6.8%
Email mailing list: 25%
Always been ‘OS’: 6.8%
The Miniatures Page (TMP): 13.63%
Old-fashioned dead-tree book/magazine: 9.09%
“I never really considered it a movement”:6.8%
Don’t Remember: 2.27%
Not a whole lot of surprises here, really…
4. Do you consider yourself ‘old school’ first and foremost, or is it part of your overall wargaming interest?
OSW first and foremost: 36.36%
Part of overall wargaming intrest: 56.81%
Declined to answer question: 4.54%
“I’m more Old Fart than Old School”: 2%
In all honesty, I expected the ‘first and foremost’ rating to be higher on this one, closer to the 50% mark than it is…
And last but nowhere near least:
5. What aspect of Old-School Wargaming appeals to you the most?
Social aspects/OSW folks are more fun to game with: 18.18%
Visual appeal/ like the miniatures : 20.45%
Rules are more fun/ more enjoyable: 38%
Nostalgia/Like the old-school writers: 13.63%
“Gentlemanly Charm”: 4%
Creative aspects: 9%
“Not really sure”: 2%
Interesting factoids.
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06.24.10
Posted in Technology
at 8:04 pm
My family is now the owner(s) of 2(!) iPads. Why two? Because we found that my wife and I were not the best at sharing even after knowing each other for forty-two years.
I love this little thing.I must confess that I was a big sceptic at first but it has almost changed the way I do a lot of my computing. Here are a couple of “for instances”:
I can do a website post from anywhere, even the local MickeyD’s as they have free WI-FI. This is much easier to use than a notebook or a net book (and we have both).
The battery life is a hefty ten hours, meaning I can take it places I could not take my other machines.
The iTunes store is impressive, and I’ve been able to acquaint myself with a number of old SF favorites which are now free from Project Gutenberg. It has been a long time since I last read “The Cosmic Computer” or “Lone Star Planet” by H. Beam Piper. I also got free editions of On War and a couple of bios on Frederick the Great and his campaigns and family.
Apps are so inexpensive as to be laughable. C’mon, a word processor for $9.99? (Yes, I do use Open Office on my other computers.)
It runs a Kindle app so I can also troll the Kindle store for dirt cheap classics.
The PDF reader that you can get for what, $3 or so, allows me to take the huge backlog of PDFs I have along with me so I can read them when I have the time. I can also annotate them (I’m one of those that reads with a high liter in my hands) and the notes get passed along to my computer when it syncs.
(and how can you dislike a machine that allows you to carry around copies of “Little Wars”, word documents of “Charge” and “The Wargame”.)
It’s a great, but spendy, night light. I can now read in the dark and so not disturb anyone.
And there’s something obnoxiously cool about your email having a “sent from my iPad” tagline!
Splendid job, Apple, and at a reasonable price point for capability and ease of use!
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06.10.10
Posted in Announcements
at 8:58 pm
I decided to switch back to WordPress as that is the focus of my business. There have been some.. glitches… with the importing of data from Joomla and the upgrading of the database to the 2.9.xx version.
The posts content were there in the previous version of the upgrade but now for some reason only show in the backend. I guess the posts are now classified!
I’m working on it.
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01.03.10
Posted in Aeronef
at 5:31 pm
I picked these two fleets to start with as few other folks were planning on doing the Aegean and I thought that these would be unique (and on that I was right).
The Turks are basd on German Aeronefs, many of which Brigade Models already had in their stables. As you can see, this is a poor man’s navy with a number of easily repairable dig platforms. The vessels in front are *very* light and have only two damage points apiece. They are mainly good for pursuit and polishing off damaged enemy craft or for use in support of land engagements. The real powerhouse of the fleet is the battleship which lies in the back of the fleet. I gave these all Turkish names based on important individuals in Turkish history.
- One Abdul Aziz class Dig Battleship Abdul Aziz
- One Sultan Selim class Battlecruiser Tewfik
- One Muin-I-Zaffer class Dig Cruiser Mahmudieh
- Two Assari Shevket class Dig Destroyers Abdul Hamid, Rehberi Tewfk
- Three Keyk class Patrol Digs Kandiya, Retimo, Sinub
I made nameplates for each ship and pasted them on Plasticard and glued them to the bases so I could track each vessel. As my fiend pointed out, I should have placed them on the back so the player could see them instead of the opponent!
The Italian fleet has a beautiful color scheme (which *I* did not choose as I just aped the Brigade Models miniatures.) This is a more Western style fleet and when put straight up against the Turksih fleet, it clobbered the Turks. I’ll have to go back and do some research on the points to make sure I have them evenly matched. You’ll notice that the lighter ships in the Italian navy outweigh the Turks. In front are 2mm figures from Irregular miniatures which I intend on using with Land Ironclads.
This fleet is composed of the following:
- Two Re d’Italia class Battleships Venizia, Roma
- One Guilo Cesare class Light Battleship Di Vinci
- One Pisa class Cruiser San Marco
- One Carlo Alberto class Dig Colombo
- Two Palestro class Destroyers Espero, Ziffiro
I have included some PDFs here for those who desire to use them.
If folks find this interesting, I’ll be happy to post more on my Aeronef gaming.
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07.31.09
Posted in Napoleonic, Naval
at 6:22 pm
The rules are not simple but are very straightforward. The turn sequence is based on a modified alternate move system as follows:
1. Determine Initiative by using a D10 and adding in command modifiers – highest score decides to go first or let the other player go first. Determine if the wind changes or not and what the change will be.
2. Alternate movement and actions with each player alternately selecting a commander and his vessels to activate . Vessels that are in the command radius of their commander may undertake certain actions such as beating to quarters, firing, boarding and other actions. There are actions that may be carried out even if a ship is not within command radius – fighting fires, passing a tow line, picking up survivors, and so on.
3. During the end phase the players remove all markers and determine if the victory conditions have been met. If not, play returns to phase 1.
One of the things I like about the rules is that they break down the Age of Sail into three periods – Early (16th Century), Middle (17th and 18th Centuries to 1720), and Late (post-1720). Each period has certain distinctive characteristics which means that the later the period, the more distinct the difference between ships and nationalities. Ships are classified by four game factors: Speed, Gunnery, Hull, and Crew. Multiplying these together yields the points value for each ship (if there is a ship with a zero for one of these values, use one instead). Here are some values for the period we played:
|
Nationality
|
Type
|
Speed
|
Gunnery
|
Hull
|
Crew
|
Cost
|
|
French
|
74 gun
|
6
|
7
|
3
|
4
|
504
|
|
British
|
74 gun
|
6
|
7
|
3
|
3
|
378
|
|
British (Slade Design)
|
74 gun
|
8
|
7
|
3
|
3
|
504
|
|
French
|
44 gun F
|
8
|
3
|
2
|
2
|
96 H
|
|
British/U.S.
|
44 gun F
|
8
|
3
|
2
|
2
|
96 H
|
The "F" means the vessel counts as a frigate while the "H" means the ship is "Handy" and makes better turns. Frigates may act (after 1720) as independent vessels or as signal repeaters, extending the range of the commander’s command. The values listed in the table above can be modified by crew or hull quality.
There are only three templates in the game. The first is the wind gauge which determines the ship’s attitude to the wind and determines what part of its speed is available. The second is a turning gauge. The third is the gunnery template which is a rectangular overlay two by six inches. There are three range bands. The first is one inch and is point blank range, the second one to two inches out for short range, and the larger band is normal range. To fire, take a D10 and roll it, add to this value the gunnery factors of the ship(s) firing, various modifiers (such as raking, range modifiers, crew quality) and subtract the target ship’s hull rating. If the score is above a ten it is a damaging hit of effective, telling, devastating, or(more?) devastating….
The latter result also entails a roll on the disaster table. This will not occur very often but when it does it can literally be earth-shattering. In our game, I took over a command from someone who had to leave early. His commander was on a ship that was fouled with a British ship. When hit again, right after I assumed command, the nefarious British player rolled a one on a D10 and caused my ship to explode killing me outright! In addition to the vessel atomizing, the turn ends immediately and the vessel fouled with it catches fire. (Earlier in the game I was in command of a Spanish four ship formation with an admiral on board a 130 gun ship. The Victory rolled up, gave us a broadside and killed me outright…. My time as a Spaniard was not very productive as I then had to give up command to my son who was in charge of the nearest formation that could communicate with the survivors!)
Battle photos courtesy GAJO Minis….
|
French and Spanish Battle Line |
Allied Van Turns About
British Attempt to Break Line
Rear of Line in Confused Scrum
|
British Break Line
|
|
HMS Victory Catches Fire
|
My First Ship Prior to My
First Demise
|
British Right Wing Moves
Against Allied Rear
|
There are rules to cover boarding actions (to be experienced sparingly as in real life), shore forts, prizes, striking ships, breaking the line, and more. All are elegantly simple and allow you to play a fleet action in a reasonable amount of time. I intend to use these rules for my naval gaming from now on. Although aimed at fleet actions, I think they could be used for actions involving a dozen ships per side. There is a companion set entitled Form Line of Battle for smaller actions that is more complex but I have not had a chance to review them yet.
Rules are available from A & A Games Engineering and Wargame Vault.
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07.09.09
Posted in Uncategorized
at 7:41 am
Apparently Harmony Gold has thrown a legal wrench into the works and MechWarrior 5 is D.O.A. MechWarrior on computer appears to be making a comeback.
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04.09.09
Posted in Uncategorized
at 3:44 pm
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03.11.09
Posted in Uncategorized
at 10:03 am
Here is our first grand daughter. Arriving at 4:56 PM Monday in a C-Section she weighs in at 6lb 7oz. Her orderliness is already impressive. We are referring to her as Baby Malan now because the parents have not named her yet. Mother and daughter are doing fine… the father is still being treated for shock….
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