Ancients Rules Update- To the Strongest!

Not long ago the club was having its' monthly DBA ancients game day. Readers may already be aware that DBA is an old and popular set of game rules for playing out ancient and medieval battles. During the games there were several tense and unpleasant moments, however, in which people had trouble agreeing on exactly how the small miniature figures could move on the table. At one point things almost grew ugly.

Let's ignore the implications regarding grown men who might get angry about a game involving toy soldiers. Each genre seems to have rules that cause arguments. World War 2 games break down when dealing with assaults and air support. Ancient battles games suffer when describing charging and movement. You may be playing on a six foot long table but a millimeter's difference in placement can have huge implications as to who wins a battle. This dynamic is one of the things that author Simon Miller attempted to address with his To The Strongest! rules.

To the Strongest! (TTS) is a set of rules that allow you to play out ancient and medieval battles on a tabletop. You need two armies made up of eight or more units. The play takes place on a board formed from a grid of squares measuring 8 x 12. The square grid removes any issues regarding placement on the battlefield. Units are clearly "here" and can clearly and unambiguously move "there."

TTS has other novel game mechanics. Anything involving chance is resolved using ordinary playing cards. Success at some task is accomplished by drawing a card, The harder the task, the higher a card you need. In our playtesting we found this speeds up the game more than you'd expect. Dice are fun. They also fall from the table, roll around, hit things, get stuck under terrain pieces and generally eat up a lot of time to use. Flipping a card is the same as rolling a ten sided die, just a lot quicker.

Warmaster 10mm Back on the Table!

TTS has several elements that will be familiar to miniature gamers. Units on the table can be represented in any fashion- the exact number of figures on a stand doesn't matter. You could use wooden tiles to represent units, or German flats, or even paper cutouts. For our playtest games we used my old 10mm Warmaster Ancients stands. There are also familiar damage saves, overall morale levels, and a need to use leaders for important moments in the battle.

My overall take on the game was very positive. The mechanics themselves practically fly along. I taught an eight year old how to play in a few minutes and rules checks were minimal. That being said, playing well demands some thought. You are rewarded to keeping a good battle line, for proper use of skirmishers, for having a second line and some reserves. You need to manage light troops as they are helpful but fragile. Leaders are given simple rules with some subtle implications that cause Roman armies to behave quite differently from Briton ones, for example. There is a push-your-luck mechanic to giving orders but you will always get to move your troops, unlike some turns of Hail Caeser or DBA for example. Finally, the game works one on one or with larger groups.


I've been looking lately for games that are fun, challenging, and drama free. For my World War 2 needs Chain of Command has hit the spot. To the Strongest! looks to be a playable and fun ancients rules set. It's simple enough to teach to kids but deep enough to give a challenging game to experienced players. The rules are well written, packed with great diagrams and photos, and absolutely priced to move. I'd recommend taking a look.

Hobby Fun- Now with Eight Year Olds

Recently we were faced with the question of what activity to feature at our son's 8th birthday party. My gut instinct is to let children play outside until they are completely covered in watermelon juice, snow, or mud (depending on the season), but the wife advised me that modern families provide some sort of activity or event to the kids. My number four option was to have them all build plastic models of Japanese Giant Robots. Poor Amy considered whether the mud option might not be too terrible after all but eventually consented.

I went through Amazon and tracked down a crate of Gundam High Grade Universal Century models. I then opened each box and partially separated each piece from the sprues to make them easier to detach. My wife observed the detailed instructions, all written in Japanese. Then we laid out some tablecloth so the tiny pieces wouldn't get lost and let four 8 year olds go at it.

Mainly Just Watching Them Build

The end result was four highly entertained boys who needed about three minutes of coaching before efficiently building their models. At the end of an hour and a half or so they were more than half way done and all the models were finished at home that night. Each of the boys walked away feeling excited and proud and there were no meltdowns or frustrated faces. So other than feeling happy that my harebrained scheme worked, what's the lesson here?

Mainly, the lesson is that the Lego generation has been taught to build plastic models. Kids of my generation built Monogram and Revell tanks and planes but I suspect that the next wave of children would have been baffled by a plastic model. Now, however, you have literally millions of boys and girls who like nothing better than receiving a bag of pieces and a set of graphical instructions and then building away. Four of those kids took a look at the Gundam instructions, realized they were just like Lego instructions, and had a great time.

A few secondary thoughts come to mind. It was lucky that I knew which models to buy. The Tamiya High Grade Universal Century line is outrageously well engineered- the models fit together well and all amazing when completed. There is also the Real Grade line, which is newer, easier to find, and still simple enough for an eight year old. It's also helpful not to wait till the last minute. Hobby Link Japan is the best online source for these kit. I've used them often. Shipping from Japan can add some days to your delivery. Amazon is another source but shipping times can vary hugely and some sources may be unreliable in terms of how quickly they respond. Finally, local stores may carry the models. In Nashua The Comic Store has an awe inspiring level of in store stock, but at a higher price than through Hobby Link Japan.

Building models is fun. You learn a whole variety of crafting skills. You can learn history, art theory, all sorts of things.  And from my perspective it was very satisfying just to share a love of my own with a bunch of kids.

Book Review- The Cat From Hue- Revised Review

I just wanted to put in a quick plug for The Cat From Hue, a Vietnam War nonfiction book I'm working on right now. I'm beginning to divide my Vietnam reading into two categories. The first includes official histories, after action reports, and other government documents. These tend to be very helpful in detailing locations, dates and times, and overall quantifiable events. The reports often include hand drawn maps and other bits of information taken directly from the scene and sometimes deliver a good amount of granular detail.

The second category of material is the personal history. Sometimes this can be a transcript from an interview, or an essay found on one of the numerous
sites dedicated to various regiments and units stationed overseas. The personal histories are often very detailed and help paint a picture of a particular scene or even span of minutes. The Cat From Hue falls into this second category.

The Cat From Hue was written in 2002. As I make my way through it I'm finding it uneven but occasionally extremely valuable. In its' best segments author John Laurence writes as if he was composing shortly after the events in question. Thus, Morley Safer is introduced as yet another correspondent. Joe Galloway is introduced with no reference to his future role in historical reporting. Ernest young officers make comments in 1965 without any authorial winking or eye rolling. The result for me is a reading experience that feels authentic. I can supply hindsight on my own, but Laurence supplies the feeling of being there and not entirely knowing what the next week or year will bring.

That being said, the material is least helpful when Laurence goes ahead and supplies a meta narrative. For example, he steps aside to explain why he feels that his reporting could never have been truly objective. While this is true enough I would look for that level of discussion in a different book, or in a later section of this book. It feels intrusive in the middle of the historical narratives.

Another issue I have with the book is that it starts in 1968, and then jumps back to 1965. The 1968 Hue material is oddly not the strongest and I would have been just as happy to place it chronologically. I think the final take is that a bit of editing to help place the content would not have hurt.

I read a personal history to get a better understanding of how events took place at an individual level. An after action report may describe a squad as having moved from point A to point B but it will neglect the human dynamics, details, and costs of that journey. The Cat From Hue touches on a good number of well-known events and adds first-hand experience to the larger picture.

Vehicle Fun Part Two

The Normandy campaign for Chain of Command is moving along at a spunky pace and the Americans I command get some vehicle options. I like vehicles, especially bizarre and obscure ones. I like early war desert light tanks and the Soviets have a real talent for putting motors in things (I'm talking about you,  Aerosani!). Imagine my dismay, then, to discover that the Americans had essentially four vehicles. Trucks and halftracks, jeeps, Sherman tanks, and tank destroyers. Granted there are a few oddball creations like the M-8 and early on the Grant and M-5 are active but even so, American vehicles are just plain dull.

Resigned to equipping my fellows with Shermans and tank destroyers I picked up a pair of Armourfast models. Armourfast makes affordable models and the range is fairly decent. My initial impression when I unboxed the kit was neutral. It certainly didn't look too complex, rather the opposite. That initial impression was borne out as the construction commenced. The kit is slightly less complex than the Pegasus models and is really lacking in detail. Further, it had a good number of fit issues and I found myself puttying up a lot of spaces. Finally, the sprues attach at points that are highly visible, meaning that if you detach them carelessly you end up with big, visible gashes in the model.

Fine

I finished up a Sherman and M-10. The models are fine. Not fine like fine dining but fine like not terrible. They build fast and the price is right but if you're putting something on the table it may as well look special. And if I want simple, fast builds I think I'll go back to Pegasus.

Camel Racing!

I like racing games and I own a copy of Formula D. One drawback to the game is that I repeatedly crash my car long before the finish line. I've played a good number of games and I think I've made it to the end maybe once. Now granted this is solely my fault, the game is brilliant. Still, it's depressing. And that leaves me looking for a racing game in which I can't crash and burn both literally and figuratively.

A few weeks ago Camel Up appeared at the Myriad Games game night. Camel Up is a camel racing game and it comes with a colorful board, amusing cards, a pyramid that dispenses dice and a set of solid wooden camels. In one sense even if the game was terrible the components looked fun to play with! Happily the game is great fun. And the components Are fun to play with as well.

In Camel Up a set of camels race around a board in a series of phases, or "legs." In each leg the players bet on which camel will be in the lead. You can bet on several camels but you lose points for each incorrect bet. During the game you can also bet on which camel will be the overall winner and the overall loser. As above, you could bet on several winning or losing but each wrong bet loses you points. Further, the first right bet wins more points that bets made later in the game. And that's the central dynamic of Camel Up- you want to make guesses early but you also want to be accurate and it's hard to be both.

Big Hefty Components

The movement system of Camel Up is what make the betting "educated" rather than random. Each camel moves once per leg. There are five camels. They move in random order and one, two, or three spaces on the track, also rolled randomly. You can imagine that it's going to be harder to guess which will be in the lead when only one has moved and easier when four have moved. The overall movement system is dead simple in principal but leads to a lot of calculation and guesswork during the game.

Camel Up is simple but very exciting. The camels move on their own, your job as a player is just to calculate which will be in the lead. There's a lot of plotting and planning and then also moments of surprise as your plans fall apart over an odd die roll. It's a great game for people who like a mix of surprises and planning. Kids could play it easily enough and non-gamers should like it too.

Vehicle Fun Part One

My friend John and I are in the midst of a Chain of Command campaign set in Normandy and I've been slowly adding to my forces. John started in 1/72 scale and amassed a huge collection of great looking scenery so I went along and started up a whole new scale to collect.

Having set up a decent base of figures I turned to vehicles. There seem to be a few choices to work with. There are a number of "toy soldier" style manufacturers, a huge number of "plastic model" style sources, and finally die cast vehicles. I picked up some Plastic Soldier Company tanks, some Armourcast vehicles, and then looked for some 1/72 plastic models. I needed some late war Normandy gear but also some armor suitable for the Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union. Imagine my surprise when I stumbled into Hobbies With a Twist in Concord, New Hampshire, and found a huge pile of 1/72 obscure Russian early war vehicles. On sale!

The immediate and obvious drawback to eastern European plastic models is that the engineers have excessive confidence in my ability to manipulate and glue tiny 2mm bits and bobs. Does the tank have a knob of some sort? Then clearly it needs to be modeled! But once my initial dismay at the array of tiny soft plastic pieces dissipated I was struck by how easily the model fell together. The fit was smooth and the instructions generally clear. I needed to scratch build one section that was ruined through my doing, and I made a machine gun barrel out of syringe because the plastic barrel would have a lifespan of minutes. Otherwise the model was a real pleasure to assemble.

Early War Wunder Weapon

I'm working on another Soviet flame tank by the same manufacturer. It's going even better than the first. Once the initial tiny piece shock goes away these kits are great fun.

Hobby Fun with a Seven Year Old

Up to now letting my son "help" with hobby time has been less than satisfying. Unlike other forms of helping where something might actually get somewhat partially done he's just too young to paint small minis or do terrain. Much to his happiness and my pride that has now changed.

My 1/72 scale Russians needed some light armored vehicles and since I find armored cars to be super cool looking anyway I picked up some Pegasus BA-6's. Two vehicles is less that 15$ so it seemed reasonable. When I started cleaning the sprues my son asked to help and so each of us put one vehicle together.

My past experience with plastic models has demonstrated that engineering is everything. A well designed kit almost falls together with minimal filing and no forcing or prying. On the other hand, a badly designed kit Almost fits and that almost-y quality is a source of terrible frustration. Soon there's putty everywhere, dried glue on your fingers, and a model that looks almost decent.

Happily the Pegasus kit is very well designed. The instructions are clear, the pieces all fit nicely, and assembly is just complex enough to be interesting but certainly simple enough for a seven year old. The result- a nice looking vehicle! Painting time next, but I'll be looking at more Pegasus kits. Especially ones that have two models in the box!