Season's Greetings

As Shaky would say....Merry Xmas everyone!

I hope you have a lovely day however you celebrate, and that most of us made it onto the 'nice' list

Return to Fife

There's been another lull in posts as I'd been away for a pre-xmas catch up with family, as well as a chance for a bit of a break ahead of the festivities.  We headed back to Fife to a house we'd rented back in the summer.  We'd realised it was as cheap to do this as staying in a hotel for a few nights (especially if, as planned, our son was going to come and join us), it's only an hour or so to Glasgow, and it's a lovely place to recharge batteries.  Sadly my son went down with the lurgy that seems to be doing the rounds at the minute so decided not to come up.

Despite it being Scotland in mid-winter, we have brilliant weather and lots of lovely beach and coastal walks, met up with friends and family, and saw lots of wildlife... rabbits, gannets diving (which I could watch all day), a Minke Whale (or possibly just a large splash in the Forth but I'm telling everyone it was a whale!), and a worryingly close encounter with a seal which had wandered up onto the coastal path at dawn and which one of my dogs thought would make a very tasty breakfast!  Luckily all was well and the seal slithered over the rocks and safely back to sea.

Cisco remembers he was a hunting dog...

Last time we'd been to a few historical sites... not so many this time but a couple of interesting places both quite unexpected.  

First up is this statue of Admiral Cochrane who was born not far from my home town in Lanarkshire but spent a lot of his early life in Culross in Fife.  Culross may be familiar if you're a fan of Outlander as apparently it doubles as the fictional village of Cranesmuir in the series.  Incidentally in true Scottish style Culross is pronounced completely differently to it's spelling and is Coo-ross.

Cochrane is one of those larger than life, heroic characters who fought the French during yhe Napoleonic Wars, but was also a key figure in the South American Wars of Liberation and is a big inspiration for Hornblower and Aubrey.  It's reminded me I have a biography somewhere upstairs which I must get round to reading

Culross Palace

Next up was a very unexpected find, based on a small plaque we found on a house while walking with a friend and our dogs in Aberdour.  The plaque commemorate Captain Cyril Percy Ryan, credited as the inventory of the Hydrophone, used in submarine detection.  It turns out the house is is Hawkcraig House, also known as HMS Tarlair.  

Hawkcraig House 

During WWI this was an experimental station for the development of hydrophones, as well as mining and the development of a mine sweeping launch, controlled by seaplane.

Hellas

 Unusual boardgame last night ( I seem to playing more boardgames than anything else at the moment).  This was Hellas, a boardgame dating back to 2002.  It's a small, interesting game from Kosmos and Rio Grande games and seems to be part of a range of similar sized games which I need to go and explore.

It's a game of 2 Greek states expanding their empires and inevitably clashing over islands and land somewhere in the Aegean.   Visually it reminded me a lot of games like Carcassone (without the meeples) with players laying hex tiles around a central hex decorated with a dolphin.  Each of these features an island or land with a town and, sometimes, a temple.  Each player places a soldier in the towns to indicate they are controlled. Once a few tiles are down the serious business of expansion begins.  In each turn players have 3 options:

Voyage and add a new tile.  Placement needs to conform to certain rules so isn't always possible although I think we were always able to place one somewhere... just not necessarily in the place we would have wanted to put it. You also have to spend one ship to carry out a voyage and the ship is lost regardless of whether the tile can be placed or not.  The aim is to control 10 towns so this is a key way to win, but of course it does mean that players are likely to do action #2 which is...

Attack.  It's fairly easy to steal a town off your opponent... you only need to equal the garrison, or have 1 more if attacking by sea.  You have to leave at least 1 soldier to defend each town and they can only hold a maximum of 3 so it means attacking a town is likely to leave another one of yours vulnerable and there were several rounds of cat and mouse as each of us would build up our armies and force the other player into an arms race before launching an attack.

The 3rd action is called 'Burst of Strength' and this is effectively reinforcing with troops and ships and/or drawing a God card.  There are 3 decks to choose from: Ares, who is good for attacking, Poseidon, who helps with voyages, and Zeus who seems to be a bit of a general all-rounder.  The cards allow special actions, or let you cancel an opponents card which stymied both of us at points.

Playwise it's quite a tactical head scratcher.  It's easy to capture one of your opponents cities, but much harder to do so without leaving yourself exposed to them doing the same next turn.  The cards add a nice random element but don't feel overpowering.  The game itself only took about an hour or so to play and would be an ideal travel game as the tiles don't take up a huge amount of table space.  Defintely need to have a look at the other games by this company

Pre-birthday outings

 My birthday is looming closer and this yeas it's one of the 'big' ones.  My sister has kindly pointed out that it's all downhill from here on... cheers sis!!  As a pre-birthday treat my son treated me to a day out in London (something we haven't done as a dad and son for a long time).

First stop was at the Prince Charles Cinema in London's glittering West End to see one of my favourite films on the big screen... The Princess Bride.  Surprisingly busy for a Saturday lunchtime screening with a really mixed audience including some small-ish kids who were only a bit traumatised by the Shrieking Eels and ROUS's.

We followed this by a walk up to King's Cross which let me indulge my very nerdy hobby of Blue Plaque spotting...

 ...and we ended up at the British Library to take in their current 'Secret Maps' exhibition.  It was a very interesting exhibition with maps ranging from the 13th Century to the present day and touching on how maps are used to promote political agendas and their role in the history of colonialism.  A lot of the earlier maps relate, not surprisingly, to exploration and naval voyages as well as being tools to allow countries to establish their claims to far off lands.  There were also a number of more military maps and sketches which were really interesting.  Here's a selection of photos...

Map of India

'Disguised' map from Normandy.  Rugger is actually Pegasus Bridge 

Enigma

A frankly rubbish map by TE Lawrence showing settlements on the Red Sea coast of the Hejaz

A much better map by Lawrence showing his journey from the Red Sea coast to the Hejaz railway

It was really interesting, although to be fair, there were a lot of maps which can become a bit samey after a while and it could maybe have done with something to expand the exhibition.  Still very recommended though

Microgame madness!

 Due to space constraints, last nights game needed to be something small and compact and that could easily fit on a kitchen table.  Step forward a couple of Microgames and an evening of late '70s nostalgia (and a lot of squinting at tiny cardboard counters!)

I've posted before about my love for the old Metagaming Microgames series and I've acquired a few via eBay.  As a game series they are very much of their time and production values are pretty low, but that was kind of the point.  The games were cheap and cheerful ($2.95 according to a couple of the games sitting on my desk... according to the Bank of England's inflation calculator this is the equivalent of a hefty $16.22 today!)  and, although some of them don't always work as game systems, there are often some really interesting mechanics and ideas in there. I think we've become very spoiled by much higher production values these days and I can't imagine a game with a folded paper map, tiny flimsy counters and all packed in a ziploc bag would sell today.

For our 1st game of the evening we went with GEV... the  sequel of sorts to the classic Ogre.  GEV has a bigger map and introduces terrain features and is much more of a conventional wargame.  Each side has a mix of Tanks (heavy and light), Missile Launchers, Howitzers, Infantry and of course, GEVs.  Steve Jackson clearly thought the future of warfare was hovercraft!  There's also the option to deploy Ogre's as part of your force (the cybernetic tank... not the grumpy monsters).  The mix of troops types as well as the terrain features make it a slightly more complicated game and add an amount of depth.  We played the Breakthrough scenario, where a small force of GEVs has to make it's way off the northern board edge,  while the opponent has a mix of armour and infantry.  

The route to the northern edge of the map is cluttered with swamps and woods with pathways through it, giving the defenders a chance to predict where the GEVs will try and force their way through.  Conveniently there's also a large lake and river which is handy for the hovercraft but is likely to be well defended.  I managed to get several GEVs off the table but at quite a cost with over half my force being wiped out.

As this was a fairly quick game we opted for more nostalgia and played a game of Starfire.  This game, prodced by Task Force Games in 1979 is a proto-Star Fleet Battles, written by Stephen Cole who also created SFB.  I spent may long hours playing Star Fleet Battles back in the 80s, usually at my friends flat in Glasgow's West End with games punctuated by trips out for fish suppers and beer.  It was a great game but did sink under the weight of an ever-growing complexity as more and more supplements emerged.

Starfire is a very simple version with, initally, a limited range of weapon options and very simple damage system where each hit simply crosses off a feature of a ship (shields, then armour, then hull etc)... each ship has a line of letters representing these features in a variety of orders.  Interestingly the scenarios in the book are linked and as you progress through them the technology advances and more options are included.  It's easy to see the beginnings of SFB in the game, albeit in a very simplified, but very playable way.

Tiny, tiny counters... don't sneeze or bump the table!!!

The scenario has one side attacking a defended Starbase.  My defending ships were all either destroyed or left weaponless but the Starbase remained unscathed.  I now have a real hankering to dig out my copy of Star Fleet Battles!

I have been to... the London Mithraeum

 I had an hour or 2 to kill in London last Sunday afternoon while my wife was at an appointment so I finally got round to visiting the Mithraeum which is located within the Bloomberg building in the City of London.  I've been meaning to do this for years but never got round to it.  It's free to visit but you need to book a time slot online.

The Temple of Mithras dates back to the 3rd century CE and was uncovered in 1954 during an archaeological dig.  The museum comprises the remains of the actual temple itself, accompanied by a sound and light show which, to be honest, didn't really add a huge amount.  There is a great display of some of the artefacts found in the original dig, and then when the Bloomberg building was being built in 2010.

These are all displayed on a single wall with interactive tablets letting you find out more detail about each one.  It includes some fascinating items and, as usual I found myself drawn to the more domestic items rather than the military ones.  A large part of a wooden door, a paddle from a boat, shoes, writing tablets... one of which includes the earliest dated hand-written document known from Britain, a financial document of 8 January AD 57... all offer a fascinating glimpse into daily life.

The entrance lobby also features a really interesting art installation.  All told I was there about 30-40 miuntes... it's not the biggest museum but it's really interesting and free.  So if you find yourself with a spare hour in the City it's well worth popping in.

Back to Boardgames!

 Well there's been a bit of a gap in blog posts since my last post back in September.  Lots of excuses... work has been pretty manic, lots of family 'stuff' going on, a trip back home to Glasgow for a few days (and an epic 13 hour trip back on multiple trains thanks to Storm Amy), but also thanks to a general lack of enthusiasm for everything that has descended this year.

Still, I managed to perk myself up and have been out for some great boardgames in the last few weeks including a couple of games of Kingmaker, Crusader Kings, and another game of Battle of Hoth.  Kingmaker and CK are great games and create really narrative stories.  In our Kingmaker game the entire Lancastrian royal family died of plague in a single turn thanks to a very unlucky plague event!  Lord Percy was able to calmly march into York, announce that he was just been appointed an Archbishop and crown Richard!

In the Battle of Hoth this time round I played the next scenario in the book and took the Imperial side for a change, where I discovered that ATATs aren't the indestructible monsters I'd hoped they would be as the rebel scum blew mine up quickly in the game.  

The game was very close but the Rebels managed to nick the last victory point and I guess run back to their base to prepare to evacuate, while Darth Vader asks some serious questions of the Imperial Commanders!!