Two crimes in one

 A grim tale for Christmas.

My daughter wanted an Amazon gift card for Christmas, so we bought her one at a supermarket.

Just before this, some evil crook had managed to tease open the packaging, photograph all the numbers and seal it back up, so that they could defraud Amazon by claiming the value for their Amazon account (despite not buying the card).

My daughter got a worthless piece of plastic for Christmas, and Amazon customer services very clearly explained that the value on the card had already been taken by someone else, which is why it wasn't appearing on her account.

On complaining  that the supermarket had taken my money for something worthless, I got no redress from the duty manager, who effectively blamed me for choosing the bad one.  I am very disappointed by this attitude from Tesco, which I feel sure breaches the UK Sale of Goods act, since they took my money for something that was not of merchantable quality.

I would advise anyone not to waste your money by shopping at Tesco as I have.  I shan't be wasting my money at Tesco in future.  

As a management response it's about the same as blaming a mother for choosing the jar of baby food with the broken glass in it.

First quarter reading 2025

 Another quarter goes by and it's not surprising that the reading list was shorter, allowing for all the medical activity following my trip to hospital.

Max Hastings - Vietnam

I mentioned this one after picking up a copy last November.  The subtitle calls it "an epic history of a tragic war" and that description is spot-on.  In more than 700 pages Hastings covers the causes and objectives of the war, from French colony, through communist insurgency to drive out the French, supported by Russia and China, partition and American intervention.  From beginning to end there seems no hope for the people of Vietnam, neither from the series of corrupt and unpopular governments in the south or the uncaring totalitarian state in the north. America spent a fortune in dollars and young lives but failed to prevent the communists taking over the whole country.  Nearly a million refugees fled the country, mostly in boats, to reach some chance of a better future anywhere else in the world.

As well as filling in the big picture with significant events that I was too young to understand when they happened, the book has individual stories of people who were there: patrols, ambushes, attacks on fortified positions, life on a SAM battery; this really is a huge book.  

Christopher Duffy  - Austerlitz

I had already read David Chandler's account of Napoleon's greatest victory and was hoping for  three-sentence summary of what he did that resulted in such an outcome. Both books gave me a blow-by-blow account of individual battalions and brigades slamming into each other in turn, all over the area of the battle.

After both accounts, all I can offer is this: Napoleon had an army that had camped and drilled together for two years, organised in fixed brigades and corps; the Russians and Austrians had no common language or experience of fighting together, and any organisation above the regiment consisted of ad hoc divisions and columns created on the day of battle.  The allies should not have rushed to battle against the French. but instead they advanced off a commanding position on the Pratzenberg heights to fight on the level ground of the valley below, only to find that the French then occupied the heights they had abandoned.  Individual units fought bravely in a piecemeal melee, but the outcome was inevitable.

Richard Osman - We Solve Murders

After 4 novels featuring the Thursday murder club, Richard Osman has moved on to a new set of characters for this story (although the old gang will be back).  The Thursday Murder club started as a believable group of retired people looking into a murder in their back yard.  As the series went on, the action became increasingly bonkers; having caught a local drug dealer, the gang may borrow a kilo of cocaine ro plant in someone's luggage, giving the police a reason to arrest the target.  The retired intelligence agent calls on foreign agents to help out and good turns to a wide range of shady characters lead to favours in return.  

This new story is bonkers from the start, with the main characters working for a close protection (bodyguard) agency. apart from the retired detective inspector who gets involved because he's family.

Like the other books, there are truly sad moments among the laughs. Also, the gang gets bigger as one good turn deserves another. An entertaining romp.

Paradice Worthing 2025

 On Saturday Trevor kindly took Lee and myself to Worthing leisure centre to enjoy a day of boardgame-related fun.  Paradice had  traders selling new and second-hand boardgames, a very civilised bring & Buy section (no crush, no arguments about who saw something first and reasonable prices).  I picked up Junta, a favourite of my university buddies, still in the shrinkwrap, for £23.  Trevor grabbed a small game for only £3).  

civilised gamers

There were game designers showing off their latest creations (just published) or looking for feedback on their games under development.

Hot off the press - first day on sale

The atmosphere was clearly different from wargaming events.  There was no pervasive odour of sweaty bodies. There were ladies present and even whole families.  Instead of a bacon or sausage sandwich to fortify  us for the day, there were granola bars. 

Where are all the bacon sarnies?

We took part in a couple of "social deduction" games.  Apparently, if you watch "The Traitors" on TV (I don't) you will know all about this.  The players (just under 20 in each game) are secretly assigned identities as good guys or bad guys by the Master of Ceremonies, who kept us on track.  Some of these identities provide little pieces of information about who the other players really are, such as how many bad guys there are.  One role may be a pathologist or undertaker who can find out (a bit late) whether someone who has just died was actually human or an alien or demon.  Another role may be able to sense how many of that player's two neighbours are bad guys.  In the two games we played there were as many different roles or identities as players.  The best known games of the genre are Werewolf and Mafia, well described on Wikipedia.

The game is played in daily cycles. During the daytime the players discuss information and clues to secret identities.  At night the good guys all close their eyes while the bad guys point to the player they would like to murder.  In the morning the good guys can open their eyes again, apart from the one who has been murdered.  Before night falls, the players can nominate someone to be ejected or executed as a bad guy.  The good guys win if they get rid of all the bad guys, and vice versa.

A snippet from The Spawn's identities

Our first game was The Spawn, set on a space ship.  I was an evil alien creature masquerading as human, but quickly established my cover story that I was the recycling robot.  Any scientific test would show that I was not human, but that's only to be expected, as a robot, and the real recycling robot is on the side of the good guys.  As the Psiok, I got to mess with Lee's post mortem examinations, and he spent the whole game wondering why the results made no sense.There were other twists, with one player sworn to protect me from ejection .  My cover remained intact until the evil aliens seized control of the ship from the surviving humans.  We won!

The next game was Blood on the Clocktower, a mediaeval setting where one demon takes on a whole town with help from his evil minions. Lee soon got into trouble.  He told us all that he was the town cook, which gives him information about how many minions of the demon there are (specifically 2 pairs sitting side-by-side).  We innocent townsfolk tried repeatedly to figure out which 2 couples this could be.  Eventually one of the others reasoned that it was impossible, and Lee could not be the cook.  Sure enough, they put it to the vote. Other votes were triggered when two players claimed the same identity.  They couldn't both be the butler, so one of them must be a bad guy - but which one?

With convincing logic, Lee was executed and turned out to have been the demon all along.  Nice try, but he was outwitted by a more experienced player.

To wind down, we borrowed Burgle Bros 2 from the games library and played out a cooperative heist caper to rob a casino.  My character was a safe-cracker, while Trevor had an acrobat with zipwires to move quickly between floors.  I spent most of the game just distracting the casino security guys by making a commotion among the slot machines before ducking back into a quiet corner that I'd found.  They came to the slot machines to check out the fuss, leaving Trevor free to work in the owner's office, then returned to their rounds, passing me by, so I could repeat the process.  Meanwhile Lee had made his way upstairs to find the safe.  We had fun, although we found the constant presence of security guys frustrating.

After an hour and a half of play, Lee got the safe open and we moved on to the ending.  There are several of these in a sealed envelope and we got the one with the car (avoiding the one with the tiger, or the one with the dye packs, which looked much more difficult to pull off).  Lee found a car in the vault, drove across the casino to pick up Trevor and myself, before crashing through an upstairs window to deliver us into the street outside.  It would have looked great in the movie.

Oceans 11 had nothing on us

Robinson Crusoe - solo castaway

 While I've been recovering, my brother-in-law has kindly lent me his copy of Robinson Crusoe - Adventures on the Cursed Island.

This is a solo / co-op game of being cast away on an uncharted island.

I played the first scenario "Castaway" and randomly picked the ship's cook as my character.

The core of this game is a limited time (12 days) to build a huge signal fire and attract a ship to rescue me.  Each day my character can take two actions (placing my two action tokens, rather like Agricola).

In a solo game I have help from Friday (1 action token) and a dog (1 action, but only to Explore the island or Hunt).

To complete the scenario I will have to Explore and find a mountain (a pre-req to make fire) and Gather 17 units of wood, then Build my shelter and the woodpile.  There's a lot to do and probably not enough time.

For each action I can use one of my tokens and then roll the dice to find out whether I succeed or fail, maybe taking a wound in the process, or I can use two tokens to succeed automatically.  This mechanic neatly emphasizes the feeling of too much to do with not enough time to do it properly.  No doubt there will be a need to take some risks and rush a few of the tasks.

Learning this game from the rulebook has been a major challenge.

There is a numbered list of 17 steps to setup a game and a picture of an example game with each element of the setup numbered to show which step put it there.  It should have been so easy.  Sadly there were several mistakes and unclear instructions, so it took me a week to reach the point of starting play.  The setup instructions are for a 4-player game, with a later section to explain the differences in a 2-player game.  A further section describes the solo game as just like the 2-player game with some differences.  Back and forth through the rulebook, I got there eventually.

This game has not skimped on the physical parts and the production value is impressive.  There is a space on the board for the action to Arrange the Camp, printed with a reminder of the results, and there is even a card to cover it up with the different results in a 4-player game, but not one for a solo game.

The cost in resources (wood & furs) to build a shelter varies with the number of players, but the table printed on the board starts with 2 players and only the rulebook notes in the solo section that solo costs are the same as for 2 players.

Once the cook has a fire, I can add a fireplace and then the evening meal will heal a wound.  I'm going to prioritise fire over building a shelter and accept some wounds overnight from sleeping rough on the beach.

I explored the next hex from my camp, taking the dog and got lucky.

what my exploration found

It's a mountain (presumably containing flints, since that lets me make fires and knives).  It also contains a natural shelter (saving me 2 wood and an action spent building).

I spent the rest of the day gathering wood and food in the new mountain with help from Friday.

So far I've found 2 hexes that produce wood, and I can only get 1 unit of wood per day from each of them.  15 wood in 12 days is looking impossible unless I can explore some more, and I still need spare actions to make fire and build the woodpile...  I'm starting to see what this game is about.

Tomorrow's priorities will have to be making fire and a fireplace, then move camp to the natural shelter tomorrow night...

Update: the game slowed down as the weather took a turn for the worse, requiring me to spend time on building a roof for the shelter and causing wounds in the meantime, which then had to be healed.  My exploration found 1 more hex, which yielded an antique rapier, the only weapon I needed

A series of event cards needed actions to be spent to deal with problems.  However, by day 7 I had the hatchet, which meant 2 units of wood per day without needing to spend any actions collecting it (on top of my existing stocpile from days of gathering)and I realised that the woodpile does not have to be built (with a build action for each stage) and instead builds itself so that victory became assured.

I had constant need to refer to the 61 pages of official errata and FAQ, which made this first game slow and frustrating, but there are plenty of other scenarios and different characters to use, so there should be new interest in each new playing.  Maybe I was unfairly lucky to win this one first time.

Until next time, health & happiness to you all.

Thoughts about a scenario for Lexington & Concord

 

Looking ahead to the next anniversary of the AWI, this is going to be a difficult scenario to define in a way that makes an interesting and winnable game for both players.

My idea about the basic structure is to play two short sections, one after the other.  First will be a search of Lexington, looking for the ringleaders of the rebellion and any hidden arms and ammunition that were rumoured to be stored there.  Then the Crown troops will have the long walk back to Boston under harassing fire all the way.

There are a couple of good templates for part 2 in the existing OHW scenarios.  Scenario 23 Escape looks promising, while scenario 20 Fighting Retreat adds a couple of elements that don't seen to fit the historical situation here: the retreating force has to quickly cross a river or be trapped and eliminated, and there is a strategic hill to be fought over for the final victory.  While it could have gone badly for any Crown forces that failed to reach their boats and cross back to Boston, that crossing is near the end of the scenario, rather than on turn 2, the time limit in in scenario  20.

Sadly there is no template for a scenario where Red searches a village, sending a unit to spend some time in each building. Blue can cause a few casualties during the search, rather like the losses from fighting at the north bridge.

Sadly I'm not convinced that the Crown troops ever had a realistic chance of finding their targets.  The advance from Boston had been well observed and all the ringleaders were long gone before the troops arrived to look for them.  Unless the Crown troops have some outside chance of finding something in their search, there is little point in playing the first part of the action, other than to scatter the Crown forces and cause a few casualties among them.

Perhaps an American reader will have a different perspective?  Are there versions of the story where the ringleaders were lucky to escape capture and showed great cunning or daring to remain free?

Until next time, health & happiness to you all.

Fourth quarter reading

Another quarter ends, and I've not forgotten how to read, but haven't maintained much of a pace, which is odd because there's not much else to do when you're laid up for a week in hospital.

Ben Macintyre - Colditz: prisoners of the castle

Having grown up with the TV series, the boardgame and the film, I thought I must have heard all about Colditz before my brother-in-law passed on this book for me to read.  Certainly a lot of the escape attempts are familiar: the impersonation of Franz Josef and of Willi the electrician, for example.  But it seems that the main source material was Major Pat Reid's book, and he escaped relatively early on, so left out much that happened after that.

There's a lot of interesting material in here that I hadn't come across before.  There's the story of Majumdar and the Indian nationalist angle.  The book addresses sexual frustration and how the inmates dealt with it.  Some of the issues of where to hide escape equipment such as maps and money (before the days of cavity searches). I thought of Colditz as a camp for the "bad boys" and repeat escapers, but it was also used for possible high-value prisoners, including a nephew of Winston Churchill, who might be useful in any bargaining with the victorious allies.  The sad story of the last escape attempt was new to me and very moving, given this was the same officer who played the part of the sgt major "Franz Josef" so well with so much planning, driven to such a desperate and hopeless rush.  The strange events of the end of the war were also new to me, when the kommandant gave orders for the prisoners to be armed if necessary to defend themselves from the SS.

Recommended, even for those who think they may have heard it all before.

Stephen Fry - Mythos

As a boy, I read Roger Lancelyn-Green's and Charles Kingsley's books of the Greek Myths and loved them.  It was probably one reason I have an academic qualification in ancient Greek.

Stephen Fry's rendition of the old myths & legends is more comprehensive, organised in a sort of chronological order, where the other two just picked out their favourite stories and left it at that.  This means that he begins with primordial Chaos, followed by the titans (who are mostly the embodiment of natural phenomena like earth, sea, day, night, sleep and individual rivers) and Zeus is not even born until page 30.  Once the human race has been created, the best-known tales begin, and Fry tells them with an obvious affection, mixed with the scholarship of alternative versions which is kept apart in footnotes.

I particularly enjoyed his version of Sisyphus, which goes well beyond the boulder that everyone remembers.

John Lambshead - One-Hour Ancient & Medieval Skirmish Wargames

I found this an annoyingly lazy book.  The basic rules were already written (in his Ohe Hour Skirmish Wargames), so most of the book was there for free, but still fails to  address FAQ from the original volume.  For example, it still says that a model may not move any further after shooting (point 3 in "The Player Phase" p8), but doesn't clarify that close combat is also expected to be the end of a model's activation.

Once again the scenario descriptions mention some terrain that should be on the table, but most is not marked on the map, and the effects of terrain on the game are not clearly defined (e.g. the punishment raid on p70 has gullies and fast-flowing streams, but are they more than waist-deep as specified on p9?  and how many should there be? and where are they?).  There are rules about light infantry, heavy infantry etc with no explanation that these are defined by the level of armour the models wear.

Combat resolution is slower (both shooting and close combat) to allow a second round of contested card draws (one draw to hit, a second draw to penetrate the armour).  Attacks are more likely to be ineffective than in the original book, because in all cases the defender draws extra cards for one or other of the two draws.  The defender is allowed a counter-attack, which is resolved immediately (two more contested draws).  While the author argues that this is to provide differentiation between different grades of armour, in practice that could have been handled by card modifiers or by additional card draws on defence; the changes to the rules make combat more granular and longer-running, creating a more heroic / pulp feel to the fighting, so that it goes on longer and in more detail.

To play this game, the players will have to fill in the gaps, some of which will have significant impact on the game balance.

Anthony Horowitz - Close to Death

I saw this in a bookshop just before my family asked what I would like for Christmas, so I jumped at the chance.  If I'd done my homework I would have realised that this is the 5th Daniel Hawthorn book.  While I've only read the first two and this one refers to events in the ones I missed, so it would make more sense to read them in order.

I recommend starting with The Word is Murder.  Horowitz does something interesting with the format of the whodunnit by including himself as a character (rather like Dr Watson) and this volume continues to explore his relationship with the detective.

Enjoyable, if not a masterpiece like Magpie Murders or Moonflower Murders.  The way those two books interweave a whodunnnit book with a mystery involving the author is something exceptional in my opinion, although I didn't take to the anagram at the heart of Magpie Murders and therefore prefered Moonflower Murders.  dr gustibus nil disputandum as they used to say.

Until next time, health & happiness to you all.

A stroke of luck

I must be the luckiest blighter alive.

On Friday the 13th of December, a date of ill omen, I suffered a stroke, a bleed on the brain.  I was taken in to our local hospital and a week later I  was sitting up in bed, chatting with old friends who had come to visit and check on my progress.

As I typed this on Christmas Eve, I was looking forward to seeing my two lovely granddaughters on the big day tomorrow.

Don't get me wrong. I haven't just walked away from this serious incident unaffected, but it could have been so much worse.  I'm still walking, talking and getting a weekly game in, even if I am half-blind now.  

Before all of this trouble. I was making a little progress on my backlog. including this famous archaeologist in a ruined temple.

Until next time, health & happiness to you all

Indy & the temple of inadequate maintenance

Zulu hordes with Trevor

Trevor came round on Friday for a game.  At one time we used to do this weekly, but it's been a long time since we could manage that.  As usual the evening was a mixture of actual gaming and chatter about what we've been reading and buying and so on.

Trevor has been painting up 10mm Pendraken figures for the Zulu wars, with the intention of basing them up for proper big battles, but he has based the first few as individuals for skirmishing.  So we played the One-Hour Skirmish Wargames Zulu scenario, which is a sort of miniature Rorke's Drift.  The British redcoats are taking cover in a redoubt as an endless stream of Zulu warriors rushes up to overwhelm them.  Dead Zulus are replaced after one turn, a little more than one move away from the redoubt (though they still count toward the Zulu morale breaking).

Tiny skirmish action

The luck of the cards was outrageous.  I kept pulling face cards for actions, while Trevor drew 2s & Aces.  Twice the turn ended just as Trevor had one of his redcoats attack my best warrior across the wall of the redoubt; to resolve this the attacker draws two cards and uses the higher of them to beat the defender's one card draw; he pulled a high card, I pulled a low card, then he drew his second card and it was a Joker.  That means that the turn ended immediately without resolving whatever activity needed the card to be drawn, and so my warrior wasn't dead after all.  It sounds like one of those very rare events, but it happened twice in one game.

The fighting continues until one side's morale breaks or until a relief column appears to save the day for the British.  The timing of the relief column is decided by drawing one card at the end of each turn, and when the running total reaches 30 the column arrives.  Trevor drew some terrible cards for this.  He was down to just the lieutenant and the inspiring private Alexander when it finally appeared.  He spent the whole game moaning about his terrible luck (and it really was outrageously bad) right up to the point when he suddenly won.

The OHSW rules are cinematic and generate games that are exciting and fun.  They are massively "swingy", generating very unfair and unlikely outcomes for individual actions with the expectation that they will average out across the game.  The outcome is far from predictable.  But if you are less concerned with playing the odds to maximise the effectiveness of your side and happy instead to effectively watch a Hollywood action movie unfold on the table, then they are worth a look.

The scenarios are frustrating to read.  They are all specific actions, no generic situations.  The terrain setup is disturbingly vague.  In this scenario "the only cover [is] small outcops of rock and giant ant hills".  There are no clues about how many to place, how large, where they should be, whether they slow movement or block line of sight, just the assumption that they probably provide a 1 or 2 card bonus for Zulus being shot at when next to them.

There is a chapter in the book on point values, but those costs don't give the numbers stated in the scenarios.  For example, in this scenario the British force is correctly costed at 18 points, with no extra points for being in a redoubt, but the Zulu force is 24 points, not the 31 stated in the scenario.  Perhaps the extra 7 are the price of limitless replacements and a 9" movement rate?  In effect the book might as well not include points at all, and instead say "write your scenario and play it a dozen times; if one side keeps winning then change something in the other side's favour".

Until next time, health & happiness to you all.

A sample story using Plotto

I mentioned [here] that I'd read Plotto, but didn't talk much about how it works.  Here is something of a worked example to show just how fascinating it can be.  You may wonder why you'd be interested.  Well, a lot of people play solo role-playing games with a bunch of random events and so on to fill in the story between the fighting, and Plotto works in a very similar way.

Plotto - the Master Book of All Plots

To start with, the book recommends that you choose an A clause (the hero), a B clause (the action) and a C clause (the outcome).  It sounds a bit like the old game of Consequences.  They start on p14 of the book.  There are 15 A's, 62 B's and 15 C's to choose from.

I was looking for a rom-com (don't ask, I just was), so I selected A4. An Erring Person  B23. Becoming involved in a complication that has to do with mistaken judgment and suspicion.   C8. Achieves a spiritual victory.

Now I want to add some detail to that story.  Each of the B clauses has a set of suggested conflict situations that can take place (in an index on p20, if you're trying to follow this with the book).

For B23 I am offered Love and Courtship 21, 177, 328, 365.  These are listed fully on p30.  I'll take the obvious conflict 21:

(4a) (1167) (1168) (1169) (1170)

A meets B and thinks she is a transgressor; and B, on her part, thinks A is a

transgressor * A and B, each thinking the other is a transgressor, nevertheless fall

in love ** 

(69) (97)

A and B are the standard identifiers for the male and female lead characters.  There are a pageful of supporting characters, such as A-2, a male friend of A.  The story will make a lot more sense when the characters have names.  I'll call our Romeo and Juliet something more English, like Rick and Jill.

The bracketed numbers at the beginning are situations that might come before this one, and the ones at the end could come after this situation.  The * and ** divide this into two sections, and you may only want one part of the situation.

OK this situation raises lots of questions for me to resolve into specifics: what is wrong with Rick's judgement?  What kind of transgression do Rick & Jill suspect?

Maybe this is chick-lit and our hero A is the woman, she has lousy taste in men (always picking the wrong sort) and suspects that Rick is another one.  But what kind of transgression has Rick suffered from women in the past?  Gold-diggers?

Just like a solo role-playing game, you are left to fill in these details out of your own imagination.  Or you could make a list of six possibilities and roll dice for it.

The method suggests further situations to take place before & after this one, which may make the story clearer. The mention of conflict 69 to follow 21 suggests an altogether different kind of transgression:

(27) (1146) (1173) (1175) (10c) (14b) (147) (61)

A, in love with B and thinking B has committed a crime (1172) (1206) (1292) (1293a, b, c), 

declares to the police that he committed the crime himself (828) (833) (787 ch A to B)

This looks more like A is an incompetent detective, mistakenly suspects B of something and confesses to the crime himself or herself (which is a lot to do for a complete stranger).  Now situation 21 already told us that B must believe that A is guilty of something, too.  How will they get out of this one?  Presumably the real culprit(s) must be discovered (or the crime be found not to have actually happened).

At this point I had a flash of inspiration and came up with a working title: Do you take this Mann? (featuring a stolen bust of Thomas Mann, the author of Death in Venice)

Maybe it will help if I add some more situations to happen before this point in the story, so I check the suggested predecessors of 21: 4a is the first suggestion sets up the detective angle.  A, seeking to uncover duplicity, falls in love with B, supposed to be guilty of the duplicity - maybe A is looking for a thief, expects an interview with a suspect and some mix-up has her meet B?  Later she can visit B and find a replica of the stolen thing boldly displayed in his home.

This other predecessor to 21 takes the same direction: 1168

(599) (1161 ch A-4 to A-2)

A, inspired by altruistic motives, assumes the name and character of A-2, using

A-2’s clothes and other belongings, and seeking to carry out an enterprise begun

by A-2 * A, posing as A-2, does not know that A-2 is a transgressor ** 

(603a) (822 ch B to A-2) (1044a)

Now we've got a possible mix-up.  Rick goes on a blind date in place of his friend Tony, just intending to let the girl down gently.  Tomy's mother is always trying to set him up and he has work to do that night (stealing the maguffin), which is why he asks Rick to cover for him.  In fact the next meeting could be at Tony's home and it could be the real maguffin on the shelf, not even a replica.

Now detective constable Jill doesn't even have to confess.  If she was the blind date then she has become Tony's alibi !  That won't go down well at work.

How do things develop from here?  And if Jill doesn't confess, why does Rick think she did it?

833

(1334c) (1337)

A sifts the circumstantial evidence of a crime in an attempt to discover the perpetrator 

(1371) (1413a) (1449)

Maybe she didn't confess?  What if it was a 1st edition of the book Death in Venice by Mann, and on the date they talk about how she's never read it and so Rick lends it to her, not realising it's stolen?  Now it's got her fingerprints on the cover and she can be caught red-handed with it...

Although why would anyone be in her flat to look at it?  She could have a boss or a colleague who's trying it on, decides to drive her home after a difficult interview (when she offers the suspect an alibi), and invites himself in for cofee.  He spots the book on the coffee table.

Meanwhile the real thief (Tony) is trying to arrange a buyer for the book, which must come back & bite Rick sooner or later.

1371

(l290a ch A to A-5) (1334c)

A is positive, in his own mind, that his friend, A-2, has been murdered by A-5 * A suspects A-5, seemingly an honest man, of a crime, and tries to prove him guilty ** 

(1222a ch A-3 to A-5) (1413a) (1456a) (1413 ch A-3 to A-5)

A-2 (Tony the thief) was trying to sell to A-5 (let's call Victor Cranborne).  Now we've got Tony giving Rick his keys to make the blind date believable.  Tony's mum called to set him up while the two men were in the pub, so Rick has to be the thief convincingly and then the blind date (Jill the detective) can convincingly tell Tony's mum how it went.  Rick goes back to return Tony's clothes when Jill arrives to take him in for questioning.  Tony's mum calls Rick to say she's worried about her son who's not been in touch...

How does Rick get a lead on the buyer?

1413

(a) (1302 ch A to A-5) (1305) (1334c)

A, by mind-reading, secures a confession from a transgressor, A-5 (1451d) (1461b

ch AX to A-5)

(b) (1097b ch A-2 to A-5) (1261 ch A-3 to A-5)

A, a detective, unmasking A-5 as the leader of a criminal gang, finds that he

cannot secure A-5’s arrest as the police authorities refuse to act * A discovers that

A-5 is a government secret service man, merely posing as a criminal in order that

he may secure an advantage in prosecuting his work for law and order ** (1222a

ch A-3 to A-5) (1228 ch A-3 to A-5)

I'll skip the mind-reading option, but 1413(b) looks promising. Once Rick somehow identifies A-5 (Victor Cranborne) as the buyer, he takes it to the police and they aren't interested.

That feels like enough twists and turns for my little brain.  Now I just need Plotto to help me tie up the loose ends, save Tony from Victor, and allow Rick and Jill to fix a second date with no lingering suspicions...

That can be the subject for another post, and perhaps a written-out version of the final version of the plot that I choose.

Until next time, health & happiness to you all

Holiday in Paignton plus Warfare 2024

No blog posts for a while, because we've been on holiday in Paignton for a couple of weeks.  In November?  Are we mad?  Actually we had two weeks of dry weather, warm for the time of year (16C in the first week, down to 11C by the end) and a fair amount of sunshine.

I got to see the cirl buntings in Brixham, watch seals from Goodrington Esplanade and see gannets diving for fish off Berry Head.  There were a lot of cooked breakfasts, meals in the pub and other creature comforts, along with a lot of shopping.  I got a new leather belt, just like the one I bought on Newton Abbot market over 20 years ago (and am still wearing).  There was also a significant haul from the charity shops, including a lot of CDs and DVDs that many shops are practically giving away at the moment.

Some relevant finds in charity shops

That lot in the photo cost me less than a tenner.  In fact I spent more on a grilled mackerel breakfast in the Guard House restaurant (which was excellent and well worth the price).  It was a good mix of familiar haunts and new discoveries.  Sad to see Oldway mansion looking so run down; apparently it has been closed since bits of masonry started falling off in 2022.  Originally built for Isaac Merritt Singer, the inventor of the sewing machine, the last time we visited it was in use as the local registry office.  Sue Barker learned to play tennis on the courts outside.

Oldway Mansion looking a bit tatty.  The other side looks worse

While away, I started playing Mike Lambo's Fields of Normandy.  In this book, the player commands a platoon of the 6th Royal Scots Fusiliers clearing the Germans from dug-in positions around Caen as part of Operation Epsom.  The first few scenarios are a tutorial and I cleared each of them at the first attempt, getting the hang of scouting, flanking and supporting fire.  The fourth scenario by contrast had me stumped with a srting of 4 successive defeats.

Fields of Normandy, going the safe way

Here you see my stealthy approach,  Starting from the space at the bottom (with the black triangle) I've sent all three sections around the hill, scouting the German infantry squad position to find it looking the other way.  A section has already gone ahead and scouted the position of a second German squad (also looking the wrong way), so the attack should be simple.  There is a third position in the NE corner, still just a question mark.   I played the scenario four times this way and didn't lose a man, but there wasn't quite time to clear all three in six turns.

Eventually I took a chance and rushed straight over the hill into the first German position with the whole platoon.  I got lucky and cleared a light MG position, but it could have gone badly wrong.  As a result, the platoon was on hex further east and a turn sooner, leaving plenty of time to tackle the other two positions more carefully.

There's a surprising amount to think about in such a small scenario.

Drove home on Friday and on Saturday went up to Reading's Warfare show at Farnborough airport with my brother-in-law.  Spent a long time around the trade stands, but better not talk about the haul.  Let's just say that money changed hands, and unlike my companion I managed to stick to my orders and didn't buy any more toy soldiers.  MDF bases, scenic accessories, a rulebook and some special dice are not toy soldiers.  And we don't live in an elastic-sided house.

Most of the pleasure for me in a show like this is to look at the demonstration and participation games.  They are far beyond my ability to paint so many models, build so much fabulous scenery and above all find anywhere in the house to store it afterwards.  But I do like to dream.

Guilford Courthouse with Sharp Practice by Huntingdon Wargame Society

This beautiful layout is a great example.  You'll need to click on the image to see it full-size and appreciate how good it is.  The crown forces are at the far end, and will have to fight through three lines of rebels to cross the whole length of the table and achieve a significant victory.  While staring at the table, I eventually realised that I had met one of the organisers (Mark, on the left) last year at Posh Lard in Peterborough.  So we chatted a little.

There are a lot of familiar faces at a show like this.  I didn't spot any magazine editors this year, but plenty of other faces that I only know from their hobby blogs (or in one case from the television).  Keith Flint was there, which reminds me that one year I must make it to his Cotswold wargaming day.  And I also ran into a couple of Postie's Rejects.

Ray and Lee with some smug-looking bloke.  What's he so pleased about?

It's good to see Ray up and about for an event like this.  He said something on his blog about coming to say hello, so it would have been rude not to.  Actually I saw him at Warfare last year, and got as far as "Hello Ray" just as someone else that he already knew (it may have been Lee) appeared and started talking to him.  I left them to get on with their conversation, thinking we were bound to pass each other again, but it's a big enough show that it didn't happen.  So we got a proper hello this year, before I go back to being just a page-view statistic from Blogger.

I'll just say that there are a number of blogs that inspire me to do better at the hobby, and if I don't leave a comment, that's only because I've got nothing of value to add.

Update: Ray has published a much fuller report on the Warfare show on his blog [here]

So that's a summary of a busy couple of weeks.

Until next time, health & happiness to you all.

AWI 250 project

Next year will see the 250th anniversary of the shot that was heard around the world, and in preparation for a series of anniversary games I have been working on some small, simple scenarios to play with my brother-in-law.

I've initially gone for the One Hour Wargames format to make a short game that we can play a couple of times in an evening and still have some time left over to argue about how it might have gone differently.  Concord is a tough place to start; what kind of result could be counted as a win for the Crown forces?  If they had arrived sooner, without the rebels being tipped off by their network of spies, then they might have recovered some supplies or captured Adams and Hancock, but that depends on factors that would not be played out on the tabletop.  In some ways a search of all the places of interest followed by an orderly withdrawal is as good a result as could be hoped for.

Lexington presents a better scenario for a tabletop battle.  The outnumbered British must keep marching toward Boston, rarely having time to halt and return fire, while the rebels cause as many casualties as possible.  Can the Crown forces reach Charlestown before dark in a state of effectiveness?  Unfortunately the outcome will depend more on lucky or unlucky dice than any cunning plan or wise choices by the commanders.

Instead of these, I started with the first battle that I learned about at school: the incorrectly named Bunker Hill.  The plan was to capture Bunker's Hill, but all the fighting was about Breed's Hill on the way.  Both commanders had choices about the placement of their forces which can significantly affect the outcome.

Opposing forces deployed and ready

I've tried to follow the format of OHW, so that forces could be generated randomly, but also identified the forces that were involved historically (allowing for significant artistic license to fit within a small table and 6 units).  As we tackle more battles the file will grow into a complete scenario book.  The latest version is available [here].

The scenario map

I played the scenario solo a few times to develop it, then Trevor came round and we played twice.  On the first outing Trevor took the rebels and moved his skirmishers back to the North of Charlestown, while placing the artillery and line troops in the redoubt.  My Crown forces advanced within range of the redoubt and halted to fire, clearing the redoubt in a few turns before advancing to complete their mission.

Skirmishers in Charlestown

On the second attempt Trevor put his skirmishers at the South end of Charlestown, with two infantry units in the redoubt and his artillery back on Bunker's Hill.  This time a continuous fire on the Crown forces, focused on a single regiment at a time, saw my regiments break and run one by one without clearing the redoubt.

I'm going to say that this is ready for us to use next June.  I'll keep thinking about how to make a playable game out of Lexington and Concord while I move on to the next campaign.

Until next time, health & happiness to you all.

Hopton Heath solo

I'm continuing to work through Mike Lambo's solo game book Battles of the English Civil War, following my glorious victory at Braddock Down [link].  The next scenario is Hopton Heath, and the book sets the Parliament player (me) the objective of killing the Earl of Northampton.  This is rather removed from the historical battle [see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hopton_Heath] where the Earl died leading a cavalry charge.  However, the Earl's death was just about Parliament's only positive point from the outcome of the battle.

setup and order dice for turn 1

As  you can see, I deployed my force along the ridge (of cork mats) while the Earl of Northampton (hiding behind the trees, top right) set up his "roaring megs" centrally, with horse on both flanks and a scattered foot force strewn all about the field.  That's what happens when you let the dice decide.  My plan is to let my cavalry deal with one wing of his horse first, then shift across to the other wing.  Meanwhile I don't roll enough movement orders (1s to 3s) to advance my infantry.

The Earl manoeuvred his force, with his right wing charging into Brereton's cavalry, but to no effect.

On turn 2 Brereton's cavalry threw back the royalist horse (which left the field on the royalist turn), while Gell's foot troops advanced to the front of the ridge.

The Earl's canon opened fire, but without effect.  However the pikemen hiding in the woods charged into my horse, with supporting fire from a unit of shot, and drove them from the field.  So our losses are even, but my force is still outnumbered, with the uphill task to reach the royalist headquarters and defeat it.

Turn 3, I moved around a bit, not closing with the enemy.  In response, the Earl's remaining cavalry charged up the ridge into my pike - never a good plan, but the only target they could reach.

Turn 4 my troops all converged on the royalist horsemen and utterly routed them.

In the Earl's turn, the canon blew away one of my pike units, while massed musketry routed the other.

Not looking good

At this point my only hope is to send the remaining cavalry wide to the right and then charge the Earl unsupported.  If the royalists are slow to react, I should get two attacks before the light fails, with a slim chance of winning (albeit a pyrrhic victory).

I'm going to raise two comments about the rules now, rather than wait to the end.  Firstly the ability of canon to fire through friendly units, even when they are engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the canon's target.  Those must be very skilled artillerists to judge the elevation so precisely.  And secondly I've noticed that my bold cavalry end-run could get stuck into the Earl's HQ a turn sooner if I send it straight through those trees directly in front of the Earl's position.  I can't find any penalty to the cavalry for charging through a wood.

These are both observations to the effect that the simple rules provided by Mike Lambo are just a little too simple for my taste.  I'm going to send the cavalry around the trees anyway, partly from a sense of what feels right, but also to keep them further from the royalist foot troops, to make sure they are not halted by some roaming block of pikemen.

The cavalry gallop wide and my two units of shot face 3 pikes, 2 shot and 2 canon.  Thanks to the way the royalist forces have formed up in a long column to attack, even a modest push-back sent the leading pike block off the field (because there was no space for it to halt its retreat).

"Roaring megs" blew away one of my two units of shot and now I'm worried that I may not have enough units left, because fewer units mean fewer order dice get rolled each turn and I want to be sure of having a move order for the cavalry.

My remaining shot move around to avoid combat as much as possible, but it does no good and they are taken out by lucky royalist shooting at maximum range.  The royalist pikes start to move toward my cavalry.

On turn 8 my cavalry fail to roll a move order.  The odds against me have just lengthened significantly.

Two moves left to reach the Earl

On turn 9 the cavalry resume their charge; the royalist shot are ineffective, the royalist pike just stand and watch.  One move left to close with the Earl.

I rolled an attack order.  Cavalry can only attack an adjacent target.  The battle is over, the sun sets and the Earl of Northampton holds the field.

Epilogue

The following day I played the scenario again, since the table was still laid out and ready.  The royalist play seemed more aggressive, with both cavalry units together on the Earl's left wing.  The big guns remained a constant threat and for several turns the dice were not my friends.  But eventually the tide of casualties went my way, with three of my units lost to six of the royalist units.  I still had both cavalry left, so I started the same end-run charge tactic and this time the Earl's headquarters was routed on turn 9.

My triumphant cavalry close with the Earl.  One unit already in contact while the other is about to charge through the woods to reach him.

Until next time, health & happiness to you all.

Board Game Lounge

Last night I went out to a local community centre for an evening of board games.  They are now doing this twice a month on slightly different formats.  As usual, I went with my brother-in-law (or maybe he isn't - you can read me waffle on about in-laws [here] if you're interested).  We were there a little before the 7pm start time, because the car park fills up quickly.  As a result we helped set up the hall.

Anyway, it was a good evening out.  It's also very good value.  For £3 you get the use of the hall (tables and chairs) and free coffee or tea, along with one ticket for the prize draw.  Extra tickets are 50p each and there are boardgames for prizes.  Because there were only two of us, we stuck up our sign for 3 more players and were soon joined by a young guy on his own and a couple who live a few miles away.  Everyone was friendly and we enjoyed a couple of games in the 3-hour session.

Heat - US track

First we played Heat by Days of Wonder, which Trevor had brought.  None of us had played this one before, but Trevor had read the rules and watched some videos of how to play.  We played the two-lap US track.  It took about half a lap for people to remember to claim the advantages of being at the back and to remember that they could boost their speed at the cost of some heat in the engine.  By the closing half-a-lap they were recklessly charging around tight corners far too fast and just hoping to make it past the finish line.

For the record, I was in last place on the starting grid and finished second-to-last, so I count that as a positive result.  There were times that I had the lead, but just couldn't find the high cards for the final dash.  The handicapping system works well to keep the cars close together on the track (one square extra move for last place and slipstream benefits when catching another car), and the last two corners saw all 5 cars bunched up into 3 sections of track.  It could not have been closer.

Unstable Unicorns

Our other game was Unstable Unicorns, which looks like it should be all fluffy fun for little girls, but is actually quite mean as the players gang up to pick on whoever looks to be in the lead.  You win by having 7 unicorns in play, and once Jem became the first player to have 6 unicorns down the rest of us were most unpleasant to him.  As a result, Trevor and I managed to catch up with him and reach 6 as well, and then the meanness was spread around more evenly to take us back down to 5.  Eventually I got lucky with a ginormous unicorn (counting as two) at a moment when all the defensive cards had been used up to avoid Jem winning.

This is probably a game that favours regular players who will recognise the card combinations and winning moves, but it was the first time any of us had played, so nobody had an advantage.

At 10pm the raffle was drawn, and I think six games were handed out as prizes, but not to any of our table.  Then there were three lucky people who played Higher or Lower to win a free admission to the next session.  Only one of them won it.  And then there was half an hour to finish off any games that were still going and head for home.

Until next time, health & happiness to you all.

Third quarter reading

Another quarter ends, and I've not forgotten how to read, but haven't maintained much of a pace.

Richard Coles - A Death in the Parish

I mentioned [here] that the reverend Richard's first novel had rather too much about what a vicar's life involves, but I was hoping he might have got that out of his system and settle down to focus on a whodunnit.  Sadly for me in his second novel he doubles down on the ecclesastical side, by adding a second vicar to the story.  This allows for plenty of discussion about different kinds of vicar with differences in their beliefs and different views on how to serve their parish.

In contrast, the whodunnit aspect seems even thinner than the first novel.  There are two deaths in the parish (or in the next parish), but Canon Clement seems to form no theories and follow no red herrings.  It probably depends what you look for in a crime novel, but I was expecting a number of plausible suspects with motives and questionable accounts of their whereabouts, and a smattering of false or inaccurate statements, so that the reader can play along and try to work out the culprit before the detective collars him or her.  Thank goodness there's a real police detective in the story to sort things out.

Randall Monroe - What If?

I'm a big fan of the XKCD web comic [xkcd.com].  Even after such a long time, Randall Monroe still manages to find new laugh-out-loud humour for geeks like me.

The book was a mixture.  There were surprising questions like how long could you surprise in space if you were inside a nuclear submarine.  There were fascinating ideas that had not occurred to me, like the rule of thumb for how many pronounceable combinations of letters can exist in a particular length of word.  On the other hand, there were some very odd assumptions between the question and the answer: what if the world stopped spinning?  The answer assumes that the planet stops suddenly but the atmosphere continues to rotate, which raises the question of what kind of action could cause that?  Would it be more likely for the planet's rotation to slowly decrease to an eventual halt, and the atmosphere with it?

So a mixed verdict, with brilliant moments and frustrating ones combined.

Robert Thorogood - The Queen of Poisons

This is the third in the series of Marlow Murder Club novels.  We've had a story with airtight alibis, and a locked-room mystery.  Now we have a murder where all the suspects were in the room and nobody saw it.  It's great fun and my only gripe is that the amateur detectives spent too much of the novel bouncing from one suspect to another and being wrong each time.  I know it's a trope of cosy crime, because my friend David was moaning about it at the reunion, but it felt like the old saying "at least a clock that has stopped tells the right time twice a day".

Robert Thorogood always plays fair by the reader, and the murder scene contained all the clues to questions that puzzled the amateur detectives for the first half of the book.

Greg Costikyan - Uncertainty in Games

This wasn't the book I was expecting.  It was mentioned in a discussion about game design, and appeared to be a recommendation for people who fuss about what kind of randomness to use, percentile dice, buckets of six-sided ones, different shapes for different units (with bigger dice effectively adding as plusses) and so on.  But that's not what it's about at all.

Costikyan's point is that all the interest in a game is about the unpredictable outcome (or in a few cases an unpredictable route to the inevitable outcome).  That's why nobody over the age of about 10 plays noughts and crosses (or tic-tac-toe in the USA).  Some games rely on a player's skill (e.g. throwing darts at a board), or the fact that there are too many choices to analyse fully (like chess), or random factors like cards or dice, and this book is a survey of what kind of uncertainty applies to each game.  It covers board games, computer games, a broad range.  I found it interesting to read, despite being nothing like what I expected.

Tom Hindle - Murder on Lake Garda

This was a birthday present and the location (Lake Garda) was somewhere I've been on several holidays, so the description of the setting brought back memories.  There are several crimes in the story and the connections between them create an intriguing situation.  Something out of place is a clue, but to which crime?

Disappointingly for me the novel jumps about from one character's point of view to another, using maybe half of the key characters to tell the story.  It's a way for the author to tell us about the history of the characters' relationships when they reflect on how they find themselves in this situation, without having to contrive a conversation where they might talk about it.  Unfortunately, when the character wonders who could have committed the murder it becomes a way of removing suspects from that crime, which is a shame.  As a result, even with important information only being available late on, I was already shouting the solution at the main amateur detective and wondering how she could fail to see something so obvious.

In fairness the story maintains interest even after the culprit(s) are identified, because there are still armed criminals on the loose for the other characters to deal with.  But I still can't recommend this one as whole-heartedly as I'd hoped.

Until next time, health & happiness to you all.

Gaming reunion 2024

It's been quite a long time since a bunch of people met at university, discovered a shared interest in games and became friends.  This week one of that group has kindly hosted another six of us to spend a week at his place, playing boardgames, Dungeons & Dragons, eating and drinking too much and generally having a good time.  It's great to catch up with people that I now only see on Zoom conferences or a couple of times a year face to face.

The antiques roadshow - old geezers

Midsomer Norton is a surprising town, with the biggest Wetherspoons in England (hidden behind an unimpressive front door).  There's also a model shop, so I picked up some more static grass, since I'm running out and my local shop has gone.

big 'Spoons

Before Dafydd arrived on Friday we got in a quick game of Diplomacy (Dafydd hates that game), followed by a very long game of Citadels (billed as a quick card game, but soon wallowing in analysis paralysis).  Trevor pulled off a very close victory by playing the card that causes an early end to the game with 7 districts instead of the usual 8 when he was just a couple of points in the lead.

Saturday dawned bright and sunny, although I was suffering from a hair of the dog.  Literally.  Matt's dog Rufus had been in to inspect the visitors on Friday evening.  I react badly to all furry creatures, and was sneezing with my eyes watering and generally feeling pretty poor.  As is traditional, a few of us spent the morning at the local shops to forage for provisions (and in my case enjoy some fresh air).

Lunchtime saw a first game of It's a Wonderful World, a kind of variation on Seven Wonders.  As a new thing, we all missed the point of how to play well and performed poorly.

It's A Wonderful World

In the evening, Darrell cooked pork chops for us, followed by a seriously extravagant cheeseboard (Baron bigod, Vacherin, High Moor, aged Gouda and a dozen other smelly delights)

pork chops flambée

Sunday morning we revisited It's a Wonderful World now we know how to play.  To my surprise, I came first on 61 points, followed by others on 60, 59 & 58.  It could hardly have been closer.

Then we moved on to D&D.  Massive trouble was stirred up when the party visited a friendly elf noble in Larston.  We stayed at his town house, but one of the Chaos faction raised an angry mob, supported by hired mercenaries and spellcasters.  There were people breaking in on the ground floor, fireballs cast through the windows on the first floor, the rear wall partly disintegrated, and earth elementals summoned to undermine the foundations and demolish the house around us.  Never before have I heard the expression "abandon house!"

D&D - fighting on a floorplan

Chinese takeaway for dinner, home-made Irish coffee, filler games (The Mind and Maior, see notes at the end of this post), time for bed.

Irish coffee

Monday we played a "quick" game of Starfarers of Catan in only 4 hours - not a great choice.  I languished in last place with dreadful production until one strange turn at the half-way stage when I jumped into first place and was the first one to be too successful to receive charity resources on my turn.  It still felt like I was last, right up to the final turn when Matt was in first place, needing only one more point to win.  Matt rolled poorly, couldn't score.  When it came around to me, I scored another leap forward and won.

Starfarers of Catan

The problem with the Catan games is that a bad start just gets worse, while early success allows a player to build villages and then gather extra resources each turn and push further in front.  It can be so disheartening to keep going with a bad position.  Although obviously I don't get to moan about this particular game, since I found a way to buy the victory (with fame rings, using one of the alien trade cards).

Another game of It's a Wonderful World, which Darrell won by a landslide with 93 points.

Dafydd cooked ragu with penne for dinner, followed by more cheese and port.

Then a game of Obsession, a social climbing game with worker placement for the servants and also the family.  I'd describe it as multiplayer solitaire, with very little scope for any player to affect the others.  Only one player is doing anything at a time, so the game grinds to a halt while David decides what to do.  It's not possible to all play in parallel, because we're all trying to by improvements to our country houses from the same pool of available options until one is bought and replenished.  We called it a night and resumed on Tuesday.  I'd guess that a 6-player game took us something like 6 hours, including teaching the rules, eating lunch and other faffing about.  It probably won't be back on the table very soon.

Dafydd won narrowly over David, Trevor & Darrell, commenting that he had felt like he was doing badly the whole time.  Matt almost managed a negative score.

Tuesday afternoon's D&D started at 5pm, delayed by the long boardgame.  There was a break for dinner, coq au vin by David with some serious wines and then chocolate fudge cake, after which the group were somewhat low on energy for serious gaming.

fudge cake

Wednesday - another Wonderful World (Dafydd won this time), then the new Kingmaker.  This was a great trip down memory lane, with all the usual shenanigans.  I had Scrope (as archbishop of York) & Percy with his troops, so spent my first turn travelling to York, grabbing Richard and getting him crowned.  My ally Up North was Matt, who spent his turn grabbing Durham, only to get caught by the plague straight away.  Dafydd grabbed Henry VI when we was called away to meet a papal emissary.  We had about 5 turns of fun, most people were getting nowhere, then Matt made nachos and we decided it had been fun, but we'd had enough.  Exactly how I remember it from school days.

Knights with nachos

Then we moved on to more D&D.  The party made a hasty departure from Larston and went to see the Blue Witch at the far end of the island.  She told us that Saratak had been waiting a week to speak to us, but if we had time she would like to speak to a goblin somewhere in the nearby desert, so could we find him and bring him to see her?  She's busy trying to control the growth of the desert, which is only there because she had a fight with another dragon rider, creating a mana storm and a spreading region of dead sand.  We couldn't resist, so we spent some time faffing about at the edge of the sand trying to work out why there was an army of ghostly goblins in the desert.  Faffing about letting the ghosts possess one of the party so we could ask them what was going on.  Also, faffing about trying to discover any weaknesses in the 48' tall sand elemental thing that seems to tour the desert.  No progress.

I cooked a kedgeree for dinner, the first time I've ever cooked for this number of people or in a professional kitchen, followed by more chocolate fudge cake.  People were polite enough to eat up and Dafydd even had a third helping (as well as left-over kedgeree for breakfast on Thursday).

That's a seriously big pan

We faffed about some more in the name of D&D, before deciding to go to bed before the big combat starts.

Thursday's game of Wonderful World was David's turn to win.  This has clearly become a favourite with the group.  Like Seven Wonders, each player chooses one card to build and then passes the rest around the table.  There's an additional complication that each card can be cashed in for a resource to be used for the building.  Dafydd ordered a copy today.

Dafydd also filled our downtime with The Big Knights [link here].  Highly recommended, hilarious.

The Big Knights

More D&D.  We attempt to defend the surviving goblin in the desert, while he performs a ritual to open a gate and go back to the Void along with all of his dead clanfolk (the army of ghosts we saw).  During the ritual he can not maintain the wall of fire around his camp, so the scuttling, acid-spitting beetle-things and dust dervish / sand elemental things can get in and attack him.  We would have to keep them out for three hours.  

The party has its back to a wall of ice (or cutlery) as two large sand elementals (disguised as beer cans) bring the damage. 

We fought for about an hour, when the remains of the other dragon rider turned up.  Like the sand elementals, it seemed to be made of sand & stones in a human shape.  He could throw Cone of Sand (like cone of cold) and a sand stome (like an ice storm), and when we took down all of his hit points he dissipated into a pile of sand.  Three rounds later we saw him coming back out of the dunes.  We did this a couple of times, before Dafydd has the bright idea of using holy water to cause damage that he can't regenerate.  That's another week we've kept Saratak waiting...

Friday - sad partings, with an arrangement to meet up for a pair of rock concerts in London next year.  Two of our favourite bands will be appearing on successive nights over the spring bank holiday and the tickets went on sale this week, while we were together.  It's like someone was sending us a message.

Footnotes on games

The Mind is an odd game.  The players have hands of cards from a deck numbered 1 to 100.  Without any communication, they must play the cards in order.  As the game progresses the hands become bigger (starting with 1 card each).  There are some lifelines to be earned, including regaining lives on completion of every 3rd level.  Our best score was to complete level 7 (4 players with 7 cards each) and then fail on level 8.

Maior is a bluffing game.  There are 2 dice in a box.  Each player has 3 lives.  The first player shakes the box, opens the lid to look at the dice, calls out the roll (higher number then lower) and offers it to the next player around the table.  The next player can challenge the call, in which case the box is opened and one the two loses a life, depending on whether the score was as good as the call or not.  Or the player can accept the box, may shake it some more (optional), may take a look inside (optional) and must pass it on with a call that is higher than the last call.  The order of the calls is: 31, 32, 41, 42, 43, 51, 52, 53, 54, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 11, 22, 33, 44, 55, 66, 21 (called "maior", the highest call).  The calls keep rising until there is a challenge and someone loses a life, after which the challenger becomes the first player and starts again.  Any challenge on a call of maior or a roll of maior in the box costs 2 lives.

Crafty players like Darrell may under-call the roll, e.g. roll 65 but call 64.  After the box has passed right round the table, he can then pass it on again as 65 without shaking or looking.

Chaotic players like Dafydd do things like accept a box with a call of 61, shake the box, don't look inside, and pass it on with a call of 62.

Until next time, health & happiness to you all.