Ilipa

“We find that the Romans owed the conquest of the world to no other cause than continual military training, exact observance of discipline in their camps, and unwearied cultivation of the other arts of war.” – Vegetius

None of which was to any avail last night in the refight of Ilipa (see here for James’ report and photographs). It was, as he says, a good game and very close until the last turn when the wheels rather came off for the Romans. I really do like ‘To the Strongest!’ and they’re even better once you remember them correctly.

It’s odd that James is going to play the Romans next week and most of the changes to the scenario favour that side, but then I suppose that coincidences do happen. I don’t think I’ve ever played a game where the elephants achieved any success whatsoever so it will be interesting to see how that rule change plays out; still badly for the Carthaginians I’m sure.

Surely not?

And so to the wargaming table. I can pretend no longer that I don't play with toy soldiers and so need to report on activity in both the annexe and the legendary wargames room. In the latter we have spent a couple of weeks having another stab at Trebia using To the Strongest!. James tweaked the scenario and it worked much better, although the Romans are still somewhat up against it. That is of course historical, and we got a more or less historical result with much of the Roman infantry getting away, but a large number of their allies not doing so. Very unusually the elephants were still there at the end.

I continue to enjoy the rules, although rather embarrassingly we didn't play it right in either sense of the word. Despite having played a fair number of times before and James being a confidante of the author, we got a couple of important rules wrong. Commanders died twice as often as they should have - they play a role in the initiative part of the game so that's quite a big deal - and we allowed skirmishers to pin formed units, which they can't. On top of that I still don't think we have the tactics sorted out yet. The Carthaginians had significant cavalry supremacy, but instead of just riding over the Romans I tried a series of ambitious manoeuvres that would be too complicated if performed as part of Trooping the Colour and which achieved nothing. The main issue however, in my opinion at least, is that we never pull units back from combat in order to rally them. One assumes this is what should be done because a) there are no support bonuses in melee and b) it is easier to rally if you can't be charged. Add to that the fact that withdrawal will also require the enemy unit previously in contact to activate twice if it wishes to attack again then it seems the logical thing to do. But we don't.

In the annexe the latest solo run through of the trench raid scenario ended with the Germans running away before the British got anywhere close. I've probably squeezed as much as I can out of running through it myself. We're going to have a try next week, and hopefully with more player input all will become clearer. Blinds are an important mechanism in the game and they're difficult to deal with if you know what both sides are doing. I have knocked up another couple of machine gun posts in order to give the Germans a choice of where to put things and the latest layout of their trench can be seen above. If I have a reservation about the scenario it is the worry that it might turn into a long range duel between the the two machine guns. Perhaps, in a Sidi Rezegh stylee, the British must be obligated to just get on with it.

Très bien

We reconvened last night in the legendary wargames room after a short break. James had dotted his cloth - it's an old Yorkshire dialect term - and so we had a crack at To The Strongest! for the Punic Wars. The dots were not at all visible to the casual glance - indeed I occasionally found them hard to see whilst actually looking for them - and the combination of unit strength and base size filled the squares to overflowing, meaning it didn't really look like a normal grid game (pictures here).

That link also leads to historical details of the battle in question - Trebbia in 218 BC - and scenario details. Having won the draw to choose sides I went for the Carthaginians because they have elephants. Having now played it I would choose Hannibal again because the Romans are never going to win in a month of Sundays. The elephants, needless to say, did nothing of any value; their only real contribution was to trample one of the Carthaginian commanders as they ran amok after being fatally wounded. The cavalry on the flanks were more successful, and Mago's ambush put paid to any remaining hope the Romans had.

The devil is in the detail in wargames rules. The Polybian Romans seem to cause much angst among those with any understanding (real or imagined) of the period and James had a new rule hot from the author regarding the legionary Hokey-Cokey which is at the heart of the debate. It seemed to my uneducated eye to deal with the issue satisfactorily, and certainly maintained the simplicity of the overall rules while adding a bit of chrome to playing the Romans. It is this simplicity that appeals to me, plus the element of push your luck of course. Like all the best wargames and boardgames the real secret is to discipline yourself to not do the things that don't matter.

A personal view

I have known quite a number of MPs over the years; for obvious reasons most of them Labour. In fact the only past or present Tory MP that I think I have ever spoken to is former cabinet minister Jim Prior with whom I had dinner in Abu Dhabi some twenty years ago. The reason behind our separate visits has recently returned with a vengeance, indeed there was an extremely inaccurate article about the whole affair in the Guardian last week. Pretty much everything they wrote was wrong, except for the inescapable fact that innocent civilians are being killed by British made weapons.

Anyway, I digress. I was going to write about the fact that I have liked a great many Labour MPs as people; you will recall that I have previously mentioned a couple that I didn't care much for. I knew Ruth Cadbury, newly elected in Brentford & Isleworth, many years ago and I'm sure she'll be a fine MP. The late Alan Keen, MP for Feltham & Heston, was a warm. personable man and I liked him more each time that I met him. Martin Salter, MP for Reading West until he stood down in 2010, is somewhat of a hero of mine and was one of the few who came out of the expenses episode looking better than before. And Neil Kinnock was every bit as gregarious and good company as you would imagine.

But, the politician for whom I had the most time by far after meeting them in person is man-of-the-moment Hilary Benn. Now clearly he and I take a different view on the issue being debated yesterday, but that doesn't alter my high opinion of him. All politicians are self-selected to be comfortable dealing with people, but I think we all know that much of the interaction is false and superficial. I always found Mr Benn genuine in his concern for the problems and well-being of others and, a rare trait this, keen to hear what they had to say and learn from their experience, rather than assuming - as so many senior figures in both politics and business do - that he knew the answers already. In my own case this was most pronounced during the horse meat scandal (as well as being a merchant of death my varied career has seen me as Head of UK Finance for a major global food company) when he sought out my opinions and asked very pertinent questions in what was clearly a serious effort to understand the realities of the logistics of the industry. Any elephants among my readers will recall that I have already blogged on this subject and so I am also happy to report that when I quoted Marx at him, he didn't make the sign of the cross and run away, but instead noted down the reference and, I am fairly sure, went and looked it up afterwards.

So, Hilary Benn is a lovely and engaging chap, but before you start thinking he's somehow too saintly to cut it as a politician let me point out that he was also responsible for the most outrageous and blatant stitch-up that I have seen in four decades of internal Labour Party politics. And that, believe you me, is some achievement.

I look pretty tall, but my heels are high

It is time to write once again about the Punic Wars campaign. Yet another battle is taking place at the gates of Carthage which if I win will effectively end the campaign.

Even the readers of a blog as loosely related to wargaming as this will have spotted the photos don't quite look right. Well none were taken last night so I shall illustrate with a few from my solo re-fights of the crossing of the Berezina.

So where was I? Ah yes, if I win the battle then I win the campaign. Well, not for the first time, I shan't win the battle - probably about ten minutes from completion when we knocked off last night - and therefore the campaign staggers on. However, it's half way through the last strategic turn and so one way or the other it will end soon.

What actually happened last night was that the elephants suddenly came good and rampaged through my right wing. My cavalry had great success on my left wing so it's fairly close, but not, sadly, close enough.

As for the Berezina, one resounding Russian victory and one close French victory. And not a line of sight problem in, er, sight.

Gaming update

As the nominal purpose of this blog is wargaming I ought to bring things up to date. The Punic Wars campaign continues to go not that well, but also not badly enough that it's a foregone conclusion. My invasion of North Africa was decided on because of the cards I happened to have in my hand and could have gone worse. Admittedly I have lost my entire army ( all my commanders will have to start the next turn in the same place), but I still hold a province and a port and we end the turn all square in political control. In fact it would have been quite easy for things to have worked out quite well, especially if the Carthaginians had not gained a temporary naval superiority.

The battle just concluded was a protracted and bloody affair that then ended rather suddenly. I had the luck with the cards until all at once I didn't. But, as usual, I could so easily have won; this time if I had destroyed a unit that I had seven dice against, hitting on everything possible. C'est la vie. Still, I did kill all the elephants though.

On the boardgames front, celebrations of International Tabletop Gaming Day involved games of Small World, Alhambra, Family Business, Articulate!, Coup and Quantum. The last was the only new game for me and I was very taken with the design. The theme is rather pasted on, but without it the result would perhaps be too abstract. Anyway, it's on the wishlist.

How do you eat an elephant?

The answer of course is one bite at a time. And that is how I have disposed of the Carthaginian elephants in the battle currently taking place in North Africa during our Punic Wars campaign. My invasion has gone reasonably well so far and due to rebellion one of the provinces has come over to me and in the battle I am on only slightly worse terms and with evenly matched generals. So far I have had by far the better of the cards. The only problem is that they will eventually balance out so I have to make the most of it until they do. Anyway, the elephants have proved completely useless so far. It was W.C. Fields who observed that women were like elephants, interesting to look at, but one wouldn't want to own one. How true, how true.

Run, elephant, run

Q: What do you call an elephant that doesn't matter?
A: An irrelephant.

You will notice that I do not refer to the battle ongoing at the start of last week. I had a brief, but pointless, moment of success when I managed to extend the battle by capturing the village in the middle. However, I still lost heavily, and the retreat was even worse; the entire army disappearing. It's not looking good.

Punic Wars Campaign

Having spent a long period with nowhere to live I now find myself with the luxury of living in two places at the same time. However, neither has either phone line nor broadband and so my postings here remain rather infrequent. However, briefly passing through somewhere connected I thought that I would, entirely for my own benefit, write up the first two weeks of the Punic Wars campaign that James is laying on at the moment.

During the entire Punic Wars they never killed anyone

My main problem in taking part is having no real idea of a) what happened during the Punic Wars b) the boardgame being used for the map parts (indeed I can't even remember the name of it) or c) Command & Colours Ancients being used to play out the battles. However, not knowing the history or the rules is my default setting and so I have pressed on regardless.

James is doing a card by card write-up over at Olicanalad so I will simply give the highlights or indeed the lowlights. My greatest triumph so far as the Romans has been to give Hannibal the pox before he crossed the Alps allowing me to attack him with superior numbers. Sadly a combination of his higher rating as a general and my ineptitude at C&C led to a fairly easy Cartheginian victory. Still, given that my understanding of how to play both elements of the game can only get better and on the assumption that not all Roman generals can be as crap as the one defeated here one mustn't be too pessimistic.