442-8 dec and 53-4; 227 all out

Despite the improvement in the weather in South Australia I was only able to find time for one move in the extremely slowly developing playtest of Blue Guitar. I didn't plan the scenario in any great detail and simply plonked the British on the baseline; indeed at the time the thing that more concerned me was the realisation that there were more bases in each unit than either utility or appearance demanded. I also didn't do the attackers any favours by putting their support weapons in the middle. The one upside is that the time it is taking for the game to progress has given me more chances to tinker (refine?).

The colonel waves his pistol in despair as his men advance the wrong way

The battalion on the British left has been rolling some very odd command dice and as a result its tactics can perhaps be best described as doing the hokey-cokey. The one company that is getting anywhere has entered the woods, and so that's where the German mortar is now targeting.  In the centre the support weapons have been unable to set up despite the best efforts of the brigade 2-i-c who was despatched to sort things out, although the dead observer has successfully been replaced.

On the other flank the Germans have seized the initiative and moved into the woods where all logic suggests they should have been anyway. Their sniper has been moving steadily forwards - the rules as to how he does that have changed several times so far and may well change again - and has picked off one of the British company commanders. That unit will suffer a permanent -1 to their command roll.

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.

The Hokey-Cokey

Readers may have wondered why Epictetus has not yet vouchsafed his opinion on this EU referendum malarkey. Well, partly it is of course because his computer doesn't work. But it is also partly because he can't get too excited about this once in a lifetime event as he has already in his lifetime voted in just such a referendum. For the record on that occasion I voted to leave, which was at the time official Labour Party policy; not to be confused with the official Labour government policy which was to stay in. Aren't you nostalgic for the days when the ruling party used to be completely split on such things?

Others have not been reticent in putting forward their views. Our Luxembourg correspondent has a keen interest in all this, having lived there for so long that he has lost his vote and must now be counted as Johnny Foreigner himself. He has just disseminated to our mutual acquaintances one input from a prestigious trade association which he describes as the clinching argument. Who is to say that he isn't right?

Anyway, back to your bloggist. I shall be voting on this occasion to remain, essentially because I am intelligent and well-educated. This country is splitting itself into two moieties: those who can't read without moving their lips, and those who are somewhat more sophisticated; one doesn't really have a choice as to where one belongs. I shall not address the issues in any depth or attempt to convince anyone of the error of their ways. I am content to simply stand by and mock the presumptuousness of the intellectually limited. If it transpires that the morons do in fact form the majority within the UK then who among us will really be surprised? The mouth breathers are on the march all across the world. I limit myself to the observation that pandering to the prejudices of simpletons may possibly not be the best way to develop public policy.