02/06/1941 - 24/08/2021

Ladies and gentlemen, the Rolling Stones. 

 

Three Battles of Bosworth

Last Sunday was the Society of Ancients' battle day, and the battle they were doing was Bosworth. Although a week late, I thought it would do my own version of it on the kitchen table. The rules would be simple - I would use Table Battles by Tom Russell of Hollandspiele - and these rules, unlike the Society's, would use cards, dice, sticks and cubes.

Richard would start, having six dice to roll and assign. But first, a little explanation of the game.

As can be seen in the image above, Richard has three formations to consider. Norfolk and his own can fight right from the beginning, given the right dice. Rolls of 5 or 6 can be apportioned to Norfolk; rolls of 4 or 5 to Richard. Northumberland cannot be used at this point because he is in reserve. To bring him into the fight, Richard needs to accumulate a full house - three 4s and two 5s (or vice versa), which is quite a tall order when there are only six dice to use. 

For each attack that Norfolk or Richard make they will lose one of their formation sticks, and will remove as many formation sticks from the enemy as they use dice, so it is to their advantage to use as many as possible in each attack. Norfolk can also use a pair of 5s or 6s to screen enemy attacks (i.e., the attack fails with no loss to either side).

Henry's cards are similar. He has Oxford and himself in the front line, and the Stanleys in reserve. 3s and 4s activate Richmond; 5s and 6s Oxford. As with Northumberland, a full house of 3s and 4s will bring the Stanleys into the battle.

Oxford has eight formation sticks and Richmond two. Oxford will also lose one formation stick for each attack he makes and inflict as many hits as he uses dice. Richmond himself does not lose formation sticks when he attacks, but to launch an attack of his own he must have a pair of dice, and will only remove one formation stick from the enemy. To complete the puzzle, Oxford has a counterattack ability that allows him to use a pair of dice to remove an extra formation stick from any enemy that attacks him. 

Both sides start by stacking dice on a single formation card, as shown in the picture below.

Richard attacks first, removing three sticks from Oxford and losing two himself. He then concentrates on building up dice on his own formation again. Oxford also attacks with three dice, hitting Norfolk badly, and reducing him to one stick.

As shown above, both sides have three dice in play again, but this time it is Oxford to move. He attacks Norfolk, who is destroyed. Henry takes a morale cube off Richard. One more is needed for the victory.

The only way Richard can win now is to get four dice on his card to take out Oxford with one attack, and then turn his attention to Henry. Over several turns he saves up his dice, but can only manage three 4s. 

Oxford, with a pair, is able to play and remove Richard entirely at a cost of one formation loss to himself.

Northumberland has not entered the battle and Henry is the victor. Bosworth I to the kingslayer!

Bosworth II starts with a powerful attack by Norfolk doing three damage to Oxford for one to himself. Henry rolls poorly and is unable to populate his cards with dice. Richard has no such trouble.

With Richard to play in the sitaution above, he inflicts three more hits on Oxford. Henry is still struggling to get the dice in play.

Richard seizes the moment and attacks Oxford again. Both formations are removed at the same time, so no morale cubes are exchanged. It is now a contest between Norfolk and Richmond to collect dice for an attack.

Norfolk is first.

His two dice are enough to destroy Henry at a cost of just one formation hit to himself. Bosworth II goes to Richard. 

We go to a Bosworth III to find the winner. The third battle commences with another 3/1 attack by Norfolk

A 3/2 attack from Richard follows from the position below.

Once again Oxford is in a precarious state. Richmond stacks dice hoping to obtain the full house needed to bring the Stanleys into the line; Richard just stacks dice. Battle continues for a few turns with Norfolk successfully screening some attacks while the house of York gathers its strength.

A pair on Norfolk will be enough: Richard only needs to capture one morale cube to claim the win.

And the deed is done! Richard wins two battles to Henry's one. 

And so my battle day is over. Not quite as satisfying as a two hour game with figures, but a fun way to get into the spirit of the event, play the battle, and have hardly any clean up required.

It was an unexpected piece of serendipity to find that today was actually the anniversary of the battle. All in all, I think it worked out rather nicely!

Wrong, wrong, and wrong again

We all of us enjoy our wargaming, our playing with toy soldiers, our board wargames, and our reading around these kinds of topics.

There is crossover between serious games and hobby games, and many of us enjoy that aspect too. Some of the blogs I follow are more towards the serious end of the spectrum, where wargaming is a job, where it is used to prep military and intelligence professionals, and - perhaps - influence real-world policy, real-world decisions. 

One of the newer, modern boardgame designers was recently asked about an expansion to his game on Afghanistan, A Distant Plain, which would take into account recent developments. I quote here part of his response:

Given the speed of events, I think if anything what we are seeing now is each faction’s game pieces being swept around on the map and scooped up prior to being put back into their ziploc bags.

Game’s over, man.

If you want to carry on, I think you will need a different game.

He linked to one of his previous blog posts, and also to an (as it turns out decidedly non-prescient) article on the then current state of affairs, entitled 'Why the Taliban isn't winning in Afghanistan' (from which I quote below): 

“We must face facts,” remarked Senator John McCain in August 2017, “we are losing in Afghanistan and time is of the essence if we intend to turn the tide.” He is not the only one who has argued that the Taliban are on the march. “The Taliban are getting stronger, the government is on the retreat, they are losing ground to the Taliban day by day,” Abdul Jabbar Qahraman, a retired Afghan general who was the Afghan government’s military envoy to Helmand Province until 2016, told the New York Times over the summer. Media outlets have likewise proclaimed that “The Taliban do look a lot like they are winning” and that this is “The war America can't win.”

Although the Taliban has demonstrated a surprising ability to survive and conduct high-profile attacks in cities like Kabul, it is weaker today than most recognize. It is hamstrung by an ideology that is too extreme for most Afghans, a leadership structure that is too closely linked to the Pashtun ethnic group, an over-reliance on brutal tactics that have killed tens of thousands of innocent Afghan civilians and alienated many more, a widespread involvement in corruption, and a dependence on unpopular foreign allies.

What am I getting at, you might ask?

Well, it is that games and game-models that are lauded for their innovation and perspicacity, whose designers are profiled in the Washington Post, whose hobby games potentially influence real-world decision-making, can still get it wrong. Why they get is wrong is not really my focus here, but it is clear that they get it wrong for reasons which include a) a reliance upon commentators who make incorrect assumptions; b) a game-induced need for simplification which means that factors that appear insignificant (but may not be in real life) are minimised; c) that formulated victory equations which may seem plausible to Western analysts who sit within the military or intelligence paradigms may well not match reality.

So what does this say about wargaming? 

That we should all be wary of it. That it may have consequences. That it is inexact for predicting future events.  

As hobbiests our first reaction to 'serious' military/intelligence-adjacent wargames on current or near-future conflicts is often likely to be "cool, we want to see more of them!" And why not? It seems to validate our hobby, encourages new designs, and perhaps adds authority or cred to what we do. 

But current events show that popular wargames on current conflicts do not necessarily lead to increased understanding or to desired outcomes. And in fact, if real-world wishful thinking is rendered in games as plausible result, may lead not to understanding but to folly. 

It's not a nice pill to swallow. 

Two short reviews: The Song of Simon de Montfort and Being Napoleon

I haven't done a huge amount of book finishing recently, but the most recent non-fiction book I've got all the way through was this one, The Song of Simon de Montfort, by Sophie Therese Ambler. It is a biography focused on two main points: how de Montfort conceived of his role in opposing and controlling the king, and how he appeared through the eyes of those that followed him.

The book begins with the end: Simon preparing to die on the field at Evesham, and everything that follows then leads us back to this moment. It's a neat trick to engage the reader, and it works. 

On the whole I found the book informative - to my shame I didn't know a great deal about de Montfort before reading this - but it is also something of a hagiography, as inevitably it must be given its stated aims. Simon is shown as a great revolutionary driven by his cause, standing up for the common people, wronged by his king, and in the end by his confederates. That his own arrogance, selective morality, manipulative tactics and dubious methods of obtaining funds contributed to his demise is largely overlooked. 

The book is engagingly written, nicely weighted and well paced, but if a man's qualities are to be as lauded as much they are here, for his faults to be glossed over so consistently eventually generates a kind of low level rumble of resentment in the reader. When the book was done, it was that sense of discontent that stayed with me.

I'd give it 3.5 out of 5. It's a good read-on-the-plane kind of book, and has motivated me to look more into gaming the period, as well.

The second short review I have is for a 2018 documentary on Netflix called Being Napoleon. The Netflix blurb is for a quirky, offbeat piece, and I can't really improve on that as a description. It follows the fortunes of various oddball characters as they build up to a reenactment on the 200th anniversary of Waterloo. There is the occasional lurch towards mockumentary, but it always manages to remain on the right side of that line.

It ended up an affecting watch, with the emotional heart of the film turning out to be not quite where you would have expected it to be.

4.5 out of 5 for me. If you have Netflix and haven't seen it already, I would suggest giving it a look.