Psychophant's Rants
27.2.07
DAMNED BLOGGER!
For one month my blog stopped in May 2006. Now those recent posts have reappeared. Not many posts, it is true, but they are those that represent my desire to post (or not). So their absence just put me out of the mood to keep writing.
All is well that ends well and for what I pay I cannot demand anything. But it still annoys me to lose my wind in the middle of what was a good streak. I may finish some of the partial drafts but somehow I doubt it. I am not the same and anyway I am not sure anymore what I wanted to say then.
Blogs work as a connected series as most of the interest and charm of them lies in the back story and not having to repeat the same things time after time. Losing an old fragment may hurt but unless you get many new readers, which is not my case, it does not matter much. But losing the newest is like getting a sudden amnesia. The loss of short term memory. And that cripples my mind, just what I fear the most.
At least I have taken out the condemnation of the New Blogger, as it seems to work right now. ¶ 8:22 AM 0 comments
For one month my blog stopped in May 2006. Now those recent posts have reappeared. Not many posts, it is true, but they are those that represent my desire to post (or not). So their absence just put me out of the mood to keep writing.
All is well that ends well and for what I pay I cannot demand anything. But it still annoys me to lose my wind in the middle of what was a good streak. I may finish some of the partial drafts but somehow I doubt it. I am not the same and anyway I am not sure anymore what I wanted to say then.
Blogs work as a connected series as most of the interest and charm of them lies in the back story and not having to repeat the same things time after time. Losing an old fragment may hurt but unless you get many new readers, which is not my case, it does not matter much. But losing the newest is like getting a sudden amnesia. The loss of short term memory. And that cripples my mind, just what I fear the most.
At least I have taken out the condemnation of the New Blogger, as it seems to work right now. ¶ 8:22 AM 0 comments
16.2.07
Example
Just to show the kind of posts that are commonplace in my current forum interests and probably weaken my cool image at the same time, here is one of my latest posts in another board. It required learning a different language...
Last Sunday we decided to play a last game with version 4, before tackling the changes in 5. We have been waiting for the changes since Usk, and we really were spoiling for a fight.
In the end Juan ended up playing with Francisco's well balanced Abbasid, with Francisco in support/umpire/photographer role, while I tested the "Rolls Royce" model Nikephorian Byzantine that I really wanted to prove a valid army choice. We also feel we have been playing too many non-historical match ups, so historical flavor was a big plus.
My Byzantine army had no foot troops:
6x4 Cav, Sup, Drill, Arm, L, B*, Sw
2x4 Cav, Av, Drill, Prot, B, Sw
2x2 Cat, El, Drill, H. Arm, L or B, Sw
IC, FC, 2xTC
The Abbasid had plenty of combined arms:
1x6 Cav, Sup, Drill, Arm, B, Sw
1x6 Cav, Sup, Drill, Arm, L, Sw
2x6 LH, Av, Und, Unp, L, Sw
1x6 MF, Av, Und, Unp, B
2x6 HF, Av, Drill, Prot, Def. Sp, Sp + 3 LF Av, Drill, Unp, B
1x6 MF, Sup, Und, Prot, Imp, Sw
1x6 MF, Sup, Drill, Prot, Imp, Sw
IC, 3xTC
The Caliphate troops were invading the Anatolian breadbasket, following the coast, and we catched up with them in a pretty featureless area (which helped me). Only a slope on my side and two unhedged fields on the infidel side, by the coast, where they anchored their baggage train. The Byzantine baggage trusted more on its side's swords (and initiative).
The Abbasid deployment was fairly conventional, with LH on the extremes of both flanks, with all the cavalry on their Left flank (the open one) and an infantry BL in the centre. The Daylami and the Archers were sitting on the fields, covering the camp (and worried by the excess numbers of lancer cavalry).
With more small units, I was much more mobile but also more fragile, so I aimed for a quick victory, deploying the two flankers (bow cavalry) to contain and harass the Abbasid center-right, supported by a BG of lancers. Two Lancer BGs went to the extreme right and left flanks to make sure the Abbasid Light Horse there was not up to any mischief, confident in their abilities. Then the heavy fist (3 lancer BGs and the Kataphraktoi) pointed straight to the Abbasid cavalry.
The Byzantines trotted forward, some to fix the Abbasid infantry, some to press on the Abbasid cavalry.
The Abbasid cavalry hesitated, while waiting for their support spearmen, unsure who would arrive first, the Byzantines or the spearmen.
In a show of reckless bravery the Arab light horse covering the cavalry’s flank charged the Byzantine lancers in the far left flank when they got into bow range, to keep them from reaching the flank of the cavalry. Meanwhile the sides faced off on the other flank, unwilling to advance much. The other Light Horse BG shifted towards the center, so the lancers covering them shifted also to support the bow cavalry (and spent the whole game watching and pointlessly shooting the Daylami in their field), and their former support Lancers pointed themselves towards the Ghazis in the middle of the Abbasid infantry formation. One of the Spearmen BG did charge, to force one of the bow cavalry groups back, in order to let the Abbasid archers deploy safely.
The Byzantine bow fire was quite ineffective, and although clearly winning the flank lancers were having more troubles than expected pushing the Arab lighter lancers back, so the main cavalry line, once the cataphracts were in place, just charged away against the Abbasid cavalry. An even fight against the lances and a good one against the bows. The only group that was not expected to charge, the lancers fixing the A’bid defensive spearmen, charged anyway, caught in the mood. Meanwhile, with the spearmen that charged the bow out of place, the lone central lancer BG charged against the Ghazis (superior Impact medium foot), who had been left behind in the middle of the Abbasid line.
Some good rolling by the Abbasids, and average rolling by the Byzantines (at least, that is what I think…) meant that with the only exception of the Arab Light Horse that finally broke and outran the lancers in the extreme flank, and the Ghazis that were wishing they were out of the open in the field with the Daylami, the fighting was inconclusive, and all the casualties were Byzantine. The group that had charged the A’bid had to break off, bloodied but unbent, while the apparent equal numbers with better quality of the cavalry fight (8 Cav and 4 Cat vs. 12 Cav) turned into a numeric inferiority slugfest. The best news for the Byzantine was not catching up the broken light horse in the pursuit, which gave the cavalry the option of turning left towards the exposed flank of the Abbasid cavalry.
On the other side the Abbasid archers were punishing the advanced Flankers, but they still kept their place, keeping a spearmen group from helping the beleaguered Ghazis. The broken light horse rallied before running out of the table, but they were out of the fight yet. An envoy of the caliph (a TC general) helped bolster the failing Ghazis, but the situation was still quite hopeless. The big melee, made worse for the Byzantines by the arrival of the victorious spearmen to overlap the cavalry fight, was however pretty peaceful. Some disruptions, some rallies, no casualties. The Ghulams were unable to push their numeric superiority to defeat the courageous lancers while the victorious flank cavalry flawlessly turned to the side and after the Byzantines survived two agonising melee bounds, passing all the Cohesion tests, charged home to the flank of the Abbasid lancer cavalry. The still disrupted lancers that had retreated from the spearmen remained behind to give the critical rear support bonus to the lancer BG fighting against the Ghulams and the A’bid.
Almost simultaneously both the Ghazis and the flanked Abbasid lancers broke and disintegrated in the pursuit (the interbound one), and although the battle was far from over, the result seemed clear, with three Byzantine lancer BGs and one of Kataphaktoi loose in the Abbasid rear and the score at 5-0. We had time left but it seemed like cruelty to play it to the conclusion.
The Klibanophoroi are quite impressive troops, if fragile in BGs of 4 elements. And now they will be cheaper… The 2 element kataphraktoi wedges are still expensive for the use you get out of them, but nestled between the Lancer cavalry they fill their role and gave a necessary edge against the Abbasid cavalry. I got the Flankers mostly because they are non impetuous, and you need some people that will do what you want of them.
Most of the fights involved superior or elite units, so the melees were much longer than we are used to, as the forces degraded seldom, and always slowly, with a few rallying while in melee. Even the Ghazis, fighting against a double advantage, held on for three bounds before cracking, more due to losses (as the Byzantine TC led group was scoring 4 hits out of 4 rolls in all bounds) than straight CT rolls. Again a good reason to go superior if possible.
No big rule discussions and no big doubts. We even remembered the cavalry break-off! The only contention points were LoS to an empty ambush counter in a back slope and moving to overlap a combat in the movement phase. If I get the photos I may update this post with them. Meanwhile, digesting the changes.
¶ 4:27 PM 0 comments
Just to show the kind of posts that are commonplace in my current forum interests and probably weaken my cool image at the same time, here is one of my latest posts in another board. It required learning a different language...
Last Sunday we decided to play a last game with version 4, before tackling the changes in 5. We have been waiting for the changes since Usk, and we really were spoiling for a fight.
In the end Juan ended up playing with Francisco's well balanced Abbasid, with Francisco in support/umpire/photographer role, while I tested the "Rolls Royce" model Nikephorian Byzantine that I really wanted to prove a valid army choice. We also feel we have been playing too many non-historical match ups, so historical flavor was a big plus.
My Byzantine army had no foot troops:
6x4 Cav, Sup, Drill, Arm, L, B*, Sw
2x4 Cav, Av, Drill, Prot, B, Sw
2x2 Cat, El, Drill, H. Arm, L or B, Sw
IC, FC, 2xTC
The Abbasid had plenty of combined arms:
1x6 Cav, Sup, Drill, Arm, B, Sw
1x6 Cav, Sup, Drill, Arm, L, Sw
2x6 LH, Av, Und, Unp, L, Sw
1x6 MF, Av, Und, Unp, B
2x6 HF, Av, Drill, Prot, Def. Sp, Sp + 3 LF Av, Drill, Unp, B
1x6 MF, Sup, Und, Prot, Imp, Sw
1x6 MF, Sup, Drill, Prot, Imp, Sw
IC, 3xTC
The Caliphate troops were invading the Anatolian breadbasket, following the coast, and we catched up with them in a pretty featureless area (which helped me). Only a slope on my side and two unhedged fields on the infidel side, by the coast, where they anchored their baggage train. The Byzantine baggage trusted more on its side's swords (and initiative).
The Abbasid deployment was fairly conventional, with LH on the extremes of both flanks, with all the cavalry on their Left flank (the open one) and an infantry BL in the centre. The Daylami and the Archers were sitting on the fields, covering the camp (and worried by the excess numbers of lancer cavalry).
With more small units, I was much more mobile but also more fragile, so I aimed for a quick victory, deploying the two flankers (bow cavalry) to contain and harass the Abbasid center-right, supported by a BG of lancers. Two Lancer BGs went to the extreme right and left flanks to make sure the Abbasid Light Horse there was not up to any mischief, confident in their abilities. Then the heavy fist (3 lancer BGs and the Kataphraktoi) pointed straight to the Abbasid cavalry.
The Byzantines trotted forward, some to fix the Abbasid infantry, some to press on the Abbasid cavalry.
The Abbasid cavalry hesitated, while waiting for their support spearmen, unsure who would arrive first, the Byzantines or the spearmen.
In a show of reckless bravery the Arab light horse covering the cavalry’s flank charged the Byzantine lancers in the far left flank when they got into bow range, to keep them from reaching the flank of the cavalry. Meanwhile the sides faced off on the other flank, unwilling to advance much. The other Light Horse BG shifted towards the center, so the lancers covering them shifted also to support the bow cavalry (and spent the whole game watching and pointlessly shooting the Daylami in their field), and their former support Lancers pointed themselves towards the Ghazis in the middle of the Abbasid infantry formation. One of the Spearmen BG did charge, to force one of the bow cavalry groups back, in order to let the Abbasid archers deploy safely.
The Byzantine bow fire was quite ineffective, and although clearly winning the flank lancers were having more troubles than expected pushing the Arab lighter lancers back, so the main cavalry line, once the cataphracts were in place, just charged away against the Abbasid cavalry. An even fight against the lances and a good one against the bows. The only group that was not expected to charge, the lancers fixing the A’bid defensive spearmen, charged anyway, caught in the mood. Meanwhile, with the spearmen that charged the bow out of place, the lone central lancer BG charged against the Ghazis (superior Impact medium foot), who had been left behind in the middle of the Abbasid line.
Some good rolling by the Abbasids, and average rolling by the Byzantines (at least, that is what I think…) meant that with the only exception of the Arab Light Horse that finally broke and outran the lancers in the extreme flank, and the Ghazis that were wishing they were out of the open in the field with the Daylami, the fighting was inconclusive, and all the casualties were Byzantine. The group that had charged the A’bid had to break off, bloodied but unbent, while the apparent equal numbers with better quality of the cavalry fight (8 Cav and 4 Cat vs. 12 Cav) turned into a numeric inferiority slugfest. The best news for the Byzantine was not catching up the broken light horse in the pursuit, which gave the cavalry the option of turning left towards the exposed flank of the Abbasid cavalry.
On the other side the Abbasid archers were punishing the advanced Flankers, but they still kept their place, keeping a spearmen group from helping the beleaguered Ghazis. The broken light horse rallied before running out of the table, but they were out of the fight yet. An envoy of the caliph (a TC general) helped bolster the failing Ghazis, but the situation was still quite hopeless. The big melee, made worse for the Byzantines by the arrival of the victorious spearmen to overlap the cavalry fight, was however pretty peaceful. Some disruptions, some rallies, no casualties. The Ghulams were unable to push their numeric superiority to defeat the courageous lancers while the victorious flank cavalry flawlessly turned to the side and after the Byzantines survived two agonising melee bounds, passing all the Cohesion tests, charged home to the flank of the Abbasid lancer cavalry. The still disrupted lancers that had retreated from the spearmen remained behind to give the critical rear support bonus to the lancer BG fighting against the Ghulams and the A’bid.
Almost simultaneously both the Ghazis and the flanked Abbasid lancers broke and disintegrated in the pursuit (the interbound one), and although the battle was far from over, the result seemed clear, with three Byzantine lancer BGs and one of Kataphaktoi loose in the Abbasid rear and the score at 5-0. We had time left but it seemed like cruelty to play it to the conclusion.
The Klibanophoroi are quite impressive troops, if fragile in BGs of 4 elements. And now they will be cheaper… The 2 element kataphraktoi wedges are still expensive for the use you get out of them, but nestled between the Lancer cavalry they fill their role and gave a necessary edge against the Abbasid cavalry. I got the Flankers mostly because they are non impetuous, and you need some people that will do what you want of them.
Most of the fights involved superior or elite units, so the melees were much longer than we are used to, as the forces degraded seldom, and always slowly, with a few rallying while in melee. Even the Ghazis, fighting against a double advantage, held on for three bounds before cracking, more due to losses (as the Byzantine TC led group was scoring 4 hits out of 4 rolls in all bounds) than straight CT rolls. Again a good reason to go superior if possible.
No big rule discussions and no big doubts. We even remembered the cavalry break-off! The only contention points were LoS to an empty ambush counter in a back slope and moving to overlap a combat in the movement phase. If I get the photos I may update this post with them. Meanwhile, digesting the changes.
¶ 4:27 PM 0 comments
6.2.07
Slow
My wishes for this new year are inspired by Carl Honore's book, In praise of Slow. In an ironic turn of events I haven't had time yet to read it. But I like the basic premise, our lives have become so hurried that despite enjoying unparalleled luxury we do not have time to enjoy most of it.
I see two main effects, one related to freedom and the other to how ingrained the fast environment is. Lately I have come to think that freedom is really being master of your own time. Having the ability to choose what to do with it. It has little to do with happiness (as happiness trumps freedom, being the lack of want, and there is little difference between not having a choice and not wanting one), and indeed freedom is scary and somehow unnatural. And yet, we need some small doses of it, if only to appreciate more what we have.
So, having free time, time when there are no constraints on what you do, is for me a need. It is that time what makes up the slow time, even if you actually are doing something, because by its own definition those actions do not have an external pressure. So their timing is not fixed by a schedule or a duty. During that time, you are your own master, unbound to family, work, expectations.
It would be no surprise that books, for me, are the best excuse and where I spend a sizable portion of my free time. And that is another difference with other media, because books are unipersonal in the act of reading, and by the fact of choice and variety, you are free of external influences while reading.
The second part, the environment, affects however how much free time (freedom again, indeed) we have but how we use and feel about that freedom. From enjoyment to guilt, from that strange compulsion to cram as much content as possible that it stops being free and becomes another duty to all that time lost in the corners of our mind, daydreaming. Or my favorite, daydreaming while cooking with a book in one hand (short stories are best for the kitchen).
My duties will not shrink this year, for sure. Indeed work seems to be more intrusive, and I have assumed some extra duties to spend time with old friends. No, my purpose this year is to take the free time more easily, and to try to enjoy the time I have, rather than squander it without valuing its worth. And that includes choosing one book over another. So I prefer to reread Murakami. ¶ 11:06 PM 0 comments
My wishes for this new year are inspired by Carl Honore's book, In praise of Slow. In an ironic turn of events I haven't had time yet to read it. But I like the basic premise, our lives have become so hurried that despite enjoying unparalleled luxury we do not have time to enjoy most of it.
I see two main effects, one related to freedom and the other to how ingrained the fast environment is. Lately I have come to think that freedom is really being master of your own time. Having the ability to choose what to do with it. It has little to do with happiness (as happiness trumps freedom, being the lack of want, and there is little difference between not having a choice and not wanting one), and indeed freedom is scary and somehow unnatural. And yet, we need some small doses of it, if only to appreciate more what we have.
So, having free time, time when there are no constraints on what you do, is for me a need. It is that time what makes up the slow time, even if you actually are doing something, because by its own definition those actions do not have an external pressure. So their timing is not fixed by a schedule or a duty. During that time, you are your own master, unbound to family, work, expectations.
It would be no surprise that books, for me, are the best excuse and where I spend a sizable portion of my free time. And that is another difference with other media, because books are unipersonal in the act of reading, and by the fact of choice and variety, you are free of external influences while reading.
The second part, the environment, affects however how much free time (freedom again, indeed) we have but how we use and feel about that freedom. From enjoyment to guilt, from that strange compulsion to cram as much content as possible that it stops being free and becomes another duty to all that time lost in the corners of our mind, daydreaming. Or my favorite, daydreaming while cooking with a book in one hand (short stories are best for the kitchen).
My duties will not shrink this year, for sure. Indeed work seems to be more intrusive, and I have assumed some extra duties to spend time with old friends. No, my purpose this year is to take the free time more easily, and to try to enjoy the time I have, rather than squander it without valuing its worth. And that includes choosing one book over another. So I prefer to reread Murakami. ¶ 11:06 PM 0 comments
