Well Now
If you have been keeping up with Conrad's cogitations of late, then you know he dug up a lot of background data he'd acquired years and years ago, in furtherance of designing a hex-and-counter boardgame. I remember drawing thousands upon thousands of hexagons on a fabric sheet whilst still working at the Co-Op, which is about six years ago, that's how long ago it was. I had gotten to the stage of getting blank sheets of counters, which would all need graphics added to, along with stats for them. Art!
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| Because hexagons on a green cloth are deadly dull |
This is a colourised black-and-white picture from the First Unpleasantness, showing a Decauville railway being used to ship large shells from a forward supply dump up to the gun lines. The photograph claims to be from Third Ypres (a.k.a. Passchendaele) and if so was taken during one of the dry spells. Note the lack of mud, greatcoats, rolled up sleeves and wellp-defined shadows - meaning plenty of sun.
ANYWAY I recently came across a wargamer on Youtube, one "JP", whose preferred era seems to be horse-and-musket (roughly 1650 to 1850), but who also has a few video clips of his playing what has been called "The most complicated wargame ever". Art!
I also got a good few statistics from "KamSandwich", another wargamer who did a short vlog about this game, which we will now abbreviate to CFNA. Okay, the whole thing is estimated to take 1,500 hours to play to completion, or 62 complete days. The recommended number of players is 10 - 5 per side. The enormous map is 9 feet long. There are 1,600 counters. The Historical Background pamphlet is 16 pages long, the Land Warfare Rules take up 97 pages, the Air Warfare and Logistics Rules are 44 pages long, the Axis Charts have 109 pages and the British (and Commonwealth) Charts are 199 pages long. Art!
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| The map and tracking boxes |
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| Rules and countersheets |
Conrad has long retained a conversation overheard in a games shop over forty years ago, when a mum was complaining about how much a game cost, when it was only a map and some counters. The assistant, canny chap that he was, explained that games were extensively tested before being published, to work out balance, errata, tweaks and so on, and this is part of what constitutes the price.
Not with CFNA.
Nobody has apparently played all 100 turns to complete a single game. If they had one presumes they'd be crowing about it on social media, with a time-lapse video up on Youtube. Art!
This is JP's game, which he bought whilst at university and hasn't played since. At this point in the game he has spent 20 hours and has only just set it up, because, as he aptly pointed out, it's more a book-keeping exercise than a game. Still, it takes all sorts. It's now easier and quicker to play than the old 1975 version, which required pen and paper to keep track of shizzle; now JP has a snazzy jazzy laptop with Excel to keep his stats in order.
He's also starting out small. What you see on the map above is the Italian invasion of Egypt in June 1940, so there are no Teutons and the forces of Perfidious Albion are comparatively small. Art!
You can see the British forces arrayed in a defensive arc, and the Italians concentrated at Sollum. One of the more niggly rules applying to the Italians is that of 'Pasta Points'. The average Italian soldier dined hugely on pasta, which required lots of water for boiling, and Richard Berg (the maniac who created CFNA) decided this meant they had an additional draw on their water supplies. Art!
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| British tankie (you can tell by the black beret) brewing up |
Conrad would like to point out that the British (and Commonwealth) soldiery would brew-up eight times a day if they got the opportunity, which is also a draw on your water rations, and perhaps a Tea Token ought to have been invoked. We'll never know, because this is the sort of thing play-testing would suggest.
PJ has posted a couple of video updates on his channel, which I'll watch and get back to you about.
O Dearie Me
You may also remember that Conrad dug up an ancient, hand-written piece of 'Doctor Who' fan fiction that may be twenty or thirty years old. Art!
There are thirty pages of it, all double-sided, and painstakingly done with a fountain-pen. I finished reading it last night and -
It's not very good!
It features the Seventh Doctor and Ace, and a character called 'Ross'. It's never made clear if this is his first or last name, and to be honest you wouldn't really care, because he's such a cipher. He scowls, he growls, he snarls, he snaps - he has as much depth as a desert stream. There's a bit of a plot hole, too; early on he gets knocked unconscious, then comes to with a bandaged head, courtesy the Doctor. He never gets checked for concussion or other damage, and the bandage seems to mysteriously vanish after being mentioned once.
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| A winning combination! |
It would do - as a first draft. And yes, that's me writing, not Mister Hand The Treacherous Appendage.
Shucks 'Twas Nothing
Conrad got a reward for his dog-sitting (and dog-walking), being a Human-Shaped Cushion on Bonfire Night weekend and getting up ridiculously early to feed Edna. Art!
The seasonings are an unknown quantity, doubtless they will improve the quality of a Sunday Stew in the near future. The 'Dark Chocolate Balsamic Vinegar", however, I have tried.
It's very good!
The only problem is keeping it hidden from Wonder Wifey, for I was lucky to ever get it in the first place, apparently. Possession and nine-tenths and all that.
"City In The Sky"
More Seventh Doctor and Ace! This time the Doctor, as Ace is flying the flag aboard Arcology One in orbit.
Billy thought this was madness. There had never been a murder in New Eucla or
the hamlets around it; proscriptions about taking human life ran deep amongst
the Earth’s dwindled populations.
‘One possible complication – you don’t have guns here, do you?’
Another puzzling question, from Billy’s perspective. There had been lots of guns once upon a time,
post-Big Crash. Once the ammunition
dried up, the guns lost any utility they might have had. Now, the State Arsenal at
‘Guns? No. The South Oz or Westie cops carry them,
nobody else.’ A sudden inspiration
struck. ‘There are crossbows. Did you want to buy one?’
The Doctor looked appalled. A
crossbow! Richard de Coverley would
have spat at the very thought, all those yew longbow lessons learning to split
the wand –
‘Goodness, no! No, thank
you. I shall rely on my wit and speed to
stay out of trouble.’
Hom. Sap. Quite indomitable! Altogether now - "Puny, defenceless bipeds ..." - whom thus developed weapons prettttty quickly*.
On The Theme Of 'Circles'
Thank you Auntie Beeb. Art!
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| Courtesy Claire Louot |
One we can all appreciate. A cup of coffee, the Caffeine Injection System that propels every office.
How Marvel-less
As the saying goes, success has a thousand fathers - meaning all and sundry will climb onto the bandwagon to get their snouts in the money-trough* - whilst failure is an orphan. Tim Robbins had an amusing take on the latter, where he describes a Hollywood Suit denying any responsibility for a colossal financial failure, despite their name being prominently displayed in every form of media from start to stop: "Yeah, but - I fought it every step of the way!"
We now see the excuses coming out about why "The Marvels" has been such a box office disaster. Art!
FYI, Indy5, another execrable film, was making 5x this amount at this point in it's release.
So the excuses are being trotted out. 1) It's the fans (always a reliable fall-back) but not one guaranteed to make more of them go and see the film.
2) It was the writers and actors strike. Oddly enough, that didn't stop "Barbie" or "Five Nights At Freddy's" being an enormous hit.
3) Superhero burn out. Hmmm "The Boys" and "Invincible" are doing just fine, thank you, as did "Guardians Of The Galaxy". Art!
This poster doesn't help. From a distance it makes Captain Marvel look as if she has weird deformed legs.
Talking of legs, TM has suffered a severe falling-off in revenue. If the budget came to $300 million (we won't know the exact total for months and months) then, at a conservative estimate, it would need to hit $600 million globally to merely break even. Currently it stands at $117 million.
Bring on the popcorn!
Finally -
Enough prevarication, this blog is DONE!
* Except in the "Zom 100: Bucket List Of The Dead" universe.
** It's not a mixed metaphor if the wagon is well-sprung with a level load.
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