Tuesday, September 22, 2020

Flying Austro-Hugarian Colors

I didn't get much time to paint this past week so all I got done were the funnels and the white for the colors. I'm hoping to get to the red on them this weekend so I can start in on the last few turrets for the Epic tournament in Scotland next month.

Austro-Hungary Aeronef Fleet Austro-Hungarian Huszár class Destroyer Austro-Hungarian Budapest class Light Battleship

Monday, September 21, 2020

URBAN RUNNER


I've played a fair few FMV games in my time and regardless of their overall quality, they all tend to share the same problem - a conflict between the game's design and the rigid nature of moviemaking. Published by Sierra in 1996, Coktel Vision's Urban Runner epitomises all that can go wrong when the two art forms collide.

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Saturday, September 12, 2020

Infocom Marathon: Leather Goddesses Of Phobos (1986) - Part One

Written by Joe Pranevich



Sex sells, but few things market a product better than controversy. Throughout much of the 20th century, it was an adage that a book or a play "Banned in Boston" was guaranteed to sell well elsewhere. Oscar Wilde once said that, "The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about." Barbara Streisand discovered that the fastest way to get a lot of people interested in taking photos of her house was telling them that they could not. So it was in that spirit that Steve Meretzky penned A Mind Forever Voyaging as a controversy-magnet, guaranteed to get the conservative pundits wagging their tongues about his leftist pollution of young minds. The controversy never materialized and that game flopped. Unperturbed, he pushed for yet another game that could "go viral", but this time he aimed to incite the ire of the pundits (and the libido of the players) by embracing sex. Could an assault on decency succeed where AMFV failed?

Whether it was the sex, the return to traditional puzzle-based gameplay, or something else, Leather Goddesses of Phobos garnered enough attention that it became Infocom's final true "hit". TBD reviewed the game in 2017 and so I will look at this game through a different lens. Instead of a sequential playthrough and review, I am going to focus on the game's puzzles. This game is rightly credited as having some of Meretzky's most clever mind-benders, but does he put them together in a satisfying way? I will also place LGoP in the context of Infocom's broader story as we progress towards the end of 1986.

My original plan had been for this to come out as a single post, but it turns out that I have more to say about his puzzles than I thought. Rather than cut it down, I've decided to split the work into two. Today, we'll cover the introduction and collect the first four key items. Next week, we'll conclude with the final puzzles and some thoughts on how the game comes together as a whole.

Another in-joke that got out of hand?

Leather Goddesses of Phobos began as an office in-joke that got out of hand. As early as 1982, Steve Meretzky, still only a game tester rather than designer, scrawled the name onto a whiteboard with a list of upcoming titles before a press event. It was erased quickly, but it became a bit of a catch phrase around the office and would be mentioned whenever a hypothetical game was needed. This repeated meme wound its way into an official Infocom product in 1984 with the re-release of Starcross. As previously discussed, the shift to standard packaging as part of the "corporatization" of Infocom led to changes in all of the earlier titles' game documentation. The earliest titles, such as Zork and Starcross, received expanded backstories although even later games saw changes. For Starcross, this backstory included a set of the player character's diary entries that highlighted his boredom before his date with destiny. Tucked away in one such entry is the first public mention of the Leather Goddesses:
M.C.S. STARCROSS 03-28-2186 
Underway less than four weeks and I'm about to go crazy! First, the entertainment tapes were mislabelled. It's all highbrow stuff like operas and lectures. Leather Goddesses of Phobos was really something about the history of the Terran Union. What a rip-off! I suppose I can always talk to the computer. I can't stand those tapes. I'll save them for later in the voyage when I'm really desperate. I'll play games with the computer to keep amused that way.
Although this furthers my suspicion that Meretzky was the uncredited author of some of these new materials, it wasn't long before Brian Moriarty got into the swing of things as well. The pleasure arcade in Wishbringer featured a Leather Goddesses of Phobos arcade game. While we never got more than that title tease, the idea spread around the office enough that when Meretzky-- just off of his failure of A Mind Forever Voyaging-- suggested making the game "for real" that it may have felt fait accompli. Their soon-to-be corporate overlords didn't object and before long Infocom had its official twenty-first adventure game!


Infocom struggled to find consistent sales from the earliest days.

The mass protests never manifested, but Meretzky still managed to garner a few complaints and a computer store or two that refused to sell the title. Still others were unhappy that a game sold based on sexual content wasn't pornographic enough. Whether or not the controversy helped, Leather Goddesses sold more than 50,000 copies in the first year and ended its run at 130,000 units total, making it Infocom's sixth most popular title ever. Not bad for a game released so late in the company's history! This success guaranteed that it would receive a spinoff, the Infocomic Lane Mastodon vs. the Blubbermen in 1988, plus a proper sequel in 1992. Sierra would even parody the title in Space Quest IV.

Activision may have eventually become a bit squeamish about the title. Inexplicably, they did not include it in either of the two Lost Treasures of Infocom sets from 1991 and 1992. Purchasers of the second set could order the game via a special coupon, but at $9.95 (roughly $19 today), that was no small sum for a six-year old text adventure. It was also not included in any of the 1995 compilation box sets, but would finally be included in the Classic Text Adventure Masterpieces of Infocom (1996). That box set was also the first to include non-Infocom games released alongside Infocom ones, but that will be a conversation for another day. It was not until 2012 when Leather Goddesses was finally included in an official Lost Treasures set, the much-loved but now dead release for iOS. I am still angry at Activision for refusing to update that app for 64-bit devices.


Also note the first appearance of the "Infocomix" branding!

Much like their other titles, Leather Goddesses included "feelies" including a Lane Mastodon comic, a scratch-and-sniff pad, and even a map of one of the game's dungeons. As usual for this period, the comic is required reading as it includes copy protection solutions for several of the game's puzzles. The comic was drawn by Richard Howell, known for stints at both Marvel and DC as well as helming his own independent comics company. He may be best known for his work on Vision & Scarlet Witch, a series that serves as one of the inspirations for the upcoming WandaVision TV show. The comic was converted to 3-D by Ray Zone, a pioneer in commercializing red-blue 3-D art and who produced many such works during the 80s and 90s. Howell also produced illustrations for the hint book.

The manual tries to place the game in the Zork universe, at least in a tongue-in-cheek way. There are references to Zorkmids and even Dimwit Flathead. While the two previous games that mentioned the Leather Goddesses (Starcross and Wishbringer) were "Zork universe" games, I just cannot buy the technology in this game making sense in the sci-fi worlds of Starcross or Planetfall. I'm going to hold my personal head-canon that Leather Goddesses is popular fiction in the Zork universe and you can all snicker at me that I would even think about this enough to care. There is also a mail-away coupon in the manual for self-help books like you would find advertised in old comics. The address on the coupon is in Somerville, Massachusetts (the next town over from Infocom's offices near Boston), but the street name doesn't appear to exist. I'm at a loss to explain what they were doing here as they should either have gone with a very fictional address (so that it was obviously fake) or a real one (so that they could sell some unexpected "feelies"); an address that looks mostly real but doesn't lead anywhere is very strange. It is also possible that Somerville renamed that street in the last three decades.


Downtown Upper Sandusky, circa 2009.

Our game begins-- after a warning that the software we are about to play should not be played by the prudish-- outside of Joe's Bar in Upper Sandusky, Ohio. If you are a child, as I am, of that part of the midwest then your mind immediately went to just how awesome a place Sandusky, Ohio always seemed. On the shores of Lake Erie, Sandusky is the home of Cedar Point, one of the oldest and greatest amusement parks in the United States. Pittsburghers know that Kennywood is even better, but Cedar Point was still a pretty cool place. However, Meretsky fooled us: the game takes place in Upper Sandusky, a town along the Sandusky River a bit more than an hour south and completely devoid of amusement parks.

The primary purpose of the bar is to give us a chance to customize our Leather Goddesses experience. After a night of drinking, we have to relieve ourselves and to do so we have to select whether we are going into the Ladies' room or the Men's room. Inside we find a stool which we'd better grab and then do our business. That will set our gender for the remainder of the game. I've played through as both male and female, but other than swapping the genders of our comrade-in-arms (either Trent or Tiffany, always the same gender as you) and a few other (ahem) partners along the way, it doesn't change much. A few turns later, the Leather Goddesses abduct us and lock us in a cell on their spaceship.

Escaping the cell is simplistic as the Goddesses simply left the door unlocked. They also left behind a surprising number of adventure game provisions (including a painting of a cat, flashlight, blanket, metal tray, and piece of chocolate). From there, we can explore their ship, easily rescue a ditsy-but-genius new friend from the cell across the hall, and teleport ourselves towards adventure. A couple of  seconds after rescuing her/him, Tiffany/Trent will have an eureka moment and work out a plan to build a device that can defeat the Leather Goddesses and save the Earth, but we'll need to find eight surprisingly mundane objects to complete the task. These consist of: a common household blender, six-feet of rubber hose, a pair of cotton balls, an eighty-two degree angle, a headlight from a 1933 Ford, a white mouse, a photo of Douglas Fairbanks, and a copy of the Cleveland phone book. Why these items? We have to play the game to find out.

The primary thrust of the game will be to explore Mars and Venus, as well as a bit of Earth and other locations, as we track down the key items. The design of the planets are heavily influenced by the work of astronomer Percival Lowell who, in the 19th century, popularized the idea that Mars may have been an arid landscape cross-crossed by canals. This was then used and reused, perhaps most famously by Edgar Rice Burroughs in his John Carter series of books. This game's depiction of nations on Mars in a state of decay may also have been inspired by Burroughs. Most of this exploration is done by locating and using "black circles" which are scattered literally everywhere; entering one will take you to some other location, usually with no immediate way back. In this way, the game keeps up tension and you are forced into situations where the only way out is to progress forward until you can locate the next circle. Gradually, we develop a network of such portals that allow us to explore at will. Once on Mars, we will eventually discover a royal barge that can be used on the still-intact canals to float downstream. Passing by each canal dock only once (until an alternate method of transportation is discovered near the end of the game), we again feel the tension of needing to do everything and explore everything carefully because there is no way back once we leave. While I may not love the setting, we have to give Meretzky credit for building a not-quite-open world in a new and interesting way and unlocking new areas to explore incrementally. It's well done. Let's dig into the puzzles.


Second game in a row with a killer Venus Flytrap!

Puzzle #1 - Venus Fly Trap
One of the two black circles that we can discover on the Leather Goddesses' ship leads to a jungle on Venus and our first real puzzle. It also happens to be one of my least favorite, an example both of how clever Meretzky can be and also how he can overdo it. I suspect that playtesters had difficulty with this one because they added a second solution that is at least more straight-forward than the first.

Immediately after we arrive, a Venus flytrap approaches. It blocks a path to the west, so you know going west must be important. As it chases us east, we quickly reach a fork in the road where the path circles around a pit in the ground. My thought is that we are supposed to get the pit between us and the flytrap, perhaps lure it to the other side then sidle around so that we can go west without it catching us. That idea was completely wrong. If we hide in the pit, the plant will go away, but she comes back when we emerge. How are we to get past her?

At the beginning of the game, we found a piece of paper with a grid of letters on it in Tiffany's cell. She claimed to not know what it was and that she wrote it in her sleep. Converted to a spreadsheet for easy editing, the grid looks like this:

 

My first guess was that it was a code, especially as one is mentioned in the Lane Mastodon comic. Unfortunately, that is a dead end. My break came when I noticed the word "HEADLIGHT" in the second row from the bottom. When we first discovered the paper, Tiffany had not yet had her "eureka!" moment, but by now we know that a headlight (from a 1933 Ford) is one of the key items that we have to find. Searching carefully, we realize that this matrix is a word search puzzle and some variant on the names of each of the eight objects can be found inside. If we find and remove them all, a secret message is revealed:



The message reads: "HISSING FRIGHTENS FLY TRAPS". I follow its instructions to hiss at the flytrap chasing us and it is destroyed, allowing me to reach the western edge of the jungle. There, we find a can of "untangling cream" and a circle leading to the hold of a mysterious spaceship. More on those later. If we had not worked out the word search, we could eventually discover a wooden trellis and a bag of leaves. By combining those over the pit, we create a flytrap trap that has the same effect.

I wish I loved this puzzle because the idea of a word search isn't terrible, but it doesn't make any sense in context. Tiffany wrote it before she designed the anti-Leather Goddesses weapon and it's strange that she would have embedded a solution to a completely unrelated puzzle inside. Tiffany's subconscious may be clever, but this feels a bit too clever. If there had been a hint somewhere-- perhaps Tiffany remarking about a dream that she had while we were running away from the flytrap-- it would have worked better for me. As it is, I solved it on my own but it wasn't as easy as it looks.


Science!

Puzzle #2 - Weird Science

The second major puzzle on Venus is easier but requires trial and error as we navigate a tricky scripted event. We stumble on a mad scientist's lab in the jungle and are led inside and forced to participate in one of his experiments. We are taken down to the basement where we discover a cage with two gorillas inside (one male and one female), next to a slab covered in strange equipment. We also notice that the cage contains a six-foot length of rubber hose, the first of our key items. We are quickly strapped to the slab and the scientist presses a button. We immediately find ourselves in the cage, in a gorilla's body, with an amorous gorilla of the opposite sex nearby.

While the scientist watches carefully, we are given the choice whether or not we want to "frolic" with our gorilla counterpart. Is it bestiality to have sex with a gorilla while you are a gorilla? I have no idea. Regardless of how we choose, the scientist notes our response with excitement and leaves us in the cage.

Escaping is the most difficult part. We do not have the strength to bend the bars, but the game implies that we almost do. How can we get a little more strength? The answer relies on us figuring out the properties of one of the items we found earlier: the chocolate bar delivered with our food way back when we arrived in the Leather Goddesses' cell. If we had eaten it at any point, we would have received a bit of a "buzz" thanks to the sugar. If we eat it right now, the added sugar and energy it provides is enough to allow our gorilla-self to bend the bars. Unfortunately, the bar is being held by our human-self so that means that we need to quickly put it in the cage during a brief window (1-2 turns) after we are brought downstairs but before we are strapped to the table. Once we are free, we can push the red button to return to our own body, but we should not do so until we (as a gorilla) take the hose out of the cage and untie our human-self. Otherwise, we just wasted time and the game is unwinnable.

This is a fun "on rails" puzzle to solve, but it's all trial and error and passing items into the cage during that brief window. I worked it out but honestly thought that gorillas (like many other animals) were unable to eat chocolate. Once we get the timing down and do everything we need to do, it's a fun sequence.

Before we leave Venus, we'll need to finish exploring the jungle. There's a coin hidden in an old phone booth, a "Tee Remover" that can be bought off of a traveling salesman, as well as a black circle that gets us back to the main ship. Experienced players may have more difficulty with the traveling salesman than it would appear since he will only accept the flashlight as trade; I was very reluctant to trade my only light source in fear that there would be other dark areas to explore and so only did this when I was stuck elsewhere.


Poor King Midas!

Puzzle #3 - King Mitre
Mars is the largest explorable area of the game, although we will have to navigate some puzzles to get to much of it. The area that we are dropped into initially consists of several ruined castles and deserts, surrounded on three sides by a martian canal system. There's a canal boat north of King Mitre's castle-- more on him in a moment-- but the canal is a one-way trip and can land us in an unwinnable state. The first puzzle we find is perhaps the most famous puzzle of the game: King Mitre.

When we arrive in Mitre's throne room, we get a long infodump where we learn that the Earth legend of King Midas who turned all that he touched into gold is just a corrupted form of the story of King Mitre who turned everything he touched into forty-five degree angles. The game itself admits that this makes no sense, but we go with it for the sake of the puzzle. Much like in the legend, the now depressed king has turned nearly everything, including his daughter, into a forty-five degree angle. He needs some help. What are we to do?

The answer lies in the odd machine that we bought off the salesman on Venus, the "Tee Remover":
'It's a TEE remover,' he explains. You ponder what it removes — tea stains, hall T-intersections — even TV star Mr. T crosses your mind, until you recall that it's only 1936.
The "Tee Remover" is a small device with a door and a button. You place something inside, shut the door, push the button, and it will have all of it's "T's" removed. It's quite clever. Later on, we'll be able to turn a rabbit into a rabbi and many other fun jokes, but for now the key thing is to realize that the "untangling cream" that we discovered in the Venusian jungle can quickly become "unangling cream" when we remove its t's. If we apply that to King Mitre's daughter, she reverts to normal. The king becomes so overjoyed that he provides us with an eighty-two degree angle in reward. How he did this when he can only create 45-degree angles is left as an exercise for the reader. We take it and continue on our quest.
As you leave, you hear behind you the sound like a forty-five degree angle landing on a pile of forty-five degree angles. "Oh shit! Not again!", you hear Mitre moan.
The joy in this puzzle comes from working out what the "Tee Remover" does and how we can apply it to the situation. Depending on whether the player went to Mars or Venus first, it's possible that this puzzle could have remained a mystery for a while. Unfortunately, this is the only case where the Tee Remover comes in useful; while there are other t's to remove for added humor ("rabbit" into "rabbi" is my favorite), there are no more where we need it to solve a puzzle. Overall, this deserves its reputation of being the most "fun" puzzle in the game, but it still doesn't make a ton of sense.

Elsewhere on Mars, we can discover a marsmouse on "Hickory-Dickory Dock". As a mouse is one of the key items, we try to pick it up and fail. Despite the name suggesting that this puzzle would have something to do with a clock, the actual solution is trivial: show the mouse the picture of a cat and it will become stunned enough to pick up. It's a bit of a letdown really, but that is two key objects in just a few minutes!


Pittsburgers call Cleveland "The Mistake on the Lake"

Puzzle #4 - Cleveland Rocks!

In a desert east of Mitre's castle, we discover a fountain and a black circle that has been drained of color. If we use the black stain that we discovered on Venus, we can re-power the circle and are transported to the mythical land of… Cleveland!

Cleveland is, literally, a joke. After the sprawling expanses of Venus and Mars, we suddenly find ourselves cramped in a tiny suburban area that is somehow cut off from the rest of the world. Meretzky pokes fun at this, but the minimalism of this area feels jarring compared to the dynamic environments elsewhere. I'm sure that was deliberate:
You suddenly find yourself longing for the slime pits of Venus or the sandstorms of Mars. This particular section of Cleveland has exits to the northeast and south.
We can explore two backyards and enter one tiny house. The yards have a bag of leaves and a wooden trellis that we can take, both of which could be used in the alternate Venus Flytrap solution. As it is, the sack is only useful for me as a way to ease the inventory limit.

Inside the house, we find a bedroom with a window open to a neighboring street. Just outside is a 1933 Ford with an intact headlight-- one of our key items! If this had been a real location, it would be simple to just go around to the public street where the Ford is parked and pick up the headlight. Instead, we can only get there by climbing out a second-story window. How can we do that? Searching the room, we discover a sheet on the nearby bed. We can tie it to the bedpost, but it's not long enough to reach the window. We cannot move the bed or tie the sheet to anything closer. The solution is to make the sheet longer by ripping it into strips and then tying them together to create a makeshift rope, then tie the assembled rope to the bed. We are too heavy for the rope, but Tiffany will agree to go down instead. Doing so seems like a mistake:
Tiffany climbs down the rope and unscrews the headlight. Suddenly, a truck barrels down the road and hits Tiffany, carrying her out of sight. Moments later, you hear an explosion. As the smoke drifts past the window, your eyes fill with tears. You hang your head in sorrow for a moment to honor your brave, loyal companion who gave her life that humanity might be safe from the terrible scourge of the Leather Goddesses of Phobos.
Of course, she is revealed to have survived the blast a turn or two later after a misadventure with miners on Pluto or something similarly nonsensical. I could not solve this puzzle on my own and had to take a hint. I worked out that I could tie things to the bed and I was trying to use the sheet as a rope, but I never thought to rip the sheet into strips and assemble them that way. I suspect that I have not watched enough jailbreak movies. Tiffany also usually ignores you when you ask for help, but she leaps to it this time.

My biggest issue with this puzzle is how unnecessary it seems. We're in Cleveland. The car is parked on a public street. It breaks my sense of immersion in the game to have such a clearly constructed puzzle only make sense within the realm of a game. Had Meretzky had duplicated the exact same puzzle in a motel on Ganymede, I am certain I would have enjoyed it more. Either way, we have picked up our fourth key item. Only four more to go!



But… we'll just have to wait until next week for our shocking conclusion.

July Scrum Rd 3 - Madrak2 Vs. Zaadesh2


Round 3 of the July Scrum and I'm paired against Rich who is playing Skorne.  I was happy to play vs. Rich who has won a previous Scrum and I've not played much against Skorne since they've gotten all their buffs in MK3. I figured I'd learn a lot in this match, especially since I've never played against the buffed Derp Turtle (aka. Siege Animantarax) which the internet tells me is particularly strong and Rich had one in both of his lists.

This was a bit bitter-sweet for me, as I knew this was going to be my last round in the July Scrum. We already had a drop, forcing a bye each week and my work accelerated the schedule for the job I'm working on, which was causing me to have to stay later each evening at random nights every week.  This put a strain on my family life - it's one thing to get a game a week in, but to be home late and then still have to go get my game in because it's scheduled well in advance is a bit rough on my wife.  Such is life.

Lists and Analysis

Rich had the following pair:

Morghoul3
-Escorts
-Archidon
-Cyclops Raider
-Cyclops Shaman
-Aptimus Marketh (free)

Extoller Soulward
Feralgeist
Willbreaker (free)
Venator Dakar
Venator Dakar

Beast Handlers (min)
Venator Catapult (free)
Venator Reivers + CA
Venator Reivers + CA

Siege Animantarax
 
Zaadesh2
-Agonizer (free)
-Agonizer (free)
-Archidon
-Krea (free)
-Bronzeback
-Gladiator
-Sentry
-Sentry

Willbreaker
Beast Handlers (max)
Swamp Gobbers

Siege Animantarax

Looking at the matchup I wasn't fond of Grim2's chances into either list.  Morghoul3 could be a disaster with his Blind spell to just lock down a unit entirely and the Venator Reivers out range my units from a base level and their mini-feat is extends their range to go beyond what my units + Grim2's feat can accomplish.  Grim doesn't really like Zaadesh2 who brings a cloud wall that prevents most of my pieces from being able to shoot and has two ARM 21 shield guards in the list that can't be knocked down.

Madrak2 wasn't looking too hot into either list as far as I could tell, but was better off into either compared to Grim2.  I wasn't completely sure what Rich was going to drop since I was only vaguely aware of what Skorne's plan would be, but the match ended up with Madrak2 vs. Zaadesh2 playing Mirage.



Deployment & Rich's Turn 1

Rich won the roll to go first and I picked table sides.


Rich puts out his upkeeps and takes sufficiently threatening positions with the Archidon and the Turtle. He ends up with 2 rage tokens on the Turtle due to missing one attack.


My Turn 1


I use the Runebearer for Harmonious Exaltation to get  Blood Fury on the left Long Riders and dump the rest of Madrak's fury onto stone.

Since I hadn't played against the Turtle before I didn't really think of it as a melee threat, I had only considered it as a problem with its gun. As such I went on the hill to get a defense bonus, but didn't stagger the riders to mitigate melee problems. Boy was that a mistake

On the right I staggered my Long Riders to bait in the Sentry, the stone advanced and I really needed the fury generation to give me 2-3 fury, but I only rolled a 1 meaning some of the left Long Riders were going to be out of the aura.

Rich's Turn 2


Well there goes the neighborhood. So as it turns out the Turtle can murder you much better in melee than with its guns, but sometimes it can just do both. I was left with one Long Rider knocked down and on 2 boxes out of my left unit thanks to a Crit Pitch from the Archidon.

Rich puts up his feat and some clouds between Zaadesh and the Swamp Gobbers to try and block me off. Not knowing/respecting the Turtle's output in melee basically put me way behind on attrition.

My Turn 2



Well as you can see, very little died.  I stood up the knocked down Long Rider and tried to Bull Rush into the Archidon, but of course the retaliatory strike crit pitched  the Long Rider into the objective and killed it.  I tried to use Eilish to strip Inviolable Resolve off the Turtle, but that failed due to range and having to walk around Kriel Warriors that wanted to charge in with Blood Fury.  Due to the Agonizer behind the Turtle, I couldn't even get a Raged Bomber to kill the Archidon.

I used my right Long Riders to charge in and kill the Swamp Gobbers, then reposition just outside of melee of his beasts. I moved one Rider to jam up (and stop counter charges from) the Bronzeback and Sentry in the center, I position the Mauler to be able to kill whatever comes in to contest my flag or just go after their heavies if they go into the Long Riders.  I scored my flag to go up 1-0.

Rich's Turn 3


Rich continues to just pound me in the face repeatedly.  I lose most of my Kriel Warriors and the Bomber between the Turtle, Archidon (seen as a proxy base), and the Bronzeback.

The right Sentry kills two Long Riders and is able to get just within 4" of the flag to contest me, and the center Sentry kills the jamming one.  Zaadesh moves into the circle zone to score it, and the Mist Speaker moves to score his friendly flag.  Not pictured here is a cloud right in front of my Mauler to block LOS to the Sentry.   Rich is up 2-1 on scenario.

My Turn 3



Well I was getting absolutely slaughtered and the game is basically over.  In order to get everything going last turn Zaadesh had to heal the Archidon for 2 fury and since he made a cloud, he was on a 0 camp.  I was looking for whatever jank I could pull to get an assassination, and somehow I see one:

Madrak puts Blood Fury on the remaining Long Riders and then casts Warpath.  The Longriders get pathfinder from the Fell Caller and need to declare a Bull Rush onto the Gladiator. The goal is to slam the Gladiator over Zaadesh, then Follow up and make a weapon master attack on him. Ideally I can kill a model elsewhere to proc Warpath to allow the Mauler to move up to the Sentry who will then double handed throw the Sentry over at Zaadesh to finish him off.

I start executing: The Fell Caller runs to engage the Sentry to shut down counter charge and calls Pathfinder for the Riders. Eilish puts puppet master on the Riders.  Madrak casts his spells and the Stone runs into position and pops for Strength.

I made a mistake however when it came to the Long Riders, One rider had the Bull Rush into the Gladiator, the other just ran up.  The problem came when an Agonizer counter charges my Bull Rushing Longrider to prevent his ability to move directly towards the slammed Gladiator.  If I had been careful here I could have done the bull rush move first, and when the Agonizer charged in, the second Long Rider could have declared it as the charge target, allowing me to kill the Agnoizer allowing the follow up move.

As such I was able to slam the Gladiator over Zaadesh doing 6 damage, leaving him on 10, but I couldn't follow up for the melee attack to get more damage in. I did kill the Agonizer with my follow up attack which allowed the Mauler to warpath up to the Sentry.  I cast rage on myself, boost to hit my double handed throw, win the STR check, and then use my last fury to boost to hit the knocked down Zaadesh - only to roll triple 1's.  The scatter goes away from Zaadesh, but my damage roll would have been less than the 10 to kill him anyway and the game effectively ends here since Rich just needs to walk and kill my objective with a Bronzeback and then score his flag again to win. 

Conclusions

I needed to research what these lists could really do more, but I've been struggling to give much thought to the match due to my work situation.  I can't believe I forgot that the Derp Turtle was more dangerous in melee than it was in shooting (especially when not with Rasheth).  I basically gave my Long Riders away and that swung the game very hard towards Rich right at the start.

Rich was a joy to play against and was describing how he thought it was a 50/50 matchup.  I disagreed and then he revealed the key as to why: Lead with the Kriel Warriors, not anchor.  Unlike my last game, if I just play conservatively with the Riders and jam up with the Kriels it's very possible I can kill enough of his pieces to snowball the attrition towards my side.

It's a brilliant idea on how to approach this matchup and I hadn't even thought of it, since well Longriders are fast and so you lead with them, Kriel Warriors anchor.  However, unlike the Circle game last round of the Scrum where Kriels can Blood Fury their way through nearly anything, Agonizers are going to really hurt their chances at damaging ARM 21 Sentries or anything with Inviolable Resolve. However if I just jam with them, I can setup the trades to allow me to get ahead.

Overall it was still a fun game even though Rich basically bashed my head into the ground repeatedly, I honestly look forward to the next time I can play him.

It is a bit sad to end the Scrum here, but I am looking at being able to attend my first actual WM tournament in ages this weekend, though I will be bringing Convergence instead of Trolls.

Thursday, September 3, 2020

Ep 25: Top Faves With Dave Goes To The Library II: Nonfiction Is Live!

Ep 25: Top Faves with Dave goes to the Library II: Nonfiction
https://soundcloud.com/user-989538417/episode-25-top-faves-with-dave-goes-to-the-library-ii
We talk with Dave Tubbs about the nonfiction books that inspire our gaming.

The Veteran Wargamer is brought to you by Kings Hobbies and Games
https://www.facebook.com/Special-Artizan-Service-Miniatures-1791793644366746/

Join the conversation at https://theveteranwargamer.blogspot.com, email theveteranwargamer@gmail.com, Twitter @veteranwargamer

Follow Dave Tubbs on Twitter @frmrsldrfgtplyr

Other companies we mentioned:
The Face of Battle - John Keegan https://www.amazon.com/Face-Battle-Study-Agincourt-Waterloo/dp/0140048979
Commands and Colors https://www.commandsandcolors.net/
Baccus https://www.baccus6mm.com/

The French Foreign Legion: A Complete History of the Legendary Fighting Force - Douglas Porch https://www.amazon.com/French-Foreign-Legion-Complete-Legendary/dp/161608068X

The Templars: The Dramamtic History of the Knights Templar  - Pierce Paul Read https://www.amazon.com/Templars-Dramatic-Powerful-Military-Crusades/dp/0312555385

The Soviet Army FM Series - US Army Google it for a ton of PDFs
PFC C-in-C http://www.pfc-cinc.com/front_page.html
PicoArmor https://www.picoarmor.com/

The Last Battle - Cornelius Ryan https://www.amazon.com/Last-Battle-Classic-History-Berlin/dp/0684803291
Rommel - Sam Mustafa https://sammustafa.com/rommel/
Rapid Fire! http://www.rapid-fire-uk.com/

Homage to Catalonia - George Orwell https://www.amazon.com/Homage-Catalonia-George-Orwell/dp/0156421178
A World Aflame https://ospreypublishing.com/a-world-aflame-interwar-wargame-rules-1918-39
Empress Miniatures http://www.empressminiatures.com/page9.htm

Bombs Away: The Story of a Bomber Team -  John Steinbeck https://www.amazon.com/Bombs-Away-Bomber-Penguin-Classics/dp/0143105914
B-17: Queen of the Skies - Avalon Hill https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1032/b-17-queen-skies

The Bear Went Over the Mountain - Lester Grau https://www.amazon.com/Bear-Went-Over-Mountain-Afghanistan/dp/1304069451
The Other Side of the Mountain - Lester Grau and Ali Ahmad Jalali https://www.amazon.com/Other-Side-Mountain-Mujahideen-Soviet-Afghan/dp/1907521054/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=46F0GWG2NTQZAZ30GFF3
Force on Force - Ambush Alley Games http://www.ambushalleygames.net/force-on-force-core-rules-pdf/
Plastic Soldier Company http://theplasticsoldiercompany.co.uk/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=93_94_95&products_id=1673
Battlefront - Team Yankee http://team-yankee.com/

Pegasus Bridge - Stephen Ambrose https://www.amazon.com/Pegasus-Bridge-June-6-1944/dp/0671671561
Stargrunt https://shop.groundzerogames.co.uk/rules.html
Tomorrow's War  http://www.ambushalleygames.net/tomorrows-war/
Cadian Imperial Guard - GW http://solegends.com/citcat1998us/c1998usp281-02.htm
Ork Kommandos - GW http://solegends.com/citcat1998us/c1998usp356-02.htm

Queen Victoria's Little Wars - Byron Farwell https://www.amazon.com/Queen-Victorias-Little-Byron-Farwell/dp/0393302350
The Sword and the Flame - Sergeants Three http://www.sergeants3.com/
Perry Miniatures https://www.perry-miniatures.com/

History of Rome - Livy https://www.amazon.com/Livy-Early-History-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140448098
The Twelve Caesars - Suetonius - Translated by Robert Graves https://www.amazon.com/Twelve-Caesars-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140440720/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1506815887&sr=1-1&keywords=twelve+caesars+robert+graves
Our Word is Our Weapon - Subcommandante Marcos https://www.amazon.com/Our-Word-Weapon-Selected-Writings/dp/1583224726/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1506815906&sr=1-1-spell&keywords=sub+commandante+marcos
AK47 - Rules and figures by Peter Pig http://www.peterpig.co.uk/ak47.html
SASM - Operator Juarez http://www.kingshobbiesandgames.com/Operator-Juarez-s/188.htm
Greece and Rome at War - Peter Connolly https://www.amazon.com/Greece-Rome-War-Peter-Connolly/dp/1848329415
The Black Devil Brigade - Joseph Springer https://www.amazon.com/Black-Devil-Brigade-Special-Service/dp/0935553509/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1506816045&sr=1-1&keywords=black+devil+brigade+springer
Paddy Whacked: The Untold Story of the Irish Mob - J.T. English https://www.amazon.com/Paddy-Whacked-Untold-American-Gangster/dp/0060590033/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1506816098&sr=1-1&keywords=paddy+whacked
Mad Dogs With Guns - Howard Whitehouse https://ospreypublishing.com/mad-dogs-with-guns


Music courtesy bensound.com. Recorded with zencastr.com. Edited with Audacity. Make your town beautiful; get a haircut.

Sunday, August 30, 2020

Linux Command Line Hackery Series: Part 1




In this concise article we will learn some basics of how to use Linux Command line, so lets get started.

Requirements:

1. An open Terminal in your Linux Box. I'm using Kali Linux 2.0
or you can check out this amazing website Webminal

Command:  ls
Syntax:         ls [flag(s)]
Function:      ls is short for list. ls command is used to list the contents of a directory these contents include files, folders, and links. ls has many optional flags as well, some of them are described below
Flags:    -a this flag is used to view hidden files that is those files whose names are preceded                      by a '.'(dot)
               -l  this flag is used to view file permissions, owner of the file, group of the owner, the                        file size, the modification date, and the filename. We'll talk more about it in later                            articles.

Command:  mkdir
Syntax:         mkdir dirname
Function:      mkdir is used to create a directory (or a folder) with the name which is followed by the command

now lets create a directory in our current directory named as myfiles, how would you do that?

mkdir myfiles

which command should we use in order to verify that the directory has been created in our current folder?

ls

this will list all the files and directories in our current folder. Do you see myfiles directory listed?

Command:  cd
Syntax:         cd path/to/directory
Function:      cd is short for change directory. It is used to navigate directories, or to make it clear it does the same thing as what double clicking on a folder do except it doesn't show you contents of the directory :(. In order to navigate or visit another directory we need to provide it's ABSOLUTE-PATH or RELATIVE-PATH you heard that, didn't ya?

Paths are of two types relative path or absolute path (also called full-path). Relative as the name suggests is relative to the current directory, so if you have to navigate to a folder within the current directory you'll just simply type cd directory_name. But what if you have to navigate to a directory which is the parent of current directory? Well it's easy just type cd .. (yes double dots, you noticed that .. and . thing when you typed ls -a, didn't you?). The double dots mean the directory above current directory (i,e the parent directory) and a single dot means the current directory (i,e the directory that I'm currently in). Now if you have to navigate two directories above current directory using relative path navigation you'll type

cd ../.. 

here .. means previous directory and another .. after slash (/) means the previous directory of the previous directory sounds confusing..!

The Absolute Path means full path to the file or folder which starts from root directory. Say I want to navigate to my home folder using absolute path, then I'll type:

cd /home/user

where user is the username
Now think of navigating to the myfiles folder from your home directory using the absolute path, it will be something like this:

cd /home/user/myfiles

Exercise: Create a directory project1 inside your home directory and inside the project1 directory create a file and a directory named index.html and css respectively. Then navigate to the css directory and create a style.css file inside it. At last navigate out of the css directory to home both using the relative and absolute path mechanisms.

[Trick: To get quickly out of any directory to your home directory type cd ~ [press Enter] or simply cd [press Enter]]

Command:  touch
Syntax:         touch filename
Function:      touch is a nifty little function used to create an empty file (actually it's used to change access time of a file but everyone has got bad habits :P ). You can create any type of empty file with the touch command. If you are a bit curious about touch read the manual page of the touch command using the man touch command.

Now lets create a few files inside of our myfiles directory

touch file1 file2 file3

The above command creates three empty files in our current directory named file1, file2, and file3.
How will you verify that it has indeed created these three files in your current directory? I won't answer this time.

Command:  echo
Syntax:         echo Hacker manufacturing under process
Function:      echo is used to display a line of text. By default echo displays a line of text on the terminal which is the standard output device (stdout for short). However we can redirect the output of an echo command to a file using > (the greater than symbol).
Now if we have to echo a line of text to a file, say file1 in our myfiles directory, we will type:

echo This is file1 > file1

The above command will echo the text "This is file1" to file1.

Command:  cat
Syntax:         cat filename [anotherfilename...]
Function:      cat stands for concatenate (not that puny little creature in your house). The main function of cat is to concatenate files and display them on your terminal (or in geeky terms stdout). But its also used to display the contents of a file on your terminal.

Let's display the contents of file1 in the myfiles directory that we echoed to it using the echo command, for that we'll type:

cat file1

Awesome I can see on black screen contents of my file (what if your terminals background is white?), looks like I'm becoming a hacker. In case you don't see it then I suggest you should give up the thought of becoming a hacker. Just kidding you might have missed a step or two from the above steps that we performed.

Now lets say that we want to add another line of text to our file using the echo command should we use the same greater than (>) symbol? No, if we want to add another line (which in geeky terms is to append a line) to our file using the echo command we have to use >> (two greater than symbols) like this:

echo Another line of text >> file1

now to check the contents of file1 we'll type:

cat file1

OK we wrote two lines inside of the file1.
Does it mean we have to add three greater than symbols to write third line? Oh! I didn't thought you'd be such a genius.

A single greater than symbol (>) means redirect the output of the preceding command to a file specified after the > symbol. If the file exists then overwrite everything that's in it with the new contents and if the file does not exist then create one and write to it the output of the preceding command. So if you had typed

echo Another line of text > file1

it would have overwritten the contents of the file1 with "Another line of text" and the line "This is file1" would no longer be present in the file.

Two greater than symbols (>>) mean that append (remember the geeky term?) the output of the previous command to the end of file specified after >>. Now if you want to add another line of text to file1, you won't use >>> rather you'll use >> like this:

echo Third line in file1 >> file1

This is it for today. But don't worry we'll learn more things soon.

Related links