Books & Stuff (NS, No 17) - Reading in June 2021

Again, insomnia and being a part-time worker combine to lead to a healthy shelf-full of reading this month.

Patrick O'Brian, The Reverse of the Medal

Several thread come together in this (the eleventh) installment of the Aubrey-Maturin series.  The influencial (and traitorous) men with a grudge against Aubrey finally bring their campaign against him to a head.  He is duped into being the pasty for a stock market buble, which leads to his trial and dismissal from the Navy (as in much of the series, O'Brian is borrowing from history here, leaning on the trial of Lord Cochrane).

Raymond E Feist, Magician

As a palette-cleanser from all this naval derring-do, I've embarked upon another shelf-groaning series, perhaps unwisely.

I've never read any Feist before, and this series (the Riftwars) was recommended as a different take from Vancian magic (I've never read any Vance either, but that's for another time...)

Good competent stuff.  Even reading this first novel, I can see that George R R Martin and Joe Abercrombie have both been influenced by it.  I still prefer Abercrombie, but that's just me.

 Patrick O'Brian, The Letter of Marque

Aubrey, ejected from the Service that has been his life, is in a low place.  Luckily, Maturin has come into a fortune and is this able to buy HMS Surprise -  also retired from service - and set her up as a privateer.  Plans are put on foot to find a Spectacular Action that will justify Aubrey's re-instatement.

Maturin has to deal with his complicated private affairs.

Ted Nield, Underlands: A Journey Through Britain's Lost Landscape

A geologist muses on the hundreds of thousands of holes - clay pits, gravel pits, quarries and mines - that used to scatter the landscape providing local (often very local) building materials and resources.   

He uses these holes to tell two stories.  On a human scale, he tells us of the generations of his family which lived and worked on the South Wales coalfield.  On a geological scale, he walks us through what science learnt from them and tells that their filling-in or amenitisation will hinder geological education.

Finally, he ponders what it means that we now find it more economical (because of low wages, poor safety standards and under-priced petroleum) to import these earth resources from Asia, and what impact that will have on our planet.  He makes a telling parallel between the unthinking siting of spoil-tips above the village of Aberfan and our persistant burning of fossilised carbon despite the lessons of geological history about its perils.

Patrick O'Brian, The Thirteen Gun Salute

Aubrey and Maturin's mission to ferment revolution in South America is blown, so they are given another reason to be in the Pacific - to escort an envoy to negotiate a treaty with a Malay Sultan who's also being courted by the French.  On the bright side, that means that Aubrey is re-instated to the Navy List and they get to give a couple of old enimies thier comeuppance.

Maturin meets an orangutan.

Jonathan Morris, Festival of Death

This is apparently one of the best Doctor Who novels - when eleven books were selected to be reissued as part of the 50th Anniversary celebrations, this was the one chosen to represent the Third Doctor.  Despite this, I'd characterise it as 'for fans only' - but then, perhaps that's the point...

Patrick O'Brian, The Nutmeg of Consolation

Our crew manage to escape the island on which they were cast away at the end of the last book (not without incident, of course) and make their way to Java, where Governor Raffles treats them well.  They then go on to the Botany Bay Colony, which is a different story entirely - a squalidf, corrupt and brutal place.

Rats eat Maturin's personal supply of coca leaves and he meets a platypus. 

Shiny! Gunfighters

It's a long time since I did a post about new minis!  That's because it's a long time since I bought any.

For many people, the enforced leisure time Lockdown gave us was a chance to put brush to paint to lead/plastic.  Not for me.  I don't think I've painted a mini for almost 18 months.  In part, that's because of the domestic upheaval of moving into a new house (which doesn't have the great natural light I used to have), but also because my 'hobby time' has taken a new direction and I've been mainly playing RPGs with theatre of the mind.  I'm hoping that some new arrivals might get me back to the paint table.

But when Bad Squiddo announced that they were going to be stocking the new Gunfighters set from Great Escape Games, I couldn't resist and signed up for a pre-order.  With commendable efficiency, the box was delivered to me yesterday, the official lauch date.

I'm not sure what I'll do with them, but I watched lots of Saturday afternoon Westerns as a kid, and couldn't resist.  And of course, being kits, they're adaptable.  Everyone loves Gunfighters in Space don't they?

So what do you get?  Two identical sprues, with enough bits to make ten 28mm minis (and have all sorts of bits left over).

I'm not one of those people who can look at a sprue and comment on the figures (a lack a visual awareness, I suppose).  The first thing to say is that I don't see the parts to make some of the characters from the splendid box art.  Well, these things always have some artistic licence.

One the back of the box, however, there is an indication of how some of them might turn out.

I don't have much experience of Great Escape Games' sculpts.  I remember being very disappointed back in 2014 with their group of three casualties: - two of them looked as if they'd meet their ends under a steam roller.  The fourth, however, was very charactful and ended up being a joy to paint.  I'm hoping I might be able to recapture some of that. 

Some of my best work

And looking at that post from 2014 reminds me that I've still got some of the Old West figures from Artizan to paint.  They're always fun.

Gaming in May 2021

A quieter month this month, as work issues meant that our GM for the OSE Illmire game had to drop out for a while.  June might prove even quiter as I'm going to be working on Sundays.

• 2 May - Wasters (Cyberpunk OSE)
• 9 May - Wasters (Cyberpunk OSE)
• 23 May - Wasters (Cyberpunk OSE)

Wasters

• 2 May - Andreas' account here.

After months of undertaking missions in the Wastes, the crew thought they'd earned a nice cushy job a little closer to home - clearing out a block in order to extend the Safe Zone.  [This was actually a new fuction that we were game-testing.]

It proved not to be quite so simple.

Although the block itself was only Threat Level 1, there turned out to be no less than three buildings to clear and a number of groups of ne'er-do-wells.  We moved in on the first building, where our hover-bot had spotted five heavily armed people had taken up residence on the top floor.  We soon found that stealthily moving through the lower levels was impossible, as most rooms were occupied.  Initially, we were clearing these rooms with extreme prejudice, but after almost throwing a grenade in on a family with small children, we took a more cautious approach.  A messy firefight with another group of Wasters and a few minor encounters with civilians followed before we were able to encounter the gang members in their penthouse (who were, of course, well-aware of our approach).  We eventually managed to beat them.

We then rang in to a group of veteran Wasters who were much amused at our messy and ineffienct methods.  Nevertheless, they lets us pass without any problems, and even offered us some leads to future jobs.

• 9 May

[Only two players this session, myself and one new to the game.]

Having cleared most of the first building, we took up residence in the penthouse, using it as a convenient snipers' nest.  We managed to take out a group of gang members - wanta-be Fast Dogs.  

One going out into the streets, we had a negotiation with some scavengers, who tipped us off about a gang of muggers roaming the block.  We lay in ambush and tried to lure them out of their alley with out bot, but botched it.  However, they were no match for us, and after we killed three, the rest ran.

Little bastards!
By an artist called Valyndril

We then returned to the partially-cleared building (we'd left the basement alone, having detected wireless signals coming from there).  First, we encountered a group of urchins, who Cash Zone (our Face) tried to befriend - to no good effect, other than that they picked his pockets of much on his smaller equipment.  Then we were surprised by the returning Fast Dogs, who took the Face hostage.  The rest of the gang seriously considered ignoring the human shield or letting the Dogs butcher him, but in the end they stripped him of his remaining gear, and moved on.

In the final room of the basement we managed to defeat two haywire delivery drones and relieve them of the narcotics they were carrying.

• 23 May - Andreas' account here

Decrypting datasticks which we have previously acquired in the Wastes, we found that one gave directions to a stash hidden in a block controlled by one of the street gangs - The Butch Killers,  The other contained info that, co-incidently, would get a premium if sold to the Killers.  We decided to kill two birds with the one stone, and headed out to the Butch Killer's territory.

Butch!

One the way we had minor encounters with haywire bots and a group of muggers, but after a day's travel we reached the target block.  We followed the directions to the stash, only to find that it was in a building now used as the gang headquarters!  We were attempting to scope out the place when we we caught by guards.

We left our negotiations to our Face - Cash Zone - and he prove quite useless!  Eventually the info trade went well, but he then offered the gang the directions to the stash free of charge (despite the rest of the crew's strangled objections that we should at least get a commission)!

We slowly made our way back to base, with some serious discussion of how long it was going to be before we fragged Cash Zone.