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Archives for November, 2014
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Megagame – Funeral Games II – pt.2 – Cassander
This is the second part of my offside report on the Megagame Makers megagame 'Funeral Games II' which I played in on Saturday. It covered the period following Alexander the Great's death and the struggle by his successors to attain power. In the first half of the game I played Antipater, until he died of old age in his bed, then I played his heir, Cassander. Cassander This afforded me a moment to breathe. I was reincarnated as Cassander, my heir. As it turns out Perdiccas got killed and he became my younger brother Alexarchus. Another player also got reassigned then too and played the middle brother Pleistarchus. We had a short breather and plotted how to establish ourselves as powerful, the downfall of Queen Olympias and the rebuilding of Thebes. Cassander''s Objectives Gain control of Macedonia Expand your power…
Megagame – Funeral Games II – pt.1 Antipater
Today I played in the Megagame Makers ''Funeral Games II'' which was the second outing of a classic Megagame of what happens after Alexander the Great dies. As such it involves a mix of military operations, politics and personal relationships to cement power and block others from achieving it. My starting role was as Antipater, one of three regents agreed by Macedonian Assembly in Babylon in the days following Alexander''s death. Antipater was the Governor of Macedonia, Regent and Strategos of Europe and Head of the Hellenic League. The only person with more legitimacy than him to command is Perdiccas, another Regent who is in Babylon with Alexander''s body and the two Kings (Philip III and Alexander IV). At the beginning the Greek city states have revolted under their Democratic leaders. Democracy was out of favour, the Macedonians prefer oligarchs.…
Book Review – Death, the Devil, and the Goldfish by Andrew Buckley
Death, the Devil, and the Goldfish by Andrew Buckley My rating: 3 of 5 stars A little mixed on this one. on the plus side I enjoyed the inventive nature of the story and it made me laugh in places. So it could have been a four or five star read. The story is engaging and has clearly been crafted. I could go with the necessary suspension of disbelief for the core plot elements of the eponymous Death, the Devil and the Goldfish. These were good as well as the robot elves and the other characters. In fact that whole bit was fab. The bit I had some issues with was an easy fix. Ostensibly the book is mostly set in London, and I live and work in the area covered. However the book uses rather a lot of North…
Book Review – Foxglove Summer by Ben Aaronovitch
Foxglove Summer by Ben Aaronovitch My rating: 5 of 5 stars A change in direction for the Peter Grant series. Peter's out of London and without his mentor Nightingale. As well as this the story is one of two missing children, which adds an urgency to the pace of events. As you'd expect there is a strong supernatural element to the story, with an interesting twist in it. Only Peter and Beverley Brook really feature through the story, Nightingale bookends it and there is minor contact with Dr Walid at one point. All the rest of the characters are locals from West Mercia. Out on his own Peter develops as a character. He's a lot more self-reliant and capable, he doesn't have any magical backup so deals with what he finds himself. The background is also expanded a bit, Peter…
Remembrance Challenge
We took our cubs to the local war memorial in the Church near the Scout Hall as part of our own remembrance challenge. Before we went the cubs each made a wreath of poppies and wrote a message on it. Each boy did his own personal wreath. We then walked to the Church where we spoke about why we remember, and how different things were in 1914. South Merstham wasn't as big then as it is now, the new houses were mostly built in the 1950s. In the 1911 census there were around 600 men in the locality. About 150 of whom signed up in August 1914. (I'm guessing some would be unfit, others in jobs that couldn't just go off to war and some others not that keen). @N04/15767315095/ Remembrance Challenge The remembrance challenge was to find out as much as…