Yet More Reading

I've been steadily working my way through the stone-cold classic comic series Lone Wolf and Cub. I started it around twenty years back and only read about a quarter - now I've found the volumes at work and on Hoopla.

There are no pitched battles in the series (as usually it is one, the anti-hero Ogami Itto, versus hordes of ninja or mercenaries), but there is plenty of inspiration for small skirmishes. Yakuza gang fights and peasant revolts are hinted at, but even for very small games there are many interesting settings as the author and artist seek exciting setpieces. Dueling from small boats, in river crossings, in snow-bound passes and at guarded road-gates, assaults on caravans and more. It's never just one-on-one (and one-sided) duels. There are some uncolored Samurai Paperboys out there... and rabbit samurai minis, too.

The other is The Bronze Lie by Myke Cole, a curious critical review of the vaunted Spartan reputation. I'm not well-versed in ancient warfare, and may pick up his other nonfiction volume, Legion vs. Phalanx, which promises to go deeper into tactics and organization. He really picks on Thermopylae and 300, with a useful thesis basically opposite that of Hanlon's Razor - "don't assume professional commanders were incompetent." IE, the Persians would have done proper reconnaissance at Thermopylae (and if they hadn't, then they had Greek allies who would have told them there was a back way around the pass). Which means that Thermopylae would not have been an exercise in Spartan valor, but a Spartan mistake.

He's also hard on the concept that the Spartans were heroes for modern society to look up to - not just because they were far less "pro-freedom" than they're often made out to be, but because they actually lost the majority of their battles, and rarely lived up to their own codes of honor. Their record of defeating other Greek states largely lies in the fact that they were the only professional force while everyone else raised armies only as needed, but they didn't need to be a good professional force - a "one-eyed man is king in the land of the blind" sort of thing. And that professional force was raised to hold down the helot slaves, not really to conquer or defend other free Greeks.

There is unfortunately a lot of speculation (understandable given the paucity of sources that weren't centuries out of date). But there's still plenty of food for thought in this one.

I've also bought a second 2x4 table, enabling me to play larger battles without my unwieldy piece of plywood. The VBCW ruleset Went the Day Well has fairly short ranges and may work alright on a 4x4 table, as should Bundock and Bayonet. Maybe a game for Sunday?