Chris Baer

Continental Drift: End of Empire 1744-1782 (Compass Games)

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My wargaming tastes skew decidedly modern, with the vast majority of my collection covering conflicts from the First World War forward. And yet, something about End of Empire: 1744-1782, the latest offering from Compass Games, covering the battles of the final five decades of British domination of North America, grabbed my attention.

The Battle of Quebec

Based on William Marsh’s earlier Command magazine game of the same name, End of Empire presents an operational-level view of King George’s War, the French and Indian War, and the American Revolution, plus assorted minor tiffs of the era. Two full-sized maps, linked horizontally, provide coverage from the Eastern seaboard west to the Mississippi and Lake Huron. Four and a half 5/8″ countersheets with striking graphics round out the handsome boxed package, which retails at about $100.

Recently, I had the opportunity to take two of the smaller introductory scenarios out for a spin with regular opponent (and all-around good guy) Mike Vogt at one of our game sessions at Labyrinth Games in Washington, DC. We played the Invasion of Canada scenario and also the War of Jenkin’s Ear scenario, both with a limited number of units and a short time frame. Our experience was mixed.

Leadership sits at the heart of the game system. Most units are severely constrained in their abilities unless stacked with a leader, who himself needs to pass an initiative die roll to do anything other than sit in bivouac on a given turn. While representative of the era’s command-and-control capabilities, a string of poor rolls can leave a player in a dire (or bored) situation. Mike’s Americans in the Canada scenario burned almost half the game in an immobile state, and in Jenkin’s Ear, we basically just rolled dice over and over for thirteen blessedly-brief turns until someone had a chance to move. The need for effective leadership also leads to giant stacks under the leaders with strong initiative. Again, likely representative of the historical reality, but the effect is odd for gamers used to maps filled with counters rather than dueling Death Star stacks.

For Jenkins and his ear!

I admire systems that foil player plans and prevent omniscience from becoming omnipotence, but for playability’s sake, there needs to be a middle ground. Our sense was that the system buckles a bit with smaller scenarios—the larger scenarios, covering forty to fifty turns and with hefty unit allocations, likely smooth out poor initiative results. We’re hoping to find out by taking the full American Revolution out for a spin via PBeM using the VASSAL module, thoughtfully approved by Compass. I do appreciate the inclusion of the shorter scenarios, if only so that I can claim to have gamed one of the decisive battles of the War of Jenkin’s Ear, complete with a thwarted Spanish amphibious invasion of the Florida coast.

End of Empire stands out as a near-definitive operational-level study of the conflicts of the British Empire in North America. Compass has already demonstrated exceptional support for the title, not only through the VASSAL module but also by sending out mounted errata counters to customers at no cost and providing additional scenarios and rules updates online. Very few games deserve second editions; End of Empire is one of them, and I’m happy to have this non-modern outlier in my collection.

Doctor Who Project: William Hartnell Retrospective

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Doctor Who Project: William Hartnell Retrospective

Over twenty-eight stories, spanning three years and four seasons, William Hartnell was not the First Doctor; he was, simply, the Doctor. As such, he played a more significant contemporary role in Doctor Who than his predecessors, if only because the actors who followed were understood to be interchangeable, transient, and ultimately fleeting. Viewers in the mid-’60s, tuning in to the BBC for this show ostensibly pitched to children, had no idea that there would be a Second Doctor, let alone a Twelfth. Hartnell was it.

And, at the end of “The Tenth Planet,” he is gone.

The cliffhanger, with Hartnell’s face dissolving into Patrick Troughton’s, takes place not at the end of a season but at the end of the fourth season’s second story. Only a week of waiting was required for the transition to be explained (and, hopefully, accepted). The change-over did not take place in a media vacuum; viewers knew what was happening behind the scenes even as it occurred, though perhaps not to the extent that William Hartnell had become progressively weaker and, to credit the tales, cantankerous. But all the exposition in the world matters little if the character does not live on in the new actor, and that basic characterization, that ur-Doctor, passed from iteration to iteration, comes from William Hartnell’s portrayal of the Doctor.

So what core attributes derive from Hartnell’s time as the Doctor?

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Doctor Who Project: The Tenth Planet

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Doctor Who Project: The Tenth Planet

I don’t understand it. He just seems to be worn out.

As Doctor Who stories go, quite a lot is asked of Kit Pedler’s “The Tenth Planet” (Story Production Code DD). In addition to delivering a ripping near-future yarn about cybernetic invaders from a twin-Earth, the story also needed to usher out William Hartnell’s First Doctor in a fitting and dignified manner. Pedler, with assistance from story editor Gerry Davis, manages both with some aplomb. Not only do we get the Cybermen, more frightening here in their debut story than in any future iteration, but also, Hartnell is given the chance for the virtuoso exit he richly deserved.

The TARDIS again finds its way to Earth, skipping from seventeenth century Cornwall to twentieth century Antarctica, though in 1986, twenty years in the future from Ben and Polly’s time, much to their dismay. With plenty of warm coats in the TARDIS wardrobe to choose from, our time travellers merrily pop out onto the ice cap for a visit, only to be apprehended by soldiers from the International Space Command, at whose polar base the TARDIS had landed. The commanding officer, General Cutler, has no time to interrogate his guests, however, as a space capsule on a routine mission has run into trouble. Some outside force is pulling the astronauts from their planned orbit. And the Doctor knows just what has happened.

Ben, Polly, the Doctor, and the South Pole

In order to prove his knowledge of events, and thus potentially to help, the Doctor gives a scientist at the base a piece of paper noting that the problem stems from the sudden appearance of another planet—the Tenth Planet—in Earth’s vicinity; and not just any planet, but Earth’s long-lost twin, Mondas, with the same continents (and continental drift), only upside down. What’s more, the Doctor knows that Earth is about to receive visitors.

Hello, I'm a Cyberman

The Cybermen are on their way. They don’t want much, really. Just to drain the Earth of all of its energy and then destroy it.

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Road Bites: Steak ‘n Shake Burgers and Chili

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Unquestionably, burgers represent the quintessential American road bite, ideal for eating on the go. You can’t travel down a byway or highway without passing a burger joint. If you’re unlucky, you wind up stopping at a national chain with its predictable (often comfortingly so) national burger; it’s the regional chains that provide the perfect melding of franchise familiarity with local sensibilities. On a recent trip to Greensboro, NC, I stopped at a chain that hails from the midwest, venerable Steak ‘n Shake, famous, as they say, for steakburgers.

Steak 'n Shake Double 'n Cheese

The double steakburger with cheese didn’t quite match the beauty shot from the menu, but there’s no ignoring the smashed ground beef patty with those great crisped edges. The meat was moist and flavorful, the vegetable toppings reasonably fresh as well. I’m not a burger connoisseur, but amongst fast food offerings, Steak ‘n Shake wins the prize, and at $4 for the burger and a side of thin (though somewhat wan) fries, well, I’m glad that there isn’t one within easy driving distance of home base, else I’d be eating there quite a bit.

I spent several youthful years in the midwest, and my childhood memories of Steak ‘n Shake revolve mostly around the chili five-way. That’s all I would eat when I went there as a kid, and the thought of having it again drove me to stop here.

Steak 'n Shake Chili Five Way

Sampling it as an adult, I realize how much difference nostalgia makes. Steak ‘n Shake chili five way isn’t my beloved Cincinnati five-way — the meat here is coarser ground and on the bland side, without much spice or flavor. My dish didn’t have much in the way of onion or cheese, either. I wasn’t anticipating a Skyline abundance of cheese and ground beef, but for the price, I was hoping for a larger portion (and I thought there would be packets of oyster crackers and chili sauce in the Takhomasack). It was fine, tasty enough, but not up to the madeline of my expectations.

I’ll still stop at a Steak ‘n Shake over, well, any other regional or national burger chain, but I’ll stick with the justly famous steakburger. Certainly easier to eat on the road than the chili. Oh, and the shakes. Those are pretty damn good, too.

Beer Notebook: Flying Dog’s Dead Rise Summer Ale

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Flying Dog Dead Rise Summer Ale

Spices in beer don’t typically impress me. I’m not looking to a beer for coriander or clove, and I’ll take just about any style over a wheat beer. But when I heard that Flying Dog, out of Frederick, Maryland, had teamed up with the folks behind Old Bay Seasoning to create Dead Rise Summer Ale, well, I needed to sample this unlikely pairing.

For those not in the natural habitat of Old Bay Seasoning, imagine a salty paprika mixture, rust red in color, typically sprinkled on crabs with abandon and rather tasty on popcorn as well. It’s a bold taste, pronounced but not spicy-hot, one that can dominate, so to pair it with a drinkable beer is a testament to the brewer’s art.

Termed a summer ale, Dead Rise is a wheat beer with a characteristic clove and banana aroma tinged with just a hint of paprika. It drinks quite smoothly, again apropos of a wheat beer, and the effect of a quaff is not unlike eating Utz’s “Crab” Chips, which are coated in a similar spice mixture, the bready nature of the wheat beer capturing the flavor profile of the chips. Which is not to say that drinking Dead Rise is like drinking potato chips—it’s a quite drinkable beer with a very slight paprika aftertaste on the palate. The Old Bay Seasoning sneaks up on you rather than forcing its presence onto the scene.

I had hoped for an unfiltered beer, with succulent paprika sediment, but alas, this is a filtered brew. At 5.6% ABV and restricted to the summer season, Dead Rise would make a nice accompaniment to a cook out. Given my general aversion to wheat beers, I’m not likely to pick up another six pack of this beer, but it’s another bold experiment from Flying Dog that does what it says on the tin…er, bottle.

Doctor Who Project: The Smugglers

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My dear boy, it could be a great deal worse.

From the swinging Sixties, we head immediately to the swinging Sixteens—hundreds, that is—to open the fourth season of Doctor Who. Brian Hayles’ “The Smugglers” (Story Production Code CC) deposits the Doctor and his two new companions, Polly and Ben, on the coast of seventeenth century Cornwall, caught between pirates on one side and the titular smugglers on the other. The sense of youthful vigor Polly and Ben brought to the prior story carries through here, and the Doctor seems pleased to watch his young charges discover that they have, indeed, travelled through space and time. The youngsters scamper up from the beach where the TARDIS has landed, and the Doctor follows along after them with some glee. He displays considerable anger upon discovering them in the TARDIS, but his actions here belie his true feelings.

Landing on beaches with new companions has become standard procedure for the Doctor—Steven’s first disembarkation from the TARDIS was on another British beach—but one wonders why the Doctor, for all his knowledge, tends to forget that tides go both out and in. With the TARDIS trapped by the tide, the three time travellers must find shelter for the night and walk right into…the Curse of Avery’s Gold.

It’s not truly the tide that traps them, though; the Doctor decides show off for Ben and Polly, and that behavior embroils them in the intrigue. The local churchwarden initially wants nothing to do with them, being distrustful of strangers and suspicious of any who might come from the sea. As a demonstration of his savoir faire, the Doctor charms and flatters the nervous layman, so sufficiently that entrusts the Doctor with a deadly secret:

If you should this way again and find me gone, remember these words: This is Deadman’s Secret Key: Small[beer], Ringwood, Gurney.

Shortly after the three head to the local inn, a burly pirate named Cherub emerges from hiding, having seen the churchwarden whisper in the Doctor’s ear. Our churchwarden turns out to be a former pirate, and Cherub wants the secret. Cherub is quicker with his knife than his tongue, though, and kills the churchwarden, leaving only one source for the clue to finding the legendary treasure of Avery’s Gold: the Doctor.

A non-cherubic Cherub

And what do Polly and Ben think of their sudden appearance in the seventeenth century? Ben has no second thoughts about employing Cockney slang on random inn patrons, while Polly just wishes everyone would stop calling her “lad” and thinking she’s a boy, a nice riff on her short-cropped hairstyle and Sixties-stylish pants-suit. These, then, are not your parents’ companions. Until, of course, the Doctor is kidnapped by the pirates and the companions get framed for the murder of the churchwarden and thrown in jail, where Polly yells, much like Susan, upon seeing a rat.

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