Winter Offensive 2016 After Action Report

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If awards were given out for truth in advertising, then Winter Offensive 2016 would win handily. This year’s edition of the East Coast’s premier Advanced Squad Leader tournament coincided with the largest snowstorm in quite some time. As of this posting, it’s still going on, as I abandoned not-so-bucolic Bowie, Maryland, on Friday the 22nd, opting not to ride out the storm at the Comfort Inn Conference Center. More than a few hearty souls have decided to hunker down, though, obviously tempted by the prospect of being snowed in with nothing to do but play games until the roads clear. Certainly seems like one version of paradise, I have to confess.

By the time I left, about three hours before the onset of the snow, at least sixty people were still rolling dice and pushing cardboard. Over a hundred people were reported to have pre-registered, and more gamers showed up on the con’s initial day, Thursday, than I recall in recent memory. The usual crowd turned out in full force, with the crews from North Carolina, New York, and Norfolk all well in attendance in addition to the local lads. Still, despite the decent showing, Winter Offensive felt smaller this year, solely because the sliding wall partitions between the three convention rooms remained closed for unclear reasons. Also unexpected, MMP gave pre-registered attendees a gratis copy of ASL Journal 11, crammed full of new scenarios, including a pair of three-player scenarios sure to see much play.

So, with only twenty-four hours to play, I tried to cram in as much gaming as possible. Starting off on Thursday afternoon, I matched wits with all-around good guy Mike Vogt in BoF8 “Sting of the Italian Hornet,” an Advanced Squad Leader scenario full of funky Italian vehicles. (I sort of have a weakness for funky Italian vehicles.) We had pre-arranged the match, so I spent a fair bit of time before the con sketching out my Italian defense, putting my infantry guns up front and hoping to keep them hidden until Mike’s Canadians rolled their vehicles by, so I could try for flank and rear shots. Of course, Mike made an unerring beeline right for the gun positions, and both were quickly surrounded by infantry and tanks. I got some lucky shots and landed a few big hits, managing to keep the Canadians at bay long enough to stymie Mike’s carefully plotted advance. He moved as quickly as possible through the protective smoke he artfully laid down, but time was against him.

Advanced Squad Leader at Winter Offensive 16

A solid scenario (if a bit tight for the Canadians in terms of their goals) against a great opponent. Definitely the kind of scenario that reminds you why ASL has been around as long as it has—lots of moving parts that fit together very well to produce an entertaining (if not entirely historically accurate) gaming experience.

Thursday evening, Mike and I joined John Slotwinski, Doug Bush, and Ken Dunn for the traditional Winter Offensive match of Battlestar Galactica. Many, many Basestars were used in the early going, with four on the map at once, accompanied by the entire piece mix of Cylon Raiders. Sadly (for me, as a Cylon), the Galactica and Pegasus escaped from that trap using Cain’s emergency jump one-time ability, and the humans had a fairly easy coast to victory thereafter. In my mechanical defense, I didn’t become a Cylon until after the great escape, so I might have been inadvertently instrumental in helping the humans win just a little bit. Not that anyone cared, because the first action taken after the narrow escape was to put me in the Brig. Hmph. A fine session with some thoroughly enjoyable gamers. As should always be the case after a good game of Battlestar Galactica, the recriminations will last for months.

Battlestar Galactica at Winter Offensive 16

Friday, Doug and I set up Mikugames’ Tornio ’44, a company-level game on the Finnish naval landings behind German lines in central and western Finland, designed to trap the evacuating Germans after the Finnish/Soviet armistice. The game uses an interesting combat system, where the final odds ratio of a combat corresponds directly to the number of dice rolled; the opposing player must spend that dice roll total via a menu, from an inexpensive and relatively mild Broken status through retreats and step losses. The situation itself offers a fascinating challenge, as the Germans have to face Finnish units arriving from several avenues (most of which are chosen by the Finnish player) while keeping escape routes open and protecting victory point locations. The gameplay ebbs and flows. My Finns opened strongly, then the weather turned poor, delaying my reinforcements by a turn and allowing Doug’s Germans to occupy one of my planned avenues of advance. I was able to recover somewhat, but the density of German artillery began to take a toll on my units. We had to call the match half-way through due to the onset of snow (in the real world, not the game) with the Germans arguably in better shape, VP-wise. Hopefully we’ll be able to get this one on the table again for a full session, because it’s the most interesting wargame I’ve played in some time.

Tornio 44 at Winter Offensive 16

As always, my congratulations and thanks to the team at Multi-Man Publishing for another solid event, albeit one that was cut somewhat short for me. It felt strange, and somewhat wrong, to be leaving on Friday as opposed to Sunday, but since I used up quite a bit of my luck via gaming, I didn’t want to take chances with Mother Nature this time out. I hope everyone still there has a safe and enjoyable time of it.

Doctor Who Project: The Dominators

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Doctor Who Project: The Dominators

Command accepted.

It always comes back to the Daleks. It’s not too far of a stretch to suggest that this odd, educationally-inclined science fiction show with a grandfatherly figure as the lead was catapulted from tea time diversion to lasting cultural phenomenon by the gliding pepperpots of doom. But with Terry Nation effectively controlling the Daleks, the BBC cast about for replacements incessantly. The Cybermen are certainly a strong contender, but they can’t show up every week (though not for lack of trying). So when Season Six of Doctor Who opens with “The Dominators” (Story Production Code TT), by “Norman Ashby” (in reality, Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln), it’s no surprise to find a new robot creature teased at the end of the first episode, like every good Doctor Who villain to date. That creature is the Quark, a boxy robot with a spiky circular head and a sing-song voice under the command of the titular Dominators. Sadly, Quarkmania never quite swept the British Isles like Dalekmania, despite an easily imitated vocal pattern and the simplest dress-up costume imaginable—all you need is a big box and a bowl for your head.

While the Quarks fall somewhere near the Chumblies on the effective robot monster scale, the story itself is not without its charms. We’re freed from the recent spate of “base under siege” stories, and the basic conceit, that of exploring what happens when an advanced but pacifist species is confronted by an aggressive species, dovetails nicely with the Doctor’s own (somewhat fluid) ethos of constructive non-violence. World-building returns to Doctor Who here in a manner not really seen since the First Doctor’s era, with attention paid to the wildly differing cultures and mannerisms between the peaceful Dulcians and the ruthless Dominators (all of whom, handily, speak that galactic lingua franca, British Broadcast English.) Indeed, aside from a few vigorous running sequences, “The Dominators” marks the rare Troughton story that would have suited William Hartnell’s talents and approach to the role.

The Mighty Dominators

And yet, despite its reasonable pace (clocking in at an odd five episodes) and attempts at strong characterizations, the story never quite coheres internally. Is it a rumination on the dangers of nuclear war? A treatise on the need for a strong defense even by a peaceful people? A declaration of the importance of questioning authority? It’s no wonder that Haisman and Lincoln, authors of the reasonably successful Yeti arc, took their names off the story, opting for a pseudonym, because “The Dominators” is ultimately about two shouty guys with extreme shoulder pads and a dwindling supply of robots bullying an entire planet of people who believe curtain ruffles to the be height of fashion.

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Doctor Who Project: The Wheel in Space

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Doctor Who Project: The Wheel in Space

There seems to be rather a lot of metal around us.

Season Five of Doctor Who ends more or less as it began, with the Second Doctor facing off against the Cybermen. Regular series writer David Whitaker takes his first crack at the metal monstrosities in “The Wheel in Space” (Story Production Code SS), based on a story by Cybermen originator Kit Pedler. They’ve become much more Dalek-like in their intentions, looking to conquer the Earth with a convoluted plan that hinges on capturing Station Three, the titular wheel in space. It’s certainly not the first time the Cybermen have tried to take over Earth, but one wouldn’t know it from this story, as no one on the station seems to have ever encountered a Cyberman previously. Even though, um, the planet Mondas appeared in Earth’s sky back in the 1980s and the Cybermen invaded the Moon in the year 2070, both events prior to the setting of this story.

New and Improved Cybermen

This narrative amnesia neatly encapsulates the current state of Doctor Who in 1968 (and, one might say, through to the current day). The needs of the story outweigh the needs of the established canon. Yet at the same time, there’s an almost reverent attention to small continuity details pitched solely at dedicated viewers (who would be the ones most likely to recognize, and resent, this amnesia). In the case of “The Wheel in Space,” the Doctor and Jamie are trapped in their predicament by a faulty fluid link; the escaping mercury vapor requires them to abandon the TARDIS and search (eventually) for more mercury. The fluid link connects back to “The Daleks” some four seasons prior when the First Doctor disabled the fluid links to force an ill-advised exploration of the Dalek city to look for mercury—and for adventure.

As has become somewhat standard, the Cybermen are attempting to infiltrate a base that they need to keep intact, so as to use the equipment therein for various nefarious purposes. This time, they have upgraded substantially, with the little Cybermats having energy beams (and the ability to detect brain waves and corrode metals) and the Cybermen themselves equipped with the ability to control human minds. What they haven’t upgraded is their tactical planning apparatus, as the entire scheme to take over Station Three hinges on ionizing a distant star to create a meteorite storm which threatens the station—so far, so good—and then, ah, hiding in a box.

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Beer Notebook: My First Growler

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Good beer, fresh from the tap, just sings. But short of a slightly expensive renovation job to install a keg stand and tap, getting that just-poured beer requires a trip out, and sometimes you want to sit at home and enjoy a pint. So how to get that fresh beer in a comfortable setting of your own choosing?

Dogfish Head Growler

Enter the growler, an old concept made new again with the rise of microbreweries and their associated brewpubs. At heart, a growler is just a glass jug with a tight-sealing cap, filled with your favorite brew at your friendly local tavern for consumption off-premises, and almost every microbrewery will fill them, in 32 and 64 ounce sizes. Most microbreweries sell their own glass growlers, with brand logo (and the all-important government warning) printed on the glass; further, as long as that warning is on the growler (and the growler is clean), most will fill other breweries’ growlers as well.

Growlers, at least as shorthand for large containers for beer, have been around a long time. Joseph Mitchell, in his collection Up in the Old Hotel, recounts their use before Prohibition, quoting a butcher preparing for a massive beefsteak feast:

“In the old days they didn’t even use tables and chairs. They sat on beer crates and ate off the tops of beer barrels. You’d be surprised how much fun that was. Somehow it made old men feel young again. And they’d drink beer out of cans, or growlers. Those beefsteaks were run in halls or the cellars or back rooms of big saloons.”

The emphasis seems to be on excess, and yet the modern iteration of the growler centers on freshness and the ability to take that liquid ambrosia home.

I acquired my first growler on a recent trip to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, home of the Dogfish Head Brewpub. In addition to sampling their brewpub-only offerings—Wet Hop After Dark, a fresh hop dark IPA that sadly managed to hide the fresh hop taste, and a very fine cask version of their 75 Minute IPA—I availed myself of their growler selection and went with a classic, the stellar 60 Minute IPA. I didn’t even mind that the server who brought me the growler called my 32 ounce version “a cute little baby growler,” as I had acquired what I came for: fresh beer the next day at home.

And it was fresh. The gasket-sealed cap kept the carbonation going, resulting in a near-tap pour with a generous and creamy head. I’m sure purists could taste the difference between my growler beer and beer right out of the tap, but it was more than close enough for me. I had one of my favorite beers, at the peak of freshness, in the comfort of my home.

So long live the growler! I’m lucky enough to live someplace with several microbreweries nearby that fill growlers, and I look forward to walking in there with my Dogfish Head jug asking for a fill.

The Unlikeliest Love Letter: LEGO Dimensions Doctor Who

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I tempered my expectations going into the recently released Doctor Who Level Pack for LEGO Dimensions, the “toys to life” console video game. Playing through the base game (plus The Simpsons Level Pack) provided a bit of fun in seeing Homer and Gandalf running around on the same screen, bashing baddies into bricks and solving simple puzzles, and the tactile component of the game—building and manipulating the LEGO figures and objects as a part of the gameplay—filled me with some nostalgic glee. But, as a game, the experience proved somewhat underwhelming, and once I completed the campaign missions and noodled around in the various themed “adventure worlds” dedicated to the franchises I owned figures for, I shelved the game, almost forgetting that I had the Doctor Who pack on order.

I knew, going in, that each of the Doctor’s regenerations (including, sigh, the “War Doctor”) would be playable, but based on my experience with The Simpsons Level Pack, I figured there would be some minor homages to big moments in Doctor Who‘s recent history and that the playable regenerations would just be minor variants on the default Twelfth Doctor figure.

I was, as they say, wrong.

The First Doctor in the TARDIS in LEGO Dimensions

The level of attention, of detail, to the individual Doctors stunned me. LEGO Dimensions Doctor Who is a love letter to the show.

The First Doctor figure captures, broadly, William Hartnell’s mannerisms, from the lapel-pulling and slightly haughty leaning to his penchant for pulling out a magnifying glass. Even his combat move involves his signature cane (given to him, of course, by Kublai Khan). When the player enters the TARDIS in the game, the interior matches the TARDIS that the specific Doctor used—circular wall panels for the First, Victorian sitting room for the Eighth—with even the appropriate set dressings, like the sitting chair in the First Doctor’s TARDIS. The background music changes as well based on the Doctor, utilizing the dominant theme music for each.

My shock compounded when I explored the “adventure world” for Doctor Who and found one of the locations to be Telos. Yes, that Telos, home of the Tomb of the Cybermen. I can expect most casual fans of the show to recognize the I.M. Foreman scrap yard (it’s in the game), but to reach back to 1967 and the criminally under-appreciated Second Doctor for a setting demonstrates that the team responsible both knows Doctor Who and, more to the point, respects it.

The Second Doctor on Telos in LEGO Dimensions

Even the associated game objective in the area of the Tomb harkens back to “The Tomb of the Cybermen,” which ended with a lone Cybermat escaping the destruction of the Tomb. In the game, Lady Vastra (from the new series) tasks the player with destroying thirty Cybermats before they can awaken the Cybermen in the Tomb. Even though the gameplay associated with it provides no real challenge for an adult gamer, much joy comes from bashing the little cybercreatures with the Second Doctor, who wields a flute (!) as a weapon. I really don’t know that I could ask for more.

While, of course, the majority of the Doctor Who Level Pack focuses on the new series, and the middle Doctors don’t have quite as much focus as the early or late ones, I’m still smiling broadly from my experience thus far with the game. The cost for the base game and the level pack verges on the steep, but I found the experience more than worthwhile for a fan of the series.

Besides, where else can you have the Doctor offer Homer Simpson a jelly baby?

Doctor Who Project: Fury from the Deep

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Doctor Who Project: Fury from the Deep

There’s molecular movement!

For anyone keeping track at home, with Victor Pemberton’s “Fury from the Deep” (Story Production Code RR), the Doctor and his companions have now spent five straight stories (thirty episodes total) on Earth, at various times in that planet’s history, an unprecedented run. Not until the Third Doctor is stranded on Earth by the as-yet-unknown Time Lords (and by BBC budgets) will the Doctor rack up quite so many frequent flyer miles in the general vicinity of London. What’s more, the TARDIS displays an increasing tendency towards the sea, this time materializing above the waves close to the North Sea coastline. The TARDIS can float, at least, which is more than can be said for the story’s plot.

Thankfully equipped with flotation devices

To be fair, the story moves along with some pace, though it’s not the fare one has come to expect from Doctor Who. Indeed, the Doctor barely figures in the first four episodes, which are given over instead to the intramural power struggle between a grizzled old rig hand and a fancy college educated technocrat whose wife just happens to have sprouted weed tentacles from her wrist. While Robson, the vet, and Harris, the know-it-all, fight, the Doctor dithers about until Victoria is finally (and inevitably) captured, spurring him to action. Throw in a meddling Dutchman appointed by the multi-national organization overseeing the gas extraction, a Laurel-and-Hardy-esque pair of villains named Mr. Oak and Mr. Quill, an overactive foam machine, and lots of helicopters flying to and fro, and you’ve got “Fury from the Deep” in a nutshell.

“Fury from the Deep” shows Doctor Who in a rut, with another isolated base (this time a set of gas drilling rigs in the North Sea) under attack from another enemy that can control minds and generate copious amounts of foam. Only this time, unlike the Great Intelligence and the Yeti, the foe has no intelligence of its own. Because it’s seaweed. Evil seaweed. Six episodes of evil seaweed.

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