HoodedHawk

Another great Board Game Group evening last night: War of the Ring. I really like this game – it follows the theme of the Lord of the Rings well, and the gameplay allows for narrative description as quoted below.

We had 4 interested so we played the “multiplayer” version; two of us played the Free People, and two played Shadow. I was on the Shadow side (again). This was the first time playing with 4 (usually I’ve played 2-player). I liked the cooperative aspect of two per side.

Great game, and it flew by. I had to leave the game early -about 3 hours in (I never do that; but I had to pick up some allergy meds for Olivia who was still up and miserable at 11:30). That is one other benefit to team play: the game didn’t have to end because I had to leave.

George sent me a recap of what happened after I left. I thought his overview was fantastic; he gave permission to post his recap below. Also, he has painted (most) of the figures used in the game – great job and it really adds to the aesthetic enjoyment we get from playing!

We finished out the action dice you were using, and rolled them once more. We were finished by 1am, probably a little before.

Gondor besieged Minas Tirith to set up Rohan’s use of the “Paths of the Woses” to get Eomer & Theoden’s army to North Ithilien and within striking distance of Mordor. The orcs of Dol Guldur, having taken Dale from the Northmen, threatened both the Woodland Realm and Erebor, but didn’t do more than sword-rattling. The Rohirrim stormed the Black Gate at Morannon, slaughtering the cave troll there.

Aragorn led his army south to Pelargir, reclaiming that. Sauron mustered forces in Mordor, and Saruman raised more Dunlendings. Aragorn’s force headed south to besiege Umbar while the Rohirrim held their position in Morannon. The first battle at Umbar was a brutal one, lasting for 3 rounds. The Gondorians fought bravely, killing all but one stalwart Southron, but not without cost; over half of Gondor’s mighty army lay buried in those blood-soaked fields.

Rohan mustered a token defense in Edoras to ward off attackers from Helm’s Deep, denying Saruman an easy victory. Sauron directed another force of Southrons to relieve Umbar, but Aragorn’s leadership proved too strong for the war oliphaunts, and Gondor repelled the attack with nary a casualty. The battle proved tiring for the Gondorians, however, as they attempted 2 more attacks on Umbar. Sauron made a few last ditch recruiting efforts, but it was too little too late to claim any of the lightly defended Free People strongholds.

As the time drew short, Aragorn and his last 2 Gondorian soldiers made a final push against the gates of Umbar, and prevailed!

Final score FPMV, FP: 4, SP: 7

The Fellowship sat 4 regions outside of Rivendell for most of the game, with Gollum as their guide. The Elves and Dwarves sat on their collective butts, toasting the prowess of Men with wine and malt beer, respectively.

This was a really good game, and pretty tense.

The Walters Museum in Baltimore has some leaves from the Archimedes Palimpsest on exhibit (through Jan 1, 2012). I took the kids to visit the exhibit today.

Very nice venue, and the exhibit was well laid out. While the museum is kid-friendly (they hand out satchels with crafts/activities related to the exhibit for the kids to work on), looking at “old books” didn’t hold the attention of a 5-year old for more than 30 minutes (which I thought was a lot). Granted, about 10 of those were a video presentation. Little Olivia fell asleep in her stroller…

The Archimedes Palimpsest is a Medieval parchment manuscript. The currently visible part of the manuscript is a Byzantine Prayer book, written around 1229 AD. What makes it interesting is that the parchment used for the prayer book is actually comprised of previous manuscripts from about the 10th century. The scribe in the 13th century used a knife and scraped off the older text so as to reuse the parchment for the prayer book (“Palimpsest” is from the Greek, meaning “scraped again”). You can do this with parchment (sheep skin) as it is quite durable. The previous manuscripts comprise some 7 treatises by Archimedes – and for 2 of these there was no known existing text. Now there is!

The underlying Archimedes text is revealed via a technique called “multispectral imaging”. Basically, many digital images are taken of the parchment, each at a different wavelength of light – some in the ultraviolet, invisible to the eye. These images are further processed to get the best resolution of the underlying text. Not every page of the manuscript was in great condition, so sometimes images were enhanced by using high-intensity X-rays (which would basically scatter off the iron in the older ink). All-in-all this was a very time-consuming process, not the least of which was actually dismantling the palimpsest so the imaging could be done.

Non-flash photography is allowed, so:

Archimedes Palimpsest
Normal (left) and multispectral (right) image of a leaf from the Archimedes Palimpsest. Archimedes’ hidden text shows up in red (in two columns, vertically) on the multispectral image. In the right-hand image you can make out a mathematical diagram in the bottom of the first column. Click to enlarge…

Why is the older Archimedes text perpendicular to the overlaid text? Because the previous manuscript was folded/creased, so the scribe would cut it in half for re-use, then re-fold it again after turning it.

Preston Singing at Christmas show. Really! His friend Chloe is next to him. :)

I’ve been meaning to put up a Nativity scene in our yard for years, but this year I remembered to get one early enough. Each year I think I’ll try to add more members; started with just the Holy Family and a couple of lambs. One nice effect is the shadow of the Nativity stable frames one of the windows our house. Neat.

The snowcouple snowglobe had to go up as well; the kids like it. I tried leaving it out, but Olivia remembered it from last year…:)

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Yearly (attempt) at a Christmas portrait of the kids (see last year…). This year the youngest two were smiling a lot more than Big Brother Dylan (most of those now toast). Note however, that when Preston and Olivia asked if they could hold their “friends” (Mr. Duck and Skippit Dog), Dylan also had to run upstairs to get his Elephant. :)

We haven’t decided on the official one yet. Might be a collage. :) Click picture for slideshow…

Christmas Portrait 2011

 

Scientists at NASA announced today that they have discovered the first (probably rocky) “superEarth” planet orbiting in the “habitable zone” of a Sun-like star. The “habitable zone” is an orbit where liquid water is possible on the surface of the planet.

This newly discovered planet is a “superEarth” because it is only ~2.4 times the size of the earth, and thus not a gas-giant. Gas-giant planets have previously been discovered in such habitable zone orbits of stars, but this is the first earth-type (i.e. rocky) planet. Gas giants in general are not considered capable of supporting life (as we know it).

On the other hand, Earth-like rocky planets in habitable zones are capable of supporting life. Kepler-22b is estimated to have an average surface temp of about 72 degrees Fahrenheit. Nice!

Discoveries like these really do hint that life may very well be possible in lots of other systems in the universe. In order to detect such planets, their orbits must be “on-edge” in relation to us. Specialized telescopes like the Kepler can detect the (slight) dimming of the light from the star as the planet travels in front of the star (between us and the star). If the orbit of the planet was off-edge (in relation to us), it wouldn’t block the light from the star anytime during it’s orbit, so wouldn’t be detected. So, it is quite likely that there are many more such planets we can’t detect via this method. Wow!

Dylan and I played a game of Risk 2210 this weekend. I finally managed to clear space to setup a gaming table in the man cave. This allows us to leave board games in play and continue later – without the little kids or the cat demolishing things. In this case, Dylan demolished me anyway, so no loss. I do like this version of Risk even better than classic – mostly because it is limited to 5 “turn years”, so doesn’t go on forever. It still suffers from the classic Risk game mechanic of rolling dice to attack, so you can (as I found) quickly lose ground by losing dice rolls (either attacking or defending).

This new version does have added features, such as command cards, which (if you are lucky enough to draw them) can quickly turn the game around. It also features underwater (naval) territories as well as lunar territories. Game mechanics such as having commanders (land, naval, space, diplomat, or nuclear) which allow you to roll (or defend) with 8-sided die, space stations (to help defend, or get you to the moon), etc.

But all in all, it’s still Risk, and still basically a terrritory-conquering game. Fun, but only occasionally. I’m trying to use it to get Dylan into board games, as he really likes Classic Risk. Next will be to get him to play War of the Ring.

Right. Played War of the Ring again last night (my second time). Still learning the game, but more importantly, still really enjoying the game! Played the Sauron side again, and lost again. From what I hear it’s unusual for the Free People’s side to win a Military victory, but not when playing against me, apparently. I wasn’t paying enough attention (again) to the Victory points the Free Peoples (led by George again) were amassing. Angmar is worth one, and is on the other side of the board from me. George even pointed out that I should probably watch out it doesn’t get taken. What I did was misjudge how long it would take me to re-take other areas (ok, and the dice didn’t play nice). But so much fun. This time game only lasted 3.5 hours.

Mike (playing Twilight Imperium at the next table) made some comment over his shoulder about how I should read up on some strategy. Ya think?

Some of the other guys were playing Twilight Imperium. That’s a bigger setup and even more complex. I look forward to learning that one in the future… especially if I get to play the lion-faced race; they just look cool.

Last night I was introduced to War of the Ring by George from my Board Game group. I arrived at 8pm. By 12:30am George had won (2-player game), but I was enjoying the game so much that it felt like only an hour or so had passed.

It is a two-player game, though you can play 3-4 players (as teams). One side plays the Free Peoples of Middle Earth (Gondor, Rohan, Elves, Dwarves, etc.) and the other side plays the Shadows (Sauron, Isengard, Southrons, etc.). Last night I played the Shadow side. What makes the gameplay so enticing are the basic game mechanics: special action dice (with symbols) determine which actions a player can take. Play alternates between players (after rolling all dice (up to 10, I think, for Shadow and 6 for Free Peeps), each player plays one action die at a time so there is very little downtime in the game. Coupled with action, character, etc. cards the number of options can be a bit overwhelming. But George was a good teacher. :)

There are two ways to win: Military victory or Ring victory. For a military victory the Shadow side has to control enough of the board to get 10 Military points while the Free Peeps only need 4. Capturing areas is similar to other area-capture games (like Risk): roll die and inflict casualties or receive them. Again, lots of options (via character card, etc.) for increasing odds for offense or defense.

For a Ring victory, the Free Peeps have to get the Ring to Mordor (and drop it into the lava) or the Shadow side has to inflict (12?) corruption points onto the Fellowship.

Sounds complicated, and it is (due to options available for each action), but basic gameplay is easy to understand. I can imagine it will take a few more times playing before I become familiar with all (or most) of the various options/scenarios. I do look forward to playing again! Maybe I can get a copy (it’s out of print so can be pricey) and get Dylan to play – he likes Risk and reading fantasy, so…

There are something like 200 (plastic) miniatures for the game as well as 100 cards, and over 100 cardboard markers and tiles! George had started painting the miniatures for the game; he did a great job – they look so much nicer than the plain single-color original plastic pieces. Nice!