The End of 2017

It is the last day of 2017.  No new PRs for this year,  but affirmation of my running in the low 8s with my new record at Monterey.  Training for a new Half in San Jose.  Left foot is still bothering me.  Ran 12 miles today at a 9:04 pace.  Goal pace was a 9:06 so that's good.

Made some bresaola.  A nice addition to soups, salads and omelets.

Opened up a 2007 Meritage.  It was super awesome!


Something new for wargaming.  My wargaming roots are in hex and counter boardgames.  I have few from my old 80s collection.  I picked up a new one last year and brought it out for some solo play.  Mark Herman's Empire of the Sun.




On the miniatures front:
I got the last of the Egyptians on their new bases.


These Union infantry will give me enough for the battle of Fort Donelson


And these were just finished.


Got some new ideas for my company level World War 2 rules from "Rommel" by Mustafa and a board game called Operation Dauntless.

So I'm hoping to accomplish the following for 2018:

1. Break the 1 hour 45 minute mark in a half-marathon.
2. Do a Mortain, or near Mortain scenario for the World War 2 collection.
3. Fight Fort Donelson with the Civil War stuff.
4. Rebase my Punic War figures to the new standard.
5. Put on a War of Spanish Succession battle.

Have a great new year!

My Funny Little Stride

I don't run pretty.  I don't have a neat little stride that makes me look good, or like I'm running effortlessly and fast.  For whatever reason, I relate with Emil Zapotek.

Except I don't run particularly fast.  I'm also not an Olympian.  He did have an unorthodox running style though.

I am so close to breaking the 1 hour 45 minute barrier for a half marathon, so close...

On November 12th I tried to break that barrier in Monterey, probably not the best idea.  Monterey has hills.  I don't think of it as a particularly fast route.

My training for the run suggested I wasn't going to do much better than in Santa Cruz.

Nevertheless, I was confident that I could beat my previous Monterey run time of an hour and 59 minutes.

The pre-race dinner wasn't particularly fabulous.  It was bit of a disappointment.  The service was terrible, the food pretty good.  My wife loved her scallops.  I thought the barrel wine was cool.  We had the chardonnay.  I don't recommend the C+ restaurant in Monterey.  Perhaps its name was an indication of its quality.

I love staying at the Hotel Pacific in Monterey.  They accommodate the runners with a very early breakfast (4:30am is when it starts).

I followed my plan of running with out my Garmin.  It makes it less stressful, and is one less thing I need to worry about on race morning.

Pre-race breakfast wasn't bad.  A cup of coffee and a bagel with cream cheese.  I'm not used to breakfast and wondered if the bagel was a mistake.  Maybe I should have gone with half a bagel.

The walk/trot down to the start was nice.  I did a warm-up and some active stretching with butt kicks and knee highs.

I got to corral B only to find out they were letting the "Elites" go first and putting my start time 10 minutes after what I thought it was.  It was a bit chilly, and I was worried my warm-up wouldn't last.

Got into the Corral and inched my way forward with delusions of keeping up with the 1:45 sign held by the pacers.  Silly me.

I stuck with my plan of running hard enough to breath hard, but not so hard that I felt like I couldn't hold it for 13 miles, or hard enough that I would have nothing left at the finish line.  I lost the 1:45 sign around mile 3.

However, amazingly, the miles seemed to melt away.  My first stop was for water and then every other stop was a Gatorade.  I skipped the last stop.

I passed people, people passed me, the usual stick.  On the hills, my mantra was "don't kill yourself on these."  I even had enough in me to smile for a couple of the photos.

Not smiling:


I really love the people of Monterey.  They have bands, they high five you, they call you out by name (Go Eldon!), and in general so supportive.

I came into the last mile with a little in the gas tank, not much, but something.  So when I saw the finish line I kicked in whatever I had left, reminded myself of my two days off after this, and told myself I wasn't going to die, even thought I felt like it was imminent.  I saw the clock at 1 hour and 47 minutes.

Final chip time (which is what I am paying for): 1 hour 46 minutes and 26 seconds.  In 36th for my age and gender class out of 350 finishers for same said age category.  So I crushed my previous Monterey time, missed a new PR by 21 seconds, beat my Santa Cruz time, and finished close to the top 10% in my age group.  I'm actually fairly pleased with the results.  Next time, next time, next time...

Am I ready?

It is less then 3 weeks until the Monterey Half Marathon.  Am I ready?

My left foot feels good.  I can still feel some soreness on the left edge, but nothing like it was before.

I've been careful with my paces and not pushing myself too hard.  I've tried to remain faithful to the training plan.  I am doing 8 hill sprints on Friday, but otherwise I resist going past the pace I'm supposed to maintain for my quality runs.  I have felt strong on my hill sprints and no suggestions of my back going out on me like last time.

After my first 14 mile long run, I wasn't able to hold my pace for the 3 mile strength runs.  But I crushed my pace for the following tempo run. 

Here is my second 14 mile run.  Only one more to go, and so far I've managed to hold pace on these.

This week's series of 3 x 2 mile strength runs went very well indeed.


The 7 mile tempo run on Thursday also went well.


I've actually had to make myself not go too fast.  I don't want to peak too early?  The water break in the middle slowed me down to an 8:27, but the 8:25 on the next mile shamed me, and so my last mile was an 8:10.  I'm really trying to keep it at 8:20.

So maybe I'm ready.  Again, unlikely to be any PRs in Monterey, just not a fast enough course for me with those hills.  Perhaps I can beat the Santa Cruz time.

Test Drive of Sword & Spear

Over the last couple of years I've been accumulating rule sets for miniature battles during the ancient period.  "To the Strongest" was the most recent acquisition.  This time I pulled out "Sword & Spear," by Mark Lewis.



The Egyptians and Hittites are almost completely rebased - finally!  So I used the free to download army lists and put together two armies at about 200 points.  The Egyptians had one more unit because Hittite heavies are expensive!  Here are the lists:

Unit	Cost	Number	Total	AV	Tot.AV	Army Point Total
Egyptian Chariots	28	2	56	4	8	206
Close Fighters	15	4	60	3	12
Archers	15	3	45	3	9
Pharaoh	45	1	45	0	0
Camp	0	1	0	3	3
			0		32
Hittite Heavy Ch	40	2	80	4	8	206
Syrian Chariots	24	1	24	4	4
Hittite Spear	15	2	30	3	6
Javelinmen	9	1	9	2	2
Slingers	9	1	9	2	2
Levy Foot	9	1	9	3	3
Emperor Wattilis	45	1	45		0
Camp	0	1	0	3	3

Allocating activation dice.





The initial first turn sees Egyptian bow, and Hittite chariots advance.


Wattilis charges!

Charging Heavy chariots are brutal.  Well, I got really lucky in the roll and wiped out the spearmen.  I probably should have allocated the activation die to the spear.  Still learning...
The second Hittite impact chariot would follow and annihilate the Egyptian Chariot above.

End of second turn.


Not sure if I had enough to turn the Hittite chariots, missed the "Undrilled" bit.  But Ramses still managed to get on their flanks.



And the Hittite emperor found himself in deep trouble...



Fortunately he survives.



After the early initial charge of the Hittites, I really thought the Egyptians were going to lose.  You can see the Hittite chariot in contact with the Egyptian camp, which only had a single hit remaining.  In one of the pictures above you can see the other Egyptian chariot unit in melee with Syrian chariots.  That was a close battle too, but one that the Egyptians won.  With the loss of a group of slingers and Wattilis's chariot unit, the Hittites had to do an army wide discipline test.  Wattilis's move to his remaining chariot unit put the rest of his army out of command.  A unit of spearmen with 2 hits from some Egyptian bow failed their discipline test and routed, sending the remaining Hittite skirmisher routing.  Game over for the Hittites.


I almost put this game away after the initial Hittite charge.  The long list of conditions for when a unit didn't get impetus was also a bit daunting.  I'm glad I kept at it because it was a real nail biter and I had a great time once I got into the flow of the turn.  I still have lots to learn and look forward to the next game.

The Perfect Cure

The cured ham finally reached the 66% of its original weight mark.  I probably should have pulled it at 70%, but I forgot.  Still, it looks fantastic, and tastes even better!



Roasted some oats for an chocolate-coffee-oatmeal stout.


Then roasted some organic cacao nibs.





Roasted enough to make a cup of hot chocolate, but I needed to do some grinding for that.


The hot chocolate was awesome, but going to get a blade grinder for future attempts.  Had to filter a lot of this out after steeping and heating.

Made a terrine for dinner.

Transferred a red ale that became a ...




THE END

Breakout Turn 2

Finished the 6 inch grid for Rommel.

Decided to give the "Breakout" scenario a try.  Above are three combat elements of Americans - lets say 2 regiments of the 80th infantry division and CCA of the 4th armored division.

Below are the back of some of the units.   I know the insignia are all wrong, but they are there just to keep track of the different elements while adding a little historical flair.  This is CCA minus its artillery attachment.  I need to paint up my "Priests."  The truck in the American supply point.


The  317th regiment with attached armor.  Note I got rid of the steps on the combat track to minimize labeling.

Lets call the Germans the 3rd Panzergrenadier division with assorted Kampfgruppe.  Screaming mimis!

The other side of the "trap?"



The Germans were trying to line up for a grab at the American objective.  However, the Americans go first and grab the objective with off road movement and two tactical phases.



















They also cut off the German supply.


On the second turn the Germans are able to re-establish supply and destroy a lone Sherman company.

I hope to continue this soon, but the rest of this weekend is spoken for.

An Encounter in France 1944: A Rommel AAR

I've never played any of the Honour Games.  However, I've been intrigued by some of the novel designs described at the website.

It was the announcement of "Rommel," a Grand Tactical rule set for World War 2, that finally induced me to pull the purchasing trigger.  I put my order in upon release.  I also picked up "Maurice" and "Freejumper," but they will have to wait for another day.

The PDF arrive instantly, but the actual book was not far behind.  Cheers to Honour Games for the prompt service!

Rommel uses company size units as the maneuver and combat elements that allow the fielding of entire divisions.  This is exactly the scale that I've been interested in and playing at for the last couple of years using Field of Battle: WW2.

I quickly read through the rules.  The instructions for the basic game aren't that long.  Overall, I'm happy with the formatting.  I like the army builder sections.  The scenarios allowed me to quickly assemble 91 point German and American armies for a test drive.  This effectively put two American regiments against 3 German Kampfgruppe.

Here are my lists:

Unit	#	Cost	Total
Germans
Panzer Grenadier Battalion	1	11	11
Motorized Inf. Battalion	1	8	8
Panther Battalion	1	12	12
Field Howitzer	1	3	3
			0
Panzer Grenadier Battalion	1	11	11
Motorized Inf. Battalion	1	8	8
Panzer IV	1	10	10
			0
Panzer Grenadier Battalion	1	11	11
Motorized Inf. Battalion	1	8	8
Hetzer	1	9	9
			91
Americans
Elite Infantry	3	10	30
105mm Howitzer	1	3	3
Shermans	1	10	10
			0
Elite Infantry	2	10	20
Infantry	1	8	8
105mm Howitzer	1	3	20
Shermans	2	10	0

I had just made a felt mat with a grid for "To the Strongest."  The squares aren't 6 inches (as called for in Rommel), but closer to 5.  It was a little tight, but worked.  I'm working on a 6 inch grid to be used for Rommel, and a grid based Maurice.

I used the encounter scenario which seemed fairly balanced.  Here is a look at the layout:

No need for roads which get abstracted at this level.  I'm grateful, because it always frustrated me to see just how many roads there are when you start having battlefields of greater than 8 by 16 kilometers.  The Urban, Mountain, Bockage and soft ground (wheat fields) cover 2-4 squares.

The American used the initiative that they won and some ops to charge across the battlefield.

This might have been a mistake.  The hope was to grab some good protective terrain and keep the Germans well away from the American controlled objective squares.  The Americans attacked given that the Germans were in open terrain.

Some key tactical ops, plus the armor advantage repulsed the attack.

The Germans successfully counterattack:

Hills/Mountains are tough to take for both sides:

Pushing the Americans out of the town, not so easy either:

German reinforcements arrive first! 

The Germans use the off road ops to push through the relatively open center and take the American objectives!  Top of the picture in the two towns.  American reinforcements have just arrived, but the Germans got troops on the unprotected objectives before the newly arrived forces could move into them.

Nearing the end of the game, the American desperately counterattack.

The above was isolated and destroyed, but below the Germans were able to feed more troops in by resetting their ops and using off road movement again.

American infantry even try to push in from their occupied town to seize a German objective.  Tank shock stopped that for the most part.

The swing in initiative to the Germans meant the American never really had a chance to reset their headquarters.

A before and after of the German OPS file.

I really had fun playing this game.  I plan to adapt the Operation Luttich scenario for it soon, but I want a couple of more small games under my belt first.

The only problem I had was with the order of retreat.  The rules state that Attackers retreat at the conclusion of combat, while the defenders can retreat after the combat (as long as its not evasion).  I've read enough papers to know that the conclusion is still part of the paper, while after is, well, after.  So I thought the defenders could retreat after the attackers did.  It didn't feel right though, and you know, if it doesn't feel right, then maybe you shouldn't be doing it.  The good folks at the forum straightened me out, so all is right as rain. The defenders decide whether to retreat first.