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January 31- February 2, 2020
Opening Ceremony: January 31, 2020, 5PM
sábado, 28 de marzo de 2020
Movie Reviews: Star Wars 8: The Last Jedi (Spoilers), Battle Of The Sexes, Wonder, Coco
See all of my movie reviews.
Battle of the Sexes: It feels like forever since I've seen a movie with real, engaging three-dimensional characters, instead of the one or zero dimensional characters you get in Disney and Marvel movies.
The story starts with some background on Bobby Riggs and Billie Jean King. Riggs is an older former champion tennis player, a sexist but talented socialite, who is having difficulty with his family and looking for a new challenge. King is young and at or near the top in women's tennis, but disgusted that, while women's tennis draws the same ticket sales, the athletes get paid 1/8 what the men do, "because". So she starts her own league. Riggs challenges King to a battle of the sexes.
Battle of the Sexes: It feels like forever since I've seen a movie with real, engaging three-dimensional characters, instead of the one or zero dimensional characters you get in Disney and Marvel movies.
The story starts with some background on Bobby Riggs and Billie Jean King. Riggs is an older former champion tennis player, a sexist but talented socialite, who is having difficulty with his family and looking for a new challenge. King is young and at or near the top in women's tennis, but disgusted that, while women's tennis draws the same ticket sales, the athletes get paid 1/8 what the men do, "because". So she starts her own league. Riggs challenges King to a battle of the sexes.
The trailers for this movie made it seem like Steve Carrell's Bobby Riggs was going to be a caricature of the real Riggs (who was certainly flamboyant). Thank goodness, Carrell, and his screenwriter and director, do a fantastic job in giving us a fully-fledged person that we can care about, even as he is, essentially, the bad guy. So, sucky trailer. Emma Stone does an equally fantastic job as Billie Jean King, as do several of the accessory and side characters, who are fleshed out in full glory (or at least as much as their screen-time allows).
The story lingered perhaps a little too long here and there on some scenes, like the initial haircut scene where she falls for her hairdresser (Carol did a better job with its similar love at first meeting scene). And maybe a little more time could have been added to the story to make it feel like a real epic. But never mind. This was a fun, fine, and satisfying movie to watch.
Wonder: From the trailer I wasn't expecting much for this movie, and in fact wasn't planning to see it at all. It seemed like a straightforward movie about a disfigured boy (Jacob Tremblay) being bullied in school, making and losing friends, and ultimately triumphing. Ho hum. So, once again, sucky, sucky trailer.
That story is, indeed, the backbone of the movie, taking up around 50% of the screen-time; if it was all there was to the movie, the movie would be as expected: not bad, but ultimately nothing special and predictable. But the movie spends the other 50% of its screen-time telling other people's stories, sometimes rolling back the same scene multiple times to view it from different points of view. We spend a lot of time with the sister, but also the mother, the sister's friend, the sister's boyfriend, and two other kids in the boy's class. And all of those stories are better and more original than the main storyline, making the movie so much more than just a story about a bulled boy.
The story is screenwritten by Steve Chbotsky (based on a book by RJ Palacio), the same screenwriter and author of The Perks of Being a Wallflower. I saw and loved that movie and wanted to read the book afterwards. The same thing happened with this movie: the movie is good, but you can see the left-out parts of the book peeking about here and there, and you really want to get more into depth with the characters.
Yes, the story is still a bit of a tearjerker, sentimental and emotional, but it is also narratively creative with some interesting, less predictable characters and story arcs. The main, predictable arc (basically told in the trailer) is raised up by being interwoven with the other stories, although it, too should have been better. Well worth a see, especially for kids and teens. Note: Chewbacca is in the movie, which makes it a candidate as an entry in the Star Wars canon, in my opinion.
Coco: Coco follows in the tradition of Moana, Brave, and Mulan in presenting not only a story of a hero's journey but a journey that is kickstarted, guided, and resolved in consonance with the literalization of a non-American cultural mythology. And I don't know how I feel about that.
A Mexican boy's (Manuel) family refuses to have anything to do with music because the great-grandfather ran off to become a musician, leaving his wife and child to fend for themselves. Naturally, Manuel wants to be a musician. It is the Day of the Dead, where everyone puts up pictures to the dead in order for the dead spirits to be able to (spiritually) visit, but of course a) there is no picture of the great-grandfather and b) Manuel doesn't want to have anything to do with his family. Manuel's idol is a famous musician, and Manuel learns, by accident, that this famous musician was, in fact, his great-grandfather. To compete in a music contest, Manuel steals a guitar from this musician's shrine and finds himself cursed into the land of the dead. Who are happily visiting the relatives who have posted pictures for them. The ones whose families have not posted pictures of them are unhappy. Manuel needs his dead family's blessing to get back to the real world, but they won't give it to him unless he promises not to pursue music. So he runs off to find the spirit of his great-grandfather.
Many of the themes, including the central theme, are reminiscent of the ones in the other movies I mentioned, and the movie also borrows some narrative elements from Up. It has a lot of "learning moments", which are familiar, and a few nice musical scenes. It leans heavy on appreciating your cultural heritage, by turning mythological aspects into real ones.
Which I find kind of bothersome. When mythology becomes fact, it is no longer a question of faith or practice or choice. While in real life there is no easy answer as to whether choosing to honor or not your dead ancestors makes you a good or bad person, movies like this imply that you have no choice not to believe in your family's traditional stories: If you don't, you are murdering or causing tremendous pain to actual beings who walk, talk, and feel exactly like any other living beings do. I'm not comfortable with that message. A mature individual recognizes that what we do to honor the dead and our traditions has nothing to do with the dead, but is about ourselves, our families, and our communities. Coco is aimed at children, sure, and this is just a children's story. But I thought that this movie was supposed to be sensitive to the cultures it was representing, not trivializing to them. You can't really have it both ways.
There are no glaring flaws with the movie, although a Mexican family rejecting all music for several generations seems a bit of a stretch. The movie is filled with pretty art, colors, and architecture which I presume represent both historical and modern Mexican culture. I'm not sure that modern children will appreciate the music, except the few numbers that are obviously meant to appeal to them. I'm not sure in what time period the movie is supposed to be; it must be modern, but no one has cellphones or computers. Is that normal for a modern, large Mexican town? Anyway, I liked it more than I did Moana, which I found derivative and boring. I'm sure that kids will enjoy it.
Star Wars 8: The Last Jedi: Star Wars once had something that was different from other sci-fi movies and worlds, something precious and important. Unfortunately, the makers of the current movies don't see that. Instead of making Star Wars movies, they are making modern sci-fi movies indistinguishable from other modern sci fi movies, with the iconography of Star Wars. Which is very painful to me. Chris Bateman bemoaned something similar after watching the Star Trek reboot, and I didn't get it, then. I think I get it now.
Update: see the end for thoughts after a second viewing.
The new Star Trek movies, the X-Men movies, the Marvel movies, the Ghost in the Shell remake, the Blade Runner movie, Looper, Valerian, Avatar, DC's movies, and many other sci-fi movies in the last 10 or 15 years have a vast similarity to each other, in much the same way that all modern Disney, Pixar, and other American animated children's movie have vast similarities to each other. They may have different writers, directors, and casts, but they are all, essentially, dumbed down. The creators of these movies avoid complex messages, plots, and themes, throw in snarky slapstick between action sequences, fill the screen with copious action sequences at nearly the same points in the movie, present emotions and dialog that is one-dimensional and transparently representative of the characters, and hammer you with neat and simplistic moral messages in their denouements that are understandable and suitable for a 4 year old. Family is good. Be brave. Be true to yourself. Be loving to creatures, the natives, and the environment.
Star Wars 4-6 and 1-3 were not like that, at all. Well, okay, they often had one-dimensional emotions and dialog, but otherwise. Star Wars did not have tons of snarky dialog, except for Leia, and hers was not slapstick snark but a very specific kind of frustration snark. A Star Wars movie took itself seriously, because the movie was about space opera and adventure, not about instant entertainment. The message about choosing the good side of the force was given, not saved as a discovery for the end of the movie. The dark side of the force and the light side of the force were about our moral choices: people could contain both of these powers, but choosing light meant - by definition - choosing good, while choosing dark meant choosing to be selfish, and therefore evil. People could be ambiguous, but there were clear moral choices. Heroism was heroism: choose good and act on it. Every movie felt like it was part of a world that extended well before and after the movie: what you were seeing was a small part of a great epic, because the movie took time to show and make you feel time passing: Luke's daily routine on the farm represented years, his efforts on Dagobah months. The force presented an exploration of mysticism, not just firepower or "lifting rocks". The movies were NOT just sci fi movies with cool weapons and critters; they were NOT Guardians of the Galaxy, which is a close movie in structure, but just as far in feel as all the others.
The came The Force Awakens. The Force Awakens struck an iffy balance between Star Wars ala Lucas and modern sci fi movies. It felt, at times, too much like a Marvel movie. It was missing a lot of the feel of the Star Wars epic and the mysticism, it felt less like an epic and more like a sequence of events. But the characters, especially Rey, were compelling and the structure was well done, so I had hope it might move in the right direction after the makers received feedback from the fans.
Here be some spoilers, but nothing major.
This movie felt like a Star Trek movie with bits of Star Wars thrown onto it. For the first 25 minutes of the movie, I was in pain, holding my head in my hands aghast at the vast empty, non-Star Wars feel to the movie. Then we got to Rey and Luke, and it was filled with snarky scenes that were supposed to be funny, and I felt my stomach drop. It was supposed to be funny that Luke casually tossed the light saber over his shoulder? Really? It wasn't funny AT ALL, not only because it wasn't funny, but because it wasn't what Luke would do, even if he were disgusted by the force and everything it stood for. He would throw it away in disgust, perhaps, or at least show some emotional acknowledgement that this was his saber he had lost. Or ask some questions of Rey. Anything! The scene was a disaster, and I began to get a headache.
The main part of the movie is dull, with an hour long chase scene where nothing of consequence happens. Poe and Finn basically accomplish nothing in the entire movie. Instead, the entire enterprise of heroism is called into question, because, as one character puts it, we don't kill what we hate, we save what we love? What??? So heroes aren't heroes? It is implied not only that people can have both dark and light in them, but that dark isn't maybe so evil and light ins't maybe so good! What??? That destroys the entire freakin' metaphor! I don't want another vague morality movie that tells me that morality is relative. I don't want a treatise on how heroes aren't heroes, because they should follow orders. And I don't need a new lecture on how both sides are just as bad, and another on how we shouldn't treat animals badly (seriously, the movie took about twenty minutes of run time to tell us this).
The scene on the casino was a phenomenal waste of time; maybe it was supposed to be funny, but it wasn't, and it wasn't Star Wars funny. Even the pod race in TPM made more sense and had more meaning than this. And then we have a scene with Ren gratuitously without his shirt, a callback to the underwear scene in Star Trek Into Darkness. The whole movie takes place over what? Three days? So no story development. Please repeat after me: a character learning something isn't character development. It's just learning. Marvel characters learn things, too, but that doesn't make them less cartoonish. Development takes introspection, depth, complexity, time, and sensitivity.
So yeah, I had problems. Not only in the first 25 minutes, but many times after.
However .... admittedly after the first 25 minutes, some of the scenes were really great, and even really Star Wars great. The Rey-before-Snope and the lightsaber battle afterwards were beautiful, because of the shifting nature of the alliance and the confusion that the characters felt in the process. And the battle over the salt fields with the red plumes were a beautiful thing to see. I liked the dynamic between Ren and Rey, and the Luke and Ren scene, too. I liked Rose, but I didn't like most of the scenes she was in. I hated the multiple BB-ex-machina scenes, even more than I disliked the C3PO nuisance scenes in ESB.
Seen from the non-Star War perspective, the movie dragged in several scenes in the middle, but it was at least as entertaining as any other modern sci fi movie, and better because of the interesting characters of Rey and Ren. But I despair about the future of the franchise. With the exception of certain threads and scenes, these are not Star Wars movies, and for that I mourn. I like these threads and scenes; I want them to be in better, far different movies.
Also ... more spoilers ...
Callbacks: So many scenes were callbacks to TESB and TRotJ: training the Jedi, including entering the "dark side" cave, Rey giving herself up to Ren to be taken before the emperor and snatching up the lightsaber, and others. The resistance flying head on into the marching first order elephant things. And, admittedly, ESB spent mosy of its time simply chasing after the Millennium Falcon.
Things I didn't have a problem with that others might: The above callbacks. The changes in the force, such as the mindlink and the projection. Yes, it's odd that previous generations of Jedi never did these things, but they seem like the kinds of things that they would do, and I'm cool with that. This includes the water actually traveling through the mindlink and that Luke projected an image was of his younger self.
Other minor problems: If this takes place only days after the last movie, how could the republic and/or first order be in any kind of different state than it was in the last one? What happened to the galaxy? Why do they keep calling them rebels, instead of the resistance? Pick one. Since when do bombs fall in space when you release them? Fall which direction? What happened to Snoke insisting on training Ren? Or Rey? What the hell was Snoke? He shows up larger than life, he seems to be stronger than the emperor, and then he just dies? Why didn't the new admiral Holdo just tell Poe what the plan was, instead of waiting until the evacuation? Why did she wait until nearly everyone was dead before light-speeding her ship into the enemy? If that's a thing, can't you rig a bunch of ships to do that and decimate your enemies more frequently
Update: Having now seen the movie a second time, my thoughts are adjusting a bit. The parts that I disliked the first time I dislike now even more: in particular the comedy and the BB8 scenes, which are as annoying as Jar Jar but take up even more screen time. There is a difference between conversational humor, which I can enjoy, and slapstick humor directed at the audience, which I don't. I'm further down on the arrangement of scenes and the pacing. I don't like any scenes with Hux. I don't like the plot about, or even the idea that, spaceships run out of fuel in this universe. I still don't like how the director taunts the audience by not paying off stories about Rey's parents, Snoke, the R2D2 map, Chewbacca's grief, and other things.
The parts that I liked before I like even more, which is also what happened to me with TFA. However, after the second viewing, I'm feeling a bit better about the neutral parts of the story. I don't LIKE the story - both the good and the bad guys throw away the past, Finn and Poe are reigned in as heroes instead of being heroic - but I'm okay with that being the story.
Coco: Coco follows in the tradition of Moana, Brave, and Mulan in presenting not only a story of a hero's journey but a journey that is kickstarted, guided, and resolved in consonance with the literalization of a non-American cultural mythology. And I don't know how I feel about that.
A Mexican boy's (Manuel) family refuses to have anything to do with music because the great-grandfather ran off to become a musician, leaving his wife and child to fend for themselves. Naturally, Manuel wants to be a musician. It is the Day of the Dead, where everyone puts up pictures to the dead in order for the dead spirits to be able to (spiritually) visit, but of course a) there is no picture of the great-grandfather and b) Manuel doesn't want to have anything to do with his family. Manuel's idol is a famous musician, and Manuel learns, by accident, that this famous musician was, in fact, his great-grandfather. To compete in a music contest, Manuel steals a guitar from this musician's shrine and finds himself cursed into the land of the dead. Who are happily visiting the relatives who have posted pictures for them. The ones whose families have not posted pictures of them are unhappy. Manuel needs his dead family's blessing to get back to the real world, but they won't give it to him unless he promises not to pursue music. So he runs off to find the spirit of his great-grandfather.
Many of the themes, including the central theme, are reminiscent of the ones in the other movies I mentioned, and the movie also borrows some narrative elements from Up. It has a lot of "learning moments", which are familiar, and a few nice musical scenes. It leans heavy on appreciating your cultural heritage, by turning mythological aspects into real ones.
Which I find kind of bothersome. When mythology becomes fact, it is no longer a question of faith or practice or choice. While in real life there is no easy answer as to whether choosing to honor or not your dead ancestors makes you a good or bad person, movies like this imply that you have no choice not to believe in your family's traditional stories: If you don't, you are murdering or causing tremendous pain to actual beings who walk, talk, and feel exactly like any other living beings do. I'm not comfortable with that message. A mature individual recognizes that what we do to honor the dead and our traditions has nothing to do with the dead, but is about ourselves, our families, and our communities. Coco is aimed at children, sure, and this is just a children's story. But I thought that this movie was supposed to be sensitive to the cultures it was representing, not trivializing to them. You can't really have it both ways.
There are no glaring flaws with the movie, although a Mexican family rejecting all music for several generations seems a bit of a stretch. The movie is filled with pretty art, colors, and architecture which I presume represent both historical and modern Mexican culture. I'm not sure that modern children will appreciate the music, except the few numbers that are obviously meant to appeal to them. I'm not sure in what time period the movie is supposed to be; it must be modern, but no one has cellphones or computers. Is that normal for a modern, large Mexican town? Anyway, I liked it more than I did Moana, which I found derivative and boring. I'm sure that kids will enjoy it.
Star Wars 8: The Last Jedi: Star Wars once had something that was different from other sci-fi movies and worlds, something precious and important. Unfortunately, the makers of the current movies don't see that. Instead of making Star Wars movies, they are making modern sci-fi movies indistinguishable from other modern sci fi movies, with the iconography of Star Wars. Which is very painful to me. Chris Bateman bemoaned something similar after watching the Star Trek reboot, and I didn't get it, then. I think I get it now.
Update: see the end for thoughts after a second viewing.
The new Star Trek movies, the X-Men movies, the Marvel movies, the Ghost in the Shell remake, the Blade Runner movie, Looper, Valerian, Avatar, DC's movies, and many other sci-fi movies in the last 10 or 15 years have a vast similarity to each other, in much the same way that all modern Disney, Pixar, and other American animated children's movie have vast similarities to each other. They may have different writers, directors, and casts, but they are all, essentially, dumbed down. The creators of these movies avoid complex messages, plots, and themes, throw in snarky slapstick between action sequences, fill the screen with copious action sequences at nearly the same points in the movie, present emotions and dialog that is one-dimensional and transparently representative of the characters, and hammer you with neat and simplistic moral messages in their denouements that are understandable and suitable for a 4 year old. Family is good. Be brave. Be true to yourself. Be loving to creatures, the natives, and the environment.
Star Wars 4-6 and 1-3 were not like that, at all. Well, okay, they often had one-dimensional emotions and dialog, but otherwise. Star Wars did not have tons of snarky dialog, except for Leia, and hers was not slapstick snark but a very specific kind of frustration snark. A Star Wars movie took itself seriously, because the movie was about space opera and adventure, not about instant entertainment. The message about choosing the good side of the force was given, not saved as a discovery for the end of the movie. The dark side of the force and the light side of the force were about our moral choices: people could contain both of these powers, but choosing light meant - by definition - choosing good, while choosing dark meant choosing to be selfish, and therefore evil. People could be ambiguous, but there were clear moral choices. Heroism was heroism: choose good and act on it. Every movie felt like it was part of a world that extended well before and after the movie: what you were seeing was a small part of a great epic, because the movie took time to show and make you feel time passing: Luke's daily routine on the farm represented years, his efforts on Dagobah months. The force presented an exploration of mysticism, not just firepower or "lifting rocks". The movies were NOT just sci fi movies with cool weapons and critters; they were NOT Guardians of the Galaxy, which is a close movie in structure, but just as far in feel as all the others.
The came The Force Awakens. The Force Awakens struck an iffy balance between Star Wars ala Lucas and modern sci fi movies. It felt, at times, too much like a Marvel movie. It was missing a lot of the feel of the Star Wars epic and the mysticism, it felt less like an epic and more like a sequence of events. But the characters, especially Rey, were compelling and the structure was well done, so I had hope it might move in the right direction after the makers received feedback from the fans.
Here be some spoilers, but nothing major.
This movie felt like a Star Trek movie with bits of Star Wars thrown onto it. For the first 25 minutes of the movie, I was in pain, holding my head in my hands aghast at the vast empty, non-Star Wars feel to the movie. Then we got to Rey and Luke, and it was filled with snarky scenes that were supposed to be funny, and I felt my stomach drop. It was supposed to be funny that Luke casually tossed the light saber over his shoulder? Really? It wasn't funny AT ALL, not only because it wasn't funny, but because it wasn't what Luke would do, even if he were disgusted by the force and everything it stood for. He would throw it away in disgust, perhaps, or at least show some emotional acknowledgement that this was his saber he had lost. Or ask some questions of Rey. Anything! The scene was a disaster, and I began to get a headache.
The main part of the movie is dull, with an hour long chase scene where nothing of consequence happens. Poe and Finn basically accomplish nothing in the entire movie. Instead, the entire enterprise of heroism is called into question, because, as one character puts it, we don't kill what we hate, we save what we love? What??? So heroes aren't heroes? It is implied not only that people can have both dark and light in them, but that dark isn't maybe so evil and light ins't maybe so good! What??? That destroys the entire freakin' metaphor! I don't want another vague morality movie that tells me that morality is relative. I don't want a treatise on how heroes aren't heroes, because they should follow orders. And I don't need a new lecture on how both sides are just as bad, and another on how we shouldn't treat animals badly (seriously, the movie took about twenty minutes of run time to tell us this).
The scene on the casino was a phenomenal waste of time; maybe it was supposed to be funny, but it wasn't, and it wasn't Star Wars funny. Even the pod race in TPM made more sense and had more meaning than this. And then we have a scene with Ren gratuitously without his shirt, a callback to the underwear scene in Star Trek Into Darkness. The whole movie takes place over what? Three days? So no story development. Please repeat after me: a character learning something isn't character development. It's just learning. Marvel characters learn things, too, but that doesn't make them less cartoonish. Development takes introspection, depth, complexity, time, and sensitivity.
So yeah, I had problems. Not only in the first 25 minutes, but many times after.
However .... admittedly after the first 25 minutes, some of the scenes were really great, and even really Star Wars great. The Rey-before-Snope and the lightsaber battle afterwards were beautiful, because of the shifting nature of the alliance and the confusion that the characters felt in the process. And the battle over the salt fields with the red plumes were a beautiful thing to see. I liked the dynamic between Ren and Rey, and the Luke and Ren scene, too. I liked Rose, but I didn't like most of the scenes she was in. I hated the multiple BB-ex-machina scenes, even more than I disliked the C3PO nuisance scenes in ESB.
Seen from the non-Star War perspective, the movie dragged in several scenes in the middle, but it was at least as entertaining as any other modern sci fi movie, and better because of the interesting characters of Rey and Ren. But I despair about the future of the franchise. With the exception of certain threads and scenes, these are not Star Wars movies, and for that I mourn. I like these threads and scenes; I want them to be in better, far different movies.
Also ... more spoilers ...
Callbacks: So many scenes were callbacks to TESB and TRotJ: training the Jedi, including entering the "dark side" cave, Rey giving herself up to Ren to be taken before the emperor and snatching up the lightsaber, and others. The resistance flying head on into the marching first order elephant things. And, admittedly, ESB spent mosy of its time simply chasing after the Millennium Falcon.
Things I didn't have a problem with that others might: The above callbacks. The changes in the force, such as the mindlink and the projection. Yes, it's odd that previous generations of Jedi never did these things, but they seem like the kinds of things that they would do, and I'm cool with that. This includes the water actually traveling through the mindlink and that Luke projected an image was of his younger self.
Other minor problems: If this takes place only days after the last movie, how could the republic and/or first order be in any kind of different state than it was in the last one? What happened to the galaxy? Why do they keep calling them rebels, instead of the resistance? Pick one. Since when do bombs fall in space when you release them? Fall which direction? What happened to Snoke insisting on training Ren? Or Rey? What the hell was Snoke? He shows up larger than life, he seems to be stronger than the emperor, and then he just dies? Why didn't the new admiral Holdo just tell Poe what the plan was, instead of waiting until the evacuation? Why did she wait until nearly everyone was dead before light-speeding her ship into the enemy? If that's a thing, can't you rig a bunch of ships to do that and decimate your enemies more frequently
Update: Having now seen the movie a second time, my thoughts are adjusting a bit. The parts that I disliked the first time I dislike now even more: in particular the comedy and the BB8 scenes, which are as annoying as Jar Jar but take up even more screen time. There is a difference between conversational humor, which I can enjoy, and slapstick humor directed at the audience, which I don't. I'm further down on the arrangement of scenes and the pacing. I don't like any scenes with Hux. I don't like the plot about, or even the idea that, spaceships run out of fuel in this universe. I still don't like how the director taunts the audience by not paying off stories about Rey's parents, Snoke, the R2D2 map, Chewbacca's grief, and other things.
The parts that I liked before I like even more, which is also what happened to me with TFA. However, after the second viewing, I'm feeling a bit better about the neutral parts of the story. I don't LIKE the story - both the good and the bad guys throw away the past, Finn and Poe are reigned in as heroes instead of being heroic - but I'm okay with that being the story.
Op Compass Game 7 - Sandstorm
Lumbering Matildas slowly crossing the Desert whilst sand swirls around the troops as they advance into the unknown, would adequately describe Game 7 of our ongoing Op Compass Campaign and what follows is the Scenario and AAR.
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| Italian troops wait for something to emerge from the Sandstorms |
https://yarkshiregamer.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/opcompass-1940-resource-page.html
The games are based on an excellent book by Robert Avery which is available from The Toofatlardies, there is a direct link to purchase the book on the Resource Page.We use 28mm figures with this scenario taking place on an 8 x 6 table using a home brew set of rules, based on Iron Ivans Disposable Hero's.
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| Ratty and Mole discuss their latest adventures |
Its the 10th December 1940, the previous day (see our recent games) the Italian Forts at Tummar fell, the British Forces moved onto the Sidi Barrani position. Part of the force was detailed to take a small hamlet known as Alam el Dab.
The weather was appalling, a high wind whipping up sand and dust into a constantly changing fog / sandstorm, visibility rapidly changing minute by minute. As the British advanced the cloud of dust lifted long enough for the Italian Artillery to destroy the approaching lorries, the British Infantry helpless, only able to watch as their lift home disappeared.
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| Italian 75mm Field Gun |
Table Set Up and Terrain
This battle is fought over an 8 x 6 table. The game begins with the Italian positions hidden.
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| Table Set Up |
The following Special Rules are in force (see Resource Page for full details),
Difficult Going and Breakdown.
New Rule - Variable Visibility - to represent the fluidity of the distance troops could see in this battle Visibility is limited to 9" plus 1d10 inches. Visiblity is determined once at the start of a new turn and again on the turn of an event card, giving a maximum of 3 and a minimum of 1 change in Visibility per turn. Whilst in force all firing is considered to be at long range.
Spoiler - The Brits have a secret objective, the game ends when they take all three gun positions, the British players should not know this until the game ends.
British Briefing
Italian Artillery has once again proven it's worth, take you troops into the mist and capture their positions. Be careful, the sand is soft, our tanks break down and visibility can change at any time.
Best suited for 3 players. Each Task Force has the following,
1 x Matilda Infantry Tank
1 x British Infantry Company consisting of,
HQ Section with 1 x Officer, 1 x Radio Operator and 1 x Sgt with SMG
Support Section with 1 x 2 man 2" Mortar Team and 1 x 2 man Boyes AT Team
3 x Infantry units of 1 x Sgt with SMG, 1 x Bren Gun and loader plus 7 Privates with Rifles
So 3 tanks and 111 men to get the job done. One TF will start in the centre of the table whilst the others will start equidistant from the centre tank and the table edge.
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| Advance into the unknown |
Once again you find yourself trapped in a difficult position with the seemingly unstoppable Matildas heading towards you. This time you have the advantage of cover and limited Visiblity, hold on as long as you can and cause as much casualties to the attackers as you can. Defend your guns to the last.
Your forces consist of,
1 HQ Section of Officer and Radio Operator
8 "Blackshirt" units each with 1 Sgt with SMG, 1 x 2 man LMG Team and 7 Rifles.
1 x 65mm Gun and 3 crew
1 x 75mm Field Gun and 4 crew
1 x 100mm Field Gun and 4 crew.
The above photo shows the layout of the Italian positions, only place the terrain and troops on table once they are visible, the Italian player chooses where in the line their three gun pits go.
The position was a series of fox holes rather than a formal trench system hence the use of barbed wire. The Italian positions are static and could easily be played by an umpire or as a solo game.
Italian Artillery can fire over open sights at any target they can see, if they have no target they will fire at random. Dice for one of the 12 squares on the British side of the table, take the centre of that square as the aim point and then randomly deviate by 2 x d10 inches, reroll for each gun.
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| Italian AT Gun pretending to be a 65mm Gun behind a Renaissance Gabion, it's all accurate |
Once again a good time was had by all, these scenarios really throw up some interesting match ups and with the randomness of the rules players are definitely kept on their toes. The Visablity rule worked really well and we all got the feel of a swirling sandstorm with targets frustratingly appearing and disappearing usually at the most inappropriate moment.
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| It's broke Sir |
The game settled down into a now you see it now you don't gun fight with the variable Visibility, the Brits taking quite a few casualties from the Italians in their fox holes and the randomly landing Artillery.
Things were going well until the tank Gremlin struck again, this time it was Mole in the centre of the attack, who broke down, it was fixable but with Italian small arms easily in range no one was getting out to fix it ! With the Artillery falling else where Mole quickly became a Pillbox, if only it had an AP round.
With the tank stalled, the British went headlong with fixed bayonets into the Italian positions. The Blackshirts held firm and held their fox holes, just.
But the fight drastically reduced the numbers of the defenders and next turn a fresh wave of British troops took the position.
The elation was short lived as the extra move forward revealed more Italians in the Hamlet.
On the British right the last mobile Matilda "Ratty" kept it's slow but seemingly unstoppable crawl towards the wire in front of it, rifles and LMG fire isn't much use against an Infantry Tank.
The Brits in the wire wisely decided to move away from the Hamlet and charged one of the Italian Gun positions, it fell but not without a fight.
The Italian Commander was busy on the radio, but no help came.
On the British left the tankless ("Hedgehog" smoking in the background) company had been wandering around blind for some time, the sandstorm preventing it from seeing anything of value, gradually the advance revealed that the Italian positions were not a straight line and the units moved to engage the flank positions.
The game built up to a nice close, the British had broken into the Italian positions in one location and a couple of others were holding on, however they had taken some pretty heavy casualties, three units had already been wiped out and it was touch and go if there was enough men left to do the job.
Everything came to a head in the final turns, on the right "Ratty" rolled over one of the Italian positions and with the gun position next to it taken that side of the table was taken.
In the centre there was another bayonet charge and again the first unit was wiped out at the wire whilst the remnants of the second one taking the position.
Whilst on the flank the British managed to roll over the 100mm Field Gun with hardly a shot fired.
The game ended when the Pillbox, sorry Matilda in the middle finished off the final Italian Gun and the British objective was complete, but not without considerable losses which were pushing 50% at game end.
So points wise I am going to give the Italians one (for the High casualties) and 3 to the British giving a Campaign Total of 18 to 10 in favour of the Brits.
Game 8 will be up soon, next time after a few games relying on the strength of the Matildas the British are back in the flimsy early Cruiser Tanks. But before then we will be playing on the fields of Edgehill and the Italian Wars Project will see the light of day again.
lunes, 23 de marzo de 2020
Locke Vs. Irusk2 #RockLockeInCoC
I was fortunate enough to be able to get a second game in last week, and I decided I want to start practicing my Convergence.
Since Friday was the release date for Crucible Guard, my FLGS had my preorder for Locke in and I was able to pick her up and assemble it that evening. On Saturday afternoon I was ready to drop her into whatever my opponent brought.
Honestly I think Locke is a better Convergence caster than she is in Crucible Guard, and frankly she's going to be more appreciated in CoC than CG because of her spell combination and what it brings to the table for us. Hence the hashtag: #RockLockeInCoC
For my list I decided I wanted to run a TEP with her, despite the common opinion that it's best to run more heavies. Part of this was that I've yet to play with a TEP at all and I wanted to see what it can do, but also because it gives us a strong Road to War trigger in that it can fire off at least two shots near guaranteed to kill something, possibly more depending on the matchup.
Here's what I went with:
Locke in Destruction Initiative
-Corollary
-Inverter
-Inverter
-Assimilator
-Cipher
TEP
ADO
ADO
Elimination Servitors
Elimination Servitors
Elimination Servitors
Attunement Servitors
Attunement Servitors
Eilish
Optifex Directive
My friend Brian showed up with Khador and decided to try out Armored Corps:
Irusk2
-Spriggan
-Rager
Man-o-War Shocktroopers + UA
Man-o-War Demo Corps + Dragos
Man-o-War Siege Chariot
Man-o-War Drakhun
Man-o-War Kovnik
Kommandant Atanas Arconovich & Standard
Man-o-War Suppression Tanker
Man-o-War Suppression Tanker
Kayazy Eliminators
We rolled for scenario and got the brand new Mirage, which is incredibly live.
Brian set the terrain around the table and I won the roll off, he picked sides.
Deployment, Mistakes, and My Turn 1
I didn't get a picture of the pure deployment, and after the game we realized Brian didn't take any advanced moves from his theme benefit. Neither of us thought it would have been particularly impactful to how the game played out given that I out threat his units by a decent amount and the fact that Locke doesn't need to cast Engine of Destruction to be able to easily hit the Man-o-War troops, especially if I play my Attunement Servitors correctly. This lets her hot swap around Red Line if necessary and with two Inverters that have chain weapons to ignore shield bonuses, further swinging things my way.
Of note: Brian is proxying Sorcha3 as the Shocktrooper UA.
I do however have a picture of my turn 1 after I ran everything forward:
I will likely put another post up expressly about how to deploy Locke and her Vector package so that she can cast all her upkeeps on turn 1 and still have the Corollary's free focus allow all the jacks to run turn 1, while ending things so that the Corollary can get the focus back at the end of the run/induction sequence. There are at least a few other casters in Convergence who need to use the Corollary/Induction focus game to get their spells cast turn 1 while also ensuring the Corollary can be primed for turn 2.
Brian's Turn 1
Brian runs basically everything up, though he keeps the Siege Chariot back a bit further than I expected. He is flanking hard with the Drakhun to threaten my TEP once it comes up to shoot. One mistake I think Brian has made was not positioning so that Irusk could cast Fire for Effect on the Chariot, though against Destruction Initiative the Siege Chariot is going to really struggle due to all my shield guards.
My Turn 2
Pre-measuring shows me that I can safely get the Drakhun in range of the TEP while also staying back far enough to avoid the Shock Troopers. I configure the TEP to use 2 dice to hit, 4 dice to damage, and one extra shot. Between that and one Elimination Servitor shot, the Drakhun dies.
I also use the Assimilator to catch three Shocktroopers in a ground pounder, which was particularly effective since the Shocktroopers needed to run on turn 1. This put some damage into the unit while I managed to spike and kill one Shocktrooper outright.
I position the Redline Inverter on the right to be just out of the Spriggan's 11" max melee threat. I position a servitor on both the middle and right flags to force contesting. I don't bother with the left flag since he doesn't have any solos close enough to take it and is already contesting in a way I can't meaningfully kill anyway.
I do however position two servitors on the left flank and shoot them with rough terrain from the Cipher to make things at least inconvenient for the Eliminators. I could have done better with placement.
Brian's Turn 2
Brian runs his Kayazy around the rough terrain to contest my zone. Atanas gives the Demo Corps pathfinder and they run/charge to clear a servitor and contest the center flag. Irusk puts Artifice of Deviation on the lake and the Shocktroopers shield wall up.
The Siege Chariot takes a shot at my Cipher and I shield guard, however I do it to a servitor that is then in line to slam into on of my ADO's, which I was planning on to arc spells over to the Kayazy. Note for next time, pick better shield guard targets.
Brian of course feats this turn to slow down my reprisal, though he is unable to catch the TEP and Cipher in his feat.
Brian scores his zone but I'm able to score my right flag, so we tie scenario 1-1.
My Turn 3
Locke allocates two focus to Cipher and holds onto 5 to try and spell down the Eliminators. The Cipher takes its sentry shot with the POW6 blast at the Eliminators but it scatters far off of them.
The Optifex directive moves up and gets into my zone fully while also giving the Cipher and left Inverter pathfinder. Then I move on to Flare Time from the Attunement servitors: My left most Attunement servitor aims and is within 5" of the Eliminators. I manage to nail the 8 to hit and flare both Eliminators. I then use another servitor to flare the Spriggan and another two servitors are able to flare the entire Shocktrooper units.
The Corollary fills to 3 Focus and transfers it to the Assimilator. The Assimilator then moves its paltry 2" to get out of the TEP's way and drops shots onto four Shocktroopers via ground pounder. I'm able to boost three damage rolls and kill two outright, damaging two others. This focus inducts to the Redline Inverter on the right.
This proc's Road to War for the right Redline Inverter and the left Inverter. The TEP moves up and I consider just trying to spray the Objective down but I figure the Inverter should be able to pull that off. I then start using 5 dice to damage shots into the cluster of three Shocktroopers still alive. After both shots I leave the UA on one box, and it passes its tough checks from Elimination servitor shots.
Locke activates and feats, moving 2" into the zone to get in range of the Eliminators. I boost to hit Bombshell on them and hit, then boost blast on the second Eliminator to....eliminate both of them and clear my zone. With Solid Ground purified off, the Redline Inverter charges into the Spriggan (induct to Corollary) and puts a Macropummler + precision strike to take out the Cortex and knock the jack down. I then take two swings with the chain arm into the objective, killing it, and then take my last two swings into the Spriggan (induct to the other Inverter), ignoring its shield and crippling its lance arm.
I charge the left Inverter into the Demo Corps but only get one in melee (this inducts to the Corollary). This was the only one that was contesting the center flag however. I'm unable to buy more attacks and the focus sits. I then use the Cipher to walk into the Demo Corps and start wailing, doing damage but not killing any models yet due to Sanguine Bond.
Once everything was done, I scored 4 points this turn: My zone, Brian's Objective, Center Flag, and the Right Flag. Brian scores nothing and I'm up 5-1.
Brian's Turn 3
The Demo Corps get Vengeance moves/attacks which result in getting a crit stationary result on my Inverter, who then starts taking tons of damage. Luckily my Cipher gets missed by both Demo Corps.
Irusk allocates one to the Rager, then moves up and casts Battle Lust on the Demo Corps and cast a second spell that I don't remember, giving me two feat tokens that I put on my Cipher.
Dragos annihilates the stationary Inverter, but the other Demo Corps start missing/not doing enough damage to my Cipher to take any systems out. The Siege Chariot impacts its way into the zone and takes a shot at my objective, which I shield guard to a servitor that doesn't slam into the objective.
Then Brian makes a mistake by using the Rager to try and attack my Inverter, using focus to boost damage rolls which then gives me more feat tokens which I put on the Inverter. Not much damage is done and to put insult over injury the Rager rolls a 2 and blows itself up. What Brian should have done was run to contest my flag.
Brian moves up the Suppresion tankers and sprays down the servitors on my flags, but isn't close enough to contest.
Realizing his error he charges the Shocktrooper UA into the TEP, doing decent damage but not enough to kill it. Neither of us score any CP's this turn.
My Turn 4
To end the game I simply move an Elimination servitor up behind the lone Shock Trooper and use gun fighter to plink her to death. An ADO moves to my right flag and I win the game on scenario 6-1.
Conclusions
After the game we spoke about how the Armored Corps list was slow, and then we remembered he would have had advanced move on a bunch of models.
After writing the report it's clear this would have helped him more than we initially thought about the game. He would have at least been in shield wall for my turn two shooting instead of having had to run, or he would have been significantly closer to charging me. The downside to this is that he potentially gets into my threat ranges with the Shock Troops who match up very poorly into Chain Weapon wielding Inverters.
The Siege Chariot ends up being effectively terrible in this match due to my high number of shield guards, and my winning the dice roll to go first really hurts on a scenario this live vs. a list as slow as his where he will be out threat significantly due to Road to War and Redline. Since he's so low on DEF I don't need Engine of Destruction to hit, allowing me to cycle Redline easily which would punish him moving up enough for scenario.
I think Brian just needs a few mods to his list and he can be in a much better position for this game, though I'm not sure this kind of melee oriented Armored Corps wants to fight into #RockLockeInCoC. Convergence guns can eat through Demo Corps and our best melee Jack can power right on through Shocktroopers shield wall.
As for evaluating Locke herself and CoC in general, I definitely liked the list. I appreciated the amount of firepower I can bring to bear in a jack focused list design while also having a high enough model count to be relevant at least early on in scenario and being able to have a competent melee threat as well.
I do however position two servitors on the left flank and shoot them with rough terrain from the Cipher to make things at least inconvenient for the Eliminators. I could have done better with placement.
Brian's Turn 2
Brian runs his Kayazy around the rough terrain to contest my zone. Atanas gives the Demo Corps pathfinder and they run/charge to clear a servitor and contest the center flag. Irusk puts Artifice of Deviation on the lake and the Shocktroopers shield wall up.
The Siege Chariot takes a shot at my Cipher and I shield guard, however I do it to a servitor that is then in line to slam into on of my ADO's, which I was planning on to arc spells over to the Kayazy. Note for next time, pick better shield guard targets.
Brian of course feats this turn to slow down my reprisal, though he is unable to catch the TEP and Cipher in his feat.
Brian scores his zone but I'm able to score my right flag, so we tie scenario 1-1.
My Turn 3
Locke allocates two focus to Cipher and holds onto 5 to try and spell down the Eliminators. The Cipher takes its sentry shot with the POW6 blast at the Eliminators but it scatters far off of them.
The Optifex directive moves up and gets into my zone fully while also giving the Cipher and left Inverter pathfinder. Then I move on to Flare Time from the Attunement servitors: My left most Attunement servitor aims and is within 5" of the Eliminators. I manage to nail the 8 to hit and flare both Eliminators. I then use another servitor to flare the Spriggan and another two servitors are able to flare the entire Shocktrooper units.
The Corollary fills to 3 Focus and transfers it to the Assimilator. The Assimilator then moves its paltry 2" to get out of the TEP's way and drops shots onto four Shocktroopers via ground pounder. I'm able to boost three damage rolls and kill two outright, damaging two others. This focus inducts to the Redline Inverter on the right.
This proc's Road to War for the right Redline Inverter and the left Inverter. The TEP moves up and I consider just trying to spray the Objective down but I figure the Inverter should be able to pull that off. I then start using 5 dice to damage shots into the cluster of three Shocktroopers still alive. After both shots I leave the UA on one box, and it passes its tough checks from Elimination servitor shots.
Locke activates and feats, moving 2" into the zone to get in range of the Eliminators. I boost to hit Bombshell on them and hit, then boost blast on the second Eliminator to....eliminate both of them and clear my zone. With Solid Ground purified off, the Redline Inverter charges into the Spriggan (induct to Corollary) and puts a Macropummler + precision strike to take out the Cortex and knock the jack down. I then take two swings with the chain arm into the objective, killing it, and then take my last two swings into the Spriggan (induct to the other Inverter), ignoring its shield and crippling its lance arm.
I charge the left Inverter into the Demo Corps but only get one in melee (this inducts to the Corollary). This was the only one that was contesting the center flag however. I'm unable to buy more attacks and the focus sits. I then use the Cipher to walk into the Demo Corps and start wailing, doing damage but not killing any models yet due to Sanguine Bond.
Once everything was done, I scored 4 points this turn: My zone, Brian's Objective, Center Flag, and the Right Flag. Brian scores nothing and I'm up 5-1.
Brian's Turn 3
The Demo Corps get Vengeance moves/attacks which result in getting a crit stationary result on my Inverter, who then starts taking tons of damage. Luckily my Cipher gets missed by both Demo Corps.
Irusk allocates one to the Rager, then moves up and casts Battle Lust on the Demo Corps and cast a second spell that I don't remember, giving me two feat tokens that I put on my Cipher.
Dragos annihilates the stationary Inverter, but the other Demo Corps start missing/not doing enough damage to my Cipher to take any systems out. The Siege Chariot impacts its way into the zone and takes a shot at my objective, which I shield guard to a servitor that doesn't slam into the objective.
Then Brian makes a mistake by using the Rager to try and attack my Inverter, using focus to boost damage rolls which then gives me more feat tokens which I put on the Inverter. Not much damage is done and to put insult over injury the Rager rolls a 2 and blows itself up. What Brian should have done was run to contest my flag.
Brian moves up the Suppresion tankers and sprays down the servitors on my flags, but isn't close enough to contest.
Realizing his error he charges the Shocktrooper UA into the TEP, doing decent damage but not enough to kill it. Neither of us score any CP's this turn.
My Turn 4
To end the game I simply move an Elimination servitor up behind the lone Shock Trooper and use gun fighter to plink her to death. An ADO moves to my right flag and I win the game on scenario 6-1.
Conclusions
After the game we spoke about how the Armored Corps list was slow, and then we remembered he would have had advanced move on a bunch of models.
After writing the report it's clear this would have helped him more than we initially thought about the game. He would have at least been in shield wall for my turn two shooting instead of having had to run, or he would have been significantly closer to charging me. The downside to this is that he potentially gets into my threat ranges with the Shock Troops who match up very poorly into Chain Weapon wielding Inverters.
The Siege Chariot ends up being effectively terrible in this match due to my high number of shield guards, and my winning the dice roll to go first really hurts on a scenario this live vs. a list as slow as his where he will be out threat significantly due to Road to War and Redline. Since he's so low on DEF I don't need Engine of Destruction to hit, allowing me to cycle Redline easily which would punish him moving up enough for scenario.
I think Brian just needs a few mods to his list and he can be in a much better position for this game, though I'm not sure this kind of melee oriented Armored Corps wants to fight into #RockLockeInCoC. Convergence guns can eat through Demo Corps and our best melee Jack can power right on through Shocktroopers shield wall.
As for evaluating Locke herself and CoC in general, I definitely liked the list. I appreciated the amount of firepower I can bring to bear in a jack focused list design while also having a high enough model count to be relevant at least early on in scenario and being able to have a competent melee threat as well.
I'm overall very excited to play CoC once the Scrum is over and enjoy the change of pace from Trolls. I think Destruction Initiative is very well positioned to excel in SR2018, and there may be some really strong play that can be done with a Prime Axiom that can create "free" servitors every turn to contest or score. Similarly I think that if I owned all the Obstructors I needed there may be some game for Clockwork Legion as well, but that's a separate question that requires some testing.
Finally, if you're playing Locke in Convergence, make sure to let PP know how much we appreciate her with #RockLockeInCoC
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