The Lions of Lodowice: Turn 13

September 17 is ‘Ladislav Day’ in Lodowice. When there isn’t a war on, citizens gather on North Bridge to commemorate a Catholic priest drowned by Protestant rioters in 1621. After tossing little decorated crucifixes into the Vistula at precisely midday (Saint Ladislav was lashed to a crucifix before his fatal baptism/cruise) locals hurry down to South Bridge clutching long-handled nets to see whose crucifix has completed the journey first. Strictly speaking, Poohsticks was invented in Poland in the Seventeenth Century.

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A2Z

A is for Alphabetised wargame, sim, and site news. Now and again, assuming I can persuade Austerity’s Blackburn Cirrus Bombardier engine to perform the miracle of internal combustion, I spend a day or two scouring Simulatia and Grognardia for stories with the potential to fascinate, startle, cheer, dismay or amuse. Those stories are then dehydrated, alphabetised and delivered, via articles like this one, to people who’ve got better things to do than plough through puff and platitudes.

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Disinterred Devil’s Advocate

I’ve written hundreds of articles during my twenty-odd years as a games inspector. As many of these appeared in the British version of PC Gamer magazine and nowhere else, now and again something from my archive may appear as a THC post. For a spell in the Noughties PCG UK ran an intentionally provocative single-page opinion piece every month. Thanks to titles like Sprocket, Through the Darkest of Times, and Gerda: A Flame in Winter* this 2009 ‘Devil’s Advocate’ isn’t quite as pertinent as it once was, but I reckon it still contains sufficient truth to warrant another airing.

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The Lions of Lodowice: Turn 12

I’ll need to tread carefully while writing and illustrating today’s report. Although house rules mean each team has perfect intel on enemy AFV movements, opposing grunts can move unseen until CMRT’s sophisticated spotting routines decide they’ve been detected.

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Peter Turcan’s Trireme Commander is actually pretty oarsome

Midway not only put me in a nautical mood, it reminded me that its designer, Peter Turcan, had released a game relatively recently. Launched in 2017, genre mermaid Trireme Commander garnered bouquets and brickbats in roughly equal measure. THC’s forerunner, The Flare Path, praised its unusual premise and staunch realism, but grumbled about its “curmudgeonly” ways.

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Friday Foxer #141

Unusually, you’ll need to download today’s brainteaser in order to tackle it. Fond of glider foxers but aware that they can be intimidating when presented as jpegs or printed pics, Roman has used GameMaker Studio to create the world’s first interactive example.

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