Pandemic diary: March

Now that there's a pandemic, several people have said we should write diaries. I already have this blog, so why not.

In my mind, our pandemic experience starts on March 9, when we took the boat to Sweden. We'd booked the trip on Silja Serenade ages ago, and there was no official word at the time on any travel restrictions. I was also quite keen to visit our friendly overseas gaming store and pick up a copy of Star Wars: Armada for 75% of what it costs in Helsinki. Given that it was a Monday departure, the ship was surprisingly crowded. We mostly kept to ourselves and tried to practice good hygiene, and had a nice, quiet trip to rainy Stockholm and back. I had an excellent lasagna at Michelangelo's in the Old Town, where they have a printout from Puma Swede's Instagram on the wall.

The trip turned out to be kind of a blessing in disguise. I had a regular cold shortly before it, but with all the talk about covid-19 and so on, I was a little bit nervous about continuing my teaching. Next Monday we were due to start the second run of our history of heavy metal lecture course in Kallio, and that Wednesday I was supposed to give my next lecture on the history of Britain in Hamina. The course in Hamina is specifically for pensioners, and the average age is well into the risk group for covid-19, but I was already anxious enough about giving them my cold. I loved giving those lectures, they were a great crowd, so I didn't want to skip out on them either. The issue was resolved when our government advised that everyone who's been abroad should quarantine themselves for two weeks. Shortly after my lectures were cancelled, both the Helsinki and Hamina adult education institutes were shut down.

Speaking of our government, the current cabinet has really risen to the occasion. At first both our politicians and civil servants took a very bizarre and frankly irresponsible line of trying to assure everyone that we would be fine and nothing was going to happen. One of our chief health officials even said we would only have "some individual cases". Of course, in a country where no-one is ever responsible for anything, you can say anything. There's a far more learned critique than mine here (in Finnish). After this initial nonsense, though, they've done very well and been decisive. I can't sufficiently express how delighted and relieved I am that we kicked the previous clowns out. Had the elections gone differently, we might still be ruled by the most incompetent peacetime prime minister in history: a religious fanatic and idiot. Not to mention his buddies the fascists. They'd be setting up concentration camps.

It's difficult to not feel a real sense of horror at what's going on in the UK and US. If anyone had written a satire say five years ago, where the president of the United States is a completely debile reality-tv con man who seriously suggests forcing Americans to go to work in a pandemic to save the stock market, and his sycophants solemnly declare that maybe the elderly need to die for the great leader's hotels and portfolio, I would have thought it vulgar and unrealistic. Shows what I know. I'm so sorry for everyone who has to live in these idiocracies, and genuinely terrified of what might happen.

A lot of people are struggling with social media and news in the middle of all this, and I get it. It's a fine line for media to walk between keeping people informed and stoking panic. For example, I read the Guardian online regularly, and I have to say I don't like the entire front page being nothing but coronavirus news. I mean yes, it's a pandemic. But there are also other things happening in the world, and I don't think it does much good for anyone's mental health to be bombarded with black backgrounds and huge headlines on the latest covid mortality.

The social media have been interesting. I'm happy to say I wasn't following anyone on anywhere who spreads disinformation, but what I didn't expect were the people who took this occasion to unleash their inner authoritarian. It's quite something to see people who previously self-identified as whatever particular shade of left-anarchist or something like that take to the social mediums to scream "shut up and obey" at anyone with the slightest criticism of the official response. Even a pandemic is not a time when we suspend democracy and discussion, no matter how badly someone's inner commissar wants to. The serial trolling and disruption the far right get up to even in these times is another thing entirely, but if you can't tell the two apart, well. Like the Finnish joke goes, if you can't tell the difference between a cow's ass and a mailbox, I'm not sending you to post a letter.

On a more personal level, we've effectively been self-quarantineing since we got back from Sweden. I made one last trip to the university library the day before it closed, and since then it's been groceries and the occasional walk, all while maintaining social distancing. We've obviously cancelled all our board- and tabletop gaming and are trying Here I Stand by email; it'll be interesting to see how that goes. I'm experimenting with shopping at the 24-hour supermarket nearby. It's a bit of a walk, but it's very quiet there after midnight. The infuriating thing is that there are constant shortages. Not because of any disruptions in supply, but because my idiot countrymen are hoarding everything. On one particular day, the bastards had cleared out all the peanut butter. Peanut butter! The only thing more ridiculous was the great toilet paper panic, which as near as I can tell was based solely on news and social media posts of people hoarding toilet paper abroad. We as a nation have a permanent hard-on for "exceptional circumstances", and then when they actually come about we go berserk over toilet paper. We are a very silly people.

I'll admit that I've been feeling some anxiety, and apart from midnight walks to the grocery store and the occasional spot of cooking, have struggled to be particularly useful or productive. I'm obviously worried about my parents and some of my friends, especially my colleague in lockdown in Italy, but I also have some very bad childhood experiences related to calling in sick, and having to cancel lectures brought them back very strongly. Even now with my employers shut down and my courses cancelled, I feel like I should be working and everyone is angry at me for skipping out. I know it's stupid, but there you are. I've already rescheduled some lectures for August, but we'll see. I think we're in this for the long haul, and I wouldn't be surprised to see some movement and socializing restrictions in place well past summer.

But at least for now we've been reasonably healthy, and I'm getting some painting done. Some parts of my previous life, which has always mostly felt wasted, turn out to have been surprisingly good preparation for a pandemic. Keeping very late hours and walking around deserted suburbs at night? Now useful experience for midnight grocery runs. Mentally habituating myself to extreme feelings of loneliness? Incomparably useful, and also now there are no social events to feel left out of. I'd also like to extend a special thank you to past me for buying boxes and boxes of miniatures without the least inkling of when I'd ever have the time to build them, let alone paint them. Well, that time is now.

Anyway I expect I'll be doing several more of these. I hope anyone who reads this is well and stays that way. Happy quarantine, everyone!

Let's Play Here I Stand - by email

I don't know why it took me so long to find out that GMT Games has done an epic board game on the Reformation, but now that I know about it, we're definitely playing Here I Stand. A monstrously complicated card-driven game with a 40-page rulebook and separate setup guide, Here I Stand has mechanics for everything from theological debates and French chateaus to Ottoman piracy and circumnavigating the world, not to mention a table where you roll to find out how Henry of Eight's love life is going, complete with an individual cardboard counter for each wife. At the end of the day, whoever has the most victory points wins.

Our bodies are not ready; they will not be ready; nonetheless we are doing this.

**

After a succesful attempt at the Game of Thrones board game, we got most of the gang back together for a game of Here I Stand. We're uniquely qualified to play this. I'll be first in player order as the Ottomans; I've majored in Arabic and Islamic Studies in the past, and most importantly, I've read Mikael Hakim several times. Also, here's a picture of me at the Reformation Wall in Geneva.

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Vacation, day 3. The trip continues; until I get back online, enjoy this selfie I took with Oliver Cromwell at Geneva's absolutely ludicrous Reformation Wall.

A post shared by Michael Halila (@michaelhalila) on May 26, 2017 at 12:46am PDT

Perhaps even more impressively, we've arranged to have players with theology degrees represent both the Vatican and the Protestants, so I fully expect those theological debate mechanics to get a thorough working out. With three less theological but very competent board gamers representing France, England and the Hapsburgs, we are ready to Here I Stand.


**

Our first attempt took eight grinding hours, during which we managed to play a grand total of three (3) turns.

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A post shared by Michael Halila (@michaelhalila) on Feb 22, 2020 at 1:49pm PST

For posterity, let it be recorded that the first card played in the first action phase was Shipbuilding, as the event. This actually turned out quite well for me, since Barbary Pirates came out fairly early, and the Hapsburgs invaded Algiers and I had to go through quite some trouble to drive their fleet back! Meanwhile, the other bastards played both Revolt in Egypt and War in Persia, so my armies disappeared off to fight these foreign wars very quickly; while I did knock out Hungary-Bohemia, I spent most of the game firmly on the back foot as I had very few cards or troops.

Meanwhile, the Reformation got off to a slowish start and the Diet of Worms ended in stalemate. Things looked bad for France when England declared war and invaded, with Hapsburg troops massing on the Spanish border, but the English army was outflanked and defeated, and the Hapsburgs not only made peace with the French but actually allied with them. The French built some chateaus and drove into Italy, which left them with the most victory points when we hit our time constraint during the third turn.

**

Based on our initial attempt, I only really have three criticisms of Here I Stand. One is that the board can get very cluttered at times; to the extent that it can genuinely get confusing trying to figure out what is where, especially looking down the length of the board. The other is that the rules really can be absolutely bewildering at times, especially when trying to look something up in mid-game - which, quite frankly, is something that's going to be happening a lot. It's been said that none of the individual rules in Here I Stand are particularly complicated, and I sort of accept that. But the problem is the sheer volume of rules, which makes it really difficult to get a handle on all of them. So to put it mildly, a generous amount of time needs to be allocated to poring over the rulebook in-game.

This really exacerbates the third and biggest problem: it can be a long time between player turns. When the Protestant player slaps down A Mighty Fortress and starts making his six reformation attempts in Germany, requiring us to dig out the rulebook and figure out exactly how many dice he's rolling and who wins ties where, and you're a player with no direct stake in any of this - how do you not tune out? It can also be mildly frustrating when players are getting very different amounts of cards; I spent something like half of turn three just hanging around, watching the Hapsburgs demolish my position in Hungary, since I started with three cards and he had seven or eight.

The sheer complexity of the rules can make it very difficult to get invested in the game, and the amount of downtime between turns can make it very difficult to stay invested. Despite this, I found Here I Stand to be an absolutely fascinating experience; I can easily understand how someone else might find it to be anything but.

**

Having said this, I feel that Here I Stand is an absolutely extraordinary game, and I feel privileged to have had the opportunity to play it. Our original plan was to dedicate a summer weekend to playing it properly, but then, of course, the coronavirus happened. We've quarantined ourselves and cancelled all our gaming activities for the spring; in practical terms, you could say we're stuck here in our apartment and there's not a lot we can do about it.

So instead of a weekend of Here I Stand, we're going to be responsible citizens and play out this reformation the old-fashioned way: by email. With the help of my partner, I will be maintaining the physical board in our living room, and everyone will be e-mailing in their moves. Here it is, by the way:

Both the rulebook and scenario book are available for download on the GMT Games website. We'll be playing the long campaign, obviously. I'll be doing regular updates on this blag and my social medias as well; because there will be a full written record of every move, I can post a play-by-play account here. I'm going to shoot for one post per turn, but we'll see how it goes.

Finally, I thought I'd say a couple of words about each faction and their starting position in the game, so that if anyone wants to follow along they'll have some idea where everyone's starting from. Every faction also has a home card (the Papacy has two), which is never discarded and always returns to that player's hand.


The Ottomans

Fresh from the conquest of Constantinople, the Ottomans are ruled by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent and start the game at war with the minor power Hungary-Bohemia. Historically, this was when the Ottomans laid siege to Vienna but eventually had to withdraw. The Ottomans are the only power that can build corsairs and gain victory points through piracy.

The Ottoman home card is Janissaries. Named after the slave soldier corps that came to dominate the Ottoman military, the card can be played for five command points, or used to generate troops or affect a combat.

The Hapsburgs

The mightiest power in Europe, Emperor Charles V rules modern-day Spain, the Netherlands, southern Italy, Austria and Germany. They're still embroiled in the Italian Wars with France, which started in the previous century, and so start the game at war with France. As ruler of Germany, the Emperor also gets involved in the religious struggle, and with a conquistador already underway, they also have a headstart to the New World. There's no areas of the game where the Hapsburgs aren't involved.

The Hapsburg home card is Holy Roman Emperor. The card represents Charles V charging around his widely dispersed empire, and can be used to move him about and conduct operations, making sure the Emperor is always in the thick of it.

England

English policy on the eve of the Reformation is concerned with exactly one thing: producing a lawful heir for Henry VIII. There's a pregnancy table for his wives and everything. Also, as the game goes on, the English Reformation starts, and everything generally gets more complicated. The English are secure on their island, but have to reach out in order to win.

The English home card is Six Wives of Henry VIII, which can be used to declare war on England's traditional enemies (i.e. everyone) or pursue Henry's quest for a male heir.

France

The French start the game under the rule of Francis I, a great patron of the French Renaissance. The French are trying to conquer Italy, but can also gain victory points by building chateaus and, of course, colonizing the New World.

The French home card is Patron of the Arts, which is good for either 5 command points or building a chateau.

The Papacy

The Medici pope Leo X is going to have his papacy blighted by that dude from Germany. The Vatican holds very little territory and is at war with the French over North Italy, and needs to divide their attention between preserving their holdings and fighting the German heresy. They can gain victory points by building St. Peter's Basilica, which is what exacerbated the heresy in the first place, and have the theologically delightful action Burn Books for 2 CP.

Uniquely, the Papacy has two home cards: Papal Bull and Leipzig Debate.

These let the Pope excommunicate Christian rulers and call theological debates to try to quash the rising Protestant heresy.

The Protestants

Speaking of heresy, here's the last of the six factions in impulse order. Until the Schmalkaldic League event happens, the Protestants play very differently from the other factions: with no military or controlled territory, they focus on converting spaces on the map to Protestantism.

The Protestant home card is Here I Stand, which lets them insert Martin Luther into debates or find cards in the discard pile so they can get their various conversion events into play.

The battle between the Protestants and the Catholics is tracked on the Religious Struggle Card:

**

So, the game has been set up, the e-mail thread has been started: for the next who knows how many months, we are Here I Stand. You can read what happened on the first turn here!

Let's Play Scythe

We've played several games on the boardgamegeek.com all-time top ten list: Star Wars: Rebellion, Twilight Struggle, and a lot of Terraforming Mars. These have all been simply excellent, so it seems inevitable that we would get around to trying Scythe.

Ilya Repin: Barge Haulers on the Volga (1870-73)

**

What sold me on Scythe immediately was Jakub Różalski's art on the cover. The image of farmers in a field, with giant mechs striding in the background, was like a steampunk Simon Stålenhag painting: beautiful and wonderfully evocative.

The contents of the box live up to the cover art. Basically everything is well-made: the player boards are pleasantly sturdy, all the art is absolutely lovely, and I really like some of the character and mech miniatures. The map is colorful and can be a little tough to get a handle on at first, but it works and is really quite pretty. This is just a quality product, and I'm very happy with it.

Scythe is set in a sort of dieselpunk alternative history 1920's Central Europe, where slightly hokily named factions like Polania and Rusviet vie for control of the land and resources around the mysterious Factory. Rusviet especially is just such a stupid name. Anyway each player gets a randomized faction and player board, resulting in a combination like Agricultural Saxony or Patriotic Nordic, which is what I ended up with. Below is a view of my boards, with my blue mechs on the left.

Each player starts with a character and two workers on the board, and several more workers and four mechs waiting to be deployed. Your workers produce resources and more workers, and the resources are used to deploy mechs and build stuff. Building mechs also unlocks abilities for your character and mechs, and the mechs can transport workers around. Your character can get into encounters and explore the factory, and of course your character and mechs can fight the other players' characters and mechs.

The objective of the game is to earn more coins than your opponents, which is done by completing various tasks and earning stars; once someone earns their sixth star, the game ends and everyone calculates how many coins they get, which is based on how much popularity their faction has accumulated. It feels a little unnecessarily complicated, but I guess the point is that it makes it difficult to figure out who's winning while the game is still going on.

This all leads to Scythe being sort of a halfway house between an engine-building game like Terraforming Mars and a more traditional strategy board game, and it does kinda work. It helps that mechs are inherently very cool. In our first game, I found it a little difficult to figure out what to do, but one clever thing that helps is that the actions you can take are all found on your player board - and you can't pick the same one twice in a row. You place a counter on the action you've picked, and on your next turn you have to move it to another action. It's good to reach the Factory as quickly as possible with your character, but to get there you need to cross a river. This requires deploying the mech that unlocks the riverwalk ability, which requires producing metal. So getting started is easy in that sense: you pretty much alternate between moving and producing until you get the mech deployed, and then it's a race to the Factory.

Our first game was mostly a matter of figuring out how everything works. I'll admit I didn't have much of a strategy beyond trying different things and trying to get to the Factory first, which I did get done. The Crimean player was somewhat aggressive and got into several fights, which was good because we got to try the combat system! Me and the Soviet player were a little more passive, and eventually Saxony won the game with a military offensive.

Our first Scythe experience was fun enough that we're definitely trying it again! Like I said, I kind of struggled to figure out what exactly to do, especially as it wasn't altogether clear how the game was really scored and what could be a succesful strategy, but I'm absolutely willing to give it another shot.

**

I like the miniatures, but I have to admit that the grey character models do look a bit drab. The obvious thing to do is paint them! I've decided I will do this in the order that the factions win in; in other words, I'm painting Saxony first since they won our first game. The Saxon leader, Günther, is a fairly basic comedy German type with a greatcoat and spiky helmet, and since I have the relevant German military colors from the Vallejo range to hand, I think this will be a fairly simple undertaking. So I figured I might as well paint the mechs while I'm at it.

The first step was gluing some very tiny-grained sand from an ancient Woodland Scenics set to the bases, and spraypainting everything white. The mechs got a base coat of Gunmetal Grey, and a Black Glaze wash to bring out the crevices between the panels and dull the shine of the metal. I then painted the fighting compartment Medium Sea Grey, and made little German crosses with Off White and Black. I'm looking for a sort of combination of a military vehicle look and the dieselpunk style of the game art, and I think I've done okay.

As for Günther, I took my lead from Warlord's Finnish paint scheme, which I quite liked and which is, after all, based on German uniforms. So Günther's tunic is in Medium Sea Grey, the boots and Pickelhaube are black, and his belt and holster are Chocolate Brown. The inside of his overcoat is Dark Red, and the outside is German Fieldgrey; his face is Basic Skintone and the beard and hair are Light Grey with some Neutral Grey spots. Nacht got a coat of Black Grey, with some German Grey on his back, although I'm not sure it's possible to tell! His eyes are Silver Grey. As the least interesting character in the base game, Günther is very much the archetypical cruel German, and I've tried to capture that here.

Finally, I painted the bases Tan Earth, gave them a brown ink wash, and sprinkled some tiny flock over them. The edges were done in their faction color: black. Saxony is now ready to take the field again!

**

In our next game, I was Agricultural Crimea, and I got off to a decent start.

I even got into it a bit with the Soviets at the Factory, kicking out their mech, and soon enough Saxony launched an all-out attack through the tunnels.

We withstood the blitz, but soon afterwards the Soviets won by grabbing the Factory.

Two games in, I feel like I'm still struggling with the pace of the game. I managed to score several stars, but then fell way behind and finished second to last. I think I have to try pursuing those stars a lot more aggressively in the future.

**

So, next up, I'm painting the Soviets. I love the boxy mechs with their scythe arms, but I have to admit, I'm not looking forward to painting a Siberian tiger!

The mechs were easy enough to paint: I have some Camo Olive Green, which I think is the recommended color for Soviet tanks, so in keeping with what I did with the Saxons, I painted the fighting compartment in the appropriate tank color and the legs and guns in Gunmetal Grey. I decided to paint the scythes Brass and am very happy with the result. Finally, I added some big red stars.

Above, the tiger has a base coat of German Camo Orange Ochre on top and Off-white along the bottom. I thought Siberian tigers would be orange, or maybe white and grey like a snow leopard, but the Wikipedia page tells me they're more yellow or even red. Below I've done a light drybrush in Dark Sand and stripes in German Camo Black Brown. Olga is wearing a Basalt Grey fur hat and a Black Grey coat; the metal bits on the mechs have been given a wash of Black Glaze and Smoke.

Here's the finished product!

**

With two factions painted, it's time to give some serious thought to how I'm going to store these miniatures. The plastic packaging that came with the game is great - as long as you don't paint the miniatures! A foam insert can also damage paintwork, and hell, I want to show these off. As it happens, we've got some transparent plastic chocolate boxes that are pretty much perfectly sized for two Scythe factions. So what I did is I cut out two sheets of cardboard to a size where they"ll fit on the bottom of the box. I then cut holes into one sheet for my Saxons' and Soviets' bases, and lined the holes with brown felt.

It sure ain't pretty! My original idea was that the models would go in the holes, but they're not quite big enough, so actually the bases are going to rest on the felt. This is fine, as it'll protect the edges of the bases from wear as well. Then I stuck another piece of cardboard on top and glued some ballast onto it.

It still ain't pretty! But with a paint job of Tan Earth and brown ink, it matches the bases of my painted models and holds them more or less in place, like so:

**

Finally, we tried another four-player game with a player new to our group, but who had played Scythe before. Nobody ended up getting Saxony, but at least my newly-painted Soviets would hit the board.

I found myself playing Engineering Poland, and decided to really go for those stars this time. Also I really like the white mechs!

Of course, everyone else was also going for it, and apart from the Crimeans, who ended up kind of bottled up in their starting territories, we played a surprisingly aggressive game! By which I mean there was just one single combat, but especially the Soviet player was quite assertive in taking over territory, and we all racked up quite a lot of stars. Incidentally, I thought Olga and the Soviet mechs looked great on the board!

Eventually, it was the Nordic player who got the sixth star, and the win. Even though we took a moment to go through the rules and didn't play with any particular sense of urgency, we still got through a complete four-player game where everybody got a lot done in under three hours!

So what this means is that I now have to paint a musk ox.

But that's one for next time!

**

A verdict, then. I like Scythe, although perhaps not as much as I might have expected to given how much it's been hyped up. It's paced a lot faster than most comparable games, I think, and that did throw me off quite a bit at first. But it also means that even though this is a fairly complex game, you can still easily get through it in an evening, and that's definitely a good thing!

I do kind of feel that there's some complexity for the sake of complexity here, or at least some features that could just be dropped from the game without really affecting it. The encounter cards don't really add a huge amount to the game, but I don't mind them at all because the art is simply gorgeous. But things like the structure bonus tile, which provides a triflingly small amount of coins for particular placements of buildings, barely seems worth the effort at all. I assume some of these things, like the slightly convoluted scoring system, are there to try to obscure who's winning, and it's decently succesful. But especially for new players, there's quite a lot to take in, and I'm not sure it's all actually worthwhile. There also isn't perhaps as much player interaction as I might have liked, because to an extent everyone is building their own resource engine; although this may well be different with higher player counts.

Having said all this, I'm pretty sure we're going to end up playing more Scythe! I think several other people in our little gaming group like it more than I do, and I'm quite happy to play it with them. It's just that I think I've had more fun painting the miniatures than I have playing the game! We'll definitely be trying the Invaders from Afar expansion, which raises the maximum player count to seven, because that's definitely something I want to experience. In the mean time, if you're at all into the idea of a very pretty engine-building strategy game with really nice miniatures, I think you'll find Scythe well worth your money.

Now I'm off to plan some 28mm mechs...

Let's Read Tolkien 66: The Siege of Gondor

Pippin was roused by Gandalf.

Meanwhile, at Minas Tirith, Peregin is waiting on Lord Denethor. As the city prepares to defend itself against Sauron, the Steward of Gondor argues with Gandalf and bullies Faramir, who brings news of Frodo for Denethor to bicker with Gandalf and abuse Faramir over. The enemy is coming, though, so Denethor browbeats Faramir into heading back out to command the defense of Osgiliath, all the while complaining about how he wishes Faramir had died instead of Boromir. I mean to be honest, Denethor is just a complete asshole.

Soon enough, Sauron launches his assault, and Faramir is badly wounded leading the retreat. Denethor finally snaps and orders a pyre built for him and Faramir, and Pippin runs off to find Gandalf. The chapter ends very dramatically with the Witch-king blasting open the gate of the city with magic (and a battering ram), and confronting Gandalf as the horns of the Riders of Rohan sound in the distance.

**

So here we are: the War of the Ring is definitely underway. Tolkien isn't very interested in the practicalities of warfare, and I'm grateful: fictional military history is invariably murderously boring. Sauron's armies advance through sheer attrition, and psychological warfare is far more important to the narrative than maneuver or stratagem.

A more interesting military practicality that's missing here is the barrack-room: although Peregrin is now a soldier in the army of Gondor, he only really interacts with Beregond. We barely get any glimpse at all of anyone else or what they get up to in their spare time. Of course this is partly because of Pippin's unusual duties, and admittedly I only ever spent a very brief time in uniform, but I still think it's a little weird that he leads such a solitary existence. Tolkien, of course, was an officer, who earlier referred to soldiers as "Uruk-hai", so it doesn't seem much of a stretch to suppose that barrack-room life was alien and repulsive to him and therefore elided. For particular contrast, look at the descriptions of barracks life in the Deed of Paksennarion by Elizabeth Moon, who was a US Marine.

As in the previous Gondor chapter, the shadow of war is very strongly present, this time even more literally: the sun is completely obscured. The Nazgûl fly around screaming and wear down morale even before Sauron's armies actually show up. They cross the Anduin: "in secret they have long been building floats and barges in great number", echoing both Napoléon's and Hitler's planned invasions of Britain with masses of smallcraft.

I can't entirely decide if the decision to defend the walls of Rammas Echor and the crossings at Osgiliath was a mistake or not. Faramir points out that even if they lose one man to the enemy's ten, they're still the losers of the exchange, which is undoubtedly true. Delaying actions are among the most difficult military operations, and I'm not even really sure how you'd actually go about fighting one with essentially medieval infantry against a massive horde of orcs. Still, though, Rohan only shows up in the nick of time, so arguably had the enemy not been delayed, they would have been too late.

Thematically, the strongest contrast in the chapter is between Denethor and Gandalf. Where Gandalf has throughout been humane and compassionate, Denethor is spiteful and abusive, especially of Faramir, who he practically drives to his death. I'll talk more about Denethor at the denouement of his story, but in the military history vein, I wonder if there's some commentary here on British military leadership in the Great War. Pippin misunderstands Gandalf's report of the Witch-king of Angmar and thinks that Sauron himself is coming, and Denethor laughs this off, pointing out - quite correctly - that Sauron acts through others, and will only show up to gloat when the battle is over. Gandalf, meanwhile, visits the soldiers on the ramparts (very directly analogous with trenches here!), and leads the cavalry sortie - while for all his boasting about his sword and hauberk, Denethor hides away in a tower, snipes and moans and complains, and eventually abandons his duties completely. So he, like Sauron, also sends others to do his work.

The obvious contrast between Gandalf and Denethor is that one has faith while the other despairs, but one leads by example and personal touch, while the other hides away in the rear. No 20th-century general really "led from the front" - when Erwin Rommel went charging about in his command vehicle, he effectively abandoned overall command to his tremendously competent staff officers - but British generals of the Great War received heavy criticism from some quarters for setting up in luxurious chateaus far from the front line and commanding by missives from their comfortable surroundings, entirely detached from the reality of the front. I don't recall Tolkien commenting on this in his letters, but now that I was thinking about this chapter in military history terms, the thought occurred to me that Denethor and Gandalf do have very distinct leadership styles, and there is a possible analogy to the First World War there.

**

Next time: horses.