Pandemic diary: March 2022

This is the two-year anniversary of my first ever pandemic diary, and here we are in the third year of Covid. Last fall, Finland more or less decided to abandon our very successful covid strategy, and our government decided that it's time to "live again". There's a good summary of events here. Last time I wrote about this was December, when cases and hospitalizations were rising so fast that there was serious talk of a new lockdown, which mostly came to nothing.

It did affect us in adult education, though, as we were abruptly ordered to change everything in January to online teaching. Our heresy lectures, which would have included my Tolkien lecture, went with that weird pseudo-lockdown; we're now trying them again in October. Who knows what anything will be like then.

Since, though, we've returned to pretending there isn't a pandemic. You can see the results in the graphs below, which are from our government broadcaster. Hospitalization figures are, shall we say, alarming.

And deaths even more so.

I direct your attention to the fact that on New Year, some 1 500 people had died of Covid in Finland. On Friday 25.3. the official count was 2 985, and at this rate we may already have hit 3 000 by the time this post publishes. Sure, that's nowhere near Sweden and their 18 000 deaths; Finland has roughly half the population of Sweden, so we would still have to triple our death toll to get anywhere near out neighbors. But it's pretty sobering to think that half of Finland's Covid deaths have come in just three months in 2022. All because this fall, we decided that containing the pandemic is just too boring and unprofitable for our restaurant industry.

Judging from what I'm seeing on my Instagram, case numbers are only going to go up. It's just bizarre that we're back in a situation where nobody in authority seems to know what to do or want to do anything, and we're all out here trying to work out what kind of risks to take on our own.

Let's Play Adeptus Titanicus: The Battle of Bitter Tower

My miniature wargaming hobby started with second edition Space Marine in 1991. As near as I can remember, I saw the box at a toy store in Copenhagen, and somehow persuaded my parents to get it for me. I must have been all of ten years old.

It was one hell of a box, by the way: you got three whole starter armies (Marines, Orks and Eldar) and a Warlord Titan. Space Marine was an expansion to the original Adeptus Titanicus, which I think is where the whole 6mm Epic thing started. I've still got a bunch of my 6mm Titans, which I recall were to represent Legio Draco:

Space Marine et al. were followed by Epic 40,000, which was so unsuccesful it pretty much killed epic scale for GW altogether; 6mm resurfaced briefly with Specialist Games' Epic: Armageddon, but then vanished altogether. I played some Space Marine back in the day, but never really got around to any of the later Epic stuff. Now, though, I have the new Adeptus Titanicus starter set.

So yeah, I'm kinda reneging on my resolution to not start new projects, but in my defense (sort of), I already have quite a lot of Epic... Technically, new Adeptus Titanicus is a different scale from the old Epic stuff. We reckon it ends up being something very close to 1:200 scale, so this means I can assuage my regret at not getting to build any 1:100 terrain. I also feel that the scales are close enough that I can use these plastic ruins that came with the old Epic 40k boxed set with new AT.

I should try to find some of the Space Marine era cardboard buildings.

**

First, though, it's time to build the models from the starter set.

Cerastus Knight-Lancers

We'll start with these two little guys, since they have no weapon alternatives so there's no magnetizing or anything like that to be done. Like the two Renegade Armigers I already built for Warhammer 40,000, these Knights will also represent Auxilia Daedra and bear their black and silver heraldry. The body is Gunmetal Grey with a Black Ink wash. I used what I learned on my previous (28mm) knight build and painted the body and armor plates separately, and it was worth it. The armor is Black and Natural Steel, also with a light Black Ink wash.

I rather liked the trans flag stripe I painted on my Mechanicus knight, so I've repeated it on these guys as well.

In keeping with the Auxilia Daedra theme, I guess this has to be Cerastus Knight Banner Hircine, on account of the spear. I have to say, I'm not crazy about the models; I don't really like the gangly look. We'll see if they're any good on the battlefield.

Reaver Battle Titans

My first proper Titans! My Titan Legion is going to be Legio LXIX Venefica, or the Venom Legion, and these two are the first models to sport their green and gold colours. I got started while I was still working on the Knights by assembling and painting the Reavers' legs, and the backsides of all the little armor panels. The upper body was easier to assemble and paint in one chunk, but obviously magnetizing the weapons would be a thing. I started with the carapace weapons, where GW has made it delightfully easy: a 5mm magnet slots right into the carapace. The process is similarly easy on both carapace weapons, like this turbo-laser destructor:

Unless, that is, you fuck up the polarity of the magnet you're supergluing into the base of the rocket launcher, and get it stuck in there so badly that you end up building an entirely new mount out of green stuff. This time I stuck a magnet inside there, the right way around.

Once I cut it down a little bit, it doesn't look so bad, does it?

Next it was time to magnetize the shoulder mounts. I carved a more-or-less round hole in each:

And superglued in a magnet.

I used Primal Horizon's 1/8" * 1/16" magnets, and they fit in nicely without being overly fiddly. On the weapon side, I shaved a magnet-depth bit off the ball joint and just superglued a magnet on top of it.

When I was angry with myself for fucking up the Apocalypse Missile Launcher, I ordered a replacement, which meant I had doubles of the arm weapons. It's a bit of a drag that you would have to magnetize the connecting arms as well to be able to swap weapons from left to right, but I couldn't be bothered and just made a left-side and right-side Gatling Blaster.

Here's the gatling blasters and Reaver carapace weapons.

There's also the second set of Reaver weapons, and frankly, it's a bit weird that I had to go to imgur for the assembly instructions, as none were included in the box! This doesn't usually happen with Games Workshop. Also, I had to go to the online store to figure out which Titans went on which bases; all in all, this is the worst-documented GW product I've ever bought. Nonetheless, here are the shooty weapons.

Meanwhile, I was also practicing my Daedric on the carapaces and painting the heads. These are really models where I can't imagine not painting them in parts and then assembling them. The armor is obviously done in my favorite color, Luftwaffe Camo Green, and the edges are Old Gold with a Flesh Ink wash, as pioneered on my Custodes. The metal bits are just Gunmetal Grey with a black ink wash.

And the close combat weapons:

**

So here they are! I'm extending the starship naming convention from my Rogue Trader tabletop campaign to Adeptus Titanicus, which means my first Reaver Battle Titan will be called Cum ergo videritis abominationem desolationis, quæ dicta est a Lorgar propheta, stantem in loco sancto, qui legit, intelligat, referred to in brief as the Abominatio Desolationis.

While I was at it, I decided to see what it was that the prophet Daniel had to say about the abomination of desolation back in the day and found, somewhat to my surprise, some excellent Chaos theology. Therefore, I give you the Reaver Battle Titan Deos tuos non colimus, et thronum auream, quam erexisti, non adoramus, or in short, the Non Adoramus.

I think I want to run my Legio Venefica as Legio Damicium ruleswise. Since I don't really know how I want to play, I would ideally like to start with a legion that doesn't commit me to a specific playstyle. Damicium's abilities revolve around tanking damage, basically, and that's something that always comes in handy.

Warhound Scout Titans

Finally, the Warhounds: the Canes ad Lacerandum. Keeping with my Book of Daniel theme, they will be the Regnum transiit a te and the Et regnum erit velut ferrum.

I had a spare plastic ruin bit, so I went for a slightly more scenic base than usual. I think that means this one is the Regnum transiit a re.

The Warhounds didn't require quite as much separate assembly; I did the legs and bases in one go, then the torsos, carapace, heads and weapons separately. Magnetizing the weapons was quite easy, or maybe to be more exact, I was jaded enough at this point to just cut off the ends of the weapon arms and stick on a magnet.

I tried to be a little more elegant with the weapons, and shaved off the bottom of the sockets and stuck a flatter magnet inside.

I think the end result works quite adequately!

The Titans themselves were a fairly simple but satisfying paint job.

And here they are complete with heads and weapons! First, the Regnum transiit:

And the Regnum ferrum.

And the rest of their weapons:

**

So that's the starter set assembled!

I have to say, these are some of the best models I've ever built. The Reavers and Warhounds especially are more like small, high-quality scale models than Warhammer miniatures, and building and even magnetizing them has been deeply satisfying. I know some people are put off by the high cost of Titanicus models compared to other GW stuff, but I think they're worth it.

**

The obvious thing to do now was to try the game. I'm lucky enough that my good friend and colleague also has some Titans, which he was kind enough to bring over. I don't really have any proper epic terrain yet, so we set up a 4'×4' table with some improvised scenery.

That's Seamanship Hill in the foreground, the Del Monte Tower to the right, Communism Peak in the middle, and Bitter Tower at the back. We're playing the Titanic Clash scenario from the basic rules. You can see my opponent's Titans on the left, representing Ryza's own Legio Crucius: a Warlord and two Warhounds. I brought both my Reavers and the Regnum Ferrum. By coincidence, the two forces were exactly the same combined scale.

I had no real idea what I was doing, so I set up the Non Adoramus and Regnum Ferrum to attack on the right of Communism Peak, and hid the Abominatio Desolationis behind Del Monte Tower, so the opposing Warlord wouldn't immediately blow it up!

We were therefore quite dismayed to see the Warlord climb onto Seamanship Hill and open fire on the Non Adoramus!

One defining factor of this game was that I was very lucky with my void shield saves. Still, the Non Adoramus and Regnum Ferrum surged forward, engaging the lead Crucius Warhound.

The Crucius Warhound lost its shields and started taking heavy damage, so its princeps opted for a glorious death and charged at the Non Adoramus, while the other Warhound backed off to engage the Regnum Ferrum.

The Non Adoramus opened up on the enemy Warhound at point blank range, and won the honor of scoring Legio LXIX Venefica's first kill as its laser blaster tore apart the Warhound's legs. This sent it staggering back - straight into the Regnum Ferrum!

The collision knocked out the Regnum Ferrum's Vulcan mega-bolter, and the Crucius Warhound collapsed at the foot of Bitter Tower.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the battlefield, the Abominatio Desolationis emerged from the shelter of Del Monte Tower and turned to face the enemy Warlord.

My improbable streak of void shield saves continued as the Abominatio withstood the barrage of fire from the Warlord, and charged in!

As the Abominatio and the Warlord traded blows at point-blank range, the surviving enemy Warhound dodged out of the Non Adoramus's fire arc, its shields easily shunting aside the parting shots from the Regnum Ferrum's plasma blastgun. And with that, the battle was over!

If I recall correctly, the Regnum Ferrum ended the battle structurally compromised, but the destruction of the Crucius Warhound means that the Battle of Bitter Tower is technically a Legio Venefica victory. I certainly hope this was just the opening skirmish of a very long war!

**

For future reference, this was the Legio Venefica force in the Battle of Bitter Tower.

Reaver Battle Titan Cum ergo videritis abominationem desolationis, quæ dicta est a Lorgar propheta, stantem in loco sancto, qui legit, intelligat (Princeps Seniores) - 250 pts

 Melta Cannon - 35 pts

 Power Fist - 20 pts

 Turbo Laser - 20 pts = 325 points

Reaver Battle Titan Deos tuos non colimus, et thronum auream, quam erexisti, non adoramus - 250 pts

 Volcano Cannon - 25 pts

 Laser Blaster - 25 pts

 Apocalypse Missile Launcher - 10 pts = 310 points [635]

Warhound Et regnum erit velut ferrum - 180 pts

 Plasma Blastgun - 30 pts

 Vulcan Mega Bolter - 10 pts = 220 points [855]

I was very happy with my Warhound, and for my next game, I'm seriously considering bringing two Warhounds and a Reaver, which could make a Fortis maniple.

**

So, impressions. The rules are quite complicated, but not insuperably so. They're quite different from Space Marine, which I apparently remember better than I thought, since it caught me out a few times! I never thought the void shields could take that much punishment, and it's going to take a moment for me to internalize that in this game, getting up close and personal to a Warlord Titan can be a good idea!

Like I said, I was tremendously lucky on my void shield saves. I like the void shield rules, as you really need dedicated weapons to beat down the shields, and then the ones that do damage to armor. The Vulcan mega-bolter on my Warhound was simply excellent for the first, and just in case I want my Reavers to get up close and personal in the future as well, I think I'm adding a carapace Vulcan to my next Forge World order.

Overall, I definitely enjoyed myself, but I feel like I'm going to need several more games with just the basic rules before I get a handle on how this really works. But I'm very happy with my purchase, and delighted to be playing epic again after, well, decades!

Let's Read Tolkien 84: Vae Victis 5-6

Middle Earth, the War of the Ring 

Historical brief 

Should our reader be minimally acquainted with analysis of major military campaigns and examine the map of Middle Earth, he would easily ascertain that all actions of both new coalitions (Mordor-Isengard and Gondor-Rohan) were dictated by merciless strategic logic, undergirded by Mordor’s dread of being cut off from its food sources.

Chapter 5 starts the alternative history of the War of the Ring. Yeskov's comments on military history and strategy really reinforce the feeling from the previous chapters that he isn't nearly as clever as he thinks he is, but luckily the meat of these chapters is the diplomatic warfare leading up to the War of the Ring, and I like it.

After the White Council has decided on war, Saruman goes on diplomatic maneuvers. He assures both Théoden and Denethor, in this story the King of Gondor, that Mordor and Isengard only want peace, and teaches Denethor and Sauron how to use their palantírs to stay in touch. Gandalf, however, is also working: Théoden's son and heir is mysteriously killed, supposedly fighting orcs, and Éomer, prominent in the "war party" in Rohan, becomes the new heir. In a counterstroke, Isengard's accredited ambassador to Rohan, Gríma (missing his accent) arranges for some of Éomer's less cautious talk about the imminent succession to come to Théoden's ears, and Éomer is disgraced. Saruman's agents also arrange for King Denethor's truculent heir, Prince Boromir, to be sent on some fool's errand to the north. Much of this actually plays out a lot like the early game in War of the Ring, with Gondor and Rohan moving back and forth on the political track, which is a nice bonus; Yeskov's story predates the board game.

Things are going badly for Gandalf, so he raises the stakes: mysterious rangers from the north ambush several Mordor-bound caravans in Ithilien, and the parliament of Mordor, uncharitably described as "fear-crazed storekeepers" votes to send the army into Ithilien. Gondor responds by mobilizing and occupying Osgiliath.

Mordor then attempts to change the strategic balance by covertly sending four battalions of troops across northern Rohan to Isengard, to form a strike force to deter Rohan from going on the offensive. Unfortunately, the ploy is detected through the Mirror, and Gandalf informs Éomer, who takes advantage of Théoden's illness and his personal popularity among the troops to lead a cavalry force to rout the Mordorian troops.

As the Mordorian survivors withdraw to Fangorn, they "fell to the poisoned arrows of the Elvish bowmen in their tree perches". I can't pass this by without noting that this is a possible reference to Finland. One of the oddities of Stalin's invasion of Finland, i.e. the 1939-40 Winter War, is that for decades afterward, Soviet veterans would insist that Finnish snipers fired on them from trees, while the Finnish army maintains they never stationed snipers in trees. A treetop would be a terrible firing position anyway, and I can't think of any reason the Finnish military would lie about this, so it's a genuine mystery where this idea came from. This has been your random Second World War trivia of the day.

Anyway Gandalf succeeds: Éomer is hailed as a conquering hero, and Théoden has no choice but to go along. Soon enough, Éomer is clamoring to attack Isengard.

It's a plot point here, then, that food is imported into Mordor by caravans through Ithilien. Because the Ithilien crossroads are specifically mentioned several times, the caravans are presumably coming up the Harad road into Ithilien. I'm going to repeat myself, but this is flatly impossible, and also makes no sense at all. With the technology available in Middle-earth, it just isn't possible to transport sufficient amounts of food to feed entire cities by land over these kinds of distances. The amount of food needed to feed the animals doing the hauling would be so prohibitive that the logistics just cannot be done.

Also, we were told that the food comes from Khand and Umbar. Umbar is a seaport. It would be complete lunacy to haul anything by land from Umbar to Ithilien when you can get on a boat and sail up the Anduin. Even then, there's no way to get the food to Barad-dûr, but if the plot point was that food is shipped up from Umbar to Minas Morgul, that at least might make an ounce of sense.

There's a double irony here. It's not just the air of superiority which Yeskov has assumed over Tolkien and the didactic tone of his work, both entirely based on the idea that Tolkien hasn't bothered to think about the practicalities of the world he set his stories in - only for him to completely fuck up a key plot point in his story. But what's worse is that if Yeskov had realized that the food needs to be moved by water, it would have made the diplomatic maneuvering much more interesting. If the food was loaded onto ships at Umbar, the logical place to offload it would have been at Osgiliath - meaning Gondor would have been making good money out of the trade. Unfortunately this opportunity was lost.

If I was to write a sequel or response to the Last Ringbearer, I'd insist that it's flatly impossible for the Mordor described in the work to exist where it did, because the logistics are totally implausible. Mordor and Barad-dur must have actually been somewhere else, and the story was later transposed to Gorgoroth. Isn't it actually much more believable that "Barad-dur" was actually, say, Minas Tirith?

Since a Middle-earth Fomenko was already mentioned, I have to say that I finally feel like I'm living up to my potential as a student of Arabic and Islamic studies at the University of Helsinki, which I still technically am, by setting up as a Middle-earth Patricia Crone.

**

Meanwhile, the armies of Mordor and Gondor are facing each other across the Anduin in what Yeskov terms a "phony war". I don't quite know what to make of the constant anachronistic allusions to the Second World War, but to be honest by this point I'm getting kind of tired of them. If the idea here is that Tolkien's world is great, can it have an existence of its own instead of being a constant foil for analogies to ours? In other words, if Tolkien protested too much that nothing in Middle-earth was an analogy to anything, Yeskov damn near does the opposite.

Anyway this all changes with the loss of the four battalions sent to Isengard - we'll call them task force Grishnákh. We're told that even before the task force was dispatched, Mordor and Isengard were seriously outnumbered. Now, after the Battle of Fangorn, Mordor's forces are so depleted that they can no longer hold Ithilien and ensure the passage of the impossible food caravans. This means Mordor needs to drastically change their strategy and attack before Rohan conquers Isengard and the combined Gondor-Rohan forces take Ithilien.

Yeskov said earlier, of task force Grishnákh: "as it always is with strategic decisions, that could only be judged post factum: had the move worked, as it had every chance of doing, it would no doubt have been recorded as brilliant". He's trying to be very clever again, but this is flat out wrong. If the loss of task force Grishnákh invalidates Mordor's entire strategy and forces them into a desperate offensive, then the risk was far too great, and sending the task force was a mistake a priori.

Mordor's plan now is to gather as large an army as possible, and defeat Gondor quickly, before the Rohirrim can successfully besiege Isengard. This initially seems like a good plan, but the elves solve the Isengard problem: to the horror of Gandalf and the Rohirrim, they destroy the dams on the Isen, drowning the entire city of Isengard overnight. Worse, Mordor knows nothing of it, because Gríma has defected and taken Saruman's palantír with him.

The offensive by Mordor's South Army is still a success: they cross the Anduin, breach the Pelennor walls and besiege Minas Tirith. When Sauron offers Gondor peace in return for the right to occupy Ithilien, King Denethor agrees immediately. Before the agreement can be finalized, Denethor mysteriously falls ill, and with his heir, Prince Faramir, also indisposed, a figure in a white cloak takes over the negotiations as the military commandant of Minas Tirith. He insists that the peace treaty will be signed, everyone just has to wait a bit for the king to recover.

This is really almost lampshaded in the Siege of Gondor, when one of Denethor's servants asks Pippin: "Who is the master of Minas Tirith? The lord Denethor or the Grey Wanderer?" Pippin's reply, "The Grey Wanderer or no one, it would seem", verges on smart-alecky, and to be honest, what Gandalf does in the Lord of the Rings damn near amounts to a coup.

So, the South Army camps out around defeated Minas Tirith. What could possibly go wrong?

**

We're six chapters into the Last Ringbearer; let's take stock.

As a general writing tip, I would reconmend not starting a chapter with condescending nonsense about being "minimally acquainted with analysis of major military campaigns" and then completely fuck up the most elementary logistics of your grand war narrative, while also dropping snide remarks on strategy that are just rubbish.

So yeah, I have to admit that Yeskov's arrogance is really starting to grate on me. At best, it comes across as smart-alecky, at worst as sneering condescension; both combine poorly with the fact that he is a total dilettante when it comes to anything to do with the military. I really hope there's an actual story at some point, because while I like some of this stuff, I'm also reaching my limit on poorly written "ha ha look how much smarter than Tolkien I am" fanfic. If there isn't, I will just give up on this.

Next time: war.