A Pair of Celtic Chariots

When I set up the gaming table for a planned battle of Telamon (see Telamon Not) back in January, I reckoned more Celtic chariots would be useful but not necessary for the battle.  Unfortunately, the pandemic prevented me from hosting the battle.  I never stopped thinking of the battle and when Newline Designs offered a late summer sale, I leapt into action. Of course, I did not stop with only adding Celt chariots to my shopping cart but a large pile of Hittites for good measure.  Will Newline Design offer a Christmas sale as is traditional?  I hope so.

Back to today's topic of activity at the painting desk.  Well, two more of the Newline Designs' chariots roll off from the workbench.  One final chariot is seeing work in the painting queue.  For today's effort, each chariot stand consists of battle cart, team, crew, and three foot attendants.  By my count, each stand totals 45 Painting Points.  This will provide a bit of a bump to the painting tally.  Actually, the number of figures painted, thus far, in 2020 exceeds expectations.  On to the photos...  

On the gaming front, gaming opportunities seem to be increasing.  Besides the two recent solo-play Pharsalus battles and a virtual AWI action, a second, virtual Rebels and Patriots (R&P) game is scheduled for Sunday.  Given that the last game was my initial exposure to R&P, I sat down with rulebook in hand and hammered out a QRS.  Not only does the QRS help to re-enforce what I read but also provides a handy guide for use during the game as a quick reference.  Now, I believe I hold a modicum of knowledge about game mechanisms. We will see how much sticks by the time game day rolls around.  My game host, Matt, offers up some freshly painted Continental guns for the game (see Continental Artillery).  I wonder if any will fit into the action's OB?

Second, another remote gaming opportunity surfaced.  Hooray!  The second gaming session will be guided by Graham behind the camera running a game of his To Ur is Human rules (see Graham's To Ur is Human blog posts for more information).  Great title, eh?  Anyway, I bought a copy of the rules when first published and look forward to giving them a run-out on the gaming table with the author, himself.  I thought I had written a review but could not find it.  Perhaps, I only thought about writing a review?  I know I wrote a first impressions for his It's Getting a Bit Chile rules (see First Impressions).  I will need to re-read To Ur is Human to get back up to speed before game day.  Should be fun.

Hittites on Parade

When showing the 18th completed unit for my 2020 Hittite project (See Hittite Call to Arms), several readers suggested a parade. Well, today a parade!  As a bonus, from the time of my last Hittite "call to arms" post to today, unit #19 has mustered out from the paining desk.  That stand is shown below:

What we have is a stand of javelinmen from Newline Designs.  Fine looking sculpts with a lot of character.  I like them a lot.

OK, back to the Hittite Army parade. The army consists of the following units:

8 x chariots

4 x bow

4 x javelin

3 x heavy spear

To fulfill my 20 BMUs of Hittites in 2020 pledge, one more unit needs to be called up.  I think that last unit will be one more chariot.  Still, a significant assortment of Hittites remain in The Lead Pile but a nicely sized army, thus far, don't you think?

Favorite Game Period: A Cluster Analysis

The prior series of GWS2020 analyses focused primarily on descriptive analysis of a few select topics or survey questions.  Today, we dive a bit deeper and turn attention toward predictive analytics.  

For now, we take the familiar favorite gaming period analysis one step further.  While earlier analyses counted responses across various categories, this analysis attempts to infer relationships and tendencies between respondents and their top selection of game periods.  To accomplish this task, the top five game periods for each respondent are identified and added into the study. Respondent's choices (the Top 5 per respondent) are aggregated and examined using statistical modeling techniques.  The technique for this study is cluster analysis in which game period choices are grouped in such a way that game periods in the same group are more similar to each other than to game periods in another group(s).

Some possible questions to consider before diving into the analysis are:

• Based upon gaming period choice only, do distinctions between historical and fantasy gamers emerge? 
• Do particular game periods tend to cluster together?  Which ones?
• If distinct groups emerge from clustering, are these distinct groups intuitive?
• Do favorite game periods group into reasonable and explainable buckets?
• What can be inferred from this analysis?

First, using only data from Question 12 showing a respondent’s favorite game period (Top 5 only), these data are aggregated and classified using unsupervised machine learning.  The result of this classification is illustrated in Figure 1.  Each of the 21 game periods are represented in the dendrogram.

Figure 1

Starting from the right and drawing a line across the first two branches of the dendrogram tree identifies two clusters of game periods (see Figure 2).  What does this primary division suggest?

Figure 2

This initial clustering cleanly bifurcates favorite game periods into two, distinct groups.  Based upon the periods found in each cluster, we can infer that there exists a clear distinction between Historical and Non-historical gamers with respect to favorite periods chosen.  Historical gamers tend to select other historical periods and non-historical gamers tend to stick with non-historical game periods.  Of course, there will be cross-over but in broad terms, this holds.  At a high level, this is a reasonable result.  What if more granularity is wanted?  What does the analysis suggest is the next clustering solution as focus moves farther out onto the dendrogram?

The next clustering solution as we move from right to left, crosses three branches as shown in Figure 3.  What is this three-cluster solution?

Figure 3

The three-cluster solution keeps Non-historicals intact but bifurcates historicals into two components.  I label this break-out as Pre-1700 and Post-1700.  Pike & Shotte, Medieval, Dark Ages, and Ancients are in the former and all other periods cluster into the latter.  It may seem odd that Pike & Shotte finds itself grouped into Ancients/Dark Ages/Medieval but notice that there is a distinction between Pike & Shotte and its trio of Pre-1700 compatriots.  Perhaps, this grouping is more focused on combat with hand weapons, primarily.  That is, spear, pike, sword, and bow?

There remains many game periods within the Post-1700 cluster.  Can the Post-1700 be broken into meaningful components?  For that, let's move to the five cluster solution as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4

In a five cluster solution, Non-historicals and Pre-1700 remain unchanged.  The Post-1700 group is split into three parts.  The three new clusters form the Age of Muskets/Rifles, Hollywood, and Modern.  Of course, these are general names I give to each group for my own identification but more interesting (and precise) identifiers are possible.  Suggestions?

The analysis could continue marching down the tree, pruning branches along the way to group game periods into even smaller groups, but I stop here for now.

What this exercise suggests is that aggregating the 10,783 survey respondents' answers to top choices of game periods brings forth underlying and hidden patterns.  These seemingly natural groupings are brought about simply by examining respondent choices in game period.  Notice, once again, the clear distinction between non-historical and historical game periods that the analysis identifies using no more than personal choice.  It is fascinating that distinct period clusters emerge from within this one analysis.

If there is interest, I can continue the analysis by climbing out on a limb to investigate these ever smaller tree branches.  Hopefully, I do not prune the branch upon which I am sitting.

As always, questions and comments welcome.

Pharsalus: Caesar v Pompey

My second solo battle of Pharsalus in which pitted Caesar against Pompey is in the books. The earlier battle (see Pummelling Pompey) saw Caesar come out with a convincing victory.  In a rematch, can Pompey even the score?

As in the earlier battle report, the battle is fought out on the Commands & Colors: Ancients (CCA) board using 6mm figures.  Play-by-play is embedded within each photo.  To view as a slideshow, click on one of the photos to activate. 

Well, Pompey came close to victory and certainly provided a much better opponent for Caesar than in the first game.  The battle featured much back and forth with punch and counter-punch a common feature.  Still, poor Pompey came up short but victory was within his grasp on more than one occasion.  CCA, again, produced a very fun solo challenge.  For now, the 6mm Ancients armies are packed away until next time.