How to Win the Munchkin Way!

Lowder, James, ed.  The Munchkin Book.  Dallas, TX: BenBella Books, 2016.  
         ISBN: 978-1-939529-15-2

 If you have played any role-playing game in the past 30 years, be it D&D, Top Secret, Boot Hill, The Fantasy Trip, Traveller, or others not named and have not played Munchkin or its variants, what are you waiting for?  Go out and buy one of the basic sets that tickles your fancy. gather a group of like-minded "friends" and experience the hilarity of kicking in doors, fighting assorted monsters, gathering treasure, aiding and abetting mayhem while trying to be the first to get to Level 10.  OK, now that you have done that, read the rest of the review.

The Munchkin Book is The Official Companion to the Munchkin game system.  The fifteen essays, foreword, and introduction will certainly entertain and inform.  Steve Jackson opens the book with "Munchkin by the Numbers," a look at how Munchkin came about and plenty of numbers in regard to sales, variants, number of cards accompanied by stories related to the numbers.  Andrew Jones delves into the psychology of game theory as applied to the Munchkin universe.  The monsters gain a voice in Jennifer Steen's letters addressed to the maddening wandering adventures who keep disturbing the ducks.  Then Bonnie Burton blends Munchkin with romance in Flirting 101.  Liam McIntyre provides a play-by-play of a Munchkin Hollywood game (just a thought concept at the moment) that provides newbies plenty of game fodder to digest.  And the book ends with John Kovalic trying to choose his favorite cards from the various starter sets .  Of course there have to be cards separating the essays that can be used in Munchkin to "abuse" the printed rules and make for even more mayhem!  As the cover says: "Read the essays, (Ab)use the rules, Win the game!"

Hitler Gambles and Loses!

Beevor, Anthony.  Ardennes 1944: The Battle of the Bulge.  New York: Viking, 2015.
       ISBN: 9780670025312

 After writing about Stalingrad  and D-Day, Anthony Beevor decided to add another tome to the overflowing stacks of books written on the Battle of the Bulge, one of the iconic battles of the Western Front in WWII.  His reasons for writing Ardennes 1944 may be questioned, but not his credentials or skill in presenting the battle.

Beevor opens the book, as many recent volumes on the battle have, with a lengthy discussion on Hitler's role in deciding upon the gamble in the Ardennes followed by coverage of the fighting at Aachen, the Russian Front, and the Hurtgen Forest.  Then he covers the terrain and the initial combatants.  Then comes the main dish, the battle coverage begins on page 111.  With Chapter 8 Saturday 16 December, each day is generally a chapter with events and happenings for each part of the front included.  This lasts until Chapter 19 (Tuesday 26 December).  The last five chapters covers the Allied counterattack, the German Operation Nordwind, and the final conclusion to the battle.

Beevor penned a well-written popular history of the Battle of the Bulge with plenty of exciting stories while still providing the larger picture of the battle.  He provides sources and a select bibliography that can be useful in tracking down more details as desired.  Despite a slight emphasis in the coverage of the Bradley/Montgomery feud, Beevor portrays the Allied and German commanders with enough color that the reader can understand the whys and whats of decisions being made with the information known to the individual commander at that time.  If the reader wants a recent retelling of the Battle of the Bulge, Ardennes 1944 will do nicely.

601st Tank Destroyer Battalion Unit History

Failmezger, Victor.  American Knights: The Untold Story of the Men of the 601st Tank Destroyer 
       Battalion.  New York: Osprey Publishing, 2015.  ISBN: 978-1-4728-0935-3

American Knights is not your typical World War II history that looks at an individual battle, campaign, or the whole war.  Instead, it is a unit history of the 601st Tank Destroyer Battalion during World War II.  The 601st served in North Africa, Italy, and France attached to a variety of divisions, landing across the beach in Morocco, Salerno, Anzio, and Southern France.  It helped break the Colmar Pocket and then made it all the way to Austria by the end of the war.

Victor Failmezger had a relative who served in the 601st during the war and his letters acted as a catalyst in the writing of this book.  In addition to his relative's letters, he used diaries and letters of other soldiers, official unit reports, news articles, and other sources to provide a picture of the unit in action, at rest, and at play. 

The 601st was one of the first tank destroyer battalions to see action and also one of the last.  The unit used all of the tank destroyers in the US Army inventory during the course of the war, receiving multiple individual and unit citations.  If you want to read about a different fight, you are likely to enjoy American Knights.

The Civil War Custer

Hatch, Thom.  Glorious War: The Civil War Adventures of George Armstrong Custer.  New York:
         St. Martin's Press, December 2013.  ISBN: 978-1-250-02850-1

Today, George Armstrong Custer is best remembered for his actions at the Battle of Little Big Horn in 1876 that wiped out half of the U.S. 7th Cavalry.  But in 1876, General Custer was better known as a Civil War hero for actions at Gettysburg, Brandy Station, Yellow Tavern, and Appomattox.  Glorious War tells the tale of Custer's Civil War adventures.

Thom Hatch provides a heroic partial biography of George Armstrong Custer that covers his time at West Point and during the Civil War, ending with the Army of the Potomac marching through Washington, D.C.  He discusses the part played by Custer in numerous battles,  his time as aide-de-camp for McClellan, his wooing of Elizabeth Bacon, and his meteoric rise in rank from 2nd Lieutenant at Bull Run to Major General at Appomattox.  He also illustrates that Custer was a leader that men adored, willingly following him during charges against seemingly unbeatable odds.

Hatch provides a Custer that has some warts, but he does not dig into all the known faults and issues that other officers had with Custer.  He also spends a number of pages on Jeb Stuart that seen to have no bearing on Custer except to contrast the two cavalry icons.  But, if you want a hero to lead you through most of the Eastern Civil War battles, Glorious War will satisfy that itch.

Battle Winning Strategies or Maybe Not

Overy, Richard.  A History of War in 100 Battles.  New York, Oxford University Press, 2014.
         ISBN: 9780199390717

 Richard Overy seeks to provide a summary history of war through the ages by focusing on one hundred battles.  He opens with a introductory chapter (The Truth of Battle) and then dives into the battles, placing each in  one of five categories (Leadership, Against the Odds, Innovation, Deception, and In the Nick of Time).  For each battle, he provides a summary of the battle, concentrating on one of the "winning" strategies, and provides a piece of artwork that illustrated the battle or the general.

In each category, Overy cherry-picks the battles that he feels best illustrates the "winning" strategy.  He uses the summary to point out how that strategy lead to victory for one side or the other.  He uses battles from ancient to modern times which brings up the question of sources.  He provides a bibliography of sources used, but does not document which book was used for individual battles. Some of the sources are summaries of campaigns which he mines for quotes rather than battle histories.  He includes some errors of fact in the summaries (for instance the Argentine naval warship General Belgrano being listed as a troopship).   He also equates a campaign and/or war with a battle in regard to The Battle of the Atlantic, The Six Day War, and The Battle of the Falklands. 

Despite the above caveats, A History of War in 100 Battles provides a decent, readable, general history of these one hundred battles.  You do not need to agree with Overy's premises or  conclusions to understand the battles found in this book.

Have you read Galatians recently?

Oakes, Peter.  Galatians.  Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2015.  ISBN: 978-1-4412-4651-6

Commentaries are by nature books written about other books.  While many works of literature have commentaries (think of all that has been written discussing Shakespeare or Chaucer), when you think of  individual commentaries, you are likely thinking of a book on individual books of the Bible.  That is the case here.  Peter Oakes has written a commentary on Galatians that works on many levels.  He provides a nice overview of the book, highlights the major themes that he sees in Paul's letter, and then he digs into the individual chapters and verses.

Peter Oaks does a very credible job of setting Galatians in context of its time and location while relating the letter to the rest of Paul's letters.  He provides his own translation of the text and setts the major themes in relation to each other.  He works on developing the reader's understanding of how each part of the letter interacts and reflects with the rest of the letter.  He syntheses and documents other commentaries on Galatians without losing his own vision of the book.  The major quibble I have with Oakes' commentary is the abrupt ending.  An afterword would have been a nice addition.  Otherwise, a good choice for developing your understanding of Paul's Letter to the Galatians.

WW II Bombing Reassessed, Again

Overy, Richard.  The Bombers and The Bombed: The Allied Air War Over Europe, 1940-1945.
        New York: Viking, 2014.  ISBN: 978-0670025152

Years ago,when I was about 12, I got hold of my dad's Compact History of  the United States Air Force and managed to read it from the beginning with the Wright Flyers to the end of the Korean War and developments to 1960.  A large portion of that book dealt with the bombing of Germany and other locations in Europe and Asia during WWII.  So when I started reading The Bombers and The Bombed, I was entering semi-familiar ground. 

While Richard Overy does not write a justification for the Allied/German bombing campaigns; neither does he write a scathing condemnation of the bombing campaigns.  Rather Overy seeks to provide background on what Allied and German air forces concepts of bombing were in context of that time, the goals they thought achievable, the resources they had, and what was actually accomplished.  Alongside the bombers, Overy provides description and statistics on the effect the bombing had on the various populations being bombed, covering, England, Germany, Italy, and the rest of Europe in six chapters and an epilogue. 

Richard Overy writes serviceable prose with a purpose; he aims to show via the evidence presented that bombing does not win wars alone despite the stories told by air force generals and air power advocates.  He provides plenty of statistics and documents his assertions.  If you have an interest in World War II air war or air power in general, you are likely to enjoy reading The Bombers and The Bombed.