"Firing into the Brown" #100 - spies, double revolvers and stuff

"So Carnehan weeds out the pick of his men, and sets the two of the Army to show them drill and at the end of two weeks the men can manoeuvre about as well as Volunteers. So he marches with the Chief to a great big plain on the top of a mountain, and the Chiefs men rushes into a village and takes it; we three Martinis firing into the brown of the enemy".

Kipling "The Man Who Would Be King"

Time for another update..  just a short one this week, and an apology for the hiatus over the last few weeks in the provision of drivel the blog is normally widely admired for ..  my regular reader will know that my other past time is sailing [clicky] and at this time of year my focus shifts to antifoul, paint, and epoxy.. 😁

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Very much enjoyed the book on Gordievsky by McIntyre, and then, as is the way of the algorithms, Amazon offered me a deal on this one..

I'll be honest and say that before I read the book, I'd never heard of Gordievsky but I think most people of my age have heard of Philby..  him and the others known as the Cambridge Four were undoubtedly the high water mark of Soviet counter intelligence in the war and post war years, up to the 60's, and were common parlance when I was a kid.. 

The book is not specifically about Philby's spying activities, as the author says plenty of others have already written those books, his interest is in the personal nature of what Philby did.. his relationships, both male and female, and the cause and effects of those relationships..

Philby was a product of  the dusk of British Empire, that period just before WW2 when the Empire was beginning to come to and end, but where school (Windsor, Eton or Harrow), University (Oxbridge) and club was more than an education, it was the passport to gainful and powerful employment. He went to Westminster, and then Trinity College Cambridge (it was there in 1930 that he developed his life long belief in Communism) so he had all the right ties and scarves to guarantee his later access to the Security Services (MI6) in 1940 on just the word of a few ex university and fellow club members whispering in the right ear - and that despite his earlier marriage to a known Communist, and membership and activity in a number of Socialist and Communist organisations at university. 

For the next 20 odd years, he sent untold numbers of documents to the KGB, and betrayed hundreds of American and British operations, causing the direct death of hundreds of people, and all while schmoozing an enormous number of friends in both the American and British Secret Services who had no idea what he was doing while they chatted 'shop' at the almost endless dinners and parties that seem to have been de rigeur at the time..  it is unbelievable that his friends and colleagues in MI6 covered for him and stood by him for years despite the concerns of MI5 and the CIA

Everyone said he was the most charming and likeable man - I reckon that he had more than an element of sociopath about him, and the huge emotional, psychological and personal cost to his closest friends when he was finally found out mattered not a jot to him...  excellent book..  9/10

More reading

• Wikipedia - Kim_Philby
• Wikipedia - Cambridge_Five

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Was thinking the other day (as you do while endlessly roller'ing on litres of stinky antifoul 😏) about how to represent twin six guns in "Ruthless". 

The rules allow a "shoot" action but the clear implication is that this is one shot from one weapon, and even a read of the campaign packs and design features shows that most characters only have the single firearm (at a time) option, but who hasn't seen those endless westerns where the plucky hero walks down main street with a gun on each hip..

Initial thoughts...  

• any character can fire twice in a turn just by using two actions, but that's just firing the same weapon twice, rather than true twin six guns firing at the same time
• my concern is that allowing a character to effectively fire twice per action runs the danger of turning the character into a walking machine gun, effectively, that's four shots per character turn (six if they get a bonus card allowing three actions)

...can I be there when you tell Clint he can't have two six guns... 😁

So..  I'm thinking that I will allow the two shots per action from twin six guns, BUT, the character will fire at -1 to hit (plus/minus any character traits which will also apply), and for game play/balance not too many characters should be so armed, they should be rare.

I think I will allow multiple targets (as it figures that a character with this level of gun play must be pretty skilled), but in order to fire the targets should be within 2" of each other.

Any character opting to shoot twice also can't claim cover while they're doing it - so any other character trying a "snapshot" that succeed would have the character in the open (the game allows characters to reserve fire for later in the turn "Got you covered", and also allows any that haven't fired to try and beat another character to the draw "snapshot")

Better set up a little test game to see how it works..

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 Laters, as the young people are want to say...