This is not going to be a long account of all the interesting sights Sue and I saw during or after my time at Origins. Primarily, it derives from my brief from the Kindly Editor to explain the differences between British and American wargaming. However, since I found most of them out on the trip, some mention of people and places becomes inevitable. I will make the point right now that we were treated like royalty, lavishly entertained in people's homes, fed on the fat of the land, given recipes to take home, and passed handto-hand with nary a drop, though with some spectacular near misses. Moreover, I hereby go on record that all the wargaming wives I met are both beautiful and superb cooks. Another outstanding impression is that while at home any stranger will provide help if asked, in America strangers volunteer help. Needless to say, any visiting Americans or Canadians we get our hands on at home will get the same treatment in reverse. Arrival Well, to start off, I arrived at Philadelphia airport straight from England, was collected with some difficulty by people who didn't know what I looked like, was taken to Widener College (site of Origins '79 -- ED.) and handed over to Jay Hadley who was organising the registrations. Someday I would like to meet Jay. The place was something of a madhouse, and he appeared in two minds whether to continue as superintendant or to stick straws in his hair and join the inmates. He was currently dealing manfully with a gentleman who had paid for half of a shared room only to find his room mate had seven friends who intended to move in. I blenched and sneaked away, but not before being issued with a badge marked "Staff". I found a long table behind which a bunch of dedicated volunteers (or conscripts?) were dealing with a huge line of intending registrees. The staff badge was my undoing. People kept asking me questions about registration to which I did not know the answers. I went and stood right back beyond the table. They thought I was in charge and asked even more questions. I left and went to the college dormitory I was sleeping at. Here I had the first illustration of the well known fact that America and Britain are two nations separated by the same language. Having eaten on the flight I was not hungry, but I had a thirst. The dorm had a canned drink machine, but I had only bills, no small change. My asking for change for a slot machine, which is what we call them, gave the impression that I was a compulsive gambler! I already knew that a pavement was a side walk, a lift was an elevator, a waistcoat was a vest, braces were suspenders, suspenders were garters, pants were shorts, trousers were pants and petrol was gas, but I was to learn a lot more idioms that differed sharply from the British equivalent. For example, someone told me that they would be with me momentarily. To me that meant with me for a few seconds, then gone for good, not what was in fact implied. Moral: When writing or answering transatlantic rule queries, make sure you are speaking the same language. I retired to bed, which was provided with sheets but no blankets, and in a room with air conditioning but no heating. I froze, got up, put on a pullover (sweater -- ED.), draped towels over me, turned the conditioning off, and still froze. It seems that an American summer is not always warmer than an English one. If you should come over, bring some light weight clothes. We wear light gear and use open windows instead of air conditioning or fans. Next morning I went out to a Howard Johnson's for breakfast with some of my neighbours, having failed to locate the college's restaurant. When we got back, registrations were still in full flow, in fact turning into a torrent. It took me some time to realise that people were not just registering for the convention and accomodation but for each individual event. This highlights the most important difference between British and American conventions, which I then discovered for the first time. Ours have very few seminars and these are free and don't need to be booked in advance. Entrants in a major competition have to pay an entry fee more often than not, and there is a small charge, usually about a dollar but often less, to get into the building. Those people needing accomodation arrange their own in advance from a list of cheap and not so cheap places that are sent out by the organisers. This can be as little as 6 dollars a night, rarely more than 16 dollars. Who pays the cost of rooms for the events? Well, usually the traders, who make enough profit to cover it. Little Different It is fair to say that the American case is a little different to ours. For example, we don't use such big expensive buildings, mainly because they are not available, and our traders do not have so far to come. A firm will rarely travel much over 200 miles to even a major show. I understand that Origins had 4,500 entrants and nearly 100 traders. The biggest British shows rarely have half the entrants or a quarter of the trade. One thing that is little different is that an ancient period chief umpire gets little or no chance to look around and see what else is going on. One difference is that the trade at British shows keep open continuously and eat as they can instead of shutting down en masse. As it happens I saw the trade stands only before they had properly opened and after they had mainly shut, which probably spared my pocket. I have to apologise to the third and fourth thousand I talked to. It wasn't just my strange accent that got in the way -- I had lost my voice. I hope the ones with rule queries got coherent answers. The questions I got were pretty intelligent, by the way, some too much so. At least one questioner proved me wrong from my own rules! I haven't yet mentioned the games. Games A lot of people asked me how the standard of play and of painting matches that of British conventions. Well, firstly British conventions don't always have the best players or troops. A club has to find five players for the Nationals, one for each of the historical periods. Now it often happens that the best player in, say, ancients is also the best in, say, moderns, that the whole club is strongly oriented to a single period, or that the best player is a poor painter. All these tend to reduce the average achieved by contestants. Taking this into account, on the whole the best players and painters on each side of the Atlantic are much the same level. Ours have more opponents living within easy reach, so get more practice in playing against good class opposition. We probably have more medium grade players and less tail enders. Painting Techniques Painting techniques differ somewhat. Many British players use a hard gloss varnish to protect their figures and bring up highlights, usually applied over matt Humbrol colours. The "auto-shading" technique advocated by Heritage is known but not much used. Bases are almost invariably camouflaged with plastic wood or flock and are as thin as possible. The quarter inch wooden bases I saw in America would be regarded as detracting too much from realism. After Origins, I was taken up to New York, given a brisk survival course on the lines of "not the front not the back, not late at night, not east of the park and no short cuts", then toured round on foot at great speed by J ay Stone exploring bookshops, museums, wargame stores, and wargames clubs. Never take a jogger as your guide unless you feel fit, and never ask a New Yorker the names of plants and creatures met in Central Park. You get answers such as "That is a brown bird". However, he is quite good at recognising Japanese and Polish weapons and armour. One side trip from New York was with Joe Miceli (no one should be permitted to paint that well) to West Point. I saw my first woodchuck -- and the next nine. I regreted having to put Joe up against a wall during a game of "Junta" that night, but he had sold me Brooklyn Bridge earlier for one pnglish penny, then refused to pay the toll. I strongly recommend Junta. Its crooked enough for even our gang at home. Next by bus to Boston in order to spend a couple of days gaming and relaxing with the Kindly Editor in his Cape Cod cottage. I corrupted the Chipmunk in his wood pile with ginger cookies, and I promised not to tell about the problem of the naked ladies in the lake late at night. The gaming was interesting too. First was with Early Imperial Romans against Jerry Chaskes' Sassanids. I acted aggressively land chased his Clibanari about. They kept getting out of the way, and the result was a narrow draw. It was unfortunate for Jerry that he couldn't change his orders. His general was leading a flank march off-table and never arrived. "Jerry" I said "I don't want to be hard on you, so I won't insist you throw 1. You can throw a 6." And he did -- three times! My second game was with Huns against the Kindly Editors Egyptians. He was supposed to assume that my Huns had sensible skirmish orders, which they didn't, and to avoid charging me. Unfortunately, he did entirely the wrong thing -- so won. Boston Travels After that, we went to fetch my wife Sue from Boston airport, then the pair of us went to stay with the Mesquita's at Lawrence. We visited the U.S.S. Constitution, Bunkers Hill, Lexington and Concord, some computing friends of Sue at Hanover and a Fourth of July family barbecue. Dave also improved my morale by playing with Assyrians against me with late Romans. He had a long line of light archers in front and masses of four horse chariots in columns of three to their rear. I charged his Ll with mine, they evaded, and disclosed his general sitting there within easy bow range and all alone. I then started feeling that it was my night and couldn't lose. I was right. Dave asks me to point out that he was not responsible for the defeat of his side. He wasn't there any more at the time! It may only be a coincidence, you will know that better than I, but all the few clubs I visited in the U.S.A. were based on private premises, usually the cellar basement of a wooden house. In Britain the usual thing is to hire a room one day a week at a church hall or other local social centre (several are in pubs! -- ED). There is rarely any provision for storage on the premises, so our troops and terrain must be much more portable. Our houses are never wooden and rarely have cellars, so smaller groups meeting in homes take over the dining room table. By far the most common terrain system used consists of a green table cloth, expanded plastic foam hills cut in realistic shapes, and woods consisting of a thin irregular plan base plus a scattering of model trees. Although we in general use smaller tables, British terrain usually looks better than the American examples I've seen. 15mm vs. 25mm Another big difference between American wargaming in my admittedly limited experience and British is that we now have large pockets, especially along the south coast, where 15mm figures have largely replaced 25mm. I didn't see any 15mm gaming in the states, though I imagine from the exposure I saw at Origins that its spread cannot be long delayed. I t was now time for us to tear ourselves reluctantly away from Pam Mesquita's blueberry muffins and cross the border into Canada. Getting off the plane at Halifax, we were taken in charge by a large armed policeman, who turned out to be a delegate from the local club. They had arranged a meeting round us. One of the main attractions was a large confrontation with modern armour between a Canadian army team who helicoptered in and a mainly Canadian navy opposition. This used the revised 1955-85 rules which we have just brought out. The losers assure me that the result is a military/naval secret. The other peak attractions were Sue and I successively being slaughtered by Ross McFarlane in Ancient games, hers with 5th edition, mine with 6th, both of us using Vikings and Ross with Late Romans. He had previously softened us up by cooking superb waffles. Other entertainment included wardroom drinks of generous size aboard H.M.C.S. Algonquin and a barbecue we nearly didn't find, the navy not navigating well among trees. South again to Providence, Rhode Island, to meet more of Sue's computer friends, then on to Washington. When Skylab was re-entering, we were in the Smithsonian looking at their superb space exhibits, and worrying slightly about possible poetic justice. Our host, John Sloan, took us on an epic series of neartropical battlefield tours to Bull Run, Gettysburg, Antietam and Yorktown. These are always useful to give a visual impression of the ground. We too often think of areas left plain on a battlefield map as lacking cover, which is often very far from true. We also visited Jamestown and Williamsburg, compared notes with the HERO researchers and met Trevor Dupuy, doyen of American military historians, whose recent book "Numbers, Predicition & War" is destined to have a great effect on board gaming in the near future. Back north by Metroliner to Philadelphia, then on for a last few days sightseeing in New York before flying home, loaded with books and lead figures, and hopefully a little better equipped for interpreting the British wargaming scene for you in later articles. 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