Historicon Game Report While scanning the Historicon 2002 Events List on Thursday, looking for a suitable game, I became interested in a scenario called “Mon Petite Chou” hosted by Jon Lundberg. The scenario was dramatic enough to inspire some fine swashbuckling: the evil Rochefort and Lady DeWinter have abducted D’Artagnan’s lover. She’s being held in a country village guarded by the Cardinal’s guards and various ruffians and scoundrels. Can the brave musketeers rescue her? The scenario was played using Jon’s home rules and they were very interesting. The emphasis was on swordplay. Each character had a small deck of cards, each representing a fencing maneuver like “slash,” “parry,” or “riposte.” Each maneuver had a speed, attack value, and defense value. To resolve a sword fight the combatants would select a card to play and the speedier maneuver would be executed first. The defense value was subtracted from the attack value, roll a D20 and add the result. One wound is inflicted for every point over 20. Ten wounds are enough to incapacitate a character. Then the other guy resolved his attack. If both swordsmen were still alive they would play another card. Of course the Musketeers had high attack and defense ratings so they could slash their way through a bunch of bad guys in short order. It was quick and easy. I elected to play a Musketeer and was given Athos and his faithful servant. I teamed up with Porthos while D’Artagnan and Aramis headed off to the other side of the village where they immediately ran into trouble while searching a farmhouse. Villains appeared everywhere and the two kids playing the Musketeers had a blast slicing and dicing their way through the opposition. Porthos, my companion, was rather surly and impatient. I followed him towards the village square, fighting off a few ruffians along the way. We spotted our quarry being hustled away by Rochefort and DeWinter and headed off in pursuit. As I crossed the square I was suddenly attacked from behind. It was a clever ambush. The attacker had appeared to be a drunk sleeping off a binge until I passed him and he suddenly pulled out a blade and attacked. The scoundrel! I survived his cowardly attack and finished him off as quickly as I could so I could follow Portos, who was now cursing me for a coward. While D’Artagnan and Aramis continued to cut a swath through their opposition we confronted Rochefort and the Cardinal’s guard. They turned out to be tough opponents. In the first round of combat Rochefort ran through Porthos and got a nasty wound in return. I got the same treatment on the following turn leaving Aramis and D’Artagnan with a tough decision – come to our aid and lady DeWinter escape, or go after the girl. After reminding them that it was “All for one and one for all” they let DeWinter escape and gave Rochefort his just desserts. The whole battle lasted just about 1 1/2 hours. All in all it was an entertaining, lighthearted game. Back to Table of Contents -- Junior General Report #1 Back to Junior General Report List of Issues Back to MagWeb.com Magazine List © Copyright 2002 by Matt Fritz. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles covering military history and related topics are available at http://www.magweb.com