This summer I drove down to Historicon in Lancaster PA. It was at the Lancaster Host Resort as it always is. The nice thing about this year over last was that I had Day Of Battle in hand. Last year I had hoped to have it done but it was not meant to be.

While there I was scheduled to run five events. One on Thursday, two on Friday and Two on Saturday. This was down from six last year. Remembering how tired I was last year I decided to take a different approach. Like before I made my events for six players. Now as anyone who has played DOB before knows the game does not lend itself to large multi-player games. It is after all best as a one on one affair.

What I did this year was run three two-player games. These games were set in an a-historical setting in Wales circa 1235AD. Each player faced only one opponent. This allowed each game to proceed at it's own speed, with no delay from the table far away. The response I recieved from the players was interesting. Nearly every player said they enjoyed the game. One player did however feel the skirmisher rules were to strong. His main criticism was with their ability to cause a unit to be threatened during a morale check. I don't have a problem with it, but I said to him it was easily fixed with a house rule. He agreed and pushed on.

The games were interesting to watch. I found the English were always aggressive. Now the scenario called for this but in many cases they just took the bit by the teeth and came right at the Welsh. In this case the Welsh were hard pressed to stop them. Their only chance of success was to get their skirimshers around behind the flank and rear of the English and wait for morale to do the rest.

The battle usually started with a hail of missile fire and then the English Knights would charge home. I can still see the look of glee on an English players face followed by the look of shock on a Welsh player as each revealed their Combat Value and Morale Grade for the first time. The English pretty much ran their opponents into the ground.

Overall the games were a big success. All but one game was filled with pre-registration players inluding our honored host of MagWeb, Russ Lockwood. He sat at his game asking very good questions and writing down notes for an upcoming revue in MagWeb.

The one lesson I learned was don't schedule a game for Friday morning at 9:00 AM. I had one signee and he never showed. I made the best of it and sat down and taught two interested watchers how to play. Each one took about an hour and a half.

This year I used 15mm figures and special ready made terain boards. The boards are 23" square, painted and flocked ala Geo Hex. They are available from Terrain Creations. I highly recommend them. I used felt terrain pieces from Geo Hex for marsh, woods etc. These along with the starting poisitions were pinned down with small map pins. Compared to lugging around three different 25mm armies and terrain last year this was a breeze. I will do the same for future "away" games. Sales were good, I sold fifteen copies at the table and Ral Partha - Miniature Figurines sold another 15 copies. Had I been more aggressive at selling from the game table I probably could have moved a great deal more. But I was there to play and demo not sell. Well I hope to see some of you at Cold Wars.

(Chris, Pardon me for adding in here, but folks, check out my review of Day of Battle, which also has links to the introduction to the rules, and an designers interview with Chris. --RL)