I ran a really new game at a collectible card tournament in Terra Haute. It was a 25mm Napoleonic miniatures game (with my spiffy sculpted terrain). I had the only non card game there. I was using my latest version of battle Matrix Game rules (which I call "Politics by other means..."). I did a bath tub version of the Battle of the Nations - so the French were surrounded on three sides by Russians, Austrians (both on the flanks) and a bunch of Prussian Landwehr and German peasants (who would be Landwehr next week when their uniforms and muskets arrived!) With a river at their back. PBOM... is an excessively simple game (roll 1d6 to see how many inches you move, roll 1d6 per figure firing, 6's hit, hits kill, hit players make arguments why their man isn't dead, and each turn players get to make one argument to make unexpected things happen (like morale and terrain effects, rules changes and weird things). I had ten players over five hours and the game was a crushing French defeat! The card gamers were into it - but they could only play in between their tournament rounds. This worked out because PBOM... easily feeds players in and out of the game. Players do not have to make more than a ten minute commitment to the game. I am certain that I did good for historical miniatures that day. I'm thinking that to recruit card gamers to the hobby - we miniatures guys should be out at these card tournaments showing off out finest little men. Its actually playing that pulls people in. I think this will work better than running games at schools. After all, kids don't think learning is fun. So saying your games are educational is like drinking poison. I've written the game up for MWAN, so it should come out in around a year. MGer 3 is not as long as No2. So I hope it doesn't mess up anyone's email. Please send me a note back to let me know you got it, and what problems you had. Look forward to No4 sometime in April. Back to Table of Contents -- Matrix Gamer #3 To Matrix Gamer List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1999 by Chris Engle. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com