Over the weekend of July 18 through 21 I had the singular experience of attending HISTORICON 96 held in Lancaster, PA and hosted by our fellow garners of HMGS-East. Of all the 'cons I've ever been to, this was the biggest by far! All the guys had told me that this is the BIG ONE and they're right. If you're a half-way serious gamer then this is like Mecca! Anyway, I was asked to do a review on one of the games I played so here goes.

Of all the games I took part in, the one that was the most fun was a Micro Armor with a home-made set of rules that turned out to be quite good. The scenario was called 'King-of-the-hill' and was a three way battle between WWII German, Russian, and American armored units. Board set-up was in the shape of a "T" with each side taking one end of the "T".

At the junction of the vertical & horizontals lay the objective, a town, with victory conditions of having 10 of your vehicles in the town with no hostiles in there with you. I wound up on the German side and my teammates immediately proposed that we have a talk with the Russian players and an agreement was reached with one of their members. Unknown to us at this time was the fact that the other Russian players had forged an alliance with the American team.>

Convergence

As all three sides converged on the town, they were limited to 3 access points per team and the roads soon became choked with tanks and SP's. At the start of the game there were over 350 vehicles on the board! Unfortunately for the Germans, the Americans got through their access points first and set up units of M36's and Pershings in a hull-down position flanking my closest access road and started picking off my Jagdpanzers as they tried to push through.

At the same time, our halftracks sprinted into town and took cover while our slower Pz IVs, Tiger Is, Tiger IIs and Jagdtigers (in that order) pushed through our central access, also taking flanking fire from the hull-down Americans. Our Panthers moved through the access point farthest from the Americans, taking advantage of their better off-road movement, and heading for the Russians.

On the 3rd turn our brave Russian ally opened up on the American Shermans with his T-34's and T-35/85's, taking a fearful toll and raising cries of "TRAITOR", "YOU SON OF A BITCH:, and "WHAT THE bleep ARE YOU DOING?" from the American players.

The Russian commander asked him the same question (in a more subdued manner), was told of our prior agreement, and threatened to shoot his rebellious underling who was next declared a renegade and left on his own without any subsequent Russian support.

It was at this point I believe the American players lost the game as they became quite emotional about this turn of events and diverted most of their attention to the Russians.

I kept soaking off fire from the Jacksons & Pershings with my Jagdpanzers, allowing me to eventually get my Tigers through the choke in sufficient numbers to destroy the Americans, stalling my advance while I used the American's ploy and put my Panthers hull down on a hill firing into the flank of the Russian columns (Dang, that side armor's thin, ain't it!), and when the Jagdtigers got through the choke point, things really got ugly for the Americans who now were taking fire from the 122mm's of the Russian JSIIs as well as my 128mm's in the Jagdtigers.

This slugfest started at 7:00 PM Friday and didn't break up until 3:35 AM Saturday with all participants looking groggy. At the end of the game the Russkis had gotten three SU-100s into town, the Germans had six halftracks and two Panzer IVs in town and the Americans had zilch in the town. It was a bloody blast!

On the side, I would strongly suggest to anyone who goes to Historicon or Cold Wars that they take the time to drive the 40-odd miles from Lancaster to Aberdeen, MD and visit the US Army Ordnance Museum there. It is a unique experience to be hands-on with pieces of history, to feel the gouge in the front glacis of a Jagdtiger where an armor piercing shot was deflected. It's an amazing place.