I've lost games now and again, many more than I care to remember, but there've been a few I've won as well...and others I've been lucky not to have been on either side of. For some reason, the Ancients tournaments often bring out some of the most awful, one sided wargames imaginable. To some extent, this is the fault of the irrational span of non-traditional foes one encounters, but this excuse only goes so far. Too often, one player is either extremely nervous or lacks confidence in his own ability or his army, is overconfident and makes foolish mistakes or, in rare instances, goes outside the rules to steal a win.

Very recently, I was present at a match-up of Teutonic Knights versus Ancient Indians. The Teutonic player, as befits his army, was so confident of his invincibility of his knights that he formed his whole army into just three units, each with it's own general! Now, this might work against a slow-moving barbarian warband, but against an elephant laden, cavalry-filled army with longbow and 2HCW armed close-order foot, it just didn't make sense.

As the Teutonic player hadn't made up separate lists for different opponent types as allowed (he quickly did for his next games!), he shrugged and gave it his best shot...a crazed charge straight into the teeth of the enemy.

In short order, his three units were destroyed with little left on his side of the table except impetuous, pursuing elephants stomping the slow routing knights into the dust. He quickly learned that a multitude of generals did not insure stability or certain victory...a valuable lesson.

A tactic I saw work ONCE was thought up by a close friend and wargamer who used to stay up night after night thinking up effective uses for assorted barbarian types versus their more civilized enemies. In this instance, he was using Picts, back when they used to get 50 light archers as required troops. Obviously, they were somewhat useless for anything but long distance firing and track events, but he lined his table edge with them and fired at the advancing regulars turn after turn. By the time the enemy troops got near enough to charge, they were so shot up they wouldn't budge! A sorry sight, watching expensive heavy infantry of superior morale being systematically shot to hell by 2 point archers. The unlucky opponent learned that even the best of troops don't last long without a tactical plan to take care of such contingincies. (This game taught me the value of skirmishers armed with javelin and/or sling, now a staple for my Romans but a troop type I'd largely ignored before seeing this game).

One army I absolutely abhor facing (even though I usually beat them) is Ancient Indians. I hate those elephants and cheap cavalry... and multitudes of double armed infantry and those maiden guards most of all. This army almost always gives me cardiac arrest after about two hours of slugging away, especially if they're uphill or in a village. A wily Early Imperial Roman player faced these hated sub-continentals in a nasty tactical situation a year or so back. The Indian player had set up a miserable terrain placement for the Romans. Facing the Roman left was a large woods, in the center, a walled village, and on the right, not only a large expanse of bog, but a steep, rocky hill as well. Of courses the Indian archers lined the palisade of the village as well as the crest of the hill. The cavalry filled in the gaps between pieces of rough terrain and the Woods...maiden heaven.

Well, for the Roman there was no was through the swamps, the woods would have to be left to lanciarii (LMI), the center, well, he went for that. Tieing up the Indian cavalry was easy enough, but the village was tough. The Roman player sent his EHI, backed up by cohorts of HI against the walls. Surprisingly (at least to the Indian general) the EHI not only stormed the wall, but routed the defenders as well, but his other cohorts had taken heavy missile fire and had poor rolls so they wouldn't follow. There were the most expensive foot a Roman could buy trapped in a hostile town, disordered with no friends in sight and lo and behold ... here come the elephants. Needless to say, this nightmare scenario will not easily be forgotten.

Boredom in a game sometimes leads to very foolish moves. Witness, if you will, abattle between Hellenistic Greeks and Later Romans, both players for some reason opted for bogs, woods, villages and hill! In other words, neither side could get at the other. After three turns of boring archer fire across the swamps, both players charged their HI units into the woods! The disordered cohorts and phalanxes finally found each other and came into contact, slugging it out with various minus twos and threes for all kinds of disruption. The legions prevailed (due to being in wedge versus a single allowed rank of pike-armed phalangites) and this game thankfully ended.

Overconfidence is a burden in itself, but downright cheating and using the excuse of ignorance of the rules is the bane of all wargamers at one time or another. One game I remember well. It found a coalition of players on each side. A new player was involved and was doing extraordinarily well, considering the fact that he was new to the game and was playing against one of our better gamers. After the game, as it turned out, the "lucky" new man had not only illegally moved troops hither and yon, from one formation to another with no regard for the rules, he'd also, when charged, simply engaged his opponent in conversation and serreptitiously placed his already formed troops in another place entirely out of charge reach of his opponent! Ignorance of the rules? Now he knew them all right, but his fragile ego could not stand the thought of losing.

Again, at a convention, I watched a player advance to the semi-finals winning game after game by cheating! And as blatant as it was (held keep "hidden" troops off the table until he felt they were ready to charge in flagrant violation of the WRG visibility rules) not one opponent called him out on it, is of course, playing up to my usual level and being eliminated in the first round wished that he and I could go at it so he could suddenly be faced with "rolling for fresh arrivals" which is the least of what I would have insisted upon. Certainly, we've all in the heat of battle used the old 15 inch ruler to stretch things out a bit, but the tactics above don't belong in this hobby or any other,

To sum all of this up, the ideal player would be as one with his chosen army. He would be confident, but not to the point of outrageously taking risks (like charging with a 6 figure Norman HC wedge into a 48 man block of close order archers with 2HCW) and expecting to win. He would be fair to his opponent and remain calm at all times, not resorting to obscenities and throwing objects (the opponents figures, for instance!) He would be gracious in both victory and defeat, neither gloating nor scowling at game's end...but who wants to play a miniatures game against a computer? So let's just try to be ourselves and there'll always be plenty for me to write about in the future.