A well attended, fun event this year with a multitude of different game scenarios for the miniaturist ranging from a massive WWIII Nato assault on East Germany to a Shock of Impact tournament. Unfortunately, no WRG event this year but one of the kindly SAGA editors (oh, Dave?) has volunteered to sponsor one next year with the 7th edition rules now out and readily available.

The events were for the most part well attended, although more local exposure would have been welcome, especially in the various newspapers and on local campuses. Another point... the D&D factions and players seemed to be attracted more and more to historical gaming due in part to the excellent demo games and participation events--Retinue and Koenigskrieg especially.

I observed one S of I battle and participated in another. Having read through the rules but never having really played the system in competition before, I found that the melee factors were confusing at first; trying to figure out from chart to chart what, was what. Once having been led through it a few times though,

Thanks to Dave Ottney, the organizer of the S of I event, for it became quite simple to use. The morale is also a little strange at first and to me, units very easily recovered it.

Probably the hardest part of these rules for me personally to a swallow was the pursuit and rout system where the routers got to fight back. In fact, in my game where I had Spartans versus Persians (I think we won, Leonidas?) the routing Persian cavalry did more damage to my pursuing Thracians than I did to themo. I'm also not too inclined to believe that heavy or medium would pursue into woods which also happened. Archer fire was fairly close to WRG. The fact that the amount of troops killed has nothing to do with who win the melee was interesting, but allowing archers a 2" shot into woods with no penalty penalty was a little strange.

All in all though, the system is quick,(we played out our scenario in about two hours) and once you got the hang of it, it's enjoyable as well. I can see the attraction these rules have for l5mm.

As to figures, they abounded. The painting quality was excellent and the many different types of manufactured figures present attested to the varied amounts of troops available for the period. I was especially impressed with the Jacobite figures. (If anyone sends anything I'll review it). It was an enjoyable weekend and right at home as well.

Photos