Dusty Koelhoffer's articles have prompted me to write about the positive aspects of WRG 7th. There is such a proliferation of articles appearing about DBM that we 'old timers' who wish to stick with 7th feel a bit out of the loop, so to speak. At HISTORICON the number of WRG gamers was, I believe around 40 for the 15mm 1600 point open tourney as well as a dozen in 25mm and an unknown number in the 1200 pt. and theme tourneys. The DBM tourney attracted at least 50 gamers (I'll await Scott's official totals for an exact count). My point is that, as Tim Brown noted, "Sure looks like 7th is dead, doesn't it?", as he looked down the tables Thursday night and saw them filled with gamers. Others commented that the pressure to switch to DBM was there, but they would stay with 7th as long as they could find opponents. The reasons were varied, but I'll touch on a few of them.

1) TROOP DIFFERENTIATION

In DBM, it seems that a Roman legionnaire is a Roman--no difference in training or ability, no allowance for period of history. WRG 7th offers a qualitative difference between troop types. Personally, I like this. It gives each army a real personality and flavor of its own, irregardless of allies. The later Roman triple armed MI legionnaire is a far cry from the Early Imperial pilum armed HI. This allowance should be cultivated and is in WRG 7th.

2) ANYONE SHOULD HAVE A CHANCE AT HOLDING AGAINST OR EVEN DEFEATING ANYONE ELSE

Though it is a real rarity in history, LI did on occasion beat up on a mounted opponent--usually thanks to inept leadership on the part of the mounted commander or inspired generalship and elan on the part of the LI command. Though factors such as type of ground, conditions of mounts and men, psychological as well as religious and political motivations all played key parts in allowing who "won" a close combat, there should be a chance of winning, no matter what the combat factors say.

In WRG this occurs. An up 4 and a down 4 results in a huge shift on the casualty table, allowing a LI element to defeat a HC element (not in wedge). Though a rare, feat, and extremely rare in a game (though I've managed to do it once or twice) it could happen, as it did historically. Conversely, there should not be any unit that cannot be destroyed by another, in DBM there are instances where this this problem exists.

3) IT'S IN THE DETAIL

To quote William Keyser, who always tried to get us interested in playing Newbury. I do like the richness of the details. The ability to control and manipulate an army--and don't tell me the generals of the 5th-14th centuries were incapable of intricate maneuvers and on field in-your-face tactical order changes, they most certainly were capable of same and did do such (I've written over 300 pages on this, mostly using contemporary sources to clarify and explain my reasoning and conclusions)--is an essential aspect of a successful GAME.

I can't see much enjoyment in an army/game where the troops just take off all over the field, or don't get to move at all. Where is the generalship in that? In the initial setup? William the Conqueror's deployments at Hastings were disastrous--his battle field abilities again and again produced order changes, intricate maneuvers in the face of the enemy and allowed him to improvise as the battle developed. WRG 7th allows these things a well.

I don't wish to beat a dead horse here, but I do hope to see some of the DBM/DBA players returning to WRG 7th. I can't see why DBA, DBM, WRG 7th, et. al., can't all coexist. Does 7th have to die? Do we always need to look to find a new 'universal' rules set to judge all others by and find them wanting? I can envision (in my Utopian wargames convention) a series of tourneys run in such away so as the ARMATI and DBA tournament games would be played in one day (which they are designed for) and then the DBA/WRG 7th tourneys attracting different types of gamers, looking for different things from their games can play, overlapping so as to allow a player to use both systems if he so prefers and got to play in all the tournaments.

Good luck, right? But it would be nice.