This year's convention was going to be different. For the first time, we would be running a tournament featuring the Medieval Warfare rules system. Initially, this was taking a big chance. We knew that we would have the necessary 6 players, which would qualify us as an "official" NASAMW sponsored event, as did the WHAB tournament at Cold Wars. Bur, would we have any more than that? This is a new rules system with relatively little exposure as yet and I limited the games to 25mm only.

At right, MW Tournament action at the beginning.

At the convention, we were allotted seven tables, enough for 14 players. Fifteen came to play, but two were brothers who had only one army, so played as a team. Thursday evening we ran a couple of practice games to let some of the players become more familiar with the rules (one player had never played them before). As Friday morning game time approached I was extremely gratified to find all of the expected participants ready to play. Scott Holder (NASAMW's Chief Umpire) had placed us next to the U.S. Pike and Shot Society tournament, which was good as both tournaments were meant to be fun and low key.

My motto for the games was: "We are here to have fun and to learn the rules, not to win at all costs." Although the Foundry prizes (over thirty packs of figures), the NASAMW plaque, and a beautifully painted 54mm figure of Belisarius were vivid inducements to victory, all the players took the tournament in good stride with no problems throughout the day.

As we had planned for the contingency of needing another player, I had brought my Later Medieval Scots army and managed to get a couple of rounds in as a nice bonus to the weekend. My first game found me facing Jim Lydon's Sicilian Hohenstauffen, an army I had used extensively under WRG 7th. The things to watch out for with this force are the wedging knights and the vast amount of firepower that the Saracen foot can deliver. I decided on a massive flank attack with Scots Highlanders, Galwegians and archers all swarming around one flank (the only terrain were some low hills in the center of the field), supported by both of my knight units. The center would march forward steadily with lowland spearmen supported on their left by the rest of my loose order types and skirmishers.

The Sicilians tried to use Crusader Order against me, but I managed to counter that threat by concentrating archer and crossbow fire on the poor quality foot, causing them to fall back in disorder, thus immobilizing the knights who were directly behind them. The loose-order Scots got in among the Moslem foot and smashed through, causing problems on the Sicilian left. As the game ended, I had a 3-0 victory. Jim had played before, but was attempting to use Crusader Order for the first time. This tactic requires practice (as the generals of the time found out the hard way) to be successful.

The second round, I paired up against another three pointer, Kevin Boylan, using Anglo-Irish. Kevin's army included several units of longbowmen, plenty of loose-order bonnagts, good quality knights, galloglas heavy infantry and two large units of skirmish infantry kerns. The Anglo-Irish were organized into large (8 stand) foot units and 4 stand cavalry units. This meant that they'd be tough to kill, but their morale would worsen with each stand lost.

Kevin and I both rolled for hills in our center, and he set up two large areas of scrub (light terrain) to either flank, hoping to keep my close order foot away. He anchored his center with longbowmen, the cavalry in support and he sent his bonnagts and heavy cavalry out to his right and left. His kerns proceeded to head right toward my center.

Being used to facing longbow armies, I tried to tempt his shooters with 'easy' targets. He was too smart for this. The Scots spearmen are a tempting victim to longbowmen, so I tried to keep them out of harms way, but Kevin chewed away at them. I again decided on a double flank attack, but my left was bogged down by Kevin's aggressive Irish attacks, combining foot, horse and archers.

On the right, my own archers shot the bonnagts into disorder and then fragmentation. Kevin threw one of his generals into the failing unit, but it was too late. They were soon streaming to the rear in rout, infecting their neighbors with panic as they streamed by. The fanatic Galwegians slammed into the lone Irish unit holding its own, and it too was shortly running in utter terror.

I quickly advanced all along this flank to try to push past his hill and roll up his center, hitting another Irish unit, forcing them back and exposing the remaining Irish left to envelopment. Kevin poured his galloglas and men-at-arms into this swirling battle. As this conflict swayed back and forth, I moved on his kerns, forcing them to retreat and to take heavy fire from my own archers.

Kevin's attacks on the other flank had bogged down, but his men-at-arms coming off the hill smashed through tow of my units. As this debacle occurred, my extreme right flank units tore into Kevin's rear units, routing them with vicious flank attacks. At the end of the game, the Scots had another 3-0 victory.

As one of our players had to leave at this point, I opted out of the third round to put my energies into refereeing. I must say that I was happily surprised at how few problems there were. Of course, there were the usual questions about pro-rated charges, who was in cover, how far do we see in woods, etc. All easily answered and spelled out in the rules.

After it was all over, Jeff Ball took the tournament honors with seven points. The Marra brothers, Tony and Silvio tied with Kevin Boylan and Perry Gray with six points each. We combined the second and third prizes so that each second place gamer received five packs of Foundry figures. Jevon Garrett took the prize for Best Sportsman and Lyle Bickley for toughest army to win with (Medieval German Princes). Each receives a year of SAGA.

This first tournament exposure showed that Medieval Warfare is a viable, workable set of alternative tournament rules that emphasize generalship and command ability. That night we sat in the bar and critiqued the games. Out of this late night bull session, we came up with four changes to the rules, two of them dealing with the tournament structure.

They are as follows:

#1. All longbow-armed non-skirmisher foot units now cost an additional 1 point per stand. This reflects their superior 'training' in the use of the weapon as well as its lethality.

#2. Obstacles are now treated as Light Terrain. No more disorder for loose order foot crossing them.

#3. On the Victory Points chart, we are adding two items.

• 1 Point if there are no non-skirmisher enemy units on your side of the table at the end of the battle. (This encourages aggressive play, instead of passive sit back and watch play).
• Eliminate more enemy killed along with the "two times more" and "three times more" and replace with 1 Point for each 50 points of enemy troops killed. (This eliminates non-aggressive tactics). If you kill a whole 500 point enemy army, you get 10 points!

#4. We are including a new optional tournament terrain generation table. The table is divided into 6 equal sectors. The player gets to select his desired terrain (from 0-5) each and then rolls a d10 to place.

1 or a 2 is a discard.
3 or a 4 is placed in the friendly left flank sector.
5 is placed in the friendly center sector.
6 or 7 is placed in the friendly right flank sector. 8 is in the enemy left flank sector.
9 is placed in the enemy center.
0 is placed in the enemy right flank sector.

No rivers or streams may run through the center two sectors of the field.

#5. A new Optional Rule is also in place: Missile Supply - Any missile-armed non-HG/Arty. Unit which fires for two consecutive turns is then Low on Missiles.

These are official changes and will be appearing in subsequent editions of the rules. After the tournament, I approached Scott Holder and we determined that at Fall In and Cold Wars, we would offer the tournament in 15mm as well as 25mm.

At right, tournament winning army.

Our games will be on Saturday and will be scaled down from 600 to 500 points, allowing for more maneuverability. Since Fall In is only three months away, I encourage anyone who wants to play to email me or write me as I do have to let Scott know of our table requirements.

In a related note, Jeff Ball has joined the SAGA staff. Jeff has been instrumental in putting on games and helping us run our events. He will be in charge of developing our Renaissance Warfare rules, which will presently be in playtesting while Bruce and I finish up Ancient Warfare.