After another great time in Gettysburg, it is time to relate the experiences of this trip. As usual, Bruce Taylor and I made the five hour drive, pulling in to our hotel at around 1:30 p.m. on Friday. Our good fortune found us staying next door to Robert E. Lee's headquarters! We spent a pleasant half-hour checking out the building and taking a short tour. Our location was also a mile from the Union positions of the first day's battle, where the 1st Corps fought against the Confederate advances and where General Reynolds was killed.

We headed over toward the convention center, stopping for some photos at the Peach Orchard and Little Round top. I'm drawn to these places because of my family's personal history and my ancestors having fought here. It is always with a feeling of deepest respect for those men who faced the uncertainty of 19th century war out of patriotism, loyalty and personal beliefs. As I stood on the field of battle, the very ground filled me with wonder and awe just thinking of this bloody battle fought 146 years ago.

Reluctantly getting back into the car, we finally arrived at the Eisenhower convention and looked for a place to park.

This year, the organizers decided to have the registration desk set up in the soccer barn and not the convention center itself. This was done, I think, in order to encourage gamers to check out the dealer's area. The only problem was with parking. I could tell by the numbers of cars that the turnout had to be very good. I was worried about it, though. We had brought down plenty of figures and terrain, and I did not look forward to lugging it such a long distance. There were closer lots for Administrative and Employee Parking. Well, they'd soon become our unloading parking areas as well!

The sign-in process was quick and efficient. We soon found ourselves in the gaming area, which was very well lit and had plenty of room. Quickly staking out our gaming tables for our demo games coming up later that evening, we made the rounds and headed back to our room before going out for a sensational dinner at the neighboring restaurant.

By 7:30, we had met up with Jeff Ball, who was helping us run the demos and tournament games. Mark Bloom had arrived from Ohio with his family as well as Dennis and Mary Leventhal. Of course, Chris and Greg Taylor arrived to help as well. Before long, we had the demo games up and running. After a two-hour round, we heard that the soccer barn closed at 11:00 and everything had to be out by then. Besides that, the dealer's room was closed and it meant a long trek to the restrooms! We headed back to our hotel, joined by Jamie Fish and Kevin Boylan, our roommates this time around. After a couple of hours of catching up, we turned in, as we had an early start on Saturday. Our second ever Medieval Warfare tournament was scheduled to start at 9:00 a.m.

Saturday

We arrived at the soccer barn at 8:30 and organized our table space. We had fourteen gamers signed up to play, eight in 25mm and six in 15mm. After a bit of shuffling, we had the necessary table space as well as two others set up for the demos games we planned on running concurrently with our tournament games. This was Jeff's idea, and it proved to be a very good one. We managed to accommodate the first eight 'demo' players, but when they kept on coming, we decide to simply let them play in our tournament games as wing commanders! We each took on one of the new players, gave them a command, and worked with them, helping them learn the rules under battle conditions. I never learned a rules set yet without intense playing, and this method allowed us to do just this with the new guys…and they loved it!

I started out playing in the 25mm tourney, but decided to let one of the new players use my army and continue in on the tournament, so I switched over to 15mm. It was a good thing that I'd brought Early Normans in both scales, but I anticipated the possibility of a no-show or having an extra player.

In the first round of play, I matched up with Mark Bloom's Feudal Germans. We each took on a "rookie" commander and gave them commands and proceeded to smash at each other. My archers proved decisive as they shot up Mark's troops before my Norman cavalry swept around the German flanks, managing to box Mark's army up. It was a tight game right up until the last turn, when a German general was killed, forcing multiple morale tests and causing a collapse of the German left flank. All of us enjoyed the game and I felt pretty good with a 5-3 victory. I should mention that for the tournament, victory points were given for numbers of enemy destroyed, enemy generals killed, and position held on the battlefield.

For the next round of play, I switched to 15mm and had the chance to fight Dennis Leventhal's Khazars. Dennis is an experienced player and has many games under his belt from his years in Hong Kong with the sizable wargames club there. In other words, he knew what he was doing. Dennis swept down both flanks with his cavalry, while holding in the center with a large number of close order foot. I met his cavalry with my own while demonstrating against the foot and managed to catch some of his skirmish cavalry as they attempted 'fire and flee' charges (skirmish cavalry are allowed to make a charge move, ride up to within close bow range, fire, and then move the rest of their move straight back. This is to get the enemy to prematurely charge and hopefully become disordered as they fall short of their intended target).

After forcing my way around Dennis' left flank, my Normans managed to destroy a large unit of his Khazar nobles, causing morale problems. The game ended soon after and I had another 5 point win. This was going better than I thought it would.

My third and final game was against my all time most hated army, Burgundian Ordnance. I truly hate these guys. Longbows and armored knights commanded by another Taylor, no less (we had four Taylor's in the tournament, only Chris and his father, Gregg were related). Roger Taylor commanded this army. We spent much of the game jockeying for favorable charge positions…it's tough fighting these guys as they are technologically superior. Finally, I managed to catch Roger's skirmish cavalry and rode behind his gendarmes, catching them with two of my own wedges. As the game ended, I had another 3 point game. Not enough for a tournament winner, but good just the same.

As we tallied up the scores, several gamers approached me expressing interest in playing in our Cold Wars and Historicon tournaments next year. If anyone is interested in playing, I urge you to let me know ASAP, as table space must be allocated and we are up against DBM/WRG/WHAB and Armati.

The winner of the 25mm tournament was Bruce Taylor with Burgundians (boo, hiss). Chris Taylor won the 15mm tournament. Both winners were awarded a nice plaque courtesy of NASAMW. Congratulations!

As we sat in our room later that night, the informal 'rules committee' of Jamie Fish, Jeff, Bruce and I mulled over and acted upon some points brought up by Dave Bonk and Kevin Boylan. We agreed that effective immediately, skirmisher horse using fire and flee will be able to move up to effective range and fire instead of close range, if desired. This will give them a better chance of getting away from their attackers. We also have taken the axes away from longbowmen. Their training and ability was as archers, not hand-to-hand fighters, and as such were just too deadly. To consider them the same as huscarles or Vikings is not correct. They will now reflect their actual battlefield roles better…and they are cheaper to buy as well!

Sunday we toured the railroad cut and the rest of the field of the first day's battle before heading home to Rochester. All in all a very enjoyable weekend and I'm already looking forward to returning again next November.

Photos

Bruce Taylor and his victorious Burgundians (with able assistance)

Jamie, Jevon and the Terry…I must have just lost a game!

Phil Viverito's Classical Hack game

My Normans against Dennis' Khazar