Fall In Mega-game between Jeff's Seleucids and my Graeco-Indians.

We had a great time at Fall In, though as Bruce noted on the way back, we are getting a bit on to be staying up until 3:30 in the morning anymore! The tournaments went quite well, even with two players who had car trouble and could not make the con. John Desmond took one of the slots and we managed to work our demo games into the other.

All in all, we had 16 players in three tournaments. We also had eight players who signed up to play alongside the tournament players in order to learn the rules firsthand. I had brought an extra three armies, so was able to 'loan' two of them out and used my own 25mm Graeco-Bactrians for two demos (I split the army in half, giving each side 250+ points...not a bad size for a manageable demo game, one on one).

The tournament results are as follows:

25mm Ancient Warfare - Jeff Ball (Seleucids)
25mm Medieval Warfare - Alex Aimette (Feudal French)
15mm Medieval Warfare - Tie! Kevin Boylan (Anglo-Irish) and
Winner of tie breaker was Perry Gray (Hohenstauffen)
Best Sportsman Award - Mark Bloom (25mm Early Imperial Romans)
Best Painted Army - Bob Eldridge (25mm Early Normans)
Worst Luck - Paul Schneider (25mm Assyrians)

It should be noted that the rules author managed to lose two games during the demos as he taught the rules to new players (Grant and Dennis).

My final game was fought against Jeff's Seleucids. We each had two other players learning the rules, so had three commands on each side. We had this game won! Fist, my right wing commander turned the Seleucid flank and was in position to roll it up. My left wing commander was also doing great, shooting two Seleucid generals up so that they were barely alive (two hits each on strength three stands). In the center, I had routed one phalanx and was holding on against the others. We were one unit away from breaking Jeff's army. Then we lost.

Paul Dobbins contemplates his next move with Ayubbids.

It all started with a morale failure of a unit of Indian longbowmen. They were charged and lost a stand, failing their morale terribly...and I had already used up our God roll...infecting all around them with their cowardice. Their neighbors, a Poor quality Indian unit also decided to follow their example. This was seen by my prized Agema unit (Veteran HI) who found themselves unsupported with enemy facing to the flank. They ran. Now it was down to each of our armies needing to break one more unit to win.

We had a shot at killing one of the Seleucid generals. Missed. Could we break the Seleucid peltasts. We were hitting them in the flank as well as the front. But we were hitting them in the flank with horse archers! We couldn't get enough hits on them. Meanwhile, our own peltasts, hitting them from the front were flanked in turn. After the smoke had cleared we needed to roll a '10' for them to pass their morale.

"No pressure on you or anything..." Jeff told my wing commander as he rolled. The Gods were not with the Graeco-Romans that day! We were routed. After the tournament, a couple of questions came up.

At right: Top:Dennis Leventhal and Perry Gray in the thick of things.

At right: Bottom: Bob Eldridge and Alex Aimette looking for just the right order markers.

Do Crossbowmen have Various weapons? If not, what? The only troops with Various weapons are listed as such in the army lists. Troops with no close combat weapon have a sword, at no factor.

If archers have to take a morale check and go frenzied when charged, can they still fire? Certainly. The frenzy does not affect their shooting, but it will help their fighting ability.

What armor class do artillerymen count as? They are the same as LAI, this is listed on the QRS.

If a unit charges another that runs away into delaying terrain, do the chargers have to go after them and get disordered? No, you can convert your charge against another enemy in arc or halt the charge short of the delaying terrain. You do not have to run into terrain that will cause you to lose!

There will be more of these as other players get back to me with their input. Again, a good time and we are planning on an AW tournament at Cold Wars with possibly a MW 'mini' tournament run by Alex Aimette.