Once again the mid-summer pilgrimage to the Mecca of miniature wargaming conventions was to be made. After last year, with the pressures of the NCT games and late, late night adventures, without the presence of the notorious Dave Armer, I was more than ready to lay back and relax in Jamie Fish's 'fun and camaraderie' style WRG tourney, FREE TRADE WARS. Phil Barker would umpire and be guest host as well. Besides, Mr Armer was going along this year and that alone promised a wealth of interesting anecdotes for the months ahead. So, along with Ron Shank, Dave and I prepared to set off for our four days of adventure, fame and glory...

THURSDAY

Our usual 8:00 A.M. starting time had to be modified as spam-master Dave decided he didn't want to run out of liquid refreshment and bought SIX cases of beer along with assorted canned eatables. The trip was fairly uneventful and we made excellent time, stopping off at our usual Pennsylvania rest area to enjoy nature's splendor. The same guy who cleaned up the area last year was wandering around this year as well... I hope he still worked there, what with our great legislators in the Eastern states cutting the throats of the public while granting themselves hefty pay-hikes, a working state employee is a rarity!

Back on the road again, we drove past the oxymoronic PURITAN adult book store. Give me a break! Of course Dave insisted on stopping, but I was driving. As the hills of Pennsylvania rolled by, we contemplated the tactics and values of our respective armies for the coming battles. Dave decided he'd better get an army figured out so he borrowed my WRG Book I army lists and took an hour to do it! Always plan ahead, he told us...

The Penn-Harris was almost in sight when I noticed a familiar looking van in front of us. Bruce Taylor and Dave Ottney had apparently left a bit before us, so we followed them into the parking lot and saw the wall-to-wall parked cars -- just like last year! We couldn't believe our luck when we saw a spot and Dave cruised right past it in the Van! As luck would have it, our room turned out to be within spitting distance of the parking spot, allowing for a mere ten trips to unload the armies, clothes, food and beer.

As the FREE TRADE WARS tourney started at 2:00, and we had pulled in at 1:00, we rapidly gathered our forces and set off to register. Lo and behold the line at the registration desk... must be because Wally Simon was out to lunch... hmmm. After a few minutes of jostling for position, we had registered and went off in search of Jamie Fish. There he was, in the Keystone room, where the NASAMW ancient tourneys had previously been held until this year. It seems that the NASAMW tourney (along with TACTICA and other ancients events) had simply outgrown the Penn-Harris facilities and had to be moved to the Holiday Inn 'down the road apiece' (sounds like the Stones!). Jamie, anticipating 40 garners, had arranged to use part of this room for F.T.W. He was hastily organizing historical opponents in both 15mm and 25mm scales when we showed up. "What, no Aztecs, Seleucids or Galatians for me to fight?" I cried. Finally, my Sicilian Hohenstauffen would get to battle Arabs, Feudal Germans and Mongols - wait a minute, this might not be such a great idea after all! But, since I'd brought the same army in both scales, I was assured of historical opponents... well, pretty close, anyway.

As I awaited my name to be called for the first pairings, a rather large fellow was engaged in a conversation with Larry Stone, no midget himself, right next to me. The-stranger was lamenting the fact that "...this guy Terry Gore was wrong in blasting TACTICA", etc. "I don't know him, but..." at which point Dave Armer gleefully interjected "Well, here's your big chance" and introduced me.

"I just write 'em as I see 'em" (a little bit of Wally Simon folkiness here), I said.'

"Well... you're wrong" he said.

"If people don't like my opinions, that's tough (expletive deleted)", I intoned. •

"Humph!" the large person muttered as he took his leave.

"Aren't you glad we came?" smiled Dave.

"If they can't take it, (expletive deleted) 'em", snorted Larry. We were off to a great start!

Phil Barker walked over and we had a few minutes to discuss the state of-the world before the pairings were announced. Yes, Phil will continue to answer questions and rules queries through the pages -of SAGA for another year, I'm happy to report. After exchanging a few more- pleasantries with Paul Georgian, Craig Tyrrell and Alan Spencer, Jamie gave me my first opponent... Craig Tyrrell's Burgundian Ordinnance! Now wait a minute, didn't Craig use an Early Assyrian army last year? What's he doing, playing Dr. Who? Talk about running the time-gamut of armies ...sheesh! Besides that, Craig was a 1990 and 1991 NCT qualifier, besides being a co-editor of SAGA, which means he is obviously of superior intellect and ability, learned in the art of war and WRG 7th tactics.

As I glanced Craig's way, I couldn't help but notice a certain gleeful look as he sat down opposite me. Okay, I'd beaten him last year at the NCT's. He wanted to get even. He had the army to do it. He did.

Actually, it wasn't that bad, but Craig's SHK managed to ride over my EHK/HK combinations. The only bright part of the game came when I finally managed to catch his handgunners with a crazed unit of Sicilians, cutting his shieldless foot to pieces. Other than that, Craig piled up a big win... and I muttered something about damned SHK... in wedges! Give me some hapless HC Normans to stomp' on and I'd show 'em.

Jamie, not wishing to let me 'gloat' over my wonderful game with Craig, came up with another fun opponent - Ilkhanids. Oh, boy, trying to catch thousands of LC with knights would be fun. Dave Ray decided he needed plenty of open space to roam around in while I managed to place a major water feature, a hill and some woods. I planned to let him come to me and try to catch him evading - which would cause waver tests... I hoped. This actually worked. Dave's LC consistently rolled short on their evades and once they didn't have room to slip through a gap, forcing them to drop back elements which I hit and routed. Dave also came up against some pretty deadly barrages of massed archer fire (I think I rolled plus three several times) and some timely knight charges. I had a strong win and felt pretty good as we picked up and headed for the bar to have a nightcap.

Though rather late, the Penn-Harris bar was packed. Rod Stafford and Bruce Taylor were already there, so Dave Ottney and I joined them along with Ron for a round or two. Paul. Michael Serio dropped by our table and proceeded to regale us with his NASAMW tournament adventures. He also bought a round of shots, a nasty habit to get into! About this time, Mr. Armer rambled in, map of Harrisburg in hand, looking for some more adventurous night life.

The TACTICA boys were there in their cut-off black t-shirts, medals and regalia. Someone muttered something about a biker bar, which got Ron and Dave all excited. Ron, who has rather long hair, and Dave, who looks a lot like that dead guy, Gary, on Thirtysomething, soon departed in search of such a place.

Needless to say, I knew that I was pretty exhausted and staggered off to our room to catch some much needed shuteye. At 3:45 A.M. I was rudely awakened by the boisterous spam-man who felt that it was against the laws of man that I still was not up drinking! Somehow, I managed to feign severe fatigue (sure!) and the two night stalkers finally went to sleep. Dave, emulating a famous incident from his past, managed to fall asleep in the middle of the floor.

FRIDAY

At 8:00 A.M. the alarm went off and I scrounged two cans of orange juice and a bag of muffins out of our supply bag. Dave breakfasted on Labatt's Blue while I gathered my figures for another go at winning a prize - a task that has eluded me for five years down here. The F.T.W. philosophy had it that you could play from 3 to 5 games, taking your best three scores. Jamie would take all of the three win guys and draw a name out of the hat for an eventual winner!

I finally got to use my 25mm Sicilians against Hungarians. Well, why not. Lots of knights, LC and some okay foot. This was a good battle. Though suffering from Thursday's overindulgence, I won this game - not by a lot, but I won, anyway. Two wins, one loss. I needed one more win.

Since I hadn't gone into the main room for gaming, I decided to see what else was going on. As usual, there were seemingly hundreds of gamer crowded around tables of all sizes, shapes and colors. Sea battles, the infamous Tares& game, Limeys and Slimeys, WW I trench warfare, micro-armor, ACW, AWI and of course a multitude of different scales of Napoleonics were in abundance. Also, a great looking Spanish Civil War game with cavalry, armored cars and small units of riflemen, slugging it out circa 1936 - a pre-WW II game that looked fantastic.

The number of painted armies for sale was incredible. So were the prices. The dealers seemed to do very well this year, I even managed to sell over thirty of my Pallas Armata booklets and ran out of SAGAS. The lines at the registration desk just got longer and longer as well. I don't know what the final number of attendees was. but it must have been very high as it was hard to move at times through the dealer areas.

Being my usual thrifty self (!). I purchased a handful of Turcopole LC for my 25mm Crusader army. The one incredible thing about HISTORICON is the amount and variety of figures available. You get to look at them, instead of a catalog photo, and compare prices as well as quality. This year, there seemed to be more military history books as well - another good sign. I ran back to the room, kicked Mr. Armer a couple of times, ate a quick sandwich and headed back for my fourth WRG game in less than 24 hours.

Jamie had that look on his face, so I knew I was in trouble. "The match of the day," he announced, "Terry Gore vrs. Larry Stone - Larry's playing for fun, he already has his three wins!" Great. I didn't.

Larry had an Arab Conquest army, a bit out of time-scale for mine, but close enough geographically and philosophically to do battle with. He congenially proceeded to tell me that he'd hardly played WRG much the last year as Napoleon's Battles took up most of his time (this sounds a lot like a certain NCT champion who I had over for a game not too long ago) and that he'd be a bit slow so I'd have to bear with him... and he only had three wins out of three games so far... hmmm.

The Arabs had a large, steep, rocky hill on their left and a woods to their right with two other hills across the center. From this vantage point (thanks to great die rolls) I had to place most of my troops while seeing very little of Larry's (under WRG 7th, if you have hills in your forward zones, you can 'see' further than the poor guy who's sitting in the open). Not too bad, though. The old Sicilians would try to force the issue on my right... by taking that steep hill away.

Somehow, my futile assaults with LMI and LC kept most of Larry's attention focused on the hill while my knights got into an overwhelming position against his own lighter armored horse. He finally conceded and I had my third win! There was a fifth game scheduled for those who wanted to play, but I felt that a good dinner and a 'fun' game would be a better choice so I went back to the room to collect my room-mates, who now included Mitch Abrams, freshly arrived from Boston.

Eight of us trudged over to the Ground Round for our traditional Friday night feast. Joel Haas and Art Fosse managed to secure us a table and we sat down to order. Ron Shank made his second mistake of the trip (his first was playing in the tournament - after games he had a grand total of 0 points). He ordered three pitchers of Killian's Red, "I'll get these, they're on me", he yelled, not noticing the price. We all ordered our meals, got loud and boisterous, regaled each other with wit and wisdom, especially after another round of pitchers, and in general had a grand time. As the bills arrived, Ron turned green - much as he'd looked that morning. The pitchers had cost $8.50 each!

We had to take him back to the Penn-Harris where the bar was full and noisy. Brian Lewis, my SIMCON nemesis was there along with Vic Fitzpatrick and a full table of Canadian gamers from Hamilton. Ontario. I promised to get together with them later. Mr Newbury himself, William Keyser almost bought me a drink - maybe next year. Mysteriously, Dave and Ron disappeared again, in search of Rich Kohlbacher, Bob Sillars, Phil Viverito and other Buffalo (NY) gamers who were out for a night on the town.

I'm afraid I ended up dragging poor Mitch all over the Penn-Harris that night. First we played a game of KNIGHT HACK, a new Dark Ages rules set from the Jogglers of Buffalo, New York. Dave Ottney managed to kick our butts in this one (those damned Normans couldn't get it right). As it was now close to 2:00 A.M., we almost got to our room when I saw Brian Lewis and we were invited over to the Canadians' room where, strangely enough, there was a case of Molsen's, but Brian and Vic were drinking Keystone! So I had a Pabst. Strange things happen in Pennsylvania.

After a half hour or so, Mitch and I turned in, determined to get up and play in Sam Mustafa's SABRES game in the morning.

SATURDAY

Mitch was up early, prepared to do battle. Dave Ottney woke me up and I got myself together enough to stumble over to the gaming room where the SABRES game was about to begin. This game has much to offer for newcomers and old pros alike. You get one figure - in Sam's scenario, a mounted, carbine and sabre-armed soldier of France or Britain. The twenty players were divided up into teams of five, with a C.O. and four privates. Cards determined who got to move, shoot or hack and slash. The system could easily translate to ancients/medievals. Needless to say, our team had problems, not least of which was the ugliest figure I'd ever seen on a wargames table - it looked suspiciously like a large orc! This thing shot and hacked to pieces a couple of our men and my poor figure had to leave the game with about 1 point of life left!

After this, the rest of the morning was spent in wandering around the gaming/dealer areas before Mitch and I headed back to our room to catch the Yankee game. Armer and Ron had arisen by that time and we more or less just spent the rest of the afternoon shooting the breeze with whoever happened to wander in. We did get over to see Dave Abraham's Napoleon's Battles game, Waterloo, on professional looking terrain with upwards of twenty players involved. Although our ancients tournament looked pretty good this year (thanks in large part to GEO-HEX, which loaned us packs of their new WRG terrain kits), the job Dave did on Waterloo was spectacular.

It was just about dinner time. We ran into Phil, Jamie, Paul Georgian and Mike McVeigh who joined us in the Penn-Harris dining room. We were running late for our WRG mega-game, so after eating, I ran back to my room (great exercise, these conventions) and gathered all of the Normans I could find and hustled them over to the convention center.

The mega-game featured thousands of 15mm figures depicting an Anglo-Norman invasion of Scotland. Jamie had all sorts of hidden alliances and family ties in effect. It seems the 'rebel' leader was my brother (I got to be the Norman CiC), who had been sent North to quell the Scottish border raids, but had instead joined them! Die rolls determined that he hated me but I liked him enough, as far as brotherly love went in the 11th-12th centuries. My other 'brother' was with me, he liked me , I guess, at least he didn't try to assassinate me. I felt 1 could trust Mike McVeigh, who held my left flank, but as for the other six players on my side... As it turned out, the general holding my extreme left flank was certainly not of a loyal nature. He proceeded to wreak havoc on his neighbor in the heat of battle - wiping him out before tearing into the next general. 

Luckily for my side, a plethora of Viking types decided that it was a precipitous time to raid, and they pillaged their way onto the beaches, fighting the Scots tooth and nail. One great thing about a game this large is that you end up concentrating on your own 1200 points and who's in front of you. All sorts of bad things can be happening around you, but you're not aware of it until it's too late! The fog of war can be easily experienced in a confusing game with over a dozen players, each out for himself (or herself... we had a young lady, whose husband fought opposite us, who really got into it "Who can I destroy now? I've got to attack somebody!").

I guided her actions as best I could, putting forth my best Norman demeanor, "Charge that unit ahead of you in the back, but make sure your knights are in wedge so you'll be sure to wipe him out". No subtlety there... hey, you teach 'em the right way, eh?

The Scots facing Mike, to my right, had a huge farm in their forward deployment area which they would have to get by before coming to grips with us. Unbeknownst to them (or to us), this farm was the sight of the local illegal brewery... a popular place at any time, but in this instance, a Viking raiding party had already captured it the day before and were horrendously hung-over when the poor Scots. came knocking. It was horrible to behold the fury of the Norsemen disturbed and mean as they tore through the surprised and panicked Scotsmen! If only Dave Armer had been there... This game was great fun, and a favorite with me at the convention.

Heading back to the hotel, a bunch of us decided on an impromptu get together out front - so we dragged chairs and beers out and shot the breeze. William Keyser. through judicious manipulation of our honor (?) and sense of pride (!) somehow talked several of us into a game of ... NEWBURY! And not the Fast Play, either. If only Mr. Halsall had been there to see this.

Mitch and I (along with one other "lucky" player who actually knew the rules) were advised by Greg Hauser, who, as a non-player, gave me various tips and tactical hints until William told him to beat it. William commanded the Mongols and in one hour, managed to slaughter two units of my Russ as I attempted to close with his elusive cavalry. The rules play quite fast, as long as William's there to tell you what they mean! Honestly, though, he whizzed through the charts and graphs, showing me that, yes, you could play a game of NEWBURY in an evening. After another half hour of humiliation, Mitch and I had enough and went to our room - looking forward to four or five hours of welcome sleep.

SUNDAY

Mitch packed up early for his drive back to Boston and left as I prepared to go over to watch the DBA tournament, run by Alan Spencer and sponsored by both NASAMW and F.T.W., cooperation at last. I got Ron and Dave together for the trip back, not easy after they spent a truly debaucherous night which I am sure will be talked of for some time. We packed the car and headed over to the tourney. Dave broke down and bought a Welsh army from Thistle and the Rose. Seems he's gotten ethnic of late. Ron won a DBA army, and picked Indians... soon I'll be seeing the cavalryman's best friends, longbow and elephants 

As I walked into Alan's tourney, I saw Scott Holder for the first time all weekend. The Chief Umpire for NASAMW accusingly assailed me with such taunts as 'troublemaker' and 'schismatic', hmmm, right up my alley as far as Medieval religious tolerance went! Anyway, Scott had been mollified a bit by Jevon Garrett's judicious decision to bring him a Nick Tahou's "garbage plate" all the way from Rochester! (Hey, Jevon, did you think this would help you in the NCT's? Come on, did you?) Heartburn and indigestion aside, Scott is easily bribed... tournament would-be hopefuls please note.

Glenn Poise, Larry Essick and Jake Koval also had a few moments of free time, so I got to talk to them as well. Phil Barker was busily playing in the DBA tournament. Dave Stiers and Mr. Plyler were engrossed in the NCT championship game. (Dave won). Making a final round of the dealers area, I said my goodbyes, gathered my two semi-roommates and headed back to the car to hit the road.

HISTORICON next year will be held at Lancaster, PA, but I'm sure spam-master Dave, Ron, Mitch and I will get together, as always, to enjoy the hospitality and congenial fun which this, the king of conventions, has to offer. See you then!