Among the events at the Rudicon 7 Convention, held at the Rochester Institute of Technology in October 1991 was a miniatures ancients tournament run by umpire Dave Stier. This doubled as a qualifying round for the next NASAMW, national tournament. The figures were 15mm, 1500-point armies under the Wargames Research Group (WRG) 7th Edition rules: Fourteen players showed; and three rounds were played, in round robin style, with the highest overall point getter as the tournament winner.

The tournament scoring system, which favored the attack by rewarding both the number of enemy destroyed and the margin of victory; gave each player from 1-5 points per game. Brian Lewis, one of several players who drove from Canada for the convention, won with a maximum 15 tournament points, using a Magyar army (ancestors of the Hungarians, about 900 AD) I believe. Sean Patrick Scott was the runnerup with a medieval Baltic Prussian army. Two armies were the same, and the others fielded--included Maccabean Jews, Lithuanians, Late Romans, Pre-Feudal Scots (around 1000 AD), Bactrian Greeks, Alexander's Macedonians, Ancient British, Parthians, Ptolemaic (Hellenistic,) Fgyptians, Sicilian Hohenstaufen (around 1200 AU), and Seleucids, plus my own medieval Ethiopians (WRG List 101, Abyssinian).

The Ethiopians basically featured some good Irregular B morale class light cavalry (LC) a few heavier cavalry, some light infantry (LI), and its sole, light medium infantry (LMI) with javelin and shield, partly Irregular C average morale and partly Irregular A fanatics. 

My first opponent was Frank Gilson with Maccabean Jews (around 100 BC). His army was somewhat like mine in troop types, except that it had more LI missile infantry and some of the troops could be drilled regulars (as opposed to the Ethiopians, all of whom are classified as undisciplined Irregulars). We also used similar battle plans. The lights skirmished, on the flanks to little effect, and, the LMI of each side met in the center. The die rolls, however, were generally good; while his were generally bad; both in the hand to hand combat and in the ensuing waver (morale) tests. Even when my Irregular C--that is, average morale-LMI regiment named Zan Amora (Lord of the Vultures) failed a waver test and, fell to the intermediate morale state of "shaken", in the next melee Zen Amora rolled the best possible result, destroyed a Maccabean LMI unit, and threw--back an opposing cavalry unit which had' charged' the Ethiopians, thus returning Zen Amore to a normal morale state. After two rounds of this (relatively unprotected LMI are destroyed quickly), the game was effectively over, and I ended up with, a maximum 5-1 win.

In my next game, however, I contributed to Brian Lewis margin of victory: the Magyars included LC horse archers, heavy cavalry armed with lance, bow, and shield, and soma Slavic infantry; LI foot archers and variously- armed LMI. Even thought my terrain dice rolled up all sorts of hills and woods, so that my infantry could flow into them and his LC had to meet my LC straight on in a gap, he won the initial melee, exploited it to rout and destroy all of my ,LC plus a heavy cavalry unit which had tried to plug a gap, and, with the "help" of some failed waver tests of mine, caused what was left of my left-flank command to retire from the boards. 

Then his Slav managed to "exhaust" (give maximum fatigue to, counting as "shaken" and half destroyed) one of my elite Irregular A LMI regiments, Takuela ("Jackals"). The Magyars had a 5-1' win.

The third and final opponent was Jevon Garrett with Sicilian Hohenataufens, a mixture of Germans, Italians, and Saracen mercenaries. As the round started, each of us had 6 tournament points and a faint possibility of winning with a maximum game victory. (Instead, Brian Lewis actually- won another 5-pointer)

After terrain was diced for, the only significant feature was a large woods in the center and just on the Ethiopian side of the midline: The Hohenataufens started in two separated wings, with largely Saracen horse archer LC west of the woods, and east of the woods two lines, the first with, all sorts of LI and LMI units armed with bow and crossbow;-the second with a single unit of German heavy foot and numerous small units of knights, most of whom could, as a feature of the list, fight in the wedge formation that is more effective in WRG melees.

So at the start, things went fine for the Ethiopians. They charged several times all along the lines, drove the enemy lights back, and even routed one unit of wing -- which rolled a short evade move away from the charges. Then the Hohenstaufens began feeding in their knights and the German foot on the east wing, and soon, through good exploitation, had wiped out the two biggest Ethiopian Irregular A units, Takuela and Sellus Kayle ("The Trinity Is My Strength"). The Saracen LC also routed an Ethiopian LI unit in the west, while the two other Ethiopian LI units were destroyed in the east's however, not everything went this way as another Irregular A unit (Baadel Sabraq, "Sun in Victory") charged a unit of Italian knights in the flank as it was disposing of some LI and destroyed the Italians. Also, a Saracen LMI unit which was being sent from east to west as reinforcements passed too close to the woods, and was ambushed from hiding, charged in the flank, and routed by my Wej Irregular C LMI regiment (named after an Ethiopian province). Still, the two lost Irregular A units alone were worth nearly 300 points, and, when the game's time limit ran out, the Hohenstaufens were a little over 100 points ahead in the hard fought battle and won a 3-2 victory in tournament points. We agreed that he had won tactically as well, as by this time my line was pretty much in disconnected pieces, and most of the troops that were left were more tired than his under the WRG fatigue system.