In December 1991 at Rochester, Now York. a series of 15mm ancient wargames were played and served as a regional round to qualify one player for the North American Society of Ancient and Medieval Wargamers (NASAMW) national tournament. The rules were Wargames Research Group (WRG) 7th edition with some interpretations, as refereed by umpire Dave Stier, using 1500-point armies under the WRG troop-cost system.

There were three sets of games, played round robin style, under a tournament scoring system that gave each player 1-5 points per game, and basically rewarded aggressiveness in giving points for both margin of victory and damage inflicted, As there were 9 players, in the first two sets the odd player was credited by 3 points and played a friendly game against Dave Stier's Tibetans (with, I heard, the usual lack of success).

Greg Houser, at whose house the round was played, won the overall round with his Seleucids, after a relatively narrow but bloody, victory in his third game over the Early Bulgar army, of 3rd place finisher Brian Lewis, one of several players who drove from Canada for the round. Second place went to Dave Saunders, who fielded Feudal Germans. I took fourth place with one of my two early Achaemenid Persian (around 500 BC armies of the round. The other armies included Sultanate of Delhi (medieval Indian), Later Milanese (Italian Condottiore), Teutonic Knights and Mithradatic (the army of Mithradates of Pontus, 1st century BC).

Although the Early Achaemenid Persian army list put out by WRG reflects the variety of the Persian Empire, the version that I fielded was heavy on the Persians. There were 2 units of horse archer light cavalry (LC), Bactrians and Scythians, 1 unit of Paricanian foot archers as light ihfantry (LI), 1 small unit of Phoenician marines as light medium infantry (LMI) with Javelin and shield, and 2 units of Persian heavy cavalry, with good "Irregular B" morale and javelin, bow, and shield. Finally, I had 4 units of Persian heavy infantry with Javelin, bow, and shield, 2 smaller but more expensive ones of "Immortals" treated by WRG as elite, drilled "Regular A," and 2 larger ones ordinnary Persians, treated by WRG as less drilled, average morale "Irregular C."

My first opponent was the Later Milanese 15th century, about as modern as the WRG rules go, of Sean Patrick Scott. He put out a screen of mounted crossbow LC, light heavy infantry (LHI) with handguns, and LI with crossbows to screen small units of super heavy knights with lances and heavy cavalry with Javelins. This is one time when the screen worked too well. For much of the game, we more or less traded a few light units. He also got 1 heavy and 1 light cavalry unit around one flank, which was a distraction, but I eventually managed to destroy the heavy cavalry and drive the light cavalry back. Meanwhile, by the time his knights were coming into action, the game time limit was running out, and he only managed to wipe out one unit of Immortals, while I destroyed his other heavy cavalry unit. The result showed the difference between game and tournament points. He won a narrow but clear victory on the field: 230 points lost for him to 277.5 for me, but for tournament purposes that was 2 points each.

My 2nd opponent was Devon Garrett with the Sultanate of Delhi. He had 2 catapults which mainly served to deny me part of the field as the Persians stayed out of range. Mostly what the Persians faced at the start was a horde of cheap but deadly LC horse archers, LI foot archers, and LI with javelin and shield, who collapsed both flanks. On the east flank, a javalin unit wiped out the Paricanians (who made a foolish attempt to stand). A unit of heavy cavalry survived, but was so shot up plugging a gap that the unit was considered "exhausted" and thus automatically reduced to the intermediate morale state of "shaken."

On the west flank, the Bactrians and the other heavy cavalry unit were routed, although a general managed to rally the heavies to shaken status. The Indians had one bad moment when a unit of elephants, coming up to finish the job, failed "Waver Morale Test" when shot at close range by the Phoenicians with javelins, but the elephants, against the adds, won the ensuing melee! This removed their shaken status, and the Phoenicians were shortly destroyed. Once again, thougth, time was running, out, and on the last turn a series of bad die rolls (on the WRG plus-minus melee dice system, he had several -2 and 3 rolls) prevented him from doing more serious damage. The Indians ended up with a 4-1 victory, 41 lost (1 light unit) to 314.5 for the Persians.

The third and final opponent was the Mithradatic Pontics of Vic Fitzpatrick. He had over 20 small units of what seemed to be just about every troop type of the time except elephants and catapults, but his featured arm was scythed chariots. Under WRG, each chariot runs around as a single "Irregular A" 4 horse expendable elements which can be deadly in melee if it closes, but is destroyed unless it achieves a notable success such as routing or breaking through the enemy.

On the west flank, the two LC units succeeded in tying up about 7 small units of peltast LMI and 7 LI with bows and slings. He damaged both units, but could never catch, them. On the east flank, a Pontic unit of Cappadocian LC caught the Paricanians in the flank as they were trying to screen the Persian deployment, and destroyed the Paricanians. However, the two Persian heavy cavalry units charged front and flank and wiped out one of two units of Armenian cataphracts. The other cataphract unit had the best Pontic play in the game: It shrugged off the morale tests caused by its comrades, destroyed the Phoenicians in front of it, and even though struck in the back by a second charge of one of the now-tired Persian units, eventually managed to turn around and fight to an inconclusive draw that lasted the rest of the game. The other Persian heavy cavalry unit destroyed a scythed chariot in a second charge, but in a third very tired charge, was brought to a standstill and eventually routed by a unit of Scythtan horse archers (these were working for the Pontics, unlike their cousins). The Scythians then overextended themselves, however. They charged tired into a Persian subgeneral who comprised a single element (stand) of heavy cavalry, but he was fresh, and heavies told over lights, and he routed them. The game was decided in the center, where the Pontics failed to break the line of Persian heavy infantry, mainly due to the withering bow fire that such troops can put out. The bowshots tired out and disordered units, and caused morale checks and a resulting loss of coordination in the Pontic charges. The Pontics persevered on closing, but ended up losing 4 scythed chariots and 3 small units, 1 each of Thracian LMI, Sarmatian heavy cavalry, and Pontic pikemen. Although the Pontics still had many more units left on the field as the game's time limit ran out and the surviving Persians were beat up, total losses were 620 for the Pontics to 271 for the Persians, a 3-2 Persian victory.