Or, You must be joking, I've only just learnt the rules!

Well yes, there are some good reasons for entering a competition, even if you are a beginner. Here are some of them:

1) You will meet a lot of fellow wargamers.

2) You will see a host of different armies, organisations, uniforms and painting styles. If anything particularly take your interest, you will be able to quiz the owner for details.

3) At a major convention, you get to view trade stands, demonstration and participation games. You may even have time to join in one or more participation games.

4) You get to play lots of games.

There are some negative points about competition, which include:

1) Your ego may get bruised after several defeats.

2) You may meet the dreaded beast known as the "rules lawyer".

3) Competitions mean unhistorical opponents.

I believe that the plus side of competitions considerable outweigh the minus side. More games mean more practice with the rules and your army. Competitions also give you a rapid and broad exposure to how the rules are interpreted and how they operate, which is of far more value than re-reading the rules several times.

Let us examine the negative points and see if there is anything we can do to mitigate the down side of competitions.

As a beginner you will probably lose against a more experienced opponent. And because it is a competition you must expect an opponent to play to the best of his ability rather than give you an easy time. So if your objective is to purely win games then you will be disappointed. However, if you re-adjust your sights and aim for a more realistic objective, then you are likely to gain a lot from a competition. Realistic objectives for a beginner could be: get to know the rules better, win or lose; or experiment with ambushes and flank marches, even if it means leaving your main battle line exposed; or practice trying to hold up or pin down an enemy flank using weak or light troops.

Turn the experience of your opponent to your advantage by holding a post game discussion. Ask your opponent where you went wrong, what he would have done and how he would have organised your army. Interrogate him on rules interpretations. Note any particular points that you wish to discuss during a game on a piece of paper and go through them after the game.

You may wish to tell your opponent at the outset that your are a beginner and to request that he "talk through" the game. Most people will oblige. There is a down side to admitting you are a beginner - it will probably make your opponent more confident. An alternative approach is to admit nothing and bluff out as much of the game as possible. If you adopt a reasonable defensive stance, your opponent may approach you with caution and you might possibly hold your army together for long enough to reach the end of the game. Whether you adopt the latter strategy will depend on how good you are at bluff poker.

Don't be too surprised if your opponent does not pay too much attention to your opening claim. Such claims are often made as part of the pre-game psychological offensive. Statements like "I've never used this army before", "This army has so many weaknesses, I don't know why I bother to use it", or "This army always loses" are sometimes issued in an attempt to make the opponent over-confident and unwary. On the other hand, don't worry too much about claims from an opponent to the effect that he is the wargames champion of the universe. This may be another ploy to rattle the opponent. I've heard all of the above claims, including "I'm a beginner" The "beginner" gave me a very hard game. It turned out that my opponent was a beginner to WRG but had been playing wargames since H.G. Wells was a boy.

The rules lawyer is a being who, to avoid a losing situation, pulls a rule interpretation out of the hat that lets him off the hook or forces you to take an action which is catastrophic to your fortunes. The definition is also sometimes used of a player who is felt to interpret the rules too literally, and not to apply common sense to a table top situation. I am always a little wary when people start accusing others of being rules lawyers. To me, it often sounds like sour grapes. But assuming such a person exists and stalks the tables of competitions, should you be put off entering a competition because you may meet them? No! In fact a "lawyer" can be turned to your advantage - they will know the rules backwards so you should turn the situation around and use them to answer as many rule queries as you can think of.

Competition under WRG 7th will probably mean meeting unhistorical opponents. In Britain some competitions split the ancient period up into sub periods, but this is only practical if there are a large number of participants. I personally do not have any qualms about unhistorical opponents meeting within a competition or club environment. In friendlies, if at all possible, I attempt to match my opponent's army with an army from a similar era. But I'm not going to refuse an opponent a game if he has a Japanese, Mexican, Ming Chinese, Inca or Khmer army to my Republican Roman. In the final analysis I still believe that the technological gap between a Tutonic Knight army and a New Kingdom Egyptian army is smaller than existed between, say, a British Colonial army and Zulu army.

Now that we have decided that competitions might be a good idea, there are a few other comments I would like to make. One of the skills I believe is important in wargaming, and possibly the hardest to acquire, is the knack of playing the playing a competition game in a style, which I believe you Americans describe as a "gentleman". It is what I would call gamesmanship. This has nothing to do with being obsequious, patronising, unskillful or predisposed to defeat. I has everything to do with treating your opponent with respect, not cheating, using and interpreting the rules in a balanced manner, and not insulting or arguing with the umpire. Umpires have a difficult and often thankless job, which is not helped by players insulting them when ruled against. And there is a practical side to behaving civilly to an umpire - an umpire that has been insulted once by a player will be understandably prejudiced against that player if he is called in to arbitrate in a later ruling - and they say umpires have long memories.

Everyone talks about a game plan. The rule of thumb is that a bad game plan is better than none at all. With no plan you dither and fluster and get yourself into trouble. As a beginner you should explore different plans to see which style suits you: offensive or defensive, flank attack or frontal assault, initiate the attack or absorb the enemy attack and be ready to counter attack. And remember staying put in a defensive location is a plan. Don't let your opponent draw you out with cries of "unfair" or "what a boring game this is". If he refuses to attack you then you must decide whether you want to come out or whether you will be satisfied with a draw.

One of the best examples I can think of that combined a good play with imaginative strategy occurred in a DBA game I played several years ago. I was playing an opponent who I admire as having this combined skill of gamesmanship and lateral thinking. I was commanding a Norman army against my opponent's Irish army, which consisted almost entirely of infantry (LMI/LI types). There was a reasonable amount of small terrain pieces around, with enough gaps to allow my powerful Norman cavalry to operate. To my surprise my opponent placed his commander-in-chief (LMI type) out on the left flank, in the open, supported by three or four elements. The rest of the army was deployed in a reasonably strong defensive position.

I immediately saw that if I could strike hard at the enemy C-in-C and wipe his and his support out before the remainder of his army came to his support I would win. My C-in-C personally lead the assault, charging the enemy commander. It was only after I elected to start combat that the trap was sprung. The enemy commander was deployed in a small marsh. The units to the side and to the rear were there principally there to hide the marsh. My commander floundered and drowned in the first few minutes of melee, my army disintegrated and the game was lost. The beauty of the trap was of course that I initiated the attack, I moved my figures in, I elected to start the melee. The term "bog Irish" was applied to the Normans that day. And the irony is that the rules oriented players are 'unlikely to think of this stratagem because the rules say all terrain is laid out before hand and there is no hidden features or units.

I haven't reeled off volumes of statistics on the WRG rules in this article because I am trying assist beginners to think about tactics and stratagems. Use competitions to learn the mechanics of the rules, and do not be afraid to lose. But always be thinking about getting your army to work as a cohesive whole, and how various tactics work best for you and your army. And one other thing - good luck!

More Beginners Guide to Tactics Under WRG 7th

Part 1: Pick Your Army {Saga v5n6)
Part 2: The Waver Test and How to Avoid It {Saga v6n1)
Part 3: Movement, Missiles, Melee {Saga v6n2)
Part 4: Competition Wargaming {Saga v6n3)
Part 5: Pilum, Darts and Javelins {Saga v6n4)
Part 7: Foot or Mounted? {Saga v6n6)