To: Regional Coordinators
From : Mark Stone
RE: New list stuff
March 24, 1992

The Paleoalogan Byzantine list and the Ligurian list I circulated have been approved for tournament play by you guys, both by rather clear majorities. The Byzantine fist has been changed slightly; people suggested toning down the Cretan marines on the late period a bit. Otherwise both are approved pretty much as you saw them. Look for them in an upcoming SPEARPOINT. There should be a companion list to the Byzantines, covering pre-1366, whenever Paul Georgian gets around to it.

In the mean time, here are two more lists for you to consider. I'd like your opinions on these by July 1st, if possible. I have a lot of submissions piling up, so we need to keep moving. A little introduction concerning these two submissions.

Lusianan Cypriote

Chris Cameron has spent parts of the last two years assembling this list, including a visit to Cyprus to look at sites, artifacts, and documents. He is a medieval historian by education. His claims about the various nationalities that composed Cypriote armies seem to check out, so tar as myself and other medievalists can tell. The classification of these in terms of troop and weapon type is trickier, but he has, as he says, stuck pretty close to standard interpretations of Book III. When I first glanced at the list I was concerned about play balance; there seemed to be some 'killer" list potential. Upon closer inspection, however, I think the list is OK. There are a lot of required troops that keep you from buying everything else you'd want to have: 18 required knights who can't wedge, including those really expensive Hospitallers, 6 fairly useless required HC, 16 required LTS guys, and some vague JLS, Sh foot. So I'm pretty comfortable with it from a play balance point of view as well, but that is really for you guys to decide; send me your votes.

Northeast Woods Indians

Dwight Coats' list presents rather different problems. From a play balance point it is now fine; Dwight has rewritten it from an earlier version he sent me, and graciously not argued with any of my complaints. The result is a list that is interesting, distinctive, and certainly no killer list.

There are some serious historical questions, however. Frankly I don't have the expertise to check his research, and I don't know anyone who does. So I am just throwing this out to the regional coordinators to decide: is this historically accurate? Further, I am not sure there should even js a northeast woods Indians list; it would be yet another list, like Inca and Mexican, that is basically without historical opponents. On the other hand, I can't help feeling -especially as Columbus' 500th anniversary comes up -- that Dwight has a valid point too.

Maybe we ghouls take more pride in the culture native to this continent; maybe we should have a native army to call our own. But that's the great thing about democracy. I don't have to decide. It's up to you guys; send me your votes.