After last year's debacle in Harrisburg where I managed to lose as many games as I won, this year, confidence born of experience with my chosen army was to be the passport to victory. Back to the basics. Pre-Feudal Scots. My old favorites in 25mm, not those tiny 15's which seem to proliferate of late. No nit-picking over a millimeter. Hefty bases. Big units... and extremely heavy boxes. Do you know how much a carton filled with 300 25mm figures weighs? Oh well, I'd been in need of some exercise this summer....

Deciding that my system needed a rest, I • rode down with Dave Ottney and Bruce Taylor this year. For a change, the entire trunk of the van was not filled with cases of beer. Plenty of room for those 25mm Scots (as well as Dave's 25mm Vikings and Bruce's thousands of Hapoleonics). All right there was SOME beer... but only a couple of eases .

Thursday morning was gray and wet as we set forth at 8:00 A.M. Since it is a tradition with Bruce and Dave to have a theme--something to do with keeping from boring each other to death for 6 hours, I think--they came up with "Major Babes", whatever the hell that meant. Less than an hour out of Rochester, this evolved into "Does It Bother You?" Yes. Unfortunately, Lancaster PA was even further away from Rochester than Harrisburg!

Dave made excellent time... probably as a result of the ensuing nonsense being spoken on the trip down. As we hit the hills of Pennsylvania, I'd ask Bruce "How would you take that position?", pointing to a wooded, rock strewn rise. We would then plan out an attack, where to place artillery, etc. Do all wargamers look at the passing countryside and tactically decide how to attack or defend a ,given piece of terrain? No? Just us, huh? Oh....

For three hundred miles we rode through a massive low pressure system which did little but make our visibility go from poor to awful as it rained in various degrees of severity. With a sigh of relief

we pulled into the Lancaster Host convention center and headed inside to get our room... which wouldn't be ready for another three hours! It took about ten seconds to run into a familiar face, Brian Lewis from Hamilton, Canada. Another five minutes found us in the bar.

Suitably fortified, we made our way downstairs into the dealer's area. Now, the Penn-Harris was big, but this place was huge... and hot. The air-conditioning apparently had failed in the massive room, ,and with the tables full of every conceivable brand of figure, rulebook and accessories, the hundreds of bargain-hunting wargamers (just made things even stuffier. We made a quick pass around the tables and then headed upstairs again out of the stifling humidity.

Our room now being ready, we proceeded to register and relax a bit. The WRG Dark Age tournament did not begin until Friday evening, so we had a whole day in which to check out the various other games. Same stalwarts did manage to play in both the open tourney as well as the Dark Ages one (Craig Tyrrell, Greg Hauser and Chris Damour, to name just three!), but hey, these guys are all a lot younger than me, right? This year I'd take it easy. Sure.

Mitch Abrams managed to find us, completing our foursome (it seems that many garners stayed at other locales, cheaper than the Host, but with four of us in a room, our individual cost was pretty reasonable).

So we ate dinner and watched some games before heading back to the bar. Jevon Garrett, it seemed, owed Dave Ottney a case of dark beer in payment for some painting done for him. After a merciless chorus of "where's the beer?" which went on every five minutes, Jevon disappeared only to show up later with a case of Juengling... not bad! After regaling the Canadians from Hamilton (Bruce Palmer, Vic Fitzpatrick and Dave Saunders) with our intended plans for victory on the morrow, we retired to our room to watch a video of Frederick the Great, done by the Nazis before the war and with no subtitles! Now, I've had four years of German, but that was twenty five years ago, still, for a while it was fun. With a wistful sigh, I closed my eyes... only to be harshly awakened by the sound of two chainsaws on either side of me! Oh, it was only Bruce and Mitch snoring their brains out. Dave groaned as he pulled his covers and pillow after him into the hall, trying to get away from the twin engines. I simply stuffed cotton in both ears and quickly fell back to sleep.

FRIDAY

The alarm was not needed as Mr. Ottney was up and at 'em by 7:30. "What the hell, this is supposed to be a vacation!", I muttered. Oh well, why waste time sleeping, right? I did miss the sound of beer cans popping open first thing in the morning, though.

The game room was filling up quickly as we arrived to watch the second round of the WRG open tourney. Scott Holder had his laptop computer with him... made it easier to calculate and post results, for sure! This was more like it. A couple of the guys had their libations already at end... Russ Tulp, didn't I see you there? Arty Conliffe was preparing to put on two TACTICA demo games in conjunction with the NASAMW tourneys and they seemed well attended and excellently run.

Bruce Taylor had volunteered to help run the Napoleon's Battles tournament, featuring the battles of Ligny, Quatre Bras and Waterloo. Craig Taylor (the author of N.B.) and the Rochester Historical Simulations Group helped to organize this event. Three terrain boards were used, all beautifully done, with teams of gamers playing first one side, then switching on Saturday to play the other. Every time I looked in on this event (which was often, as Bruce had the beer cooler), it was going strong.

After wandering about for a bit, I went back down into the dealers area where Jamie Fish had graciously allowed me to display my Pallas Armata booklets along with Michael Young's SHIELDBEARER rules on his tables. Of course each time I went down there, we 'settled up', which left me with disposable income. That didn't last long. I purchased a number of Wargames Foundry 25mm figures as well as a book I'd been looking for from Art Fossa (another old friend from Rochester years back) BATTLEFIELDS OF ENGLAND. Some of the tempting items for sale at the various dealers tables were a number of 15mm and 25mm buildings; Greek and Roman temples, the Circus Maximus, and Egyptian buildings with painted frescos; bags of figures at 30-50% discounts; every conceivable magazine from both sides of the Atlantic (even SAGA); boardgames, both new and used; figures from every major and some not so major manufacturers; and especially neat were recast Marx and Timpo plastic soldiers from the 50's! Did these bring back memories. Almost every one of the hundreds of molded plastic 'men' was a familiar old friend from my youth. When I got back home, I pulled out an old box from the basement and placed my surviving Marx figures on the bookshelf--where they now will permanently reside.

After a quick lunch at the canteen (located adjacent to the gamerooms), I took another look at the various games going on. There was a Kelly's Heroes game which looked great (54mm figures again); as well as plenty of ACW, AMR, WWI, WWII, Napoleonic and literally any other period of history wargame being fought throughout the convention center. I couldn't stand it any more. Dave Ottney and I got our armies and grabbed an open table on which to do a 'practice' game.

Dave had brought his Vikings; he and I had fought perhaps a half-dozen games in preparation for the tourney so what was one more? As usual, my Pre-Feudals fought a bloody winning draw against him. The trouble with playing against the same opponent is that you both learn each other's tactics so well, nothing is a surprise. By the time we had finished, it was time for the REAL tournament to get underway.

Scott had posted the matchups on a large poster board. I had been paired with Danny Weitz, who I had never played against before, but knew to be an excellant gamer. He was using Anglo-Danes, a good opponent for my Pre-Feudals. That is one thing I really like about the theme tourneys. Historical matches. No elephants, pikes or scythed chariots. I believe that in the future, all major tournaments should be done this way. I'm toying with doing this at SIMCON next year, but will have to explore this with members of my region before making a decision.

Danny's army consisted of a lot of close-order foot and Vikings. Terrain choices resulted in a large area of marsh and a woods on my left, and hills in the center. Danny set up with his Vikings facing the rough terrain and his close-order troops holding the level ground opposite my right. I placed my Galwegian warbands across the battlefield from his Saxon foot, held my horse and Scots foot in reserve in the center, and placed my own Vikings in the woods and marsh, well back from the centerline! Danny's Vikings got bogged down in the rough terrain and finally closed with my viking holding force, but too late as my Galwegians and Norman horse had by then broken his close-order troops. My loose-order Scots simply waded into the Saxon foot and after a hard-fought game, killed enough of them to give me a 5-1 victory. With that in hand, I awaited my next opponent who would be announced Saturday morning. Elated with my win, I packed up my figures and went back to the room.

After disposing of a few beers, Dave and I trudged back down to the bar and ran into the Canadians again! Those guys really know where the action is. Forebearing the politics of the moment, we had an interesting discussion about the future of wargaming and how to bring new members into our respective organizations. At this point, Dave Ottney was 'in his cups', and since we both had a 9:00 A.M. game to get up for, I steered us both back to our room. Placing tissue paper in my ears, I prepared to get some sleep... and it worked!

SATURDAY 

I couldn't believe it when I heard Mr. Dave up and about at 7 A.M.! My God, the man had drunk enough to float the Queen Mary and here he was, scrambling about like he'd had twelve hours sleep. I wondered why I didn't feel any worse than I did, too. Must be the adrenalin flow. Suddenly I heard a cry from the bathroom. Dave, in his reverie of thinking "Boy, I'm feelin' all right after drinking my brains out last night..." had tried to brush his teeth with shampoo. You can fool some of the people... etc.

After a quick breakfast of HoHo's and juice (yep, we came prepared), Dave and I trudged our armies back for round two of the tourney. Another rainy day in Pennsylvania. I thought Rochester had the worst weather in the world, well, Lancaster is a close second.

As we entered the game room, Scott was already set for the next round. I had drawn another 5-1 gamer, Frank Scarsi with Normans. The one type of army the Scots are vulnerable to is a cavalry army. Even with two 48 man blocks of MI spearmen, the rest of the army is either loose or open order foot (with the exception of two wedges of Norman knights and the Scots command--6 HC with the CiC). Needless to say, I decided to place as much terrain as I could, including a major water feature to deny Frank at least one open flank. Luckily, I was not outscouted.

My first mistake was in assuming my 48-man spear blocks were invulnerable. I foolishly placed both of them in open ground on my right flank, anchored on the water. I figured he couldn't hurt them, so they just march forward. My Vikings and Galwegians I placed on two hills I'd rolled for in the center and left flank. The cavalry were held in reserve. Frank wasted no time in sending a good portion of his army (six units) against my spearmen. It took him all game, but he kept hammering them with alternating wedges of Slavs and HI/MI blocks of Norman foot. Eventually, they both broke, losing me over 300 points. meanwhile, the center found Frank's Normans charging my Vikings and doing little damage. The left flank consisted of a lot of skirmishing and ineffective charges. Finally, the center stabilized as I pummeled a couple of Franks units, but too late, as he had inflicted enough casualties on me to gain him a 5-2 win.

Well, I thought, that's it for this tournament. I knew from past experience that you had to win all your games BIG in order to have a shot at the finalist round. What I did not take into consideration was Scott's scoring system. You not only got your own points, but those of your opponents as well. Luckily for me, both Danny and Frank were doing very well indeed.

Another quick meal caught on the run, but this time Duke Siefried had his Sudan game going in full gear... I had to sit and watch this for a bit. Duke's terrain is unbelievable. Here was a section of the African landscape complete with wadis, oasis, a great looking fortress and thousands of figures run by dozens of participants! Duke kept up a running commentary on a lapel mike through a small PA system. While I was there, he announced the arrival of the Mahdi, resulting in all sorts of chaos. I remember a small unit of European foot being literally smothered by the Faithful as they streamed toward the reported sighting of their revered leader. It looked like everyone was having a terrific time.

Back to the tournament. My last opponent was Todd Kaeser... with Normans! Thanks, Scott. Not bad enough to have my ass kicked last game, now we had a chance to repeat our dismal performance. No way. My guys were raring to go to avenge their last showing. I set up with a large hill on my left, woods to the right and another hill in the center. Todd took one look at the 96 MI spearmen on the central hill and sent his entire mounted force, eight wedges worth to attack my Galwegians holding the hill on my left... a steep hill. Todd said "what the hell!" and charged up anyway! Actually, he did all right as wedge after wedge smashed into my LMI, keeping me off balance. He took three turns to finally expend his last mounted unit. My Galwegians had held. Now it was my turn. My own Normans waded into the flanks of his horse, causing multiple routs and waver tests. Finally, his army was forced to retire from the field. A good fighter, though! A man after my own heart. I had another 5-1 victory.

Scott had placed the scores on the computer and I saw that I currently was in 5th place. Oh, well, we'd get an early start back to Rochester in the morning. I packed the Scots away carefully for their trip and prepared to head back to the room... when suddenly there arose a bit of a clamor. Yes, the NASAMW dinner was about to begin. Now it had rained for three days straight, but nature had decided to give us a break. We were to dine out on the courtyard by the pool (closed constantly since we'd arrived, or so it seemed). Jamie, Nancy and Alex Fish were to be my dinner mates, but they had a time just hooking up with each other, so I joined Paul Georgian, Rod Burr and their group.

Just as the dinner was in high gear, some politically motivated speeches were offered (it is an election year for NASAMW as well as the U.S. government), and a bit of table to table handshaking and electioneering was in evidence as well. Before long, Jamie's family had reunited and we were all having a great time, thanks in part to Jim Kasper's beer cooler. At about this time, Scott Holder came by to inform me that I had made the finals for Sunday's tournament... so I had to be ready to play at 9:00 A.M. And I would be playing the number one points getter, Chris Damour who was playing Pre-Feudal Scots! A civil war! We began growling at each other about how our boys liked those axes and spears. Chris had beaten me in the NICT's two years before... grudge match time!

As the evening skies darkened, Jamie appeared with a huge tray and twenty shots of top shelf Scotch for those of us still admiring the pleasant Pennsylvania night. Well, I had to go to the room and bring back a few bottles of Yuengling (that's where it went, guys), and Jim refilled his cooler and it was grand.

After a while, we decided to visit the bar, where we ended up closing the place. I had a long and productive talk with Arty Conliffe, where we discussed our respective ideas and thoughts about wargaming and history. The long and the short of our conversation is that I will be doing one and perhaps two period-specific scenario books for use with the TACTICA rules systems. For all that has been said and written in the last two years, I must admit that Arty has my admiration and respect for 'putting it on the line' financially and sticking with his ideas. TACTICA has introduced thousands of garners to the ancients period and gotten previously reluctant figure manufacturers to come out with new lines of miniatures. I'm looking  forward to working with Arty on these projects in conjunction with his new TACTICA MEDIEVAL rules.

It had been a long day. It took no work at all to fall sound asleep, even the Battle of Britain being fought on either side of me by my snoring companions could not keep me up that night!

SUNDAY

As I made my painful way into the gaming area, Scott Holder staggered in front of me. I hoped my eyes weren't as deep a shade of red as his. Some games were already in progress. Chris Cameron's Byzantines vrs. Dave Stiers Khmer (or was it Delhi?) ... all I know is that he had elephants... and Chris was being lauded for "taking tusks". These guys were the finalists in the Open competion.

Finding my table (mercifully), I set out the cloth and awaited Hr. Damour. Now I realized, with a grimace, Chris had not been drinking last night... he was preparing himself to kill me! Not very sporting of him, nor Scottish for that matter. What's a little hangover? If anything, it'll make the lads fight harder. Right.

The smiling and bright Mr. Damour arrived and our game got down to it. Chris picked clear terrain, I picked hills and woods. He lined up his army from table edge to table edge, mine was enclosed within the hilly wooded terrain. He attacked with a fervor I had to respect. Chris picked at my left flank (in the woods) where my lowly Bondi units were located. Waves of 6 and 12 man Highland and Galwegian bands hammered at these guys until both of us had quite a few figures sitting off to the side of the table. In the center, I had located my 48 man MI on a hill. Chris kept firing and charging until my poor spearmen saw their flank support (noneother than the Viking Ally and his huscarles) break and rout from Chris' repeated impetuous attacks. They proceeded to waver.

All was not bleak, however. On my right, my two 36-man Galwegian warbands totally destroyed Chris' MI spearmen and shook his LC unit, which spent the rest of the game running away from potential chargers. A successful off-board flank march brought my own LC unit on in Chris's rear. They routed two LI units before heading towards the enemy CiC.

Back to the center, Chris had plowed his Norman wedges into a small unit of Vikings, but they held. I, in turn charged with one of my own Normans into a shaken body of his archers, who broke. He then charged with his second wedge through his routing archers and smashed into my tired horse in pursuit! The only unit left in the center was my CiC with his bodyguard of 5 Scots HC.

Chris began to bring his few survivors (2 6-man units) out of the woods and started to swing them toward the rear of my CiC. My Galwegians were prompted to march and reached the center just in time to deter this threat. Units on both sides began to leave the field as they fell to Retreat status. Chris continued to charge the MI spearmen, shaken but still refusing to break. More units broke or were destroyed. Then it happened. Chris charged the spearmen one last time. They broke. At the same time, my Norman HC unit broke and routed... right back into the CiC! The game was over.

I had never played such a bloody or closely fought a game before. As we counted up points, I had won by a 973 to 930 point plurality! The Scots were avenged. Unfortunately, the only nobleman left on the field was Chris's CiC! My Galwegians, still intact, were content enough with their victory, however.

Such went the tourney at HISTORICON. Chris won overall as he had more total points than I, but we both know who REALLY won, don't we Chris? Just wait'll next year. I'm already working on those Bretons... back to a cavalry army!