Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[Mark Stone]

Kubla Con is one of two really big gaming conventions held each year in the SF
Bay Area (the other is Labor Day weekend). The emphasis is on fantasy role
playing games, collectible card games, with miniatures in the minority and
historical miniatures an even smaller minority. In some ways it's the wrong
setting to try and get a strong tournament turnout because many of our guys
have other gaming interests, and the big cons just offer too much else to choose
from.

Still, it's one of the best PR/recruiting opportunities we get, and as our
tournament turnouts over the last two years have ranged from 5 to 10 players,
I'm all for doing what we can to recruit more players. Towards that end I
planned a Fantasy Warrior Demo event for Friday night, and a 15mm mini open
Warrior tournament for Saturday. My plan was to supervise/referee both, and
play only if needed to round out the numbers.

For Fantasy Warrior I had some incredible help from Ed Forbes. We set up a large
battle in 25mm, and a small Fast Warrior scale battle in 15mm. The intent was to
have a significant visual spectacle to get people's attention, but also a
smaller battle that would be easier to participate in and would not be overly
time consuming. Given that they stuck us in the back corner of the room Friday
night, we certainly needed the big spectacle.

Ed casts many of his own figures, and in the fantasy range has castings for
orcs, dwarves, and skeletons. We set up humans and dwarves vs. orcs and
skeletons, with about 4000 points of figures on a side, including several
behemoths, a number of heroes and sorcerers. The 15mm game was Lizardmen vs.
Undead, and involved only about 100 figures total.

The guy drawn in by this was a gentleman named Steven, up from San Diego. He had
played quite a bit of WRG in an earlier era, but had no experience with 7th
edition or Warrior. He had been playing DBM most recently, but had grown tired
of the system and felt that in his area DBM was "in decline". He had some vague
idea that DBM and Warrior shared a common lineage, and honestly expected some
similarity in game mechanics.

I walked him through about four bounds of a game over the course of an hour and
a half, and he came away with a very favorable impression of Warrior. He said
it seemed like a promising game system, he liked the fact that it was under
active development with a large national group supporting it, and very current
army list books. I'm sure he'll look into Warrior further, and we may indeed
have a convert.

We had no real takers for the 25mm Fantasy Warrior game, but ran through it for
the benefit of Ed's son Robert, my son Alex, and Robert's buddy. In a way, this
is recruitment of a different kind, as these kids represent the next generation.
A good time was had by all.

I have to say that I think this overall approach was a good one for a convention
that emphasizes fantasy/role playing games: having a highly visible 25mm display
of Fantasy Warrior, and having a smaller, more approachable Fast Warrior scale
game for people to partake of.

On Saturday I was thrilled to see that they had given us a row of tables right
up front at the entrance to the miniatures room, the position of maximum
visibility.

We suffered some attrition on the tournament turnout. Frank Gilson opted not to
make the trip down from Seattle, as he had a Warrior event going on this
weekend in his area. Lenney Hermann couldn't make it as he is on vacation for
three weeks in Scandinavia. Rich Gagliasso gave in to the understandable
temptation of other gaming opportunities at Kubla Con. My son Alex was more
interested in Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons than Warrior. So I
was fully prepared to abandon the tournament structure and just run some
pick-up games with whoever was available.

In fact we had a decent turnout: among our regional Warrior regulars we had me,
Ed Forbes, and John Baumann. From Southern California we had Terry Dix. And
from the Monterey area we had Dave Lauerman and Dale Shanek, who have been DBM
regulars for years, but have recently taken an interest in Warrior. That gave
us a very respectable six players.

I have to say that the 1200 point format was essential to the day's success.
John showed up early, but had to leave early. Dave showed up late, fearful that
he'd lost out on an opportunity to play at all. A couple of the other guys
wanted some schedule flexibility to hit the dealer's room. Had we been trying
to fit in three 1600 point games the day would have been a schedule disaster.
Instead we were able to flex to accomodate. I allotted 2 1/2 hours for each
round. We started the first game of the first round at 10:00 AM (a civilized
hour), and finished the last game of the last round at 8:00 PM (also a
civilized hour). That gave us 2 1/2 hours of wiggle room around 7 1/2 hours of
gaming, which really helped.

Our prominent position got us lots of foot traffic, and lots of inquiries about
what gaming system we were playing. Most people seemed to be expecting "DBM" to
be our answer, and I think we did a lot to get the Warrior name in front of some
historical gamers that hadn't thought about Warrior before. I was even
approached by two guys living right here in San Francisco that had played 7th
edition and had no idea that there was a living descendant of that system. They
are eager to get back into ancients miniatures, and I'll schedule some Fast
Warrior games with them in the coming weeks.

I'd like to make a comment about DBM and WAB, but I don't want it taken the
wrong way. This is not intended as a value judgment on gaming systems that, in
their current incarnation, I frankly don't know anything about anyway. It's
more just a sociological comment on what's happening in the West Coast gaming
scene.

For whatever reason, the number of DBM players is dwindling. I talked to several
people over the weekend who said they used to play DBM but had lost interest, or
had found that enough people in the area had lost interest that they no longer
had critical mass. Clearly a big part of this is a move to Warhammer Ancient
Battles, which just in terms of popularility/numbers is clearly the ancients
system on the rise right now. But it was also clear from talking with people
that there is a desire for complexity and tactical challenge that Warhammer
Ancient Battles isn't satisfying, at least for a certain type of gamer. Even
here on the West Coast, where Warrior players are sparse, these folks had a
sense that Warrior was an active gaming community with growing numbers. The
fact that we have all our army list books out helps tremendously, as does the
fact that we have the Yahoo group. People clearly had an impression of Warrior
as a system that is under active development with a growing community around
it, and of a system that provides as much as any ancients game can in terms of
complexity and tactical challenges.

The bottom line is I think we are winning some converts. Drawing in players who
are new to miniatures altogether will be difficult until we have Warrior
Battles out. But among established miniatures players in our period, I get the
sense that we are gaining momentum, and locally Kubla Con did a lot to boost
that momentum.


-Mark Stone

[joncleaves]

Kick ass, Mark. It's stuff like this that is the heart of Warrior - not
anything we do.

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Stone <mark@...>
To: warrior <WarriorRules@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tue, 31 May 2005 16:59:38 +0000
Subject: [WarriorRules] kubla con report on the con (long)


Kubla Con is one of two really big gaming conventions held each year in the SF
Bay Area (the other is Labor Day weekend). The emphasis is on fantasy role
playing games, collectible card games, with miniatures in the minority and
historical miniatures an even smaller minority. In some ways it's the wrong
setting to try and get a strong tournament turnout because many of our guys
have other gaming interests, and the big cons just offer too much else to choose
from.

Still, it's one of the best PR/recruiting opportunities we get, and as our
tournament turnouts over the last two years have ranged from 5 to 10 players,
I'm all for doing what we can to recruit more players. Towards that end I
planned a Fantasy Warrior Demo event for Friday night, and a 15mm mini open
Warrior tournament for Saturday. My plan was to supervise/referee both, and
play only if needed to round out the numbers.

For Fantasy Warrior I had some incredible help from Ed Forbes. We set up a large
battle in 25mm, and a small Fast Warrior scale battle in 15mm. The intent was to
have a significant visual spectacle to get people's attention, but also a
smaller battle that would be easier to participate in and would not be overly
time consuming. Given that they stuck us in the back corner of the room Friday
night, we certainly needed the big spectacle.

Ed casts many of his own figures, and in the fantasy range has castings for
orcs, dwarves, and skeletons. We set up humans and dwarves vs. orcs and
skeletons, with about 4000 points of figures on a side, including several
behemoths, a number of heroes and sorcerers. The 15mm game was Lizardmen vs.
Undead, and involved only about 100 figures total.

The guy drawn in by this was a gentleman named Steven, up from San Diego. He had
played quite a bit of WRG in an earlier era, but had no experience with 7th
edition or Warrior. He had been playing DBM most recently, but had grown tired
of the system and felt that in his area DBM was "in decline". He had some vague
idea that DBM and Warrior shared a common lineage, and honestly expected some
similarity in game mechanics.

I walked him through about four bounds of a game over the course of an hour and
a half, and he came away with a very favorable impression of Warrior. He said
it seemed like a promising game system, he liked the fact that it was under
active development with a large national group supporting it, and very current
army list books. I'm sure he'll look into Warrior further, and we may indeed
have a convert.

We had no real takers for the 25mm Fantasy Warrior game, but ran through it for
the benefit of Ed's son Robert, my son Alex, and Robert's buddy. In a way, this
is recruitment of a different kind, as these kids represent the next generation.
A good time was had by all.

I have to say that I think this overall approach was a good one for a convention
that emphasizes fantasy/role playing games: having a highly visible 25mm display
of Fantasy Warrior, and having a smaller, more approachable Fast Warrior scale
game for people to partake of.

On Saturday I was thrilled to see that they had given us a row of tables right
up front at the entrance to the miniatures room, the position of maximum
visibility.

We suffered some attrition on the tournament turnout. Frank Gilson opted not to
make the trip down from Seattle, as he had a Warrior event going on this
weekend in his area. Lenney Hermann couldn't make it as he is on vacation for
three weeks in Scandinavia. Rich Gagliasso gave in to the understandable
temptation of other gaming opportunities at Kubla Con. My son Alex was more
interested in Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons than Warrior. So I
was fully prepared to abandon the tournament structure and just run some
pick-up games with whoever was available.

In fact we had a decent turnout: among our regional Warrior regulars we had me,
Ed Forbes, and John Baumann. From Southern California we had Terry Dix. And
from the Monterey area we had Dave Lauerman and Dale Shanek, who have been DBM
regulars for years, but have recently taken an interest in Warrior. That gave
us a very respectable six players.

I have to say that the 1200 point format was essential to the day's success.
John showed up early, but had to leave early. Dave showed up late, fearful that
he'd lost out on an opportunity to play at all. A couple of the other guys
wanted some schedule flexibility to hit the dealer's room. Had we been trying
to fit in three 1600 point games the day would have been a schedule disaster.
Instead we were able to flex to accomodate. I allotted 2 1/2 hours for each
round. We started the first game of the first round at 10:00 AM (a civilized
hour), and finished the last game of the last round at 8:00 PM (also a
civilized hour). That gave us 2 1/2 hours of wiggle room around 7 1/2 hours of
gaming, which really helped.

Our prominent position got us lots of foot traffic, and lots of inquiries about
what gaming system we were playing. Most people seemed to be expecting "DBM" to
be our answer, and I think we did a lot to get the Warrior name in front of some
historical gamers that hadn't thought about Warrior before. I was even
approached by two guys living right here in San Francisco that had played 7th
edition and had no idea that there was a living descendant of that system. They
are eager to get back into ancients miniatures, and I'll schedule some Fast
Warrior games with them in the coming weeks.

I'd like to make a comment about DBM and WAB, but I don't want it taken the
wrong way. This is not intended as a value judgment on gaming systems that, in
their current incarnation, I frankly don't know anything about anyway. It's
more just a sociological comment on what's happening in the West Coast gaming
scene.

For whatever reason, the number of DBM players is dwindling. I talked to several
people over the weekend who said they used to play DBM but had lost interest, or
had found that enough people in the area had lost interest that they no longer
had critical mass. Clearly a big part of this is a move to Warhammer Ancient
Battles, which just in terms of popularility/numbers is clearly the ancients
system on the rise right now. But it was also clear from talking with people
that there is a desire for complexity and tactical challenge that Warhammer
Ancient Battles isn't satisfying, at least for a certain type of gamer. Even
here on the West Coast, where Warrior players are sparse, these folks had a
sense that Warrior was an active gaming community with growing numbers. The
fact that we have all our army list books out helps tremendously, as does the
fact that we have the Yahoo group. People clearly had an impression of Warrior
as a system that is under active development with a growing community around
it, and of a system that provides as much as any ancients game can in terms of
complexity and tactical challenges.

The bottom line is I think we are winning some converts. Drawing in players who
are new to miniatures altogether will be difficult until we have Warrior
Battles out. But among established miniatures players in our period, I get the
sense that we are gaining momentum, and locally Kubla Con did a lot to boost
that momentum.


-Mark Stone



Yahoo! Groups Links






[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Jeff Zorn]

Howdy,

Actually, DBM is still a very vibrant rule set.(e.g. 2000+ on the DBM Yahoo
list, compared to not quite 600 for Warrior). 3.1 is going to shake things
up for a lot of players bored with the stability of the last 4 years.

Being a former resident of CA for 30 years I can say that what the state
lacks is a committed group of historical players to show up con after con
to both run and play events (note the number of players that opted not to
play Warrior at Kublacon). If events are run year after year, and players
who know the rules come to play and make it a presence, that can't help but
attract the notice of others. When players don't show up to support the
hobby, well, that's negative impact.

The CA DBM scene is also odd in that the country's top player, Kevin
Donovan, has lived there for more than a decade and simply dominated
tournaments completely. Everyone else realized that they were showing up to
play for second. My guess is that this had a negative impact on the game.
Kevin is moving now, so the DBM competition scene will actually be more
wide open.

Jeff Zorn

At 04:59 PM 5/31/2005 +0000, you wrote:

>For whatever reason, the number of DBM players is dwindling. I talked to
>several
>people over the weekend who said they used to play DBM but had lost
>interest, or
>had found that enough people in the area had lost interest that they no longer
>had critical mass.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[joncleaves]

Please end this thread, lads. (not Kubla Con, but the tit for tat about another
rules set)
Thanks!

Jon

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Zorn <jrz3@...>
To: WarriorRules@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tue, 31 May 2005 13:17:54 -0400
Subject: Re: [WarriorRules] kubla con report on the con (long)


Howdy,

Actually, DBM is still a very vibrant rule set.(e.g. 2000+ on the DBM Yahoo
list, compared to not quite 600 for Warrior). 3.1 is going to shake things
up for a lot of players bored with the stability of the last 4 years.

Being a former resident of CA for 30 years I can say that what the state
lacks is a committed group of historical players to show up con after con
to both run and play events (note the number of players that opted not to
play Warrior at Kublacon). If events are run year after year, and players
who know the rules come to play and make it a presence, that can't help but
attract the notice of others. When players don't show up to support the
hobby, well, that's negative impact.

The CA DBM scene is also odd in that the country's top player, Kevin
Donovan, has lived there for more than a decade and simply dominated
tournaments completely. Everyone else realized that they were showing up to
play for second. My guess is that this had a negative impact on the game.
Kevin is moving now, so the DBM competition scene will actually be more
wide open.

Jeff Zorn

At 04:59 PM 5/31/2005 +0000, you wrote:

>For whatever reason, the number of DBM players is dwindling. I talked to
>several
>people over the weekend who said they used to play DBM but had lost
>interest, or
>had found that enough people in the area had lost interest that they no longer
>had critical mass.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]




Yahoo! Groups Links






[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hello all,

Having been a member of the Southern California gaming scene for some time now (
27yrs), I think I can comment on historical gaming specifically ancients in the
area over the last 17-18 years. In deference to Jon I won't comment on any rules
sets, other than to mention Warrior of course and to mention 7th ed. I know that
during the heyday of 7th, there was a large strong following of committed
players in the greater LA area. Tournaments were in excess of 20 people, and it
was great. Then something happened. Of course 7th was replaced by you know what,
but that really did not do it.What happened was people moved, moved on etc. I
can think of , out of our gaming group in Riverside alone, six that moved out of
state, that many again that just quit playing any games, let alone ancients, and
several others that just drifted off for various reasons. This all happened
about 10 years ago. Ancients gaming has not been the same since. About five of
us tried to keep things going with various
rules sets, without success. However, since we started pushing Warrior, Terry
Dix, myself, Kevan Thomas and Robert Parrish, we have seen a renewed interest in
ancients gaming in the LA area, and we are hoping that this will be a sort of
rebirth, for ancients gaming and a growth in Warrior players here. It looks good
so far. Terry is going to run a fast warrior Tourney the last weekend in July,
coincidng with our HMGS chapter convention that is featuring Phil Barker. They
are having a DBA tourney (sorry Jon) and I know several of those players are
going to participate in the Fast Warrior Tourney, including the guy running the
previous tourney. It should be a good prelude to having a couple great Warrior
Tourneys here a year, just like we used to have. I look forward to it. Oh BTW
Jeff Zorn used to game with us on occasion in Moreno Valley, that is until he
moved too...LOL though I did not count him as one of the half dozen....







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