Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[Ewan McNay]

My thanks to the congenial group of Warrior folk who made it to the
sleet-assailed ramparts of West Point yesterday for the Warrior
tournament. We succeeded at the first two hurdles: getting an even number
of attendees, and bringing in some new blood - see below - and I believe
that everyone had a great day, even Mr. Anonymous (again, see below)

The final results and pairings:
*Ewan McNay - Scots Common, 1400 AD 28.6
*Dan Woyke - Feudal Jap, 1193 22.5
*Jevon Garrett - Viking, 800 AD 20.9
*Bill Low - Middle Assyrian, 883 BC 15.1
*Matt Kollmer - Early Crusades 1100 13.3
*Jim Bisigani - Early Hoplites 500 BC 10.8
*Bill Chamis - Norman, 999 AD 8.5
*Paul Wilson - Niceaen Byzantines, 1300 5.8
*Ed Kollmer - Andalusian 1098 3.5
*Mr. Anonymous - Hohenstaufen, 1200 2.8

Rd 1.:
Hoplite - Assyrians 1 - 5
Vikings - Normans 6 - 0
Hohos - Crusaders 1 - 5
Byzantines - Scots 2 - 5
Japanese - Andalusian 6 - 0

Rd 2.:
Japanese - Viking 5 - 2
Andalusian - Normans 2 - 5
Assyrians - Byzantines 4 - 1
Hoplites - Hohos 4 - 0
Scots - Crusaders 6 - 0

Rd 3.:
Hohos - Andalusian 1 - 1
Scots - Japanese 5 - 2
Assyrian - Viking 1 - 5
Normans - Hoplites 2 - 3
Crusaders - Nicaean 6 - 0

You'll note a few 6-0 results: we used the usual tournament scoring with
the two McNay variants: no fractional points gained for points *you* gave
your opponent, and an ability to get a 6-0 if you had *no* troops shaken
or lost while your opponent's army was destroyed. That second was being
tested for the first time, and I think needs to be made a little harder
(maybe needing your opponent's army on retreat?)

Closer observation will show that other than the two Biblical-era armies,
we had a closely-bunched set of Dark Age/early Feudal armies, including
many rarely seen - Jevon gets especial testosterone points for bringing
(and almost winning) with Viking; he was unfortunate to get matched
against the Japanese which is a horrendous matchup, and he'll be saddened
to learn that when I checked my math, said Japanese beat him out for
second place rather than the reverse I announced last night. Especially
after having overcome the Normans with zero losses, a feat I would not
have believed in advance! Paul Wilson was our newest player, brought
along by Jim, and it was clear that Jim and Mark Hissam have nurtured a
significant talent - welcome, Paul, if you're reading this. It was also
nice to see Ed Kollmer actually make it to an event .

I had decided - as had almost everyone! - not to bring a 'killer' army, so
spent almost five minutes putting together a Scots Common list: 4 MI spear
blocks, 2 Highland LMI units (one with bow), 3 small LI JLS, Sh units and
some SHK/HC. I was slightly surprised to be outscouted in the first two
games, alas. The Byzantines in my first wanted as little terrain as I, so
we fought on essentially an open field with one steep hill on my right. I
got some luck in combat against the Byzantine spearmen, after blowing away
the screen of LMI IrrE bowmen, and on my left the highland bowmen got to
play with a LC unit which was sent straight to exhaustion, but the big
event was Paul charging one of his LMI JLS, B, Sh peltastoi blocks through
some LI at evading highland LMI; the disorder from interpentration meant
that their flank was hanging out and that caused a bunch of wavers - not
before I managed to lose yet *another* general to catastrophe when my
impetuous SHK met his non-impetuous HC!

Second game against Matt's Crusaders he would be the first to admit that
he made an early error, relying on a counter with his shieldless MI CB
unit and failing it, allowing a flank charge by a Scot SHK unit. Oops.
That caused the pilgrims to waver, then rout, and some LI ditto, and a
unit of Crusader LC failed to rout one of my LI units so got routed by
replacing SHK - and all of that meant that just as he was about to send
his knights into my spearmen in support of his HI which had charged and
disordered my the previous bound, they went onto retirement. Asif got a
nice picture of my spear blocks at game end encircling a small central
table space where the remaining Crusaders were essentially trapped.

Final game against Japanese, the terrain rather cramped me - my terrain
sucked all tournament; in the game against Matt, in my home climate, all 3
of my hill picks ended in his deployment zone - and I was behind a MWF,
swamp, steep hill combination (with a gentle hill of mine in there also).
So... send the MI on force march (hey, not outscouted!) through the swamp
and steep hill . That turned out well, as the Japanese couldn't quite
fill their open side of the table and I was able to force forward on my
right creating a hinge in their line, then hit the hinge - Dan failed a
counter with one Samurai block trapped in the middle of some evading LI,
and it was one of his two IrrA blocks *and* with an LMI back rank - so his
becoming disordered in the compulsory charge was a big deal. Interesting
situation: his adjacent 2E general also wanted to declare an impetuous
charge, but there was only a 1E frontage of my LI available as a target
for the two units, so the general had to take the SHK charge at the halt
and failed his waver. That was my CinC going in, and he duly died when I
couldn't get support forward fast enough and the Samurai passed their
wavers, but I decided against rallying his unit in favour of putting one
samurai command onto retreat by killing his killers! On the other side,
the spear line was in contact with the samurai/ashigaru line, but Dan's
dice were poor enough and mine occasionally good enough to let me not lose
any units as his started to rack up the CPFs.

In general I was impressed with the Scot spearmen, but the dice swings
throughout were *huge* - not used to playing IrrC armies .

Great day of gaming - thanks to all. Lots of folk missed - Todd, Dave,
Tim B, Chris, Tim G, Dennis, Mark and so on - so maybe we could double the
size next time? :)

Ewan,

Way to go. It is always inspiring to see Scot Common triumph. You got
to love all those long pointy sticks. SCOTLAND FOREVER

Jamie

James W Gentry III
Commander's Operation and Training Assistant
278th ACR TNARNG
ARNG Distributed Battle Simulations Program



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[Ed Kollmer]

Yo.
Indeed , it was a very congenial time. The "Cid" wants to thank all those worthy
opponents who tried to send him to his eternal reward.
Asif! we had a great game The "Cid" only managed to hang on after your SHC's
terrible onslaught.
Again thanks to all It was great to see you all again. Hopefully, next time will
not be so long.
El Cid


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