Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[Mark Stone]

I'm back in California from Cold Wars, and thought I'd put out a few random
thoughts for the benefit of those not able to attend.

First of all, I continue to be impressed by the overall sportsmanship of our
group. Arguments do flare in the heat of competition from time to time, but the
overall tone is very cordial, and very relaxed. Being able to keep that tone and
be competitive at the same time is a tough balancing act, and it's great to see
a large group of gamers consistently hit that balance year after year,
particularly when I think back to the "catfight" days of early 7th in TOG.

The visual appearance of armies overall was better too. This was helped a lot by
Christian Cameroun's spectacular Greek army. A truly unbelievable paint job. And
I have a lot of respect for anyone who plays a mediocre at best army just
because he loves the history behind it and loves the way it looks. Christian, by
the way, is the one who introduced me to miniatures back in the Kruse Smith
days. It's great to see him returning to Warrior after wandering the DBM
wilderness for several years. He also brought a first timer to play with him,
and is doing a lot to evangelize Warrior up in Toronto.

And that was another nice thing to see. I counted three players among the 32 in
the 25mm Team Tourney who were in their first Warrior tournament ever. These are
all guys who have experience with miniatures, but have grown dissatisfied with
DBM, WAB, or whatever. They consistently had good things to say about Warrior by
comparison.

Knight armies continue to be popular, and I was surprised that there was only
one elephant army and one pike army. But the more significant, albeit subtler
theme, is the dominance of shooting armies. The Warrior rules on shooting arc,
combined with the "must rally" requirement when recalling from 2 or more CPF in
prep shooting, have really made the long range missile weapon the most potent
way to attack. Look at the teams entered:

1) Dave Stier & Frank Gilson, HYWE
120 longbowmen, plus LI

2) Jon Cleaves & Michael Turner, Medieval Spanish
48 longbowmen

3) Greg Hauser & Matthew Fudge, Sultanate of Delhi
11 elephants with LI on the base. The elephant crew are 3 w/bow, 1 w/JLS so each
element's frontage of elephants puts out 6 figures shooting. Plus an abundance
of LI, and lots of HC L,B,Sh types.

4) Jevon Garrett & Sean Scott, Feudal French
The only exception in the top finishers. Sean gets to hand to hand combat faster
than anyone I've seen, with the possible exception of Chris D'Amour.

5) Tim Brown & Ambrose Coddington, HYWE
I didn't get an exact count on the longbowmen here, but it looked like either 96
or 120.

6) Mark Stone & Bill Chamis, L Paleologan Byzantine
Our army: 80 LMI with bow, 28 light infantry, and 32 light cavalry.

7) Rob Turnball & Dick Hurchanik, L Ottoman Turk
All 72 of the Janissaries, plus assorted LI and LC and HC with bow.

8) Chris Damour & Jamie Gentry, King David Scots
The other major exception; figures it would be Chris.

9) Mike Kelly & Scott McDonald, Midianites
Double rider camels with bow. The most shooting you can get from a mounted army.

10) Rich Kroupa & Mike Byrne, Russ
OK, not a shooting army, but with 89 scouting points (all the Bulgars) they
weren't defenseless in that area either.

11) Marc Cribbs & Jim Bisigani, Alexandrian Imperial
Not a shooting army.

12) Eric Turner & Tim Grimmett, Yuan
A tough army; seems like I have to play it every year. 72 figures of MI LTS,B,Pa
with all the artillery and an assortment of bow armed HC.

13) Mark Hissam & John Murphy, HYWE
Didn't see this one, but I assume it had comparable numbers of long bow to the
other English armies fielded.

13) Chris Cameron & Chris Ryall, Mycenaean Greek
These guys should get a trophy just for not finishing last. Mycenaean Greek??
Wow.

15) Phil Gardocki & Ed Bernhart, Ghaznavid
Not particularly a shooting army.

16) Mike Bard & Allen Lougheed, Late Hoplite Greek
Not a shooting army.

In summary:
- 5 of the top 6 finishers had at least 48 missile-armed figures
- 4 of the top 6 had over 100 missile-armed figures
- 9 out of 16 armies were heavily missile-armed armies
- 4 out of the bottom 6 finishers were non-shooting armies

Food for thought as we look ahead to Historicon and the NICT.


-Mark Stone

[Larry Essick]

Mark,

Good report.

In the 15mm teams all of the armies were shooting armies. Two LIR
with D and B, an Indian army with more LB than I could count, we ran
KoSJ. I forget the other 2, but they had plenty of missile
capability.

Shooting has always been a way to dominate in the game and it appears
to be an effective method in DBM as well (Kevin Donovan, #1 DBM
player, plays armies that have lots of shooting).

I think serious tournament players will continue to gravitate to these
armies.

Larry

--- In WarriorRules@yahoogroups.com, Mark Stone <mark@d...> wrote:
> First of all, I continue to be impressed by the overall
sportsmanship of our
> group. Arguments do flare in the heat of competition from time to
time, but the
> overall tone is very cordial, and very relaxed. Being able to keep
that tone and
> be competitive at the same time is a tough balancing act, and it's
great to see
> a large group of gamers consistently hit that balance year after
year,
> particularly when I think back to the "catfight" days of early 7th
in TOG.
> -Mark Stone

Outstanding report Mark. The above is true, IMO because so many of
the whinus maximus tribe gravitated to DBM early in the 90s. This is
what keeps me coming back to Warrior more than anything: adultness
of the competitors. Of course, I'm not suggesting that other systems
don't have great folks, I just know how much more relaxed Warrior
competitions are. Perhaps it is age, or perspective, but certianly
there are few left who throw dice and/or walk out of the tournament.

sounds like a great time was had by all. BTW, I would have been in
that non-shooting catagory with 1st Crusade....well I did have quite
a bit of shooters, but not 120 figs worth ;)

Wanax

[Jeff Zorn]

Howdy,

Same exact things could be said about the DBM events at CW. No nastiness
that I could see.

Jeff Zorn

At 06:25 PM 3/16/2004 +0000, you wrote:

>Outstanding report Mark. The above is true, IMO because so many of
>the whinus maximus tribe gravitated to DBM early in the 90s. This is
>what keeps me coming back to Warrior more than anything: adultness
>of the competitors. Of course, I'm not suggesting that other systems
>don't have great folks, I just know how much more relaxed Warrior
>competitions are. Perhaps it is age, or perspective, but certianly
>there are few left who throw dice and/or walk out of the tournament.
>
>sounds like a great time was had by all. BTW, I would have been in
>that non-shooting catagory with 1st Crusade....well I did have quite
>a bit of shooters, but not 120 figs worth
>
>Wanax


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

[joncleaves]

In a message dated 3/16/2004 2:14:30 PM Eastern Standard Time, jrz3@...
writes:

> Howdy,
>
> Same exact things could be said about the DBM events at CW.
> No nastiness
> that I could see.
>
> Jeff Zorn>>

Jeff, I am very sorry I did not get a chance to come and see you. I hope to do
so if I get to HCon.

I'll also be sending you some suggestions for the website offline based on a
request from Eric. What I was suggesting hurt his head, but i am sure you'd
understand...lol

J

That's good news. Perhaps age is a major factor :)

--- In WarriorRules@yahoogroups.com, Jeff Zorn <jrz3@c...> wrote:
> Howdy,
>
> Same exact things could be said about the DBM events at CW. No
nastiness
> that I could see.
>
> Jeff Zorn
>
> At 06:25 PM 3/16/2004 +0000, you wrote:
>
> >Outstanding report Mark. The above is true, IMO because so many of
> >the whinus maximus tribe gravitated to DBM early in the 90s. This
is
> >what keeps me coming back to Warrior more than anything: adultness
> >of the competitors. Of course, I'm not suggesting that other
systems
> >don't have great folks, I just know how much more relaxed Warrior
> >competitions are. Perhaps it is age, or perspective, but certianly
> >there are few left who throw dice and/or walk out of the
tournament.
> >
> >sounds like a great time was had by all. BTW, I would have been in
> >that non-shooting catagory with 1st Crusade....well I did have
quite
> >a bit of shooters, but not 120 figs worth
> >
> >Wanax
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

And yet the biggest a**hole of 7th (aside from myself, of course) still plays in
(and wins) Warrior tournaments. When he's not being run off for cheating, that
is. Maybe things are different in your neck of the woods.

Bob



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

Glad I don't know him. I know one guy that beat me back in the day
of TOG who was super ass; the jerk didn't say one word during the
game, didn't shake hands, and just pouted the entire game. Don't
remember his name, but I did watch him huff off from a tournament
once after that. Alas, my enthusasm catches me again. There are
asses everywhere :(

--- In WarriorRules@yahoogroups.com, doctormm@o... wrote:
> And yet the biggest a**hole of 7th (aside from myself, of course)
still plays in (and wins) Warrior tournaments. When he's not being
run off for cheating, that is. Maybe things are different in your
neck of the woods.
>
> Bob
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]