Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[Ewan McNay]

...well, we're here; the hotel has both my reservation and functional wireless internet; all is well.
Plus, free this year: cool measuring/angle tool freebies. Nice job, whomever organised this. Ditto on the NICT helmet, in all its glory.

Seems like a smaller crowd, but also several new faces which has to be good. Of course, in game 1 I get my closest neighbour Dan Woyke - I'm (yes, Mark, I know, yawn...) using Sassanids, he has one of what seem to be many MesoAmerican armies; in this case, Inca. Not great for me - massed high-morale LMI with LTS, S, Sh - but not the worst either, and when I eventually get Dan to fail a couple of wavers *and* he rolls -3 on the one good shot he sets up, all goes OK for the Sassanids. Elsewhere there are aso a couple of Early Burgundians, a couple of Han - heck, why am I telling you all this? Mark has the lists in front of him .

Anyway - next game in an hour. Time for a shower and snack.

[Ewan McNay]

one rules Q thus far, and one comment. The comment is that both my opponents now (second round was Scott McDonald, Mongol) have had uniformly decent morale, including A class, which is not something I'm used to. I pulled an ambush against the Inca, popped out behind a 6E LMI LTS unit which rolled a 2 with elephants around - great! Except that turns out to be an *A* class LMI unit which hence says 'so?' Interesting (and smart).

The Q came from the game between Todd's KoSJ and Dennis' Swiss: a KoSJ bow block was evading and in the process dropping from 3-wide to 2-wide, so that 2 elements total were dropping back. Dennis wanted them to *both* drop onto the side nearer him, leaving a unit 2 wide but with one side being 4-deep, the other only 2-deep. I think Scott indeed ruled it that way, and that that was wrong. The relevant passage notes that "elements of an uneven back rank are placed on the side closer to the charger" (emphasis mine) - so in this case there should have been no uneven back rank; this clause seems clear to me to only apply to the case where a unit is no longer in an even block formation because of the evade. I think Scott may now agree with me but could be wrong there. [The KoSJ battle seemed to be across several woods and be very cat-and-mouse; but I didn't see the endgame. Other results in passing: on top table, Derek's Burgundians beat up Jon's Ming, Dave M's Burgundians looked like they were doing well against Dick's Samurai, and Dan bounced back from his first game to shoot up Mike Kelly's Mongol - yes, both of the Mongol players from '06 are reprising it this year; kudos.

OK, enough blather. Today I get to umpire .

[Frank Gilson]

Thank you for the near real time reporting ...it's great to have something to read about an event I would have liked to attend.

Frank

[Ewan McNay]

You're welcome. Although this evening got rather late, so this'll be short.

Why is it rather late? Because in the *4th* game of the day, Rick Parrish and Derek Downs just finished their 25mm Theme playoff: Rick entered with a 2-point advantage, and pressed a large-frontage attack (hoplites and loose cav facing Derek's homogenous Reg LHI Samnite) well, against a large number of countering Samnite units falling back between two woods (in which they had several units each waiting to emerge). One Samnite unit failed both counter and waver to get hit halted by cav - so far, so good for Rick. Over 3 combat phases, however, Derek managed to roll +2, +2 and then +3; Rick rolled -2, -2 and -3... and that's the shaken Samnites *routing out* the HC. Hoplites and cav adjacent fail their wavers... end of game. [On the other flank, the one other counter-failing Samnite unit was in column 4-deep... but Rick rolled -3, Derek rolled +2 and threw off the impetuous Greek cav!] So, yet another tournament win for Derek - congrats.

The theme overall had a great mix of armies: few Romans, as expected, but lots of Greeks of various ilks, several Carthaginians, two Samnites and a couple of Gauls - and one odd Numidian, Dave Dietrich. He and Bill Low will play the final playoff game of the 15mm Theme on Sunday, with Bill starting at a 1-point advantage in score. I also enjoyed seeing Dmitri Garlic playing better and better as he starts to get to grips with some of the game's intricacies - kudos there also.

Tomorrow, back to playing. I need to go get some sleep .

[Ewan McNay]

p.s. NICT at start day 2: I think 14 qualifiers (a *low* number) with 4 on 10 (Dave M, Derek, Charles Yaw, me) and then the next highest being like a 7? But that's just scuttlebutt in terms of exact details.

[Mark Stone]

And...?

-Mark Stone

[Ewan McNay]

Sorry, Mark. I spent today umping the Theme final (Bill Low's Carthaginians knocked off the Numidians of Dave Dietrich, despite - we counted - rolling a 1 or 2 for 18 of the first 20 Carthaginian dice. The Numidians took out some LC and three scutarii but made a bad habit of losing their generals in doing so; Bill was leading going in and came away with a 4-2 victory to seal the event - congrats), then changing hotels and playing the first three (great) games of WBC. Dave D's Numidians also won the 15mm Open, Jake Kovel won the 25mm Open, and Dave Lauerman - back from the dead or something - won the Mini. {Dave played against Todd in the top-table game the last round of my first NICT, two weeks after I arrived from England or something. Sitting in a close second, I still remember the agony as Todd's perfectly-placed Otomi roll up big in the final bound to take the game from a 1-1 to a 5-1 and gain him an NICT. Good to have you back, Dave.}

I've made brief comments on the first two NICT games already; Dan Woyke's Inca and then Scott McDonald's Mongol; Scott would be the first to tell you that in the latter of those, he didn't have his head in the game at deployment and allowed me to box the Mongol into three small pieces trapped by some steep hills, after which with the LC denied room to move it was pretty easy for the Sassanids.

The reward for that early success, of course, was to meet Derek in round 3 on Saturday morning: Early Burgundians, with massed LMI LB/2HCW and three Swiss blocks. My light line is *much* better than Derek's, no surprise, so he was very aggressive on around bound 2 or 3: a unit of English LB charged into my LI B unit, and an SHK unit tried to run down some LI JLS. The LB failed to damage the LI - but they in turn rolled -4 to allow the LB to burst-through, into some elephants (fortunately on a hill) and the flank of some LC. This was on the centre-right, on the far right, my LI were taking the wood from some opposing LI and a unit of 2E LMI LB who got shot up and caught in their evade. So I was winning on that flank; on my left, I could not *buy* a counter or waver, as some HK charged off a couple of skirmishing LI units. The SHK in the middle failed to break the LI but again burst through, and rolled long to allow them to convert into some LC B… eventually the SHK then rolled up to break that LC unit. No problem, as I have an elephant unit poised; except that my eager IrrB elephants take the opportunity to roll a 1. They would be recovered by game-end, and indeed destroy the pursuing SHK, but that was too late and the SHK too far advanced to affect the battle. I made my mistake in maybe bound 4: my MI spearmen were sitting on the hill next to the elephants who were now pushing back disordered longbowmen, and as Derek contracted a second LB unit into column to avoid wavering for the impending rout, he left it in reach of the spears and not in skirmish. I advanced off the hill, expanding out my attached CinC to be 3-wide. This was ruled illegal - likely correct - but I stupidly forgot to check that when I *didn't* expand, that flank was still safe - and as it turned out, Derek was able to counter a K unit to be _just_ within reach of the flank. Instead of sealing the victory, then, the advance off the hill cost me the game, especially as I had made the decision to protect the other flank of the spearment with an SHC sub against an incoming SHK charge; when the SHK rolled up there, I had two big and expensive units lost. Nothing else was close enough to care, and the longbow rout caused a couple of shakes in the Burgundians, but no time to follow up the collapse of Derek's left: 4-2 to Derek, instead of 3-1 to me, because (as Derek noted) I got greedy. Bad Ewan.

So - another year, another year I don't win the NICT, as Derek would run rampant: beating Dave M in round 4 thanks to a +3 roll in a first-contact melee between identical Swiss blocks, then rolling over Dick Hurchanik's Samurai. Meanwhile, round 4 brought me Charles Yaw's Spanish Tartessian: one wing of Spanish and Numidian LC/LI, and a big wing of spearmen, irregular Spanish A/C scutarii, and elephants. The battlefield had an open centre and heavily wooded wings; the big Spanish command deployed behind the woods on the right leaving the LC to hold the rest of the table, and clearly planned to force hard on my right (aided by a flank march) through and around the woods there. The Spanish LI, however, got shot up early (aided in large part by a +2 shot on bound 1), and hence were unable to shield their LC friends from advancing Sassanid HC and SHC; the LC command was eventually forced onto retreat. I got lucky in one of the right-hand woods, as a LI JLS, Sh dice contest went my way and I caught the breaking-off LI; that meant that it would take Charles 6 or so bounds to clear the woods with his scutarii and by that time the main lines were engaged. The Carthaginian spearmen did very well, throwing off one unit of El, but they had their shieldless flank exposed by the LC command retreat and that got hit by impetuous SHC while the Carthaginian elephants had been shot to a disordered halt twice; when the spearmen broke, that was game over. After 4 rounds, I have a raw 17 against Derek's raw 19 - but then he's also already beaten both Dave and I, in second/third, so he's almost mathematically uncatchable. And Dave and I have to play.

I suppose someone other than me might recall that two years back, Dave and I fought in a game which came down to my SHC sub impaling himself in a catastrophe; this game, I got the benefit of an equally spectacular collapse. Dave's IrrC HC CB came out to chase off some LC/LI. The LC B stood to receive; then rolled up in prep shooting, in support shooting, *and* in hand-to-hand while Dave rolled down: routing HC. No big deal, except that *all 3* Reg B Swiss blocks, as well as - less unlikely - some of the Reg D LB units, decide to shake. End of game, on bound 3. I end the tournament on a high - and not bad overall: 4 5-point wins and a 4-2 loss - but second place. As I noted to Dave at the time, his demeanour after suffering essentially dice-induced losses to *both* Derek and I was utterly exemplary: many kudos for the sportsmanship, Dave.

The usual thanks - to Scott, to all of my opponents (yes, even you, Derek) for both extremely congenial and fast-paced games. I thought that there was pretty universal compliance with the aim of increasing game pace; as the Theme ump there _were_ a couple of folk who were still kinda slow at setup, but checking on their games later revealed a minimum of 6 bounds played; fair enough. Good job, all. I also checked the Theme lists - not so great, with about half illegal, but only two major issues (an Ally-general commanding non-allied troops, and one list that totalled 1800 points… [also one that totalled 1500, a much lesser sin!]).

[Todd Kaeser]

Historicon Pictures are now in the Album section. I thought you were all tired of the KoSJ so I left them out

Go to the TOURNAMENT section for them. They start at day 1, round 1 and move to the end w/ Derek and his trophy

Can't identify one pic early in day 1.

Enjoy

Todd Kaeser

[John Garlic]

Hello All,

Survived another Historicon and the drive home. It was a great experience and my son Dmitri really had a blast as well. I'd like to thank all of the folks he played for being patient because he is still learning and hasn't mastered all of the intricacies of the game, but he really loves it. I enjoyed all of my games and can't say much for the lack of Romans since 4 of my 9 games were against Polybians. I was bummed I missed Dave Dietrich's Numidians, but I did get to finish up facing Dave Lauerman's excellently run Samurai. I learned some valuable tactical lesons there for my own Samurai as well. I really learned a lot, especially about countering and probably attempted it more in those 9 games than in all of my previous games combined. It was definitely a tool I had missed out on before.

Dmitri and I are both looking forward to next year. Unfortunately , he has fallen under the spell of Ewan and his Sassanids. This was reinforced by an account he read in Charles Grant's "Wargame Tactics," so I already have his paint requests flooding in.

John Garlic

[AntiokosIII]

<blush>

John's mail tactical lesson from me was the value of rolling up 3 into enemy MI bowmen and then watching your opponent's army blow all their wavers. It WAS a fun game, and I enjoyed John's company very much. I shudder at the thought of the dice evening out, though. Dave Lauerman