Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[scott holder]

NICT

1) Dave Markowitz, Ming Chinese, 55.9
2) Greg Hauser, Ghaznavid, 51.5
3) Derek Downs, Minoan, 50.1
4) Scott McDonald, Moldavian, 44.7
5) Larry Daum, Neo-Assyrian Empire, 34.4
6) Phil Gardocki, Anglo-Irish, 31.9
7) Jake Kovel, Late Welsh, 31.8
8) Scott McCoppin, Spanish Conquistador, 31.4
9) Sean-Patrick Scott, Communal Italian, 30.6
10) Chris Schulitz, Catalan Company, 29.5
11) Bill Low, Tepanec, 19.7
12) Rich Kroupa, Khmer, 16.5
13) Don Carter, Viking, 15.2
Matt McCoppin, Huaxtec, 15.2


New World Warrior Theme

1) Derek Downs, Post-Conquest Inca, 30
2) Scott McDonald, Chichimec, 27
3) Rich Kroupa, Spanish Conquistador, 20.8
4) Dave Markowitz, Inca, 20
5) Marc Cribbs, Zapotec, 18.9
6) Scott Holder, Spanish Conquistador, 17.6
7) Greg Hauser, Inca, 15.4
8) Phil Gardocki, Chinatec, 13.6
9) Mike Kelly, Spanish Conquistador, 13.4
10) Bill Low, Cimmaroon, 12.5
11) Sean-Patrick Scott, Spanish Conquistador, 10.9
12) Jim Bisigani, Spanish Conquistadaor, 9.1


Sportsman: Bill Low
Best Camp: Greg Hauser (Inca)

Greg also provided a custom-painted couple of elements as a NICT prize and Jake at Silver Eagle helped with gift certificates.

Format was 14 players playing all five rounds, no cut, all scores from all rounds counted. Four people (Dave, Greg, Derek and Scott McD) all had a viable shot at winning going into the fifth round.

Yes, there's a Spanish Conquistador list in there. Scott and Matt McCoppin showed up with 15mm lead and no opponents so we talked em into playing 25mm. The only armies we had were the plethora of armies Bill brought down for the Theme. Don't read anything into this.

Photos posted in the Tournaments section over in Album.

More info in subsequent posts.

scott

[Ed Kollmer]

Congrats to all who played in the events.
Sorry, I could not play, however, it is your
gain. Who can withstand the wrath of Ed the
Rash.

[Mark Stone]

I'm definitely planning on being there next year (and for Cold Wars 2014 as well). This year has been... complicated.

Ming is always on my short list of armies to play, though Dave plays it differently than I do (to me Ming is a way to play Burmese viably). Kudos to Dave.

I'd love to know what the heck Derek did with Minoan. That's not an army list I ever look at.

-Mark

[scott holder]

Derek's Minoan list is attached. As he described it to me, he put it together similar to a New World list so that he could play essentially the same game throughout the weekend.

scott

[scott holder]

There was a lot of deja vu at the show this year. To get an idea of what I mean, refresh your memory of last year:
http://www.fourhorsemenenterprises.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=77081#77081

No car crashes but Don Carter's car broke down on Friday so he had to bail for Saturday. Wegman's is still the best thing about the convention location. The actual convention center is still very loud. HMGS put up these thin curtains which I actually liked; they dilineated various areas well without making anybody feel "shut off" from the rest of the horde. But in terms of noise mitigation, they did squat.

The a/c was great in anywhere outside the main hall. It barely kept up in the main hall (where we are located) during a very hot weekend in Fredericksburg.

There were a lot more coolers this year meaning people brought in a lot more of their own booze. That still didn't stop the convention center from selling out of Yuengling Lager so I'm guessing everybody was happy.

Like last year, we had a 14 player NICT and went ahead and played 5 games over two days, all game scores "counting", so this year, I did the same thing; thus, the above scores reflect 5 rounds of weighted points. Scott and Matt McCoppin are 15mm players who showed up and we roped em into playing 25mm. One thing we learned is that in the future, we're going to try and coordinate with the 15mm player base (such that it is) ahead of time and if there aren't enough players, we'll coordinate to line up 25mm armies they'd like to play...assuming they're still interested in playing.

Because of Don's car travails, I had an odd number for Saturday. I was actually gonna play myself when in comes Mike Byrne with 15mm lead. No problem, we've got plenty of 25mm lead for him. Oops, then Matt asks to bail and I said great, now I'm back to even numbers. The result was that me and Mike got to play a leisurely 1600pt 15mm pickup game Saturday afternoon, me borrowing Araucanians from Bill against Mike's Celtiberian Spanish.

Another good thing, for me, was being able to play a pickup game Thursday against Mike Kelly, this time in 25mm, his Timurids against my Spanish Conquistadors. I had no idea how to deal with his army and it showed in the end results. However, since I hadn't played a game of Warrior since Cold Wars and hadn't touched anything remotely Mesoamerican in over ten years, just going thru that game was helpful. So for me, getting in 5 games over the course of three days meant the show was a huge success!

The theme rocked. All the hand wringing about how boring people thought it would be turned out to be a non-issue. All three of my games had boatloads of head-banging combat and that was everybody's experience as well. Plus, the eye candy! The camps were to die for. While I picked Greg's camp as "Best Camp", I actually felt Bill's Spanish Conquistador camp better. Derek's Inca camp was equally incredible. However, since they didn't do every tiny bit of it, I gave the award to Greg. But wow!

I thought the Theme army mix was about right. I mean it seemed "right" to have a bunch of Spanish Conquistador armies running around infecting native Americans with measles and smallpox. Oh wait, different game. What was interesting was seeing how the five Spanish lists differed in composition. Mine was clearly the outlier in that I maxed out Spanish infantry and also had more LI than most. My goal was to outscout everybody and that worked great for 2 games but I played Scott McD and his Chichimecs and he had 50+ scouting points. Heh heh, that was the game I lost.

In many ways, the Theme wouldn't have worked if not for Bill. First the effort he put into the Theme lists was incredible. Second, he showed up with 7 25mm armies and 3 15mm armies as loaners. That meant that folks like Mike K, Jim, Marc and Sean could participate. I don't think Bill will need to be that proactive next year with the 100 Years War theme.

We were done between 9:30-10pm every night, it was great. One thing that's made that possible is preset terrain and the now-pretty-well-liked deployment system. Eric didn't put in an appearance until Friday afternoon so that meant I had to lay out the terrain. I'm notoriously crappy at that and in some ways it showed on Thursday in that I had 9 fairly open tables. I "got better" on Friday with a more varied, and yet still balanced, layout but it was still nothing like what Eric does. And he did the Saturday tables and it showed.

One thing we did because of the Theme was layout villages (Unfortified Built Over areas for you people who still can't get 7th terminology out of your head). In each case the "village" was a pyramid or temple complex. I had some stuff and Derek also brought some Aztec-ey buildings he's had for a gazillion years but never used. Everybody discovered, at least in a theme like this with tons of loose order infantry, that villages really aren't that complex rules-wise. Which means you can now expect to see at least one on a table in any future tourney.

Rich Kroupa made some plateau hills and we used all of em. For our single "desert" board, he also had some new dunes. I brought these plastic ones I bought and painted and while we didn't use them, two guys totally unrelated to tourney gaming much less Warrior came by on Thursday and saw em. I was able to bring up my post here on them and point them to the right web site. They were ecstatic to find dunes!

One of the best things was Saturday after the NICT finished. Instead of hanging around the still-loud and clammy convention center, we headed to the Hampton Inn (one of the onsite hotels) to drink Bill's wine, eat pizza Chris ordered and talk about odds and ends. It was far more comfortable and quiet. I normally go to bed knowing I've got 930 miles to drive the next day but I stayed up until midnight with the gang until we broke up. I made it home on Sunday in 13:50 and yes, 80mph speeds were a main factor in my drive home.

Everybody really should plan on coming next year. HMGS finally announced the dates, 17-20 July 2014. We have plenty of space, the lighting is decent, you can eat great by walking 2 minutes to Wegman's and hotel rooms are plentiful and incredibly cheap (if you're willing to drive just 5-10 minutes).

[Mark Stone]

Scott, thanks for the detail on the games and the venue. It helps those of us who can only live vicariously through these AARs, and it helps us West Coasters wieigh the cost/benefit of making the trip next year.

Right now I am 100% certain I will be at Cold Wars and Historicon next year, though that confidence may suffer some attrition as the months roll by.

Anyone else with reports / perspective please do post. We aren't as vocal a forum as we used to be, but there's still an interested audience out here.

[Historian]

Anyone have Rich Kroupa's email address? I didn't find him in the member list, but I know he lurks here occasionally.
Phil G.

[Ed Kollmer]

I second Mark S's remarks. I check the form if not daily at least a couple of times a week.
Thanks Scott H for the your great AAR. It was most welcome.
Phil??? Did you have the hiccups. Maybe you should stop drinking that Polish Hussar Beer.
Ed the Rash

[scott holder]

I've sent you Rich's email addy.

And deleted you dup posts. It's an occasional bug in the code. A user posts and gets an error message. The post does occur but the user typically keeps posting it again, hence the dups.

scott

[scott holder]

Dave Markowitz's winning NICT list:

Ming Chinese 1605, 34 Scouting

General w/5 EHC Reg A/B L, B 1/2 Sh Firelance, 206
Sub Gen w/5 EHC Reg A/B L, B /2 Sh, Firelance, 136
Sub Gen w/5 EHC Reg A/B L, B /2 Sh, Firelance, 136
2 E Reg EHC Reg A/B L, B, 1/2 Sh, Firelance , 103

Mongol Ally Reg A EHC L, B, Sh, 1 E HC, L, B, 148
2 E Reg B LC B, 38
2 E Reg B LC B, 38
2 E Reg B LC B, 38
2 E Reg B LC B, 38

48 Ming Foot Reg D 16 MI, LTS (Firelance, Sh), 138
16 CB
16 B

48 Ming Foot Reg D 16 MI, LTS (Firelance, Sh), 138
16 CB
16 B

24 Reg D LMI B 1/2 Sh, 70
24 Reg D LMI B 1/2 Sh, 70
16 Reg A LMI 1/2 CB, 1/2 B, 1/2 Sh, 98

Flaming Oxen x 2, 80

4 E Reg B 2HCT 1/2 Sh, 130

Dave played as follows:

Round 1: Sean-Patrick Scott, 5-3 Win
Round 2: Phil Gardocki, 5-1 Win
Round 3: Derek Downs, 4-1 Win
Round 4: Greg Hauser, 2-2 Tie
Round 5: Scott McDonald, 5-2 Win

[scott holder]

Another note.

My third round in the Theme was against Dave. He started strong beating on my "hinge" unit, one of my stalwart Reg B LHI 1HCW, 1/2 HG, 1/2 CB, Sh units on my right where the gully was located. He beat it up and while I was disordered, I kept passing waver tests. That gave me time to completely pop his center. My artillery finally did what it was supposed to do and his high morale units there loved rolling ones on their waver tests.

Thus, the game started with what looked like him rolling up my line from right to left. It then shifted to a 5-1 win for me as his center collapsed. Then I got sloppy on my left. I should have tried to counter my Tlaxcallan AG the hell outta there as he had two units lining up to shoot it to death but noooooooooo, I got cocky...and lost the AG which kicked the command into retreat, thus turning the game into a 3-3 tie.

It was great and it dawned on us that this was only the 3rd time we'd ever played each other. The first time was when he was in high school and we were playing 6th Ed. He was running Nike Byz and I was running my "Black Japanese". We call em that because of how they were painted. It was the first 15mm army I bought, Dixon, and I purchased it at Origins in Baltimore in 1985 right after I got out of grad school. This was before I discovered the joy of painting figures. So, I simply spray painted every figure black, then filled in where flesh, metal weapons, wood and leather would go and presto, one army.

At some point in the late 80s, I traded that army to Scott Dickson for 15mm Midianites (which I still have). It's anybody's guess how many times it was then sold or traded but several years back I learned it is now in Bill Low's possesion.

Anyway, Dave and I then played each other in a Doubles tourney when we were still out in the Tennis Barn at Lancaster. This was when we still had Sunday morning games and Chris Damour's team mate had to bail so I filled in. If memory servers, Dave and Todd were running Romans of some ilk, me and Chris some barbarian trash army. My tactics were to move units into contact and roll up 4. It worked.

And that was at least 20 years ago. Thus, that's why the Theme was great for me, I got to play somebody I've known for a gazillion years but haven't sat down across the table from in many decades.

scott

[Mark Stone]

Scott, it's definitely interesting how the peculiarity of matchups play out over the years. Yours is sort of a special case, since you don't get in as many games as other attendees.

But here's another example: I think I played my first tournament game way back at the dawn of WRG 7th, in 1987 or thereabouts. I had a long absence from about 1993 to 2000, but otherwise I've been a fairly regular participant, getting to at least one of Cold Wars or Historicon most years. In all that time I've never played Derek Downs. I'd like to have that matchup some time, just to satisfy my curiosity about what it'd be like.

[Ed Kollmer]

SO BILL HAS THE SACRED "BLACK JAPANESE". The archeologists have long sought this elusive artifact. It is tantamount to finding the Terra Cotta Army of the Emperor.
I must thank you again Scott for the AAR.
It really is GREAT. Love to hear the news.
However, I must agree that it is really interesting how the matchups work out. Not recently but years back, I remember when my son, Matt, and I went to a con( can't remember which one tho), but Dan Burkley didn't want to match us up because he said we probably always play each other. We told him that we rarely played each other and many times went to cons just to lock in the time to play.
My favorite story of Derek is back in Lancaster when we were in the auditorium (or whatever it was called with the bad lighting) the first time. I was playing a round with someone I can't remember anymore when Derek showed up. He was out of the hobby for a few years at the time. Anyway, we started talking and he was asking questions about the new game. He was happy that he remembered so much about the game. I really felt sorry for my opponent because Derek was giving me so many hints that I was winning the game.
I also only played Scott H once. Again not surprising because he usually was the judge. But he played Romano-Brits, an army I am currently painting now. It was that game that kept that army on my interest radar screen. I thought I had a chance of beating him since he borrowed the army and was playing as a sub to even out the tourney as well as judging.
I lost.

[scott holder]

I played you? I have no recollection of that.

Romano-Brits? Heh heh, I don't have that army in either scale or anything close to it. I suppose it's possible I borrowed something.

scott

[Ed Kollmer]

Not surprised you don't remember. You were so busy doing a thousand other things. As I said you borrowed the army and only played to even the tourney while you were judging.
Hope to meet you again with MY Romano-Brits.
Ed the Hopeful