winterbadger | Historicon 3: the games (other people's games)

So, I had signed up to help run one game, and I had registered to play in two others. For HMGS events, you get to register ahead of time for one game each day, plus select another (if it's available) when you get there, and basically plead for a place in others if they aren't full :-).

There were a lot of choices for games being run (nearly 200 on Friday alone), but I knew (a) we had to spend at least an hour getting our game set up, (b) games always run over their expected time limits, and (c) I would want to spend several hours shopping. The dealer area is huge and filled with all sorts of goodies; then there's the flea market, which is at the opposite end of the complex from the dealer area and contains a much higher proportion of rubbish no one would ever want to buy, but it also contains a good many unconsidered trifles just waiting to be snapped up.

So I picked one game Friday night (hoping I might be able to get into one in the afternoon) and one game for Saturday morning (hoping it would be done before we needed to set up for ours in the afternoon). I figured if we went up early enough Friday I could do some shopping before any afternoon game I could get into.

My buddy Eric and I drove up together on Friday morning, after a rather last-minute scatterbrained packing job on my part. We made good time up to Lancaster, collected our registration materials, assessed what luck we had had with pre-registration, checked into our hotels, got some lunch, and came back to see what trouble we could get into. I had gotten my Friday evening and Saturday morning games.

Eric had a Friday afternoon game and, after doing a little shopping, I wandered by and was able to join in. It was a game on the 1866 Austro-Prussian War, run by Bruce Weigle, who has published some other games on wars of 19th century Europe that I like the look of. He turns out to be a very agreeable fellow, and the game itself was fun. I was allotted a small command on the periphery of the battle (an attempt by the Prussian Army to cross a riverline defended by the Austrians' Bavarian allies). My small Prussian command was almost immediately shot to piece by the opposing Bavarians, who began readying themselves for a counterattack against the Prussian main force. My local opponent and I were both given additional forces (me so I wouldn't feel I had lost before I'd even started, he so it wouldn't seem unfair), and I managed to stymie his counterattack, though only with the help of the terrain (I was able to hold a bottleneck) and some good luck.

I think after this we both grabbed a burger at one of the food stalls. Eric had an air combat game in the evening, so we parted ways. I went off to play in what turned out to be a very entertaining game about a battle between Poles and Ukrainaian cossacks. The battle was a historical one from the Khmelnitski Uprising, but the game was based on the depiction of the battle in a hugely popular novel, sort of Poland's "Gone with the Wind". Each player had a personality to play and troops to command, and our goals might not be the same as the goals of the other players. Did I mention that all the players were on the same side (notionally), while the umpire played the Cossack and Tatar enemies?

I got to play Pan Longinus Podbipyeta, a dour giant of a Lithuanian knight who has sworn to remain chaste until he repeats the exploit of one of his medieval forebareas and cuts off three of his enemies' heads with one blow of his huge sword! I commanded a band of haiduks or musketeers. Most of the rest of the army was mounted (except for our Scottish and German mercenary footsoldiers), so all the Polish noblemen were dashing off to glorious engagements with the enemy while I plodded along with the baggage train!

Just as well, though, because first Father Mukhovyetski (a very ardent Catholic priest with the army) rode over to a nearby Orthodox church and proceeded to set fire to it, declaring it a den of heretics and vipers! A huge crowd of peasants, led by a group of black-robed priests, swarmed out of a nearby village and--waving the traditional pitchforks and torches--headed for our baggage train! A group of dragoons, led by the mighty but diminutive swordsman Pan Mikal Volodyovski, slew or chased off these threatening rabble, but not without losses.

Then, as I was about to press forward to the bridge (which led across the river to the fortified camp of the Cossacks, which was surely where glory was to be won), a force of fearsome Tartars, led by their ferocious chief Tukhay Bey, swept up from behind us and to our flank. Quickly the wagons were wheeled into a lager, with my haiduks inside serving as the garrison of a little fort. Pan Onufry Zagloba, who commanded the wagon train, rushed the casks of spirits and the beautiful French mistress of the army commander into one of the village huts we had surrounded with the wagons, the better to protect them both.

My haiduks volleyed several times, shooting down many of the wicked Tartars. Our wagons were covered with their arrows like porcupines with quills, but few were hurt. Pan Volodyovski and his dragoons completed the rout begun my my mens' shooting, and the brave knight slew Tukhay Bey himself in single combat.

That was about it for our part of the battlefield. On the right, the husaria (armoured cavalry) of course garnered much renown by driving off the cavalry of the Cossacks--doughty fighters though they are, they could not stand against the rush of our mighty winged lancers! Our great cannon never got properly emplaced, but the horsemen of the national levy, pancerni, lesser gentlemen from the countryside managed not only to drive off the arquebusiers who were guarding the bridge but galloped over the earthworks into the Cossack camp and put many of them to flight. Quite unexpectedly, a huge body of Tartar janissaries was revealed in the camp, and the pancerni managed to drive off these fierce fellows as well!

After the battle, there was a conference of all the leaders of the army, and much boasting was done by many of their deeds of valour (of course, I was far too sensible of my shortcomings to boast, for once again I had failed to fulfill my vow of the three heads...) And the great nobles of the szlachta were put in their place, for all their boasting was as much as they had done, and the commander of the pancerni was awarded the laurels of the day to great acclaim!

It was a really fun game, and totally unexpected that there would be such appreciation for these stories, which I'm rather fond of but which are hardly commonly read in the US.

I'll skip over the account of my battle Saturday morning, mostly because it didn't happen! I got there early, went to look for the table, and it was empty. I checked the registration desk, and it was on the list of cancelled games. :-(

Next (and last): our Sacile game!