From: David Ferris Subject: Con: Crusades '96 Had a most enjoyable time at the annual Crusades convention in Darien, Connecticut this weekend. The con was billed (at least in the flyers I saw) as a "historical miniatures wargame" convention, but card games and sci fi/fantasy miniatures were there in force as well. I looked around for but didn't see any boardgame presence at all. One of the organizers told me that there was still a lot of two-player boardgaming going on, but the only boardgaming going on at their conventions and the monthly meetings of the Connecticut Game Club were multi-player. "People tend to play one-on-one boardgames on 'their own time' these days," said the rep. Attendance was good and people seemed to be having a great time all around, which I always find to be encouraging. This sort of event tends to disprove the ever-present dark forecasts that the hobby is dying out. Lots of kids were there; most seemed to gravitate towards the Warhammer type events but a significant number of young ones were playing in a WWII tactical level Command Decision game. I didn't run any events myself (still suffering from a bit of "convention burnout" after running games at cons for about four years straight) but I did enjoy playing in a Napoleonics game of "From Valmy to Waterloo". Four of us from the Hopatcong Organized Gaming Society (HOGS, a Northern NJ group) played along with a couple other fellows. I took the French right flank (although I really wanted to be that "grouchy" guy) with one of my fellow HOGS as the overall French corps commander, with two other HOGS and another guy as the Russians, in a "generic" 1807 scenario. I did well, advancing aggressively and pushing the Russians back, but the French center kept falling back (the division to my left retreated after taking one, count 'em, one casualty! Ouch!) leaving me high and dry. I took a beating, but I was still pushing forward when we quit. A very enjoyable game, with the Russian cavalry commander (a fellow HOG) leading a rather exciting charge that pushed the timid French center even further back. Later, I watched a Franco-Prussian War event run by Dick Bryant of The Courier, with two HOGS on the Prussian team and one HOG on the French side. An extremely close and well-balanced game, the victory not being clear until the very last moment. The Prussians won, but only by a hairsbreadth, and probably (I suspect) only because their silly accents were slightly better. Also in evidence were several tactical tank games (I was happy to see), age-of-sail naval, several American Civil War, some ancients, some Renaissance, Battletech, some sort of clay smash-a-thon for the younger players, cowboys & Indians skirmish, and a WWI naval. Only a few events were cancelled due to lack of players, something else I found encouraging. It's rather disenheartening as a referee to put all the work into setting up a game event and then finding out that no one signed up for it, an all-too-common occurance at these smaller cons. Overall, a good time. I will certainly be back next year, probably bringing a Buick-load of HOGS again, although next time I might actually be tempted to run a game or two myself again... ferns1@aol.com David "Ferns" Ferris ArmourSoft Inc., PO Box 323, Bloomsburg PA 17815 M1 Game Designer, No Longer Snowed In, One Each