Team Yankee Nationals – Historicon 2018

On Friday, July 13th, players from around the country (and Canada) assembled in Lancaster, PA for the National Tournament.  We began expecting 36 players and wound up with 40 total players. The lure of the Stripes objective and the sweet siren song of Sgt. Hulka no doubt played a part.  Mitch Reed served as the TO and master of ceremonies, and Dave Griffin and the folks at helped with a generous set of prizes, objectives, and of course their signature tables.

Above: The Troops assemble

Sixty-four points goes a long way towards eliminating some of the pricier equipment.  But thanks to a large selection of lists and books, as well as the creative passion of our player base, there was a wide variety of lists, and a pretty balanced set of red on blue matches.  When we set match ups for the first round, it wasn’t hard to make sure 90% of the matchups were Soviet Vs NATO forces.

I still saw a fair amount of T-72s and a handful of M1IPs for the USA, but I didn’t see a single Leo 2 on a board. Someone can correct me in the comments if I just missed them passing by. Last year saw a huge number of both West and East German players.  This year, during our leadup podcast here on NoDiceNoGlory, we hypothesized about what people might bring.  Free Nations was represented, but the book was so current I imagine most people planning a list didn’t get it painted in time. (I heard stories of one of my fellow club members who made the trip painting his army in his hotel room the night before.)

Soviets were far better represented at this tournament, largely thanks to the new Red Thunder book.  The US lists were also on point.  Quite a few Marines and M60 lists.  General Glenn played in the tournament as well using a pure Marine Rifle Company.  Glenn thought that would be the answer to the BMP hordes, but it didn’t quite work out that way even though the Marines were quite tough.  The BMP horde (either East German or Russian) seemed quite prevalent with the more experienced players.

We elected this year to ignore point differential, and simply play 4 rounds, counting wins first, then losses.  The results of that didn’t result in many ties and were a huge help to calculating winners in different categories.  I think it went well, and I’ll let Mitch weigh in on it.  If you were here, please let us know what you thought of scoring and format in the forums, we’re always open to suggestions or adjustments for next time.

As our day drew to a close and the last dice fell, our exhausted players gathered around for the plaques and results.  More will be said as we parse the results in terms of “the Meta” and I’m sure Mitch will have a chance to weigh in on that…

A huge thanks to all the folks that took a day of the convention to play with us.  In particular to the Able Company guys who helped serve as informal rules helpers and answerers of questions. Andrew Hopson, Chris Fretts, Joe Lewis and others.

Even if I didn’t play this time it was great to see a community of players who are so helpful to each other, shepherding new players, and making this a fun experience for everyone. Thanks to Mitch Reed and Battlefront for putting this together and Congratulations to our winners:

The Final results:

1st place: Austin Coped
2nd place: Chris Jackson
3rd place: Pete Zerphy

Best sportsman: Carl Belatti
Best painted: Chris Fretts

Best for each nation
UK: Andrew Hopson
US: William White
FRG: Eric Mylin
DDR: Kevin Dietz
Free Nations (Canada): Brian Reid
USSR: Howard West

Goat award: Alan Sheridan

Once again thanks to all and congrats to the winners