The convention "Call to Arms" is run over a Saturday and Sunday in August, allowing us two days to complete the game. Unfortunately, we were not able to access the venue on the Friday night for pre-game set-up so much of Saturday morning was required for deploying terrain, allocating assets and completing final order. However, basic pre-game reconnaissance was however completed prior to the game.

Actual gaming started around 11.30am and ran to 6.00pm on Saturday. Then we continued from 9.00am to 4.00pm on Sunday, excluding lunch breaks. Total playing time was therefore around 13 hours. On table, we probably resolved around sixteen turns, though we failed to keep an accurate record of this. The Soviet attack began at 4am and had four turns of night movement followed by one dawn move, at 6.00am, before full daylight.

We should have had allowed a variable amount of time between between turns to make the time-move ratio more erratic. However, I have applied this principle when writing the battle report so that the day covers from  atime from 4am to around 8pm during a single day in June 1984. We could also have completed additional turns except the arrival of the US Armoured Brigade slowed the game. It should also be remembered that a number of the players do not use MSH or even MSH on a regular basis. At least one commander had never played one game of either.

We had six players commanding Soviets, with a force of 3.5 divisions initially (about 60 fighting battalions). Each player was therefore managing an average of ten battalions. Rhys commanded the Soviet airborne troops and artillery assets for much of the game and acted as Soviet army commander. The umpire, Pete Connor, answered questions, based troops (some were still being based on Saturday morning on temporary bases), and later assisted the Soviet attack.

The NATO forces also had six players, five of which commanding an initial brigade of three battalions positioned on table or in initial reserve. Paul commanded the NATO artillery assets and kept an eye on the entire battle.

There were a couple of minor modifications to the rules. A D10 was used for ground combat resolution and a house rule was used for morale. However, apart from this all other rules were as per the base MSH rule book. Further, neither of these modifications would have, in my opinion, greatly effected the flow of the battle if they had not been used. Finally, electronic warfare missions (EW) were limited to two missions per side per turn across the entire table. In addition the affects of an EW mission were limited to two nominated tables of the five 6' x 4' tables that made up the 20 foot long table. 

Above all the weekend was a first class event. The work put in my the organisers, Rhys Batchelor and Pete Connor was appreciated by all, as one the great company in a very friendly game.

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