Call to Arms 2001

- by Michael Anastasiadis (Club President)

With more than 100 people involved in games and a tremendous response from the public, the Warlords' annual convention, Call to Arms, was a great success.

Thank you to our Australian visitor and to those who travelled from all over the North Island - Auckland, Waikato, Hawkes Bay, Taranaki and Manawatu that I know of - and some South Islanders too.

Comments from the public and participants were overwhelmingly positive about the convention, the hobby and the club's website.  It was surprising how many people came along and said that they had a few figures at home and wanted to find out more about the hobby.  Several of them were teenage girls, who came along after reading Rachel Lewis's comments in the "Evening Post" on the Saturday afternoon.

White Dwarf editor, David Taylor, came over from Australia and proved he has some insights.  Forty-five of us went to dinner on Saturday night, and while watching the Warriors play the Roosters it turned out that David had bet on the Warriors - they won.  The local GW manager Mark Hazell was impressed with how CTA was run and said that he wanted to copy some of the ideas for GW's Grand Tournament.

The traders, Historical Games from Auckland, and Mack's Track and Capital Books from Wellington, were all very pleased with sales.  The Wellington businesses have also found that exposure at CTA brought them new customers in the weeks afterwards.

The umpires will no doubt submit reports on their competitions, but mention should be made of the many demonstration and participation games. Brian Trott and co. won the prize for best participation/demo game for their superbly presented 25mm Seven Years War games, complete with maps, history etc on the notice board next to the game.  Phil Yates deserves special mention for the huge numbers he had involved in 15mm World War II games. The play test version of Battlefront Miniatures "Flames of War" rules proved very popular, and several complete, new armies were bought from Mack's Track.  There were also 25mm Ancient, 15mm Napoleonic, 15mm American Civil War, 1/300 Science Fiction and 25mm Fantasy participation/demonstration games. All of them looked great, and thanks to the guys who took a lot of time to talk to visitors.

And the Warlords broke with tradition, we made a profit at a convention for the first time in years!  About $150.

Follow up after CTA should be good.  Existing members (now 80) seemed to have a good time and were enthusiastic to play more.  All 100 copies of the booklet about the club were taken and it is likely that there will be more visitors than usual at the next few club meetings.  If visitors do come, then be welcoming, they may well be prospective wargamers.

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