Great
Lakes Area Great
Lakes Area 
by Mike Demana
In the sixth running of the Emperor of Great Lakes tournament at ATC, we had our largest number of entrants yet: 24 players. This year's theme was Medieval Europe, so knights fighting under colorful banners predominated on the battlefields. The theme also allowed this year's winner, Steve Smith, to dust off his Free Company army and field it again. Steve had amassed five vassals after three rounds of play, when the action was called and the Emperor declared. Far to the east, there was a rival, T.W. Hannaford's Epirote Byzantines had made a late surge with four vassals by conquering the empire of Jenny Torbett's Teutonic Knights.
Free Company was a popular choice, along with Anglo-Norman, as three players each fielded these armies. Along with the Medieval French, this meant a significant number of player nations used dismounting knight armies. Despite my usual abhorrence of dismounting knights, I figured they wouldn't be so bad in a Medieval themed tourney. Probably the gutsiest player choices for kingdoms were Wayne Hawn's warband heavy Estonians and Paul Potter's Slavs, with their large number of Auxilia.
Next year's theme will be Classical Mediterranean, so Greece, Rome, Carthage and Persia can once again vie for domination of the ancient world!
Other Empires of Note:
