Test cricket is very different from Twenty-Twenty cricket, 3x3 basketball is very different from that played in the NBA, and tournament wargaming is very different from how I like to play my wargames. That latter fact was underlined recently at Britcon, one of the UK's largest tabletop tournament gaming conventions, held at Nottingham Trent University. Wargames Illustrated had a side room at the event where we ran demo games featuring various smashing-looking tables. You can see more about it in our gallery webpost. Outside the doors of our room, the main hall was abuzz with hundreds of tournament gamers, playing everything from Armati to Epic Armageddon. The clocks were ticking at the end of each line of tables, and players were elbow-to-elbow and board-to-board as they hurled dice and ploughed their figures forward (or routed backwards). From nine in the morning, until well after we had packed up and gone home, the competitive gamers were still going at it, barely moving from behind their boards. What a contrast to the serine gaming in the Wi Room where things preceded at a much more languid pace. How strange that you can play such similar games in such un-similar ways! It’s good that wargaming offers these two different horses for two different courses, but after a weekend of seeing ‘how the other half games’ I think I’ll stick with my less anxious approach to tabletop battles and leave the hurly-burly of tournament gaming to others of our ilk.