As First Empire moves into its second year of publication, you may notice that the magazine is undergoing something of a metamorphosis. The internal format has changed and the magazine has grown in size by 8 pages! Yes, this is the biggest First Empire ever! More changes are planned over the next few issues ... watch this space.

Even in this bigger format I have found myself hard pressed for space, several reviews of figures have been held over to next issue to allow a larger advertisers section, also apologies to the contributors, who, having been urged to knock out the odd 5,000 words, didn't make this issue.

At this point I would like to thank all of the contributors to First Empire, who for the most part, have given freely of their time and talent, to help me produce each issue. I would also like to thank all of the original subscribers whose money allowed Issue 1 to roll off the press. I was very pleased to see that 99% of that band of fellow travellers have resubscribed. Must be doing somethinq right.

Finally, I'm pleased to say that I am approaching the end of the massive backlog of correspondence and orders incurred by the recent upheavals. Normal service is in sight! (Oh yeah!). See you in September, and to the parents amongst us, bracing yourselves for the coming school holidays, (Merde!), good luck!