Volume 7 Issue No. 3 temporarily abandons the editorial format of covering the mid-18th Century in chronological order, primarily to present the readers with several interesting articles that were either out of sync with the mid 1740's or else they defied connections to any current themes. I like order and symmetry (which must make me feel at home in the 18th Century), but occaisionally one must break the mold, get a little wacky and zany, and try something different, hence the jump forward into time into that fateful year of 1757.

Dean West has written a fine article about the campaign and battle of Hastenbeck in 1757 and l've been holding it in the on-deck circle for over a year now. Dean, being above average in intelligence, observed that at the rate in which we were covering events, it would be several more years before we reached 1757 in our chronological time travel.

"What do I have to do to get you to print my article, Jim," inquired Dean, "do I have to organize the annual SYWA convention or something?"

"Well, ah, err, now that you mention it Dean..." I replied; and so now you know the real reason behind Dean's generous offer to host next year's SYWA convention. Dean informs me that it will be held at the same venue as this year's event, i.e. the Holiday Inn Downtown, in South Bend, Indiana on Friday March 31 and Saturday April 1, 1995. So mark that date on your calendars and start thinking about the type of game that you might want to host at next year's convention.

We also have an interesting look at the effect that disease and sickness had on some of the British campaigns in Flanders and Germany during the mid 18th Century, courtesy of Luke Mulder. Add to that some articles relating to Hessian troops and standards, plus a review of a biography on the Duke of Cumberland, and you end up with a sort of "Hastenbeck theme" in this issue. Order and symmetry prevail afterall! I hope that you enjoy these articles as much as I did.

Next Issue

Next issue, we will be focusing on the campaign and capture of Fort Louisburg in 1745. Jim Mitchell is working on the lead article and Kieth Martens, of Habitants & Highlanders faine has donated an article on the Louisburg campaign. We could use a couple of articles about other events in North America, circa 1745, as well as a few words about the various troop types on either sides, a profile of the personalities involved, or perhaps a history of the French and British settlements in Acadia/Nova Scotia. These are merely a few suggestions; I leave the choice up to you. So here is a chance for afficionados of the French & Indian wars to make a contribution on your area of interest. Saddle up your steeds, ye men on horseback, you help is needed.

In a similar vein, I am running out of wargame reports and would like to call on the membership for a few submissions. My goal is to have one wargame report, regardless of topic or theater of action, in each issue of the SYWA Journal. Likewise,I'd like to encourage everyone to write us a letter and let us know what you are doing, as relates to 18th Century wargaming and research. Many of the readers have told me that they particularly enjoy the 'letters' section of the newsletter, and I must admit that I'm rather partial to hearing what the members are doing and what they have on their minds. One need not be an expert, whatever that is, to write a short note. So don't be shy, give it a try.

Tip of the Tricorne

A tip of the tricorne should go to Herb Gundt and friends (Lance Kizer and Dana Homo, to name a few) for the wonderful convention that they hosted in South Bend on March 18 and 19 of this year. Herb reports that over 75 people attended the convention and we were able to recruit a few more members to our ranks. The general consensus seemed to be that the facilities at the Holiday Inn were some of the best ever. It was really convenient to be able to drive one's car up to the sixth floor parking garage and unload wargame troops, etc indoors and two steps away from the convention hall. The guest rooms were quite spiffy and the convention hall was isolated from the rest of the hotel, giving the convention a cozy, comfortable feeling.

There were at least a dozen different games representing mainstream SYW contests (e.g. French-British and Austrian-Prussian) plus some more unusual theaters involving the SYW in India, Ottoman Turks versus Russians, the American Revolution, one of Chris Engle's matrix games, and of course, the ever-popular Marquis of Granby's cup (horse race). Steve Lawrence won the trophy in the equestrian event, followed by Dave Olster in distant second place. Yours truly finished well back in the pack, but at least I managed to avoid assorted wild boars, bears, bawdy houses and taverns, mad hussars , highwaymen and other troublesome sorts that tend to roam the countryside. I'd like to thank all of the game judges and the dealers for their fine efforts--we could not have a convention without them.

There was a small dealer area where one could buy an assortment of goodies. RSM, Wargames Inc., The Reiter, HG Walls, Emperor's Headquarters, Imperialist Enterprises, Bicorne Miniatures, and the Elite Group were all there with a nice assortment of wargame wares. I took the opportunity to buy a few more houses from HG Walls and I increased my Prussian cavalry contingent with the purchase of some terrific-looking Dixon hussars in mirlitons, from Wargames Inc.

As usual, there was a banquet dinner on Saturday night, followed by drawings for door prizes--everyone walks away with something. Michael Becher of Washington DC was kind enough to donate a photocopy of the Savory book and Doug Carrocio donated a $25.00 gift certificate from Miniature Service Center in California. A warm thanks to all who donated door prizes this year.

After dinner, there was an open discussion about the potential conflict between next year's SYWA convention and the Little Wars convention in mid march 1995.Tbe consensus seemed to move our date back a few weeks to April. Then, Dean West was dragooned into accepting responsibility, by audience acclaim, for next year's convention. Now I understand how 18th Century naval press gangs operated. Thank you Dean.

Later that evening, Messers West and Mitchell invited everyone up to the hospitality suite that they had rented and provided us with endless quantities of fermented libations and videotape reruns of Barry Lyndon, Culloden, and those ever-popular man-eating elephants from the hit movie Clive of India . It is with good reason that Tod Kershner calls the latter film "one of the all-time worst in cinematic history." Yet it is always good for a few laughs

There seems to be an outbreak of "Camposanto Fever", inspired largely by Reed Browning's new book The War of Austrian Succession. A number of people, including Dean West, Jim Mitchell, and Brian Vizek have approached me seeking information about the War of Austrian Succession in Italy. Professor Browning devotes a considerable portion of his book to the conflict between the Bourbon kingdoms of France, Spain and Naples on one side, and the allied powers of Austria and Piedmont-Sardinia on the other.

The obvious appeal of the Italian campaign, to wargamers, is the opportunity to add Spanish, Neapolitan and Piedmontese armies to their collections of Austrians and French and fight some new battles. Camposanto, for example, is particularly attractive in that it only involves 12,000 to 15,000 troops per side. There seems to be enough interest in this area to devote a future issue or issues to the WAS in Italy. I would like to invite anyone with a special interest or knowledge of this period to submit articles for publication in the SYWA Journal. Perhaps our members in Italy and Spain can help us out.

A good place to start is to purchase some orders of battle from George Nafziger (see his advertisement in this issue). I recently purchased about 20 pages of Italian theater OB's from George and found them extremely helpful in figuring out battalion sizes and identifying units to paint. All this for a mere $0.25 per page. Check out George's service for this and other historical periods of interest.

And finally, I'd like to announce that I will be moving to Lexington, Kentucky in June 1994 where I will operate an 18th Century style Bed & Breakfast inn, tentatively to be called The Red Fox Inn. In conjunction with this venture, will be hosting large scale wargame weeks and weekends during the late spring through early autumn seasons. Gamers will be provided with accomodations and all meals at the Red Fox Inn and featured gaming periods will include the American Civil War, the Napoleonic era, the American Revolution, and of course, the Seven Years War--all fought on a 12FT by 24FT wargame table. I expect to open the inn by October 1994 and begin a full slate of wargaming activities in 1995. I will, of course, continue to publish this journal from my new address.