Welcome to Against the Odds. Our magazine will be devoted to the full variety of military history and gaming. Each issue will feature one very nice game from a first-rate designer presented with excellent graphics and counter art. Along with it will be a feature article devoted to the subject of the game. There will be additional articles on other military history subjects and on historical gaming. And we'll also have regular columns from John Prados and Andy Nunez. None of which explains the title of the magazine, of course. Against The Odds's lead articles will focus on engagements where one side significantly outnumbers the other, in which a numericallyinferior force faces total destruction at the hands of a larger enemy force. The "against the odds" situation appeals on multiple levels, not least to our sense of the dramatic. ATO scenarios are the basic material of some of our greatest stories; how many books have been written, and movies filmed, about the Alamo and Thermopylae, about Bataan and Rorke's Drift? From a military history standpoint, ATO situations are where so many of the most celebrated commanders--Napoleon, Lee, Rommel--made their reputations in overcoming superior enemy forces. And more often than not, ATO situations are fraught with subtext. They are usually decisive, and history often turns on them. There is a direct line between the indecisive, pointless slaughters of the First World War and the pointless philosophies and art that appeared in continental Europe in the twentieth century. Many influential writers (Walter Benjamin and Henri Barbusse come to mind) had been at the front in that war. Their "postwar disillusionment" -- the phrase seems forever linked with the aftermath of World War One -- gave birth to many of the twentieth century's worst ideas. In universities by the latter part of the century, the idea of "meaning" itself was abominated. For the massively outnumbered Marines at the Chosin engagements in 1951, the search for meaning was somewhat less complicated: Some were wounded for a second time, and several were even hit a third time. I recall seeing a Marine captain, blinded in one eye, one leg in shreds, supporting himself with a mortar aiming stake, as he led his men... Every man became a rifleman- clerk-typists, cooks, truck drivers, communications men, supply personnel and engineers. The perimeter flares revealed wave after wave of Chinese advancing across the snow-covered ground.. It has been said that the 1st Marine Division killed 40 Chinese to every dead Marine. Against-the-odds battles tend to mean something. This issue's feature is Tom Sundell's HEGEMON game and article on Phillip of Macedon. In upcoming issues, we'll be looking at engagements in Vietnam, the Napoleonic wars, and the Eastern Front in World War II. We hope you'll enjoy the journey. Note: You can buy this or any back issue, or, subscribe to Against the Odds magazine by clicking on the AtO link. Back to Table of Contents -- Against the Odds vol. 1 no. 1 Back to Against the Odds List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 2002 by LPS. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com * Buy this back issue or subscribe to Against the Odds direct from LPS.