Alea iacta est #5 Pavia 1525
Against the Odds magazine #1 Hegemon, #2 Khe Sanh 1968, #3 Kesselschlacht 1944 Avalanche Press Afrika Korps, Fading Legions, Gettysburg 1863, Great White Fleet, Napoleon in the Desert, Soldier Kings, US Navy Plan Red
Avalon Hill/Hasbro Lord of the Rings Risk
Eric Bey Montebello 1800
BSO Games Dillinger, Greek Tragedy, The Last Crusade
Roberto Chiavini/TCS Games Edgehill,Innocence Lost
Clash of Arms 1777: Year of the Hangman, Brandywine/Germantown
Columbia Games Hammer of the Scots
Countermoves magazine #1 No Man's Land/Malta Convoy, #2 Greek Fire/Arena, #3 Operation Whirlwind, #4 Harvest the Wind/Steel and Crystal
Critical Hit/Moments in History Benghazi Handicap (Tobruk Expansion),Advanced Tobruk Wavell's 30,000 (Tobruk Expansion)
Decision Games Advanced European Theatre of Operations, Beyond the Urals, Drive on Stalingrad ,Operation Kremlin, Pacific War Battles volume 1
DGA Games Battlecards: World Conflict: Western European Theatre
Eagle Games: Civilization, Napoleon in Europe
GMT Games Across the Rappahannock, Barbarossa to Berlin, Guilford Courthouse/Eutaw Springs, Lonato,Napoleonic Wars Prussia's Glory, Reds!, Rome,This Accursed Civil War, Von Manstein's Backhand Blow
GRD Games Over There
Eric Grenier World War II In the West
Randy Heller Bitter Woods (3rd ed.)
Khyber Pass Games Togoland 1914
L2 Design Group Streets of Stalingrad
Ludopress Iberos
Microgame Design Group Across the Piave, Cuban Missile Crisis, Mediterranean Fury ,A Mere Matter of Marching, Operation Whirlwind, War Plan Crimson
Multi-Man Publishing Operation Michael, Operation Veritable, Operation: Watchtower, Screaming Eagle
Navalwarfare.Net NWS: Naval Warfare WWII
Perry Moore Designs Assault across the Suez 1915, Breakthrough at Gemehalo 1999, Operation Grozny, The Soviet Nadir Valor And Vengeance
New England Simulations The Killing Ground
Panzerschreck magazine ,#7 Sacrifice In The East/Andersonville/1914: Opening Moves ,#8 St. Georges Valour: The British Raid on Zeebrugge/The Fall of Rohm/Goring's War,#9 Battle for Bataan/Escape of the Goeben/La Bataille de York 1813/Siege of Leningrad
Phalanx Games Waterloo
Red Sash Games Charlies Year
Shrapnel Games Lock and Load
Schutze Games Allenby's Blitzkrieg, Blitzkrieg Checked, Blitzkrieg Stalled, Blitzkrieg Unleashed, France 1940, Hamel 1918, March on Rome, Red Guard
Simulations Workshop Green Beret
Strategy and Tactics magazine #208 Back to Iraq 3, #209 First Indochina War, #210 Belisarius, #211 Operation Elope, #212 Rough and Ready
Vae Victis magazine, #43 Barbarossa 1941, #44 Batailles pour le Canada, #45 Au Fil De L'Epee, #46 Verdun 1916, #47 Poland Campaigns, #48 Ardennes 1944
Dan Verssen Cold War Naval Battles

105 titles, 36 publishers

Format

Boxed/pouch/bag: 73 (of these, 30 were DTP)
Magazine supplement: 32 (of these, 23 were DTP)

DTP (desktop published, by which I mean anything where you have to mount the counters or do some kind of assembly yourself) continues to grow, such that almost half (53) of the designs in 2002 were produced this way! And it's only going to get more prevalent - game award committees take note.

Magazines

What do The Wargamer, GameFix/Competitive Edge, Jagdpanther, and Command have in common? OK - all contained a wargame in every issue. All were top-notch history and gaming mags. All were printed in color. All command a premium price today if you can find mint copies for sale. And all are no longer in print Reportedly (unconfirmed), Mover has ceased to exist. The General is long gone. And thus, important - though game-free - supplementary mags are also dead. Not as important as magazines with games, but still valuable for the errata and additional scenarios and rules they provided.

The point is this - despite a dearth of new boxed and/or ziplocked games being produced each year - which should indicate, logically, that a viable market exists for them - we find ourselves steadily losing fine publications. Strategy & Tactics has changed hands several times now. Fine, you say - wargames are still being made, what's the beef? The beef is this: magazines like Military History, MHQ, Military Heritage, WWII History, Vietnam, and the like are great reading. But they do not contain games. Their articles do not present a gamer's slant on things, there isn't much in the way of Orders of Battle, or what might have been. There certainly aren't errata and scenarios for games, or play-by-plays of games, or even games advertising. There is, bluntly, nothing like a magazine put together with the wargamer in mind.

Okay - how much poor management or the economy played a hand in killing off the afore-mentioned mags, I don't know. And far be it from me to try to tell you how to spend your money. But I know there are more than 2,500 wargamers out there (the last number I recall of S&T subscribers). And with Command and Competitive Edge gone, the market has certainly shrunk a little . Why not prop up S&T with a subscription, if you can manage to do so? I'm getting nothing from writing this article - I have no ties, and to the best of my knowledge, neither does anyone else at the helm of the SGS to the folks at S&T. But I just want to remind you - when they're gone, they're gone! And a fine magazine like S&T deserves to live on .

And while I'm at it, I have to also plug an excellent little magazine that - not always, but usually - contains two or even three or four (!) games inside of it - Panzerschreck, from the folks at Minden Games. Its not in color; neither the map nor the counters are mounted (though they are in color); and games run on the small side - but for the price, especially when you add in the options, variants, and scenarios for all games that are in every single issue - you will not find a better bargain in gaming! Period .

There is a lot of emphasis today on recruiting new gamers ; and it does need to happen. But I think we also need to mindful that the companies that have consistently put out products for us need support too. Without them - we have no hobby!

Source: Alan Poulter, Web-Grognards