This is my first official edition of The Citadel, so I guess it is appropriate for me to introduce myself I am 36, from Chicago, and make my living as a statistician. I have been gaming since I was 8, when my elder brother decided he needed someone to practice on. My main interest has always been the Napoleonic wars, although I also do American Civil War, World War II and some ancients. Currently my big thing is 1/285 Command Decision, because I have fallen in with some guys who want to play, and I have a ton of the stuff that has been sitting around for years, awaiting its turn on the table. And even more that has been waiting to be painted.

When I was conned into, er, I mean, given the opportunity to become editor of Ae Citadel, I was told that my primary goal was to make it appear in peoples' mailboxes regularly. This I intend to do. The goal is to publish quarterly, with issues coming out at the beginning of January, April, July, and October. I view the The Citadel as a newsletter, with its primary function being to get the word out about the events coming up in the months between issues. To this end, The Citadel must be timely, because it is of no use for people to get the particulars about an event after it has occurred. Although I have not been able to discuss this with the majority of NHMGS members, those with whom I have talked agree with this philosophy.

Of course there is a trade-off, which is that I am not going to wait until I can fill a specified number of pages before I send it out. You may get some mighty thin issues of The Citadel in the future. If this occurs, it is because no one has sent me anything to put in it.

For the sake of my own sanity, I am going to limit myself to the role of editor, that is, I am going to take responsibility for putting the thing together in a readable fashion, getting it printed and in the mail. But I am not going to write it. I will contribute articles, and do my best to include something about every upcoming event I hear about, but if I find myself with only one page of copy when deadline rolls around, that's what going in the mail.

I would like to include two new features to The Citadel - a classified section for those trying to sell or acquire toys, and an opponents-wanted column for those looking for someone to try their toys on. Both these services will be free to NHMGS members.

You can all take this as an invitation to submit articles. I won't start begging until next issue. Be assured, if you send it, it will find it's way into the newsletter. I am going to set an initial maximum of 8 pages per issue. If there is a sudden (and unexpected) spate of articles, some may get bumped to the next issue.

If I consistently find myself with a backlog, I will increase the maximum number of pages. Ideally, I would like articles on a 3.5" DOSformatted diskette in just about any format but Word Perfect 6.1 (the only thing I have found that Word 6.0 does not read). But I will accept stuff written in crayon on the back of a MacDonald's bag.

I guess this is the part where George C. Scott says something like "all right now, you SOBs, you know how I feel". I want to hear from people on what they want from this newsletter. If my reading of what members want is not correct, tell me.