This is the time of year that I start thinking of the start of the "Convention Season" that starts with Cold Wars in March (it used to be late Feb.). But there is no "Season" any more if there ever was..

Just about every weekend of the year is taken up with a convention somewhere including many holiday weekends. In fact a problem some conventions have today is to schedule a time that does not interfere with a neighbor's con. Many clubs sponsor these smaller cons and "gamedays' to raise operating capital for their operation. In any case it means that the gamer has any number of cons he can attend, often for lower cost than the large conventions. No gamer need miss the "convention experience" of seeing different games played, observing the various approaches taken to rules, terrain and painting, and playing with gamers other than those one normally games with. It's this interaction and cross fertilization of ideas that keeps the hobby alive and forever new.

LAST ISSUE'S QUESTIONNAIRE

There were so many responses that I have not finished collating them and understanding all the nuances as yet - If I do before we go to press, I will put all the results somewhere in this issue. Some trends are of interest, however.

While 23% of the readers did not belong to a club or group, the average group size for the others was 13.76 gamers with a high of 100 and a low of 2. 65% are going to start a new period or scale this year, 41 % going to 25MM!! The new periods that are being tried are all over the lot, with 1 or 2 % trying just about any period you can name (not to mention some I never heard of) but a surprise is that 11% of the respondents are going to Mexican American War, and 10% going to W.W.II and later. These are the largest percentages going to one period.

Exactly 50% of our readers are on the NET. That is growing in leaps and bounds. About a year ago the number was in the low teens. 68% claim to NEVER use commercial painters. This is a surprise as those painters who advertise with us claim very high return on their advertising dollar spent with us.

The largest percentage of those who responded to the question 25%, wanted us to continue rules comparison by play test and 24% wanted more scenarios and scenario replays. Most of the other replies had specific articles in mind and several of these are in preparation for future publication. There are too many ideas for future articles to be listed here but I plan to address them all. Several addressed the need for articles on "Table Top Fog of War" which is what I am trying to get everyone to discuss in "The Courier Net" column - yet we did not get much response to that column this time - not enough to run it in this issue. We have an article on the subject by Jim Birdseye but need more thought from you in this matter. Come - on send me your thoughts.

51% don't want to drop any type of article that we are printing now while the remainder cover the lot in what they would like to see changed. So we must be doing something right and satisfying most of our readers most of the time.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to answer the questionnaire.