This issue completes the first year of THE COURIER and an interesting year it has been! We have published some 90 articles: 42 pages of Napoleonics; 27 pages of Reviews and Consumer "Reports"; 26 pages covering the general history of the Hobby and general rules that apply to all periods; 20 pages of Ancients; 17 pages each of Modern/WWII and Zulu; 14 pages of "How-To" articles; 12 pages of Colonial; Naval - 10 pages; 7 Years War, Renaissance and AMR-about 7 pages each; and other items-3.5 pages. The remainder is made up of "Boiler Plate", Front Cover and 76 pages of advertisement (they are what pay for all this). I feel that you will agree that we have tried to provide a reasonable crossection of articles. This first year of THE NEW COURIER has seen some extensive changes in our hobby. The inflation of figure and rule prices has resulted in such products as hard rubber molds for home casting and a trend to "grand tactical" scale games where each figure represents 60 or 100 men as opposed to the old 20/1. This coupled with the shift toward 15mm figures (again because of price) has given a whole new appearance to our games. These changes in scale have caused a change in the types of rules we playalmost gone is CLS, Frappe and Jeu de Guerre now we have Empire III & Vive L'Empereur. The same kind of changes have occured in other periods. On the other end of the spectrum - there has been a building interest in "skirmish gaming" because of the fewer figures needed. Much to our dismay this past year has seen several manufacturers drop their historical lines, others reduce theirs to give more service to the fantasy gamer and other magazines have limited their coverage of historical miniatures. I can understand why - for each historical wargamer buying 100 figures there are 50 fantasy gamers buying 10 figures - they outspend us 5:1! Our only defense is to turn the fantasy gamer on to historical gaming. I believe that the best way is through skirmish gaming - as a first step - where he can identify with the role playing aspect. When he gets interested give him a regiment of The Old Guard (or the equivalent in your period of interest) and he'll be hooked! The motto for next year is "DID YOU CONVERT YOUR FANTASY GAMER THIS MONTH?" With the end of Volume I we also come to the end of the lan Knight's tenure as theme editor. I am sure I speak for all the readers when I thank lan for the great job he has done in covering the Zulu War. His articles were always well thought out and well done. He inspired me to get into the period, for one. I hope that he will continue to send us articles on this very interesting colonial period. With the beginning of Volume II we start a new theme: THE SEVEN YEARS WAR with Ken Bueger, author of TRICORNE, as theme editor. Ken has been gaming and studying the period for some 21 years and will bring his expertise to the pages of THE COURIER for Volume II. In the next issue, there will be a short biography of Ken. While on the subject of beginnings - this issue begins THE COURIER'S War on Inflation. We are offering a substantial discount to subscribers for various popular sets of rules - look for our advertisement in these pages. This is not just a "reader's service" this is a DISCOUNT service. Compare our POST-PAID prices to what you pay elsewhere. Get your friends to subscribe so they can take advantage of these discounts as one can easily save the cost of a subscription in a year. Also send in suggestions as to what other rules or books you would like to see carried in the discount schedule. AVALON HILL is offering factory rebates and THE COURIER is offering discounts. Is this the start of a trend that will force Wargaming item prices down? We can hope. Finally I want to thank all the editors and article authors for the great job - without them THE COURIER would not exist. Back to Table of Contents -- Courier Vol. 1 #6 To Courier List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1980 by The Courier Publishing Company. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com