A COMMENT ON THE AGE OF SAIL NAVY LIST REVIEW As the author of "Navy Lists from the Age of Sail", let me offer my thanks to Jon Williams for his review of Volume 1. I found the review to be fair; and most of the criticisms were both useful and constructive. This was my first effort at this type of research and I did indeed make use of as much contemporary material as possible. I do, in my introduction, say that there are gaps in the book and in second edition (first edition is nearly sold out), I am hoping to correct as many of the errors possible. The locations and fleet lists are those of 1801, at the Peace of Amiens, and naturally, ships being extremely mobile objects, St. George, 98, was during that year both in the Baltic and the Mediterranean as part of two different "task forces". The second point is the "Dannebroge" at Copenhagen. Please do not think that because a ship had no masts and therefore could not sail that the ship was ready for the "scrapheap". It was quite common for decommissioned vessels to have their masts removed - they could have them replaced and be ready for sea in quite a short time. By the way, I believe that the "Tre Kroner" at the Battle of Copenhagen was a massive fortress and not a ship of the line - forgive me if I am wrong. The age of a ship in this period seems to have had little influence on whether it saw service or not and some of the vessels used in Baltic fleets, where the cold sea water prevented teredo worm and rotting of timbers, saw many years of active duty. GET YOUR RULES PUBLISHED Raider Games, which publishes my books could well be of interest to your readers. It is a small company, run by J.R. Lenton, which specializes in "small run" productions. If anyone has a set of rules, a booklet or a book which he or she would like to see in pri nt but which would not have the mass market which would appeal to a major publisher and needing a print run of several thousands, John is prepared to publish runs of 2 or 3 hundred, and distribute them. The items he already produces can be found in his catalogue which can be obtained by sending a SAE and international reply coupon to 119 Elemete Way, Leeds LS8 2ND. - ALAN SAPHERSON, Yorkshire, England. ESPRIT DE CORPS I very much enjoyed the review by Mr. Norma n McLeod and the reply by the author of Esprit De Corps, Mr. Chris Hoover, in The Courier, VI, #4. The exchange showed a high level of maturity and appreciation for each other's roles and efforts in rules design. Both writers dealt with the issues of design, realism, and playability involved in the rules concerned and the dialogue was straight forward and informative. Mr. McLeod's review was well organized and thorough. After reading the review and rebuttal articles, I felt well enough informed to make a decision whether to acquire these rules sight unseen. This is a rare accomplishment for a review in any publication. I hope that the hobby will take note of the high standards of criticism and dialogue and do likewise. The Courier increases its worth to miniatures gamers by printing such a fine review. it has allowed many readers to make an excellent expenditure of $12.00 and others to save $12.00 otherwise misspent. Compare the $14.00 for a Courier subscription to the amount of money you have invested in rules sets that you purchased by mail and found unsuitable, and you can see the potential for value in service to readers. I hope The Courier can hold reviewers of Mr. McLeod's talent and wish Mr. Hoover well in his Esprit De Corps venture. - MARK MAKIN, Whitehall, MT MORE ON CODING MOVEMENT STANDS I've just read Jay Hadley's article on marking and coding movement stands. I have another method that does not detract from figures or ground cover, One day at work I noticed a clerk emptying her hole punch. As she did so, hundreds of white and colored dots fell into the wastebasket. Suddenly it hit me that I could use these dots to label and color code my stands. For instance: I use lt. green dot with a yellow slash for lt. infantry, white to write regt. number and another color for morale. Just 3 small dots of color that can be seen at a distance yet they do not take anything away from your figures or ground cover. All you need is a hand held hole punch, colored construction paper and a fine tip pen. - DANTE BOTTA, Fresno, CA Back to Table of Contents -- Courier Vol. VII #1 To Courier List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1986 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