From Martin Baxter Hello to all Over the past few months there have been a few discussions as to where and how to recruit new members into the group and the hobby. Here is my though on the matter. (No offense is intended to Female gamers with my use of male pronouns) The prime target group for us is the 21 to 28 year old GW player. At this age range he has finished college or trade school and is possibly looking for something with a little more teeth in it. Also he probably wants to play against an opponent who is able to have meaningful discussions past wheter Mega Blasters or Giga Melters are more appropriate for dealing with the relative bad guy's (I am avoiding using the GW terms as I don't want them looking for me). He's also at his local shop's game night and is tired of being the "babysitter" for his opponents whose parents dropped the off with money for supper and the new flash bits for their army. If he is introduced to the hobby via ancient battles, then he already has an understanding of the rules and game mechanics, other than a few brief changes he is ready to play. With WAB English Civil War rules he will see Armies similar to style and tactics to WFB. or another way is to have a very simple set of single die based rules so that he is not overwhelmed by the complexity of a rules set like Empire. Probably the best way to expose these players to historicals is to (with permission of course) set up a WAB game on your local shops GW gamenight and try and draw a few to the game that way. The other target group is the 14-18 year old. He has readily spendable cash (just ask anyone who has a teenager) and is an enthusiastic gamer and painter. In England there are a lot of Game Clubs within the schools (similar to Chess Clubs and the like over here), depending on what is required for such a club this might be a good way to attract new gamers to the group. So, now Martin Baxter has nailed his edict to the door, let's see what others have to say on this matter. From Howard Whitehouse: My fellow Pulp-gamemaster Matt Fritz has written an account of our recent 'Crystal Skulls of Atlantis' adventure, the best 3 reel serial released in 1934 (disguised as a game for dozens of would-be B-movie heroes) which I think is worth a look. Matt's clearly a liar, but a very good one. It had me in stitches and I was there. Back to Dispatch August 2003 Table of Contents Back to Dispatch List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2003 by HMGS Mid-South This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com