For almost ten years I've been holding this secret inside where it's been eating my guts out. Then, just the other day, I blurted out a confession to Ben Knight. Wise and gentle, Ben counseled me to go public with the story. I wasn't sure I could reveal the whole sordid affair after all these years, but Ben convinced me it's the only way I'd ever get this reeking acid out of my belly. "Besides," he added, "it might be good for TENs circulation."

So, it ain't pretty, but here it is.

It was getting closer and closer to Origins '79. In '78, the year I started at the Workshop, GDW didn't produce a Europa game. We'd been talking about Marita-Merkur for years, and Euro-maniacs were down on their knees, begging us to finally publish the damn thing. So we pretty much promised the game would be out for Origins '79, but now the deadline was getting close and the deal had to go down.

The game was being designed by the Old Timer and the New Kid. I wasnt really involved at all except when I got tired of my job on the other side of the office and sneaked over to playtest and see what the designers were up to. And even though I wasn't really part of the team, I kept sticking my nose into this Marita- Merkur game whenever I felt like it.

"We'll never get the partisans finished in time for Origins," the New Kid said one day.

"Don't need 'em," I told him. "We got the Italo- Greek War, we got the German invasion of Yugoslavia with help from Italians and Hungarians, we got the German invasion of Greece, and we got the airdrop on Crete. Hell, we don't need Tito and a bunch of partisans running around Yugoslavia for four years."

So the New Kid and the Old Timer looked at each other and nodded. Less work for them, and more likelihood the game would be out on time. And almost ten years later I'm still moaning because we don't have Tito and his boys ....

"The damn CRT just doesn't work right," the Old Timer said another day.

"Leave it alone!" I told him. *Jeez, we've already published DNO and UNT and TFH and Case White with that CRT. It's too late to change it now."

So the New Kid and the Old Timer looked at each other and nodded. Less work for them, and more likelihood the game would be out on time. And almost ten years later I'm still moaning that the CRT doesn't work right ....

And then came the worst day of all.

"It's just not balanced," the Old Timer said.

"Yes," the New Kid replied. "The Germans are running the Brits out of Greece too fast. There's no place they can make a stand and fight a delaying action with a rear guard while the main body is evacuated by sea."

It was then my eye chanced upon the open atlas. I blinked, and then my finger tapped the fateful hex on Map 15A.

"Here," I announced. "Thermopylae. Right where the Spartans stood. The Brits can make a stand here if we jazz the map up a little. We just add the River Sperhios to help defend the rough hex!"

So the New Kid and the Old Timer looked at each other and nodded. Less work for them, and more likelihood the game would be out on time. And almost ten years later I'm still moaning every time I play the Germans and can't break through that hex until about two months after Barbarossa has already been launched, all because of some itsy-bitsy stream, a creek, a babbling brook, a mere rivulet that never should have been on the map in the first place ....

It could have happened to anyone, I suppose, but I'm the one who takes the rap. I mean, the New Kid and the Old Timer actually made the decision, but it was my brilliant idea to turn that little piece of Greece into one of the most defensible positions in the entire damn series.

So there you have it. I hope you're happy, Ben, because my stalled panzers and my churning stomach don't feel one whit b e t t e r .