Chainmail
Letters to the Editor
by the readers
 |
Dear Craig: Have been enjoying the Gauntlet immensely. Keep up the good work. I've been delaying the check, thinking I'd write an article to send in, bu alas, work and home have kept me too busy, so I thought I'd post this rather than continue to delay. Good Gaming,
Hi Craig, I have enclosed a check to renew my subscription to the Gauntlet. I didn't want to just send you a check and not say "HI", as that seems a bit impersonal. I haven't had a chance to find out how badly Hurricane Georges beat up your convention in September, but I do know that Mike Schundler stayed at home. The timing of the storm could not have been worse from your point of view. -ed note, the convention was called Hurricon!, just for reference. I hope that you are doing well and I'm sure that everyone is looking forward to your returning from Korea. Since I spend a lot of time working in my shop and listening to NPR, it sounds like Korea is a fairly tense place right now. Let' hope that the Asian Economic Crisis and the poor state of affairs in the North do not cause a heating up of old quarrels. We are busy preparing for the third HMGS-East con of the year, Fall In. I know that these cons are 4 months apart, but it feels like we just returned from Historicon. I have been keeping my nose to the grindstone working on a castle that I will deliver at Fall In. The castle project will have over 5 weeks of full time work in it by the time it is completed. Sheeeesh...... I also need to complete the prize for the winner of the Fred Vietmeyer Award that was given at Historicon for the best Horse & Musket era game. The Award is given in the name of Fred Vietmeyer as a memorial to the man that was responsible for the Column, Line, & Square rules and started many of us on the road to Historical gaming. The winner was Chris Hughes from North Carolina, a gentleman that puts on stunning games and someone that I think we will hear a lot about in the coming years. Herb Gundt
-ed note: thanks for writing Herb and it's always good to hear from you. I'd really love to get a look at that castle, having seen your work close up. If you could get me a picture, I think it's probably a worthy cover shot for a future Issue! Dear Craig Enclosed is a check for Pusan to Panmunjom. Looking forward to it - I've been waiting for it to become available! Once again, just wanted to say thanks for the great job you do with The Gauntlet - it is greatly appreciated - as is your service overseas. Thanks for all your efforts!! Brent Oman -ed note: thanks for the kind words Brent. I hope to improve my service once I get back to the States. Korea is hard on the publishing business (no commercial printer on the corner). I will serve my one more tour (probably) and then retire, unless of course, I get sent to the 1st Marine Division for my next tour, then I'll take a good one after that, and then I'll retire. No really... Craig: Received your packet of Gauntlet magazines in the mail this week. As I am a longtime MWAN subscriber, the best compliment I can give is that the Gauntlet is like MWAN — that is high praise indeed! I really enjoyed the mags. Sorry to hear about your divorce. That and your military obligations are certainly reason enough for me explaining the delay. Thank you for giving me the extra mag, too. Enclosed is my check for upcoming issues. Maybe I'll try to send an article too sometime - my interests run to off-beat wars. My collections are: Taiping Rebellion
Sincerely, Michael Huskey -ed note: thanks for the patience Michael. You do have what most might consider a collection of the bizarre! You should have seen RCW and some Modern African stuff find their way onto these pages, and I'm sure the others will have their turn sometime in the future. Prezcon'99
The following games will be held in tournament format: Boardgames & Miniatures - 1830, Acquire, Age of Renaissance, Air Baron, Axis & Allies, BattleTech, Britannia, Circus Maximus, Diplomacy, Formula De, Galaxy: The Arena, Hannibal: Carthage vs. Rome, Empire Builder, History of the World, Kingmaker, McGartlin Motor Sports, Merchant of Venus, Rail Baron, Risk, Settlers of Catan, Titan: Arena, Titan, and Shogun/Samurai Swords. Additionally we expect to be hosting a Puffing Billy Tournament with play in a variety of rail games (Eurails, British Rails, etc. and the 18XX series). Collectible Card Games - Magic: The Gathering (6 different tournaments, several of which will be DCI sanctioned), Star Wars, Babylon 5 and Middle Earth: the Wizards. There will also be many demonstration events run during the convention, some of which may be upgraded to tournaments. Demos in WarHammer, Conquest of the Empire, Fortress America, Seafarer, Knights & Cities, Mississippi Queen, Medici, Robo Rally, Atlantic Storm, For The People and El Grande, are just a few of what you can expect. Pre-registration: For the Weekend: $30 and if you pre-register by 2/4/99 you will get a free PrezCon T-shirt or hat! Hotel Accommodations: The con will be at the Double Tree Hotel & the rates are very reasonable -- $69.00 a night for up to 4 people. This is a special rate for the convention only and can only be obtained by making reservations and can only be obtained by making reservations and mentioning PrezCon '99! Here's an interesting e-mail passed on to me from Pat Condray between Bill Gray and Jim from HMGS. "Concur. This is a problem directly connected with the death of boardgaming (see recent Washington Post article) and should not impact on the miniatures community too much. Note that miniature gaming is both a competitive hobby and an art form." "Further, miniature gaming is much more of a group or social affair than is the introvert, solitaire heavy board or computer gaming communities. Thus, miniature gaming tends to target a different clientele that do the cardboard and microchip set. And when cardboard and microchip target the same customer, guess who wins?" 1. Can you give me the date for the Wash Post reference? I live in Frederick, and only see the Post on weekends. 2. Many miniatures gamers still play boardgames with their friends, children, and grand children. A) They take up little space, B) Require little time to prepare, and C) Don't need a Pentium and a desktop of wires and monitor. (Our club, THE MONOCACY GAMERS, regularly still plays boardgames as well as Computer Games and Miniatures. History is our hobby; regardless of the venue.) 3. Historical boardgames STILL (as Jim Dunnigan pointed out) are "time machines; with dynamic ability to teach history better than books." 4. A simple small boardgame is still as much fun as it ever was. The major contributor to the failings of board games was excessive complexity. In spite of the HMGS, successful smug miniatures players' attitudes; need we completely disregard a call for help, when we hear it? I sincerely hope not. Remember the days when WE were the "neglected few, and struggling for mere survival?" Some may have forgotten, or are too young to have been there; which is not a fault, only a chance. Thanks, for listening. --- Jim From Bryan Stroup: On another note, Eric Burgess and I have spent quite a bit of time putting together many photos from games we have run or played in. There's a little bit of everything from Ancients to WWII with most sorted between conventions my game group has attended or shots from our weekend games. There's even a shot of Bob Jones watching a PK Din of Battle game (Zulus!) that my friend, Henri Pensis, ran at RECON '98. Here's the URL: http://gainesville-garrison.com/ Just go to the Gallery page for the pictures (200+). All comments/suggestions would be appreciated! From Jeff Valent, Piquet, Inc. We at Piquet have been going through severe growing pains. The company was not set up to handle the large increase in sales that we experienced over the last year. Because of this, our customer service to you has suffered. We are taking steps to amend these problems. We have just taken the reprint for our horse & musket card decks to the printer. These are the new larger format cards that everyone has been waiting for. These will be back from teh printer on the 9th of November. We also are in negotiations with a company to handle our entire order fulfillment. It is our goal to get the turn around time on all orders down to 3 days and eventually to next day service. We will also be receiving our new Hallowed Ground Scenario Book 1 around the 8th of November. This is an exciting project for us because of the new format of 108 pages plus a color cover! It should retail for $13.00. If you currently have orders placed with us we intend to fill them as soon as we receive the cards from the printer. We appreciate your patience and understanding as well as your business. We look forward to serving you better in the very near future. Jeff Valent,
From Russ Lockwood, MAGWEB CEO. Craig, Hope Korea is working out for you. Just received Gauntlet #13 - looks good as usual. When you get a chance, send me text files (HTML or ascii - you're doing great!). Back issues, too. And with this quarter, welcome to the top 10 - #7 on the MAGWEB hit parade (up from #16 last quarter). Keep up the good work! Russ -ed note: Thanks Russ and I hear you on the back issues. The only copies I have are unscannable, so I have to retype them in entirety. Tragedy! I'm working on Gauntlet #1 now. Hopefully I can get a few more back issues on the shelves. This is a customer satisfaction business, as you well know, and there's so much more to do to give them what they want. I'm working! I'm working! Back to The Gauntlet No. 14 Table of Contents Back to The Gauntlet List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 1998 by Craig Martelle Publications 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 |