I'm not leading the league yet, but my batting average is improving after last issue's predictions. If I shift my stance just a bit and lay back on the ball, I may make the All-Star team yet.

The late spring games arrived as expected, except for Tacforce. That title was delayed until Origins where it made its debut along with, as promised, Azhanti High Lightning, The Battle of Prague, Bright Face/Mission on Mithril, System 7 sets N 14 and N 15 (French and Russian Guards), and the boxed editions of Raphia, Agincourt, and Lobositz. Missing in action were Asteroid and The Fall of France.

Three new items are due for lateAugust release at Gencon: Asteroid, Twilight's Peak, and Guilford Courthouse.

Asteroid is a boxed science-fiction Series 120 game. A flipped-out computer and its robot minions aim to destroy a heavily populated world. Against this dreadful menace the good guys can pick a band of intrepid adventurers from the likes of the professor and his daughter, Lucky McGhee and Muscles McGhee (the luckiest and strongest men in the world, respectively), ace reporter Scoop Phillips, Ms Jones the menopausal clairvoyant, and Sasha the mine-dog. The designers (Chadwick and Miller, the well-known comedy duo) assure me it is good, clean, wholesome entertainment.

Twilight's Peak is Traveller Adventure 3. In the same general format as The Kinunir and Research Station Gamma, the new adventure details more problems and adversities for clever Traveller players to overcome.

Also due at Gencon is the boxed edition of Guilford Courthouse, the Revolutionary War battle where Greene and his band of good ol' boys try to stand off the elite redcoated troops of Cornwallis. No substantive changes have been made to the system or components.

Several more titles are under development for release later this year or early next year.

The Fall of France still has priority for Europa games. Unfortunately, Europa games as a whole seem to have low priority. The maps are completed, the basic system standardized, and much of the OB work is completed. What could possibly stop us now?

Galaxy is a promising game of multiplayer expansion, diplomacy, and conquest. No details are in yet, but it sounds like a short and fast game with intensive player interaction.

Assault is modern tactical combat. Outside playtesting has been done on this, and the project should be fairly well along.

As yet untitled is Frank Chadwick's game on Chinese Farm and the Israeli crossing of the Suez Canal; the game is based on the White Death system. The map is a beauty and the system just won a Game Designers' Guild Select Award and a Fire & Movement readers' poll.

Other items more or less on the drawing board include a booklet for Traveller miniatures, a boxed set of System 7 Napoleonics for Quatre Bras, another East Front game and a West Front game on the White Death system, and Outpost (US/Soviet combat on the surface of the moon).