Steve Turner Kenn, It's been sometime since I've been in touch so I thought I'd drop you a line wishing you & yours all the best for Christmas and the New Year. Luckily my holiday has already started so I have 2 whole weeks to enjoy the festivities this year. I might even get a chance to fight a wargame or two. I've just received the latest edition of LW (issue 141, Dec 2002) and found George Heath's article 'Genesis' on page 43 of the greatest interest. It's almost precisely what I've been looking for to get an old 'Ancients' campaign of mine up and running again (3 cheers for George). My 'old chestnut' of a campaign has been in need of a revamp for quite some time so perhaps now I'll be able to get it's armies up and marching again. By the way, I couldn't help but notice while reading George's article that he mentions John Bennett's 'Gussie' campaign system as one of the best he'd ever seen. I also noticed ('cos I'm quick like that - honest I am) that Marvin Scott's article 'Bank Robbery' on page 22 is a reprint from an earlier edition of LW (issue 79) and it therefore occurred to me that as editor of LW you might be able to get John's permission to reprint the entire 'Gussie' series from the scratch? - Well it's just a thought. In addition (and as you are already re-printing a number of articles etc. from past editions of LW) perhaps you might like to request input from the membership as to which articles THEY'D like to read again. It might get more of them involved with the association (something I personally think we could do with at present) and give newer members a chance to pick up ideas & rules from past issues. I must admit Kenn, I've been somewhat surprised at just how many requests I've had from members wanting to borrow my older editions of LW (although my collection only goes back to issue 16) so there must be an interest out there somewhere. Anyway, I'll leave the idea with you Kenn. Oh by the way, if you're sometimes running short of articles or pieces to print in LW, may I suggest that it might be profitable to offer an incentive of some kind, like perhaps a years free subs. to any member writing the most popular article during the year (this may require a vote by members of course, but might nevertheless, encourage the less enthusiastic to become involved with the mechanics of the association). With this in mind I might even be persuaded to get off my backside & write something myself. Anyway, cheers for now & have a merry Christmas - Steve Turner. [Greetings Steve, Good to hear from you and you brought up some valid points, which I will discuss: 1. Op Archives [re-printing previously published articles] is a long running scheme of mine brought into use when the flow of articles was sparse. I now use it when a member contacts me about a particular article or when I come across something when delving through back issues of LW. I have had assistance from other members in photocopying previous editions and then I have to scan them to get them into a workable framework. Scanning is a labour saving system [compared with re-typing the complete text] but I can assure you that the machine does not read every word correctly and in order to get the text 100% it needs dedicated proofreading. This is very time consuming and at times I do miss things, which I find extremely frustrating and usually only notice it/them when I get my own hardcopy. The thought of scanning 'Gussie' and all that that entails fills me with dread and would not be a task I would be able to personally take on. However, if there is a member out there who has the complete 'Works of Gussie' [and I do not] and would be willing to submit them by email or on disk for publication then I foresee no problem. 2. Not asked the membership for their favourites for a while so I will NOW! 3. I see your point about financial incentives for members to submit articles and I will publish this correspondence in Forum and see what sort of response we get. My personal opinions on this can wait until we get a response. Must now get back to the chore of setting up an Ancients game based on ideas I have been playing with for ages - watch this space. Thanks for the support, which really is appreciated and have a Healthy and Happy New Year. Kenn] Karl Stimeling Wish Magweb went back to even earlier issues. Found quite a lot of interesting material in the most recent – the paper airplane article brought back many memories and reminded me that I still have some unbuilt ones. Thanks again for an enjoyable resource. [Thanks Karl. Agree that there is great Lone Warrior material that has not found its way onto Magweb. Problem, of course, is getting volunteers to scan, edit, or even re-type the classic material. But the effort continues.] Jonathan Aird Just thought I'd drop you a quick line reference the SWA Tournament. After the initial flurry of entries, things have gone a bit quiet. I'm in the unfortunate position at the moment of having one player without an opponent! Could you possibly put a brief reminder in the next LW? Just something along the lines of the initial instructions are in the last LW and there's still room for a few more players. Hopefully that'll get the number of participants up to double figures! Hope you had a good Christmas and got all the games you wanted. I'm now the proud (?) owner of the second LOTR game from GW. It's a bit like the first game, in many ways, with a slightly thicker rulebook (mounted combat, siege rules) and different figures. The scenery is the same as the first game (which is a bit of a cheap trick!). I'll try and do a write-up of the two games, as I've actually had time to play them a few times - but not with the official GW miniatures - instead it's been a mixture of old Minifigs and ral partha figures from my Middle Earth armies. Best regards, jonathan.aird@mbda.co.uk Jonathan Aird [Pt2]: It's [Tournament], fun so far - and the great thing from my point of view is that I'm actually playing a few games rather than just thinking about doing so! Found some useful storage items in FOCUS - Do It All. They have a range of basic wooden stacking boxes, the smallest size of which is big enough to take A4 paper and is about 1.5" deep. These are only a couple of pounds each, and they are perfect for storing 25mm (true 25mm that is) foot figures, or foot and mounted in smaller scales (20mm cavalry are ok as long as they aren't holding a lance upright!). There are also larger boxes that can be bought separate or with a frame for them to slide into, these would be useful for storing larger items or terrain pieces. I got 16 of the figure trays, and might get a few more, they probably won't be there if I leave it for 6 months. It's still a couple of months away but I'm already looking forward to Salute 2003. I enjoyed Salute 2002 a bit less than Salute 2001 (which I had thought was much better than Salute 2000!), but I think that was just because I had more trouble getting into games - the ratio of participation to demo games seemed a bit worse in 2002 compared to 2001. Still, it's probably the only large show I'll go to this year (unless I to get to SELWG), and it is nice to have the chance to browse a large number of traders. Hopefully the Bring & Buy will be a bit easier to get to this year as well - personally I'd rather have no B&B than a hard to get to B&B! Good gaming! [Hope you get that elusive last player for the tournament. Would love indulge myself but am committed up to my eyeballs in other things and even my ‘2003 Solo Game’, is struggling to get truly going at present. Thanks for the support. Kenn]. Back to Table of Contents -- Lone Warrior # 142 Back to Lone Warrior List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 2003 by Solo Wargamers Association. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com