Well, The road warriors have returned. After almost 12 days on the road doing shows we have returned home. It was a very chaotic schedule for us as a team but a very productive one. First let me start with Cold Wars. It was a very good show. We gave away over a thousand copies of our magazine. We had many compliments on the new format and how clean and bright the copy is and how impressive the amount of content we have in it. We made some great contacts and saw many new products. Some of the items that caught my attention were New Copplestone Castings, carried in the US by RLBPS, 20mm modern miniatures by Arsenal Miniatures, 1/300 Ships by Old Glory Shipyard, more 10mm figures from Old Glory, Figurehead fleet boxes at The Last Square, new King & Country Napoleonics at Minuteman Toy Soldiers, new 20mm WW II figures by Throughbred, 20mm WWII pacific by Britannia at Combined Arms and all the new imported ranges carried by Brigade Games. Things seemed to be going well for most of the vendors and it looks like the economy is turning around. I did pick up a new painted Macedonian & Greek army from Norm at the Toy Soldier Gallery. The figures are fantastic. We will be using them for our MWAN studio battles in the summer. On to the GAMA Trade Show. It was an incredible show for us. We were able to obtain a booth for the magazine at the last minute. I wish to thank Jonathan at GAMA for helping us out there. We were able to get the word out about our magazine to many stores and distributors. We took enough orders to pay for our expenses and then some. For those of you that are not familiar with the GAMA Trade Show, it is a true trade show. Distributors and manufacturers have booths and display there wares for all the retail stores to see. Basically, your job as the manufacturer is to get the retail stores excited about your product and then either take an order or get the retailer to ask one of the many distributors to send some. It is a very professional looking show to say the least. We had an great time at the GAMA Trade Show and the fact that it was in Las Vegas only made it better. Also at the GAMA Trade Show, I was invited to play in the annual poker tournament. It was a great time. After a few hours, I was asked to play with the big boys at the no limit table. Well, after a few more hours it was just me and Glen Drover from Eagle Games, with him being the chip leader he did not want to give me a chance to catch him. So I want to thank Glen for both not taking all my money and showing me a good time. Another great event we started at the GAMA Trade Show was the first annual MWAN Magazine Bowling Tournament. This year our first place finisher was Morgan Willow followed by Rock Rutherford and in a very close third was Jo-Jo Barnes. We want to thank all of you who participated and we will return next year. On another note China has decreased their tin exports substantially and the price of metal has gone up over 150% in the last few months. We should all be prepared to pay more for our toys in the near future. I do not see the price coming down until China starts exporting more tin, or other world sources begin larger scale production. Oh woah is us! In the next issue, I will have a full rundown on Little Wars convention in Chicago, where I was the Convention Director. Good Gaming! Back to MWAN # 129 Table of Contents Back to MWAN List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 2004 Hal Thinglum 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