Welcome to MWAN Magazine, Issue #133. It is with some trepidation and much excitement that I announce that this will be the last issue of MWAN Magazine. While the end of an era can be sad, we are not closing and leaving. Not at all! We're changing formats and expanding.
There have been two main historical miniature magazines in the North American market for many years now. MWAN Magazine, of course, has been around now for 133 Issues. The second magazine is the Courier Magazine. It too has a long and storied history, and has published 91 issues. Dick Bryant, the Editor of the Courier Magazine, communicated with us that he would be willing to sell the magazine. Legio X, Inc., MWAN Magazine's parent company, is pleased to announce that they have purchased the Courier Magazine.
Now that both MWAN Magazine and the Courier Magazine are under one roof, it is time to combine the two. We felt it would be best not to fold one magazine into the other. We didn't want to send the message that one magazine had been better than the other, or was more important than the other. Simply speaking, both were critical to our hobby getting to where we are now.
We have decided to fold both magazines into a new magazine called Historical Miniature Garner Magazine. We had been planning to change MWAN Magazine's format to a fullsized color magazine. With the addition of the Courier Magazine, the new name makes sense. It is descriptive, and that will help it in the retail market. When you go to the magazine rack at the book store, you can instantly tell what Dollhouse Magazine is about. Same with Model Railroader or World War II Magazine.We wanted the same to be said of our new magazine. We already know how much fun and how rewarding our hobby is. We all started somewhere, by someone showing us the hobby, by finding a book on the subject, or by finding a retail store that had historical miniature game products. We hope that in the future, people will come across Historical Miniature Garner Magazine and become introduced to our most excellent hobby.
There are those who will miss the folksy musings in MWAN Magazine and the Courier Magazine. It just won't feel the same. That is true. Historical Miniature Garner Magazine is a new beast, with a new flavor. It will take time for it to find that flavor, but rest assured that it will be what the hobby is looking for. We will still be taking submissions from the same stable of authors that were contributing to both MWAN and the Courier Magazines. Their quality has never wavered, so I can speak with confidence that the quality of articles in the new magazine will be top-notch!
You can learn more about Historical Miniature Garner Magazine at its web site at: http://www.hmgmagazine.com
It will tell you about subscriptions, advertising rates, how to send in an article, how to format pictures for inclusion into the magazine, and even has templates for you to use to write an article.
In February, I am preparing to attend the Last Square's Invitational convention. The Last Square is a hobby and gaming shop (some would say one of the best in the world!) in Madison, Wisconsin. Each year, they invite a large bunch of their good customers to come to a convention that they hold just down the street at a local Radisson Hotel. You pay more than a regular convention, but your room, food and gaming is included. They even provide a free t-shirt! There are only three games offered. You sign up ahead of time to play one of the three games. The idea is to provide three games that are large spectacles. These are games that you'd never attempt in your own basement, and you play all evening on Friday and all day on Saturday.
It's quite something to sit at a terrain table of the Gettysburg battlefield, some 40 feet long and 15 feet across, covered in 15mm figures. Other games have included a similarly sized Siege of Peking game, as seen in these pages several issues ago. There has been a huge medieval castle siege in 28mm, a Battle of Britain game with thousands of 1:1250 scale aircraft, fantastic 15mm World War II games set in the Soviet Union or France during the invasion. It is truly one of the highlights of the gaming year in the Upper Midwest.
This year, I'm working with Michael Cosentino to host a large Pirate game. Michael Shay, VP for Membership in HMGS Midwest, wrote the rules, and we hope to do him proud! There are six colonial ships (two British, two French and two Spanish), and a host of Pirates! The action will be fast and furious, and the requirement for a "scurvy dog accent" will drive us all to drink rum by the buckets by the end of Saturday.
My hat is off to the owners Bev and Karl Krueger of the Last Square for hosting such an event. They work very hard to ensure that everyone has a great time, that the games are top-of-the-line, and the food and venue are great. I'm certain that it can't be a big moneymaker, but I think that they do it out of a love for their customers and of the hobby. Well done!
I wish that there were more of these "mega-game" conventions around the continent. There may be, and I'm just not hearing about them. I'd love to be a reporter on the beat and cover such events! I know that years gone by, when Pete and Jody Panzeri weren't so busy (with a new baby Petey!) that they held JodieCons in the same flavor. Are there any more out there?
I assisted Larry Bond (famous author and wargamer) with a project he was doing with the Discovery Channel's Unsolved History show. They played a game of Command at Sea to determine if the US Fleet had taken their warnings of imminent attack more seriously on December 7, 1941, would it have made a difference. The models were fantastic, and the gamers knew their stuff. The long and the short of it was that the US Fleet possibly would have suffered similar casualties in ships and personnel, but it would have been in blue water, where ships can't be recovered and sailors can't swim to shore. Still, it was quite a game to watch.
If there are any other such conventions out there, please let me know about them. Drop me an email to Editor@MWAN-Magazine.Com (which will remain active for some time yet) or Editor@HMGMagazine.Com.
It is with a touch of sadness that I close the last Editorial in MWAN Magazine. While I've only been here for six issues, I do feel like I've been accepted by the MWAN community. Thank you for that. We very much look forward to seeing all of you over at Historical Miniature Gamer Magazine. Happy Gaming!
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