Happy New Year to you all! What a hustle and bustle going on this year. Goodness! Yet what fun. Don, Michael and I have been busy little bees working on the magazine for all of you, and this year has lots of exciting things coming everyone's way. Yet that saying about all work and no play comes to mind. This New Year I had thought to resolve not to make any resolutions, but I caved to conventionality and made a resolution. However, I think that my resolution is a rather good one this year: Spend more time enjoying my hobby. Just a few issues ago I had written about making a conscious effort to make more time to enjoy historical miniatures gaming. Yet making time isn't always a fun thing to do when you may not be in the right frame of mind for it. So basically I've resolved to relax and enjoy things a bit more. So far, I am not falling into the group of people who have given up on their resolutions by week three. I definitely think that's because our hobby is a social one. Since I am making an effort to arrange for game days with friends, and to seek out game clubs to participate in, there are other people automatically there to share in the fun like a built-in support group. So what a great resolution to have! This month I have been getting my feet wet learning the Warhammer Ancient Battles rule set. While I'm a bit slower than I care to admit in getting the hang of that "math stuff' like adding and subtracting so I know who won what and where, I'm having great fun rolling dice. So far our merry group has pitted an Early Imperial Roman army, a Macedonian army, and an Ancient Indian army. Each army is very different in aspect, yet well-balanced when pitted against each other. Well-balanced that is, once we've played enough to learn the nuances of each army. It was great fun to "talk trash" about how the Indian's elephants were going to squish those poor little Roman infantry lines. Yet when the elephants charged, how the Romans laughed when they stepped aside to let those behemoths run on through (a feature of Drilled infantry). Of course, that's right there in the rules, but until I've played it, it doesn't necessarily sink in that that's not the thing to do against top-notch infantry. I could almost see a Roman sticking his foot out and tripping the elephants as they ran on by. I also like rule sets with lots of dice. If I have to roll just one die and I need a six, I'll get a one. If I need a one, I'll get a six. With Warhammer Ancient Battles, I get to roll hordes of dice! It means that if I'm rolling 20 dice, I'll get a few sixes in there (or a few ones), so the Law of Averages helps me out against my bad luck! With the social aspect of our hobby there to spur me on, I've found myself naturally and eagerly spending more time partaking in the solitary aspects of historical miniature gaming as well. I've hauled out and cleaned a couple of packs of Firing Line 28mm ACW figures so I can continue to practice my painting, and I'm almost done reading Killer Angels to follow up on my visit to Gettysburg at Fall-In. I'm also partway into a book on the infantry soldier in WWII called The Deadly Brotherhood: The American Combat Soldier in World War II by John MacManus to follow up after watching Band of Brothers. While it was pre-New-Year-resolution time, over the holidays 1 also spent some time perusing a Time-Life series of books on the Korean War. My dad was even in a picture in one of the books, which he and I both thought was great! It really gave him a boost in feeling that the "forgotten war" and his contribution in it weren't quite so forgotten anymore. Speaking of contributions, I'm certain that most of you have heard by now that this is the last issue of MWAN Magazine before we switch over to HMG Magazine. Many, many of you have posted on the TMP about how grateful we all are to both Hal Thinglum and Dick Bryant for their vision and drive in producing MWAN and The Courier for so many years. I also want to thank the contributors of all those countless articles and rule sets for all their dedication, efforts, and love of our hobby through the years. Truly without people writing articles and sending them in to Hal, or Dick, or now Don, Michael, and I there would be no publications. It is really a group effort amongst many, many people - even the Readers, for without you to read what is written and published there would also be no magazines! All of you should be proud of what you've created, contributed to, and shared with each other! Our plans are to make Historical Miniature Garner Magazine to the same high quality standards that you've found here in MWAN Magazine. It will be fun to see all of the fantastic games, figures, layouts and setups in color, with good articles to go along with them. Our goal is not to have just a pretty magazine. They already exist. The legacy of MWAN and the Courier is good content. We're going to work hard to bring you that quality. I'm very excited to see our first issue out! Don, Michael, and I are so appreciative of all the support everyone has given us this past year. We've come a long way from over a year ago when Hal passed on his MWAN torch to us. I have to admit that Hal had some big shoes to fill, and I doubt that anyone but Hal could fill them just right. Likewise I doubt that anyone but Mr. Bryant could fill The Courier's shoes as well as he did. As such I hope you will all join me in looking forward to the first issue of HMG Magazine-a "shoe" that fits the next generation of historical gaming magazine while still remembering and honoring all that was good in MWAN and The Courier. This really is a time for auld lang syne and new beginnings. Recently there was a poll on the TMP about promoting our hobby to bring others into it. My response was that it was essential to the growth of Historical Miniature Gaming that we promote our hobby to others in order for there to be growth. As such, these past months I've been talking about our hobby to just about anyone who will listen. Most everyone understands and is fascinated to learn that I make and play with little toy soldiers, and help publish a magazine on the hobby. However, almost no one that doesn't already know about historical wargaming has any clue that such a thing exists. A few well-phrased sentences about wargaming, a pack of soldiers, and a copy of MWAN and they are off to explore a whole new world they didn't know existed. I almost feel like Dolly Levi from "Hello Dolly", "[Miniatures], pardon the expression, [are] like manure. [They're] not worth a thing unless [they're] spread around encouraging young [and old] things to grow." It makes me proud of my hobby. I'm proud to be a historical miniature gamer! Back to MWAN # 133 Table of Contents Back to MWAN List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 2005 by Legio X 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