The last couple months of 1995 made for a busy ending to a busy year at The Gamers. Your response to the limited-time special discounts was very good. Many orders rolled in, so many that there soon was a large stack to process and fill. In the meanwhile, some of you who have gotten used to our usual quick turn-around time grew restless as a week or more went by without your games arriving. Many customers telephoned to make sure their orders were received, and Shirley had to divide her time between preparing orders to ship and verifying receipt of orders for callers. The small lesson to be learned from this end-of-the-year experience is: please be patient. The prepublication and just-published discounts will, we hope, create some spells of heavy orders. When those times hit, Shirley and everyone work hard to get those games out to you.

The large lesson, of course, is: Thank you for your support.

It's time again for The Gamers' year in review report: see page 6. This report and Dean's Out Brief from last issue combine to explain our production and marketing strategy.

Remember to sign up early for the 1996 Garners Retreat. It happens September 27th-29th, and, to keep the event to a managable size, we're taking reservations from the first 50 respondents. If you plan to attend, call The Gamers, save yourself a slot, and get a package with travel directions and information on special motel rates.

This year's ORIGINS is scheduled for July 4th-7th in Columbus, Ohio. Yes, the Fourth of July--I'm not just imagining it this time.

A quick check of the last four issues of Operations shows a good assortment of what I call "military academy" articles. You have received advice for playing Hunters and Black Wednesday, the first two installments of Lee Forester's expert series on the TCS, and a series of master classes from Dean full of theoretical and practical advice on playing the OCS well. This is the sort of article I have always liked to see in Operations, and I'm happy to be able to publish such material. If you really want to knock my socks off, send me an article on effective techniques for using the Napoleonic all-arms force in the NBS.

Leros fans alert: One correspondent informs us that After the Battle, Issue 90, contains a detailed (34-page) description of the battle for Leros.

You all know that Fred dominated the TCS in '95, with Black Wednesday and Leros back to back. Have you noticed also that Dean's most recent TCS game credit is Bloody 110? Even if you count Dave Powell as an insider, outside designers have flourished with the TCS. And 1995 saw us publish games from Al Wambold, Al Sandrick, Dave Friedrichs, and Dave Powell. These games are collaborative efforts Oust ask the developer), and unlike Vidkun Quisling, our collaborators, the two Daves, the two Als, Sam, Wig, and Jim, are among the good guys.

Another outside talent has helped extend our implementation of Total Game Support. Thanks to Steve Graham, you can connect to The Gamers home page on the World Wide Web. If you surf the net, come find us at http://www-eskimo.com/-graham/the-gamers.html. See page 5 for more details.

Quite apart from computer games, computers pervade modern board wargaming. Desktop publishing makes magazines like Command, ZOC, and this one feasible within real-world, niche-market budgets. The same technology supports the quality of graphics we have come to demand even from third-world game publishers. On-line services like GEnie and good old e-mail make correspondence gaming and "talking" about wargames a good deal faster than ever before.

Our hobby is a good example of how print and electronic media can complement each other. Now that the Internet is less arcane and more "multimedia"oriented, we have another information too] to put to use. Since I know how well wargamers make use of such resources, I'm looking forward to seeing what we can make the Web do for us. And as it has been since The Gamers started, your input will be key.