Uli Blennemann was kind enough to make some time to talk with me during Origins '99, and in the MiH/Critical Hit booth, with time-outs to help customers, we talked about why MiH fans should be happy in 1999 and beyond. Most of you know the story so far: Uli announced late in 1998 that MiH would have to scale back its publication schedule. Not long after, Critical Hit announced it had bought MiH and would maintain the output of games scheduled for publication. What you may not realize is that Ray Tapio of Critical Hit learned of the MiH scale-back the same way that many of you did, by reading it on the Consimworld discussion board. When Ray contacted Uli about buying MiH, Uli's first reaction was that it must be a joke: "Who would want to buy a wargame company?" As it turned out, the deal made a lot of sense for both parties. Critical Hit has added the MiH line, and its reputation for high quality, to its catalog, while MiH no longer has to operate under pressures that are all the more severe for a very small company. At MiH, attending a convention or working on game production could easily occupy the entire development staff's attention for days at a time. "That's a good thing for me," said Uli, describing how he now longer has to take on business and production management chores and can therefore concentrate on design and development. Uli had gotten tired by the time he announced that MiH would have to slow down; now he seems re-energized, and so is Moments in History. Two new games, Combat! and In Flanders Fields, were available at Origins. By the time you read this, Fruhlingswind, Dirk Blennemann's game on Kasserine Pass, should also be available. This game uses the system Dirk introduced in Triumphant Fox, MiH's successful first release. Fruhlingswind now seems to have the title Tunisia '43. Also coming soon is Ted Raicer's Royal Tank Corps. While it uses an area movement system for a tactical look at the battle of [fill in this blank please], this game is not a copycat of the Breakout: Normandy system. Uli acknowledged the advantage of an Internet presence because "so many players are there." But he also made the interesting observation that participating in on-line forums can take up a good deal of time: both game publishers' time in interacting with players, and players' time as well. It could be that spending time on-line distracts people from actually playing the games, the real point of the hobby. In addition to watching for more MiH-brand games to play, you can also keep an eye out for Critical Hit and MiH at conventions. MiH attended HexaCon/EuroHomerCon; as of July, Uli plans to be at GenCon and perhaps "DonCon," the post-Hasbro version of AvalonCon for those dedicated AH players out there. Regarding MiH fans' reaction to the deal with Critical Hit, Uli remarked that some people were quite happy to hear that MiH would still be there, while others were a bit uneasy because of their perception of Critical Hit as an "ASL-scenario" company. Gesturing at the wares on display in his booth, including a variety of games and publications from Critical Hit as well as In Flanders Fields and other MiH games, Uli said he expects there people to regain their confidence quickly when they see the quality of the products coming out now. Back to Table of Contents -- Operations #34 Back to Operations List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master List of Magazines © Copyright 1999 by The Gamers. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com