Everything old is new again. If wargame publishing has reblossomed in the '90s, it has done so with more than a touch of familiarity for those of us who got into the hobby in the florid '70s. Zones of control (sometimes known as engagement zones), counters marked with attack -defense - movement factors, and exploitation phases all seem like old buddies from my high-school days.

Whatever the future brings, nostalgia is the wave of the present. GDW's Bloody Kasserine is a revision Kasserine Pass, copyright 1973, 1977 by Conflict Games/GDW. Under two publishers, Strategy & Tactics has brought out some unabashedly retro wargames. Dunnigan gave us Vance von Borries' redesign of Anzio Beachhead and reprinted Napoleon at Eylau, a straightforward Napoleon at Waterloo system game. This May's S&T contains two folio-sized (pardon the old SPI terminology) Napoleonic games, one with a new system and the other showing its NAW heritage. The June S&T game, a hypothetical scenario in which the Czechs fight back against Hitler, has this player-turn: Replacement, Ground Movement, Combat, and Exploitation.

Where have you heard that before? If you said Fire in the East or Panzergruppe Guderian, you're right. Oh, you said Stalingrad Pocket? Right again. Dean makes no bones about the SCS being a deliberate return to traditional systems and concepts. His assumption is that veteran players will enjoy the change of pace and the familiarity this new series offers.

For me, the assumption is on target. I think SP is a blast. For that matter, one of the favorite games around my house is Napoleon's Last Battles. I like it partly for nostalgia's sake but partly because my wife and I know the rules cold and can play through a fun game in a couple of hours. I won't give up my Omaha, but it's not my first choice for a pick-up game.

In S&T 133, Jim Dunnigan proposed that the "reinvented" wargame of the '90s ought to be (among other things) "Learnable in a short time" and "Played in a short time." His idea was that gamers these days just plain don't have the time to spend learning long rules and playing long games. Not having much time for gaming, I see Dunnigan's point. And to judge by the copy on game boxes, being easy to learn is an important selling point.

But time pressure in itself has never put me off of big or complex games. For that matter, the campaign game of SP isn't a quickie. Of its 420 counters, 389 are units, and if you use them right you can do a lot with them each turn. Conversely, an easy-to-learn quick-playing game doesn't require a traditional system. Just look at Blue Max and A House Divided, now in second editions. For that matter, Omaha is (deliberately) easy to learn for a TCS veteran. No, there must be something besides ease of play that makes "old-fashioned" wargames popular.

I'm not sure what that something is. I can speak for myself, but only in vague terms like "smooth uncluttered," and "comfortable." I could say that a system like SCS lets me spend my energy trying to beat the other guy instead of trying to remember the sequence of play. But then I'd sound like the back of a game box.

Somehow playing a game like SP is a more relaxed experience, and not because the competition is any less intense. If anything, the competition is more taut when I can't blame the complexity or unfamiliarity of the system for my failure to make the best use of my units. Besides, I don't get much competition when the other guy thinks my favorite game takes too much effort to learn, set up, or play through. All in all, playing a straightforward, move your-mice-and-roll-your-dice game gives a special kind of fun.

I wonder what gamers beyond my small circle think of the current trend to retro wargames. Who likes them, and why? Who prefers them to "State-of-the-art" games? Do retro games place fun above historicity, or is that a false dichotomy? Do you like or dislike the added demands a simple, abstract game makes on your imagination? Does the hobby really need a big supply of suitable introductory games? Is there any threat that the current trend will make inoovative games an endangered species? How mush truth in advertising should we demand from companies that "recycle" older systems? that recycle the old games themselves?