By the time you read this, I will be back from my left hand's reconstruction. The surgery is scheduled for the 16th of November and I'll be in the hospital about a week. I would like to thank the many of you who wrote, called, or faxed your concern and especially the customers we have near Mayo who both helped out with my trip up there and made the tedium go away. Thanks to all of you!

It took all of four months for Stalingrad Pocket to sell out. CB is well on its way, too. This brings up the touchy issue of reprints. I decided to go ahead and reprint SP as I felt that not doing so would be foolish since the game did so well for us. GB will probably get the same treatment when its time comes and we will be upping our print runs to 5,000 next year.

Many game players seem to think that if a game sells out in a year (say) that it sold in a roughly equal fashion throughout that period. That is just not so. In the case of our games, we ship roughly 1500 copies in the first few days of the release and sales drop off dramatically from that point on. SP was different due to strong re-order activity after release.

The danger in doing a reprint is that, for a price almost the same as the initial run, I get to fill my warehouse with unsold inventory. Instead of a 1500 game burst right off the bat to pay the production bills, those bills must be paid for by a limited number of back orders and taken strictly out of our limited cash reserves-or in the form of bank debt. None of these are good ways to go. In the case of SP and GB, I feel the risk is worth it. Generally speaking, it isn't.

In the next issue, I'll again let you in on all of our production and sales figures so you can see where we are and I can let you in on where we are headed. This was done a year ago this issue, but I want to wait till next time so that all the numbers are in for 1992. Comparison figures for all previous years will also be listed.

Omaha Reports

I am now swamped with Omaha reports. These are descriptions of play of that game by folks looking to get into the Omaha Beach Club. Each is quite long and detailed. My original intention was to publish all of these here, but now it seems I'd have to start another mag just for them! I want to thank all who submitted these reports and will publish them as space becomes available right now it's pretty tight and especially such long articles.

We have started a new service-it is our counter copying service. Many have requested that we put copies of our counters in each game's rulebook so that its available for checking for lost units, etc. A worthwhile goal. However, the four-color counter printing techniques we are doing make an adequate copy difficult to make and read for general printing purposes. For those who really want them, however, we can supply photocopies of counters ($5 per game plus shipping). These copies aren't the greatest, but they can get the job done for those who want them.

Starting with this issue, we will be helping to promote Origins '93. After this year's show, we must all pull together to help the con to go on and not lose its identity as a wargame convention. If you have never been to an Origins, I encourage you to go. If you went this year and were disappointed, please consider attending in 1993. We will also be opening up our in-house retreat to the general public next year (by pre-registration only). More on that later.

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