First, I want to thank all of you who expressed concern about the reconstruction surgery of my left hand. All went well and Doc Frankenstein seems quite pleased with himself-even Egor has been getting days off lately! Seriously, this one went much smoother than the first and function seems to be returning at a rapid rate.

My three-times-a-week physical therapy schedule has had little negative effect on my ability to spend hours at work. As it occurs at 7:30am, I can make it back to the office by 9:00 and be ready when the phone starts ringing off the hook. This is much better than what I had to do with my right hand--where the actual appointment counting travel time took no less than three hours and the (then) daily appointment was scheduled for 2:00pm. I could work in the morning and the evening--the aftenoon was shot. To think, Omaha was produced then! I must have been younger.

This issue contains our sales wrap-up for 1992 and earlier. Every figure I could think to throw in has been and I made an attempt to get some numbers from the large distributors to give everyone an idea of how the companies stack up in raw volume against each other. The response from them was very gratifying and I'd like to thank Bob Boyle at Greenfield, Michael Sloan at Berkeley Games, Danny Kilbert at the Compleat Strategist, and Wayne Godfrey at Wargames West for sharing their private information with us, and for taking time from their busy schedules to compile the requested information and send it in. The information they provided should allow players to shift through the pack of conflicting wild claims we an hear of dizzying success, and rumors of failure. In short, it puts all the game companies into some sort of perspective and gives a yardstick to measure each manufacturer's claims.

Dave also gives us his comments regarding the starting of a game company and the two tracks which seem to define a new company's attitude toward life.

I shall attempt to do this in each year's Spring issue and I hope you find it to be of more use than the usual subjective 'who-did-what' wrap-up.

On the design front, I am quite overloaded. Besides the design for Afrika, I am up to my literal ears in development of the Napoleonic Brigade Series and its first game Austerlitz, working on the initial design of Enemy at the Gates (OCS #2), and helping Joe Sylvester with the development of Matanikau. A full slate; more full than I'd like to have.

I'd like to announce that Rod S. and Mike H. have joined our in-house playtest group and that regular playtesting occurs every Thursday night. For anyone in range, we would welcome you too!

Our two year old private retreat has been opened to the general public. See the information in this issue about it. We will be holding it on the weekend of September 24 through 27. While there is no fee, I request that all interested pre-register so that the limited space can be organized to handle all who are interested. Our retreat is a wargame-play-only event. It is our in-house weekend to relax and play a couple of games with our friends. We are opening it up for those who want an alternative to Origins these days (as opposed to the wargame con of yesteryear). If you can attend, let me know.

I want to also thank all of you who commented on the things you liked or didn't like in the graphics of the fall CWB game releases. That information was of great use to me in refining things for the Thunder at the Crossroads, 2nd edition game and future volumes in the series.

This issue was assisted in the proofing department by Mike Haggett and Rod Schmisseur who graciously offered their free time to come in and look over my, cough, writing. Hopefully, I can make it a habit for them-we'll all benefit.

The add-in-some-damn-graphics program we started with the last issue was derailed in this one due to space and time limitations. I hope to pick it back up and make further progress with issue 9. The couple of illustrations herein were thoughtfully provided by the author, Dave Demko--now if only his diskettes would work!

Unfortunately, no letters addressed to the editor for publication showed up this time. Pity. I hope there will be some next time.

A few articles from last time had their continuations postponed until next issue due to space considerations.

Good Luck and Good Gaming!