Sun of Austerlitz Shipping Progress We are assembling and shipping Sun of Austerlitz every day. We appreciate your patience while we work through the labels. We have re-checked and confirmed all addresses before mailing, which will at least avoid delays for mail returned. If you'd like us to put your game on the top of the stack for mailing, just ask! If you ever wondered how it is that we can publish a game with only 250 pre-orders, while other companies require 500 or 750, the answer is, 250 pre-orders aren't enough to cover the production costs of a game. To take Sun of Austerlitz as an example, after eliminating invalid orders we had 290 pre-orders. The average price paid was $29.36 or $8,515. Production costs on the game totalled $14,571. How will we make-up the difference? The difference must be made up by sales to stores and distributors. Our suppliers want to be paid within 30 days of delivering the game components. That means we should begin shipping to stores on day one. We have to ship to stores even while we are continuing to ship pre-orders. How You Can Help If you are not comfortable that the game is in your local store and not in your mailbox, just let us know. In the meantime, we have started faxing to stores, and will follow up with phonecalls (a few to a dozen each day). Encourage your local store to stock up so that they have at least one copy of every OSG game. We have one final print bill due on June 12th, $2,820 for the SuA rulebooks. If you want to help, please email or call 1(410) 367-4004. Swords Around the Throne Replaces Napoleon's Game Designer: Kevin Zucker. A two-map, hex-based, card-driven, two player simulation. Playing time: approx. 6 hours. The 22" x 68" map covers Europe from Lisbon to St. Petersburg at 30 miles per hex. Play will revolve around control of depot hexes which allow ground forces to use their full strength. This design replaces the game entitled 'Napoleon's Game.' In February we wrote, "The publication of Napoleon's Game will go forward as planned," but further controversy led to a reversal of policy. ACTION ITEM: IF YOU HAVE AN ORDER FOR NAPOLEON'S GAME ... You will need to let us know your wish (check one): [ ] Convert my pre-order for 'Napoleon's Game' to 'Swords Around a Throne' [ ] Just cancel my order for 'Napoleon's Game' (do _not_ convert to 'Swords'). NEXT UP: FOUR LOST BATTLES: The 1813 Quad The four games have been remapped (the original maps were not consistent in scale, and our new improved maps came from the 'official' German maps of the battlefields). The Kulm map is quite small and this map shares a 17x22" sheet with the fifth, strategic map. We are still working on the link game, checking Orders of Battle, and working up a rules set. John Bowman of Bunker Hill Games is helping out with this one. This is going to be our next game so check out the special order form at the end of this message and encourage your friends to help us get up to our initial goal of 250. We intend to start production in July, with Mark Simonitch scheduled to turn out the map graphics then. MAXIMUM PRE-ORDER DISCOUNT IS 30% OFF With the continuing increase in paper prices, the final cost of a game as shown on the order form can only be estimated. We have done our best but we have to set the retail price based on our actual production costs. If the final retail price is higher than the estimated price, the discount will not be greater than 30%. Note: Coupons issued by OSG (for specific $ amount) will result in discounts exceeding 30%. Any pre-order paid by check will be fulfilled at the price paid in the check. In the future, checks will not be accepted for pre-orders. Pre-orders are not an iron-clad committment, either on our part to produce a game for a certain price, nor are you obligated to purchase any game you have pre-ordered. You can cancel any pre-order at any time (preferably before we charge your card, please). When games reach the production stage we will notify you 72 hours in advance of the amount before charging your card. You will have a last-minute opportunity to cancel your order. If you cancel after we charge your card your refund will be less the bank fees we incurred. Back to OSG News May 2003 Table of Contents Back to OSG News List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 2003 by Operational Studies Group This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com