Having never been an editor of a publication before, I am uncertain of what the "proper" thing to do is in one's first issue. However, anyone who has known me for long will attest that I only rarely let uncertainty slow my advance in the face of propriety - especially if there is the prospect of a good time! And it is indeed the prospect of a good time that has induced me to undertake this assignment.

The Piquet Dispatch, being as it is named for Piquet, the wargame, and having been developed, as it has, to support Piquet, the wargame, and being published by Piquet Incorporated, who by amazing coincidence also produces Piquet, the wargame, would at first blush seem to have as its primary and overarching goal the unabashed promotion of Piquet, the wargame. And I am sure that promote it we will. However, I fully intend that this promotion will not be in the form of mere propaganda poured forth by the "house organ." This would be no fun to produce, nor would it be any fun for you to read.

Rather, I hope that the PKD (or whatever acronym finally sticks to this publication) will allow you to tap into, and more importantly, contribute to one of the most creative, enthusiastic, enjoyable, and fun groups of wargamers I have known in my 37 years of wargaming.

To accomplish this we hope to provide you with all the standard stuff - battle reports, scenarios, designers' comments, frequently asked questions (FAQ's if you are a netizen), and helpful hints on play, painting, terrain, etc.. We will also supply a rational amount of editorial opinion on issues that we feel are important to the hobby and to you as members of the hobby (see "Umbilicus Urbis" elsewhere in this issue). But the really cool thing I am hoping we can do is help you change, modify, advance and improve Piquet.

Two factors, more than any others have attracted me to Piquet. The first, and the one most obvious to you when you play the game, is suspense. You just are not sure if things are going to work the way you have them planned! There is no clockwork like grinding forward of the game in which the only uncertainties are the morale casts (and those are pretty predictable). The game lunges and veers and occasionally doubles back on you - you have to fight the other guy and yourself! It's great fun and, in my opinion, very historically consistent with what real world commanders had to face.

But the second thing that attracted me to Piquet is less obvious but perhaps in some ways more important. Piquet allows you to make it not just the game you play, but your game in a very real and personal sense. Piquet is an open system of very robust modules. Don't like the firing mechanics? Fine, pull out that section, drop in your own design. Don't want to do major surgery, but would still like to model a specific event for a single scenario? Also no problem. The card based event generation system provides an amazingly effective way of doing this with utter simplicity. It is this unique ability to meet your demands that I hope we can build upon and maximize through the contributions of you, the Piquet players, to PKD.

That this is possible is a tribute to the strength of the design of Piquet and also to its designer, Bob Jones. I have had the pleasure of knowing Bob for over 25 years now. We have enjoyed many good conversations (and cigars, thanks to Bob, I might add) over the years, and once upon a time wrote a series of articles for the old Courier that some of you may remember.

This is the first opportunity that he and I have had to work together since then and I am looking forward to it greatly! Bob, as do I, believes that the reason we spend all this time and money on toy soldiers is the enjoyment of the adventure of the game, the pursuit of intellectual curiosity, and the camaraderie of good friends. I hope to bring some of that spirit to you through the pages of this Dispatch.