I hope you like the look of SAGA '95. By going with a new printer and color covers, I hope to expand both the quality Of production this year as well as numbers of subscribers and advertisers. There will be an effort made later this year to move to a more professional look insofar as articles go as well. In any event, the next five issues will be a far cry from uhat I have been putting out over the last few years!

In this issue are several articles dealing with the D8M gaming system as well as 7th and (perhaps, ir it is finished in time) one on ARHATI. The diversity Or systems played seem both a boon and a bane at tires. Not too long ago, the dialog between gamers usually involved WRG 7th; it's positives, negatives and interpretations, both good and bad. I hear that on the internet now, the same thing is happening in respect to DBM. Is this the way it works? No matter what the prevalent, popular system is, it seems that there will always be this problematic discussion of its merits as many gamers have the attitude that "My army SHOULD be better than it appears to be in the rules because...(fill in the blanks)". As you will read later in this issue, I have tried to compare the three most popular rules so far as my own experience with them goes.

Having received the latest MWAN, it seems that Hal Thinglum is thinking of greatly reducing the size of the newsletter, perhaps even going quarterly, as the COURIER has done. I certainly can sympathize with Hal, frankly, I don't know how he does it. SAGA's 44- 48 pages is plenty Or work for me, but Hal puts out over a 120 pages every eight weeks! I urge Hal to either raise the subscription price and/or reduce the size, but not go quarterly. This problem is not unusual; I've thought of going quarterly myself at times, but feel that articles and especially letters get too outdated and ads are hard to target with a 12-13 week cycle between issues. I urge all SAGA subscribers to write Hal and give him your encouragement and support.

The week of May 13, Greg Hauser and I are going up to Hamilton, Ontario to participate in a WRG 7th 'Iron Man' one day tournament. As Brian Lewis noted "The last chance to qualify for the NICT's". This should be interesting since my poor Pre-Feudal Scots have been out of their boxes once since last HISTORICON! Oh, well. It seems that getting a good turn-out for a local tourney is getting harder and harder to do. At SIMCON this year we had nine people show up, but four were beginners. Anyway, I'm looking forward to Brian s tourney and this weekend, Gary Comardo and I are putting on a huge 25mm Dark Ages battle (over 1000 figures on Gary s 16'x 6' table) based upon the Battle of Brunanburh in 937 A.D. We will be using a variation of WARHAMMER rules with local 'improvements' for period specificity and feel. I will try to get some decent photos of the game for future publication as well as a write up. Until then...