Now in the second issue and Terry is trying to convince me I should paint his house. "I mean Jamie, you paint those little guys, just think how easy it would be to paint a house." Luckily I have had good excuses. Two hurricanes, one tornado, a tropical storm and a black widow spider. Spider you say? My wife makes me keep much of the stock in the garage, including more painted armies than I care to mention. As I was in the process of rebasing some of the armies for resale, [Crusader, Anglo-Norman, later Ach. Persian, Carthagian, Imperial Roman, Republican Roman, Gauls, Macadonians, Parthians, Anglo-Danes, Ottoman Turks and a gazillion Renassissance] I had placed them in trays by troop types.

The other day I pull out a tray of Gothic knights and hobliars and see a BIG dead spider. COOL! I will let my daughter take it to school. I then notice the red hourglass on its belly and think she will enjoy terrorizing her classmates. So I pick it up by its legs and move it to the side and continue the rebasing. That afternoon she comes home and I pull out the tray to scare her and guess what? The spider is gone. Worse, it is loose in my stuff! My books, my toys. my paints! Lurking there waiting for my naked hand. Obviously in league with my wife. What did I do? The sensible thing, I started to empty the shelves in search of the spider. It had relocated onto another set of figures with black bases and was nearly invisible. So I got the Black Flag and sent her on to the world of Charlette's Web. Now if I could figure how to mount it on the unit stand...

For those of you who are computer jocks, you can reach me at Fish@Coastalnet.com

Is there any interest in internet sites of gaming interest? Or is anyone interested in getting a list of SAGA members e-mail addresses? If so I will do an article in the future so send in those favorite sites.

I asked Terry about the dearth of articles and opined that the interest of the gamer seems to have peaked. This sadly tracks the comments of many of the dealers at the last Historicon; that sales are way down and the few customers left are bottomfeeders. While this is no direct concern to the average gamer I would point out that our hobby is a very small and delicate eco-system. [I know, I have watched too many Captain Planets with my children].

We must as a group make a real effort to gain new gamers. Any military history student knows what happens to a country that does not successfully replenish the ranks of its army. Do not look to HMGS or the Hobby Shops or the Manufacturers to do it. We, as individuals, need to increase our ranks. With this in mind, I again renew my offer of giving anyone who buys $50.00 or more of Thistle and Rose miniatures 10% of that order towards a subscription to SAGA, nay, I will make it 15% till the end of the year for NEW subscribers [10% for old]. Should any of you out there have ideas on how to increase our numbers, do not think about the problem, act on it.

Manufacturers who read this and are thinking of sending in items for review, please consider sending enough stuff so that a gamer could use it. I remember that Hal Thinglum and his MWAN policy of giving much of what he reviews away to people promoting the hobby. I have talked to Terry and he and I are, as usual, of one mind. Rather than keep the samples we will give the items away to individuals who are promoting the hobby.

Finally I must again apologize for the lateness of SAGA. But if articles were sent in on disks, the process would be faster...

This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.
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