Regards Jamie Fish's response to Phil Barker's letter of last issue: NASAMW has not "suffered an incredible drop in membership since the dropping of 7th by WRG and its replacement by DBM." Quite the contrary, though we are not at our historical high, we are certainly above our historical average and growing steadily. We have had to increase the print run of each Spearpoint I have edited and, due to a lot of new members signing up at Historicaon, we have had to do a second print run of our last issue.

(Ed. When Dave Ottney and I were doing Spearpoint, we had a membership of over 400. I can speak from SAGA's viewpoint that it is difficult to maintain the subscriber base, we have witnessed a 10% drop in renewals this year, with only a 5% increase in new subscribers. I do believe that there is a correlation between the drop in society membership and the adoption of DBM by the wargaming community).

We have noticed an "incredible drop" in the number of members playing 7th Edition, but the vast majority have happily converted over to DBM (or ARMATI) and this merely reflects a worldwide trend. Apparently in Europe, players fled WRG 7th so fast that their averaging die briefly hung in the air before tinkling to the ground as players deserted. This trend has been slower in the US primarily due to NASAMW having many affirmative action programs to support 7th Edition. For instance we have waived our normal requirement that players in the 7th NICT come from feeder tournaments since so few torunaments are run in 7th.

Additionally we hold the 7th NICT at the larger Historicon and put the DBM NICT at the secondary Cold Wars in a conscious effort to boost attendance for 7th. We are pumping on the respirator as fast as we can!

Depite these efforts, 7th continues to decline and now only supports a NICT tournament in one scale (25mm).

This is in stark contrast to the benign neglect ARMATI receives from the society. Nevertheless, ARMATI continues to grow (its torunament overflowed capacity at Historicaon) and will soon displace 7th as the third most popular system among members (behind DBM and DBA).

Seventh's woes are not caused by lack of "support" from Mr. Barker. I can't imagine why anything Mr. Barker does would cause people to stop playing 7th in the garages and basements of America. As to lack of lists, 7th has always used the old 6th lists so this hardly explains its sharp decline. In any case, WRG started publisheing new lists for 7th which were roundly criticized and didn't sell anyway so apparently they have stopped.

No one is attempting to force Mr. Fish or anyone else to play a particular system. Seventh's former success depended heavily on it being the only system widely played, rather than any inherit merit. Once faced with competition such as DBM, 7th rapidly lost the battle in the marketplace of ideas. Among gamers, those who prefer a playable, well balanced game flocked to DBM, while those, such as myself, who wanted a stisfactory historical simulation also jumped on the DBM bandwagon. This left only hard core tournament gamers to support 7th, a group more noisy than numerous.

Mr. Fish's demand that Mr. Barker "support" 7th by creating new lists is quite impractical since such a project would be unlikely to recover the cost of its paper, let alone have any hope to compensate Mr. Barker for his work. If Mr. Fish feels so strongly about this, he should take the financial risk and publish his own lists. Be forewarned that historical lists are quite difficult to write for 7th due to the quirky rules. I have resisted writing one for the 100 Year's War English and French simply because I don't think an historically accurate list can be created for these armies with considerable rules amendments.

In any case, 7th's problem is not a lack of willing sellers but willing buyers. Our hobby shops have sold out of DBM 1.3 and can't get more since WRG is also sold out.

Meanwhile, 7th sits obstinately on the shelf despite deep discounts (I bought the old Book III for $3.00 in a cut out bin last year). I'm sure Mr. Barker would be delighted if 7th would have a sudden resurgence so he could get rid of the thousand copies he's now stuck with.

As to Mr. Fish's refusal to play DBM or even read the rules, he is missing out on one of the truly great historical simulations of our time. Regarding his concerns about the inability of all troops to kill other troop types he is quite mistaken (which often happens when you don't read the rules). All troop types can kill other troop types provided you maneuver correctly. You can't do it by luck alone. In situations where no amount of luck can result in a kill, this merely reflects historical reality and, therefore, at least makes we historical players happy.

(Ed. It is interesting to hear luck mentioned; what with having to roll for movement PIPs each turn in DBM, my personal favorite!)

In contrast to Mr. Fish's belief that "foreign corporations" are squeezing people out of the hobby, in our area DBM and ARMATI have led to a tremendous resurgence in interest in ancients and especially medieval games. If all these people are secretly yearning to play 7th, why don't they just do it? What possible menas does Mr. Barker, or anyone else, have of forcing people to stop playing 7th? Isn't it far more likely that a huge majority of ancients/medieval gamers who have converted to DBM worldwide did so because they preferred it?

On only one point did I disagree with Mr. Barker's rebuttal. He feels printed magazines such as Spearpoint and SAGA have lost relevance as forums for rules analysis due to the internet. I have found most rules analysis on the internet to consist of brief and un-nourishing "popcorn" thoughts. By the nature of the forum, it is unsuitable to in-depth analysis, let alone mustering solid primary source or even secondary source materials to support your points. Only the more traditional written forums can give sufficient space to allow a rigorous rules review with evidence to support the author's conclusions. I hope Spearpoint and SAGA will continue to fulfill this useful and ultimately far more entertaining role.

(Ed. I can't agree with Tom more about the relevance of historical wargaming journals. Next issue, I am certain we will be able to read Jamie's well thought out (!) responses to Tom's observations. My own problems with the DB system is that they just do not have the correct 'feel'. Those who prefer to duke it out in tournaments are going to have to get used to playing either DBM or ARMATI. As Tom says, 7th is on life supports and will not last too much longer, no matter what anyone says or does. The lack of creator support coupled with the desire to play in regional tournaments, which now are all DBM, means the end is near.

The ability of SAGA to survive has been predicated on the adaptability of this journal to roll with the punches. That means publishing articles on rules I do not care for, and supporting the play of games in periods I do not game myself. But this has, for the last ten years, been a hell of a learning experience, and I wouldn't trade one minute of it for all the lead in The Emperor's Headquarters.)

More on the Subject of NASAMW

Jamie Fish and Phil Barker Letters
Jamie Response to NASAMW