As you can see from the ad in this issue, Ancient Warfare is now available. We will be showcasing the rules at HISTORICON later this month. There will be three scenarios dealing with the 1st Punic War and two more covering the Bactrian Wars. What with our time slots, we should be able to accomodate all those who wish to play, but PLEASE SIGN UP DURING REGISTRATION! Last year, we could not place all those who wanted to play. The scenarios are structured to handle a maximum of ten players each, so with any luck, all of those wishing to get a first hand look at how the rules work will be able to.

For the benefit ot those SAGA subscribers wanting to get a jump on things, the rules are $20.00 postpaid. They will also be for sale at the demo games. The Punic War scenario pits a good Roman army against a polyglot collection of mercenaries and citizen Carthaginians, including elephants, chariots, and a variety of diverse quality troops. Historically, the Romans were extremely difficult to defeat. The Carthaginian commander might be tempted to throw his Celtic warbands against the Roman maniples, but in the vast majority of cases, the warbands will eventually lose the fight. The Carthaginian must first somehow disorder the Roman heavy infantry, or at least weaken them with missile fire before charging in. They certainly have the weapons to succeed, but it takes cunning and forethought to deal with the powerful Romans.

I recently received a letter from Chris Kinnear of SLINGSHOT offering to open the pages of that august journal to any rules discussions, battle reports, army list ideas, etc., having to do with Medieval Warfare or Ancient Warfare. I am grateful to Chris for this offer and will attempt to supply a continual amount of material dealing with these rules. It's very gratifying to see that the British are quite helpful in trying to promulgate something new . I've been a member of NASAMW since 1988, served as editor of SPEARPOINT for two years, and have had my ups and downs with the guiding powers so far as philosophy of rules, agenda and overall direction of the organization go. It would be nice to see (or even hear) some mention made of the efforts of Bruce Taylor, Jeff Ball, Dave Bonk, or myself in respect to the games which have been put on at last year's HISTORICON or this year's COLD WARS. Perhaps we were not 'visible' enough for any mention to be made. Well, that is corrected this time around. Next year, I would like to try our first ever tournament at HISTORICON, if interest is there and NASAMW can include it under their tournament listings.

This issue of SAGA has several different 'looks' to it. This will probably be the last issue in this format. I am getting a new computer, scanner, etc. and will be able to take e-mail submissions as well. The 'new' SAGA...hmmm. Well, anyway, see you at the convention!