I received two long letters recently from both the Denver NCT advocates and the Las Vegas boosters. Frankly, neither of these venues interests me at all; I can't imagine spending hundreds of dollars to fly out West and spend three days playing in the NCTs.

The nice thing about having all the ancients tournaments at HISTORICON is that we all get together -- hundreds of gamers -- for that one time in one place. Seperating the NCT's from the rest of the ancients tourneys is a mistake. At HISTORICON, if you want to play in a tournament (and you had a choice of three or four to pick from, including the highly successful FREE TRADE WARS which will be offered again at HISTORICON and COLD WARS next year), you could easily find one to join and if you didn't or decided to drop out and play something else, that was fine.

Personally, I feel NASAMW is on the wrong track. It's time the organization rethought its reasons for existing in the first place. A national organization -- at least to my mind -- should help organize conventions both at the local level (through in-place and active regional coordinators) and national levels, leaving the rules alone and not forcing people to join NASAMW in order to play in a tournament. It should publish a scholarly, informative and attractive journal, which SPEARPOINT continues to be. If a gamer wishes to join NASAMW, fine, and hopefully the organization will be attractive enough to encourage desired membership.

Too often, bickering and in-fighting make the organization unattractive to nonmembers - the two NCT advocacy letters are a case in point - two regions vieing for the distinction of hosting the championship game and demonstrating increasing frustration and anger with the current officers of NASAMW. It is all so needless. Keep all the tournaments at HISTORICON including the NCT's. Since HISTORICON is the national miniatures convention of the year, I don't understand the change of

NOTE: Greg Hauser will be sponsoring another WRG 7th "game day" for our region on Saturday, Nov. 30th. There will be three rounds of 3 1/2 hours each; 15mm; 1500 points; two variations of one army from the WRG or NASAMW lists. The current NCT champion, Dave Stiers, will umpire and food will be provided free of charge.