The Habit of Victory

David McElhannon will be creating some 42 maps to illustrate the progress of the French Army between the pursuit after Jena (16 October) through Friedland (14 June). This required working out a list of the 500 towns mentioned in the text and assigning each to one of the 42 maps. Among the source material Mr. McElhannon will use is the game map to "The Eagles Turn East." Mr. Zucker's book on the 1807 Campaign has been announced by Greenhill of London: expected publication date has been pushed back to early 1999.

The 1998 Napoleonic Tour

We are lucky enough to have found a wargamer who lives in Poland and also happens to be a travel professional. Mr. Andruszkiewicz has made our reservations and other arrangements on the ground, and will accompany us, along with several other Polish history enthusiasts who know the battlefields. it may be a bit late by the time you read this but if you have a sudden wanderlust we'll see if we can accommodate you. The tour cost is $1,195 (not including airfare).

Origins '98

OPERATIONAL STUDIES GROUP SEMINAR SCHEDULE

Kevin Zucker's four seminars take place 10:30 a.m.-12:15 p.m. every day, and are included as part of the "War College" registration fee.

Thursday, 10:30 AM OSG Staff Meeting

Discussion of current and future game projects; ask questions of associates and staff.

Friday, 10:30 AM SPI: The Growth Years, 1969-73 How did S&T get from 800 subscribers to 30,000? Discussion with audience participation.

Saturday, 10:30 AM In the Pipeline Three new game releases from OSG: 1806, La Guerre de I'Empereur, Massena in Portugal.

Sunday, 10:30 AM Napoleon at Bay: The Brilliant Campaign of 1814 (Room to be determined-we lost our slot.) The 1814 campaign has been compared to Napoleon's first and finest, 1796. Why was he able to do so much with so little?

Panel Discussions:

Friday Night, 8:3 0 PM Cavalry Myths and Realities Frank Chadwick, Brent Nosworthy, Peter Panzeri, Charles Sharp and Zucker.

Saturday Night, 8:30 PM How do you Design? Richard Berg, Frank Chadwick, John Hill, John Prados, Jack Radey, Lou Zocchi and Zucker on the Process of Wargame Design.

Marketing

We were very happy with the response to the postcard describing "1806" which was mailed to 2,000 Napoleonic grognards. Your rapid reaction is of paramount important to us. The purchase of an OSG game is a vote for a steady stream of new OSG publications.

If you missed Wargame Design Nr. 2 it's because we didn't hear from you. The first issue went out to 1,800 folks, but the second one was sent only to 520 individuals who either requested a copy, or purchased a game or a subscription to the magazine. This issue is, like the second, being mailed to purchasers, among many others.

We have ambitious plans for the magazine, including a much larger number of pages, more color, and a game in every issue. The economics of publishing are such that the smaller press run of 550 for the second issue cost us the same on a unit basis as the 2,000 print run for the first issue, despite the removal of the four-color cover from the front and back of the magazine. We intend to be growing the magazine to at least 32 pages so that we can begin to market it in the newsstands. We know there is a wealth of material out there. We want to begin featuring material from other game pub~lishers, too! Advertising would also help.

But for now, there are two things you cat do. To help us grow the magazine, if you haven't already done so, consider purchasing 1806-Rossbach Avenged or Napoleon a Bay.

Wargame Design Expansion Plans

We are studying the costs associated with expanding our magazine to 36+ pages and including a game in each issue. The map wil be 11 x 17" with 140 counters and 12 page: of rules. In some cases this game would be a vignette from a larger boxed game.

Our approach will be to use the game & the starting point of the article, as a tool for uncovering the past, to learn about the cam aign, to make discoveries that have never yet been written. We'll promise there will be little you already know; we'll just skilp over commonplaces. You're going to haveto pay attention though. The articles will bring together unusual data. We won't re strict them to recounting battles and campaigns; we'll explore military biography cultural transformations brought about by war, even the impact of anti-war movement through the ages. We'll explore what it was like to be General Eisenhower's driver, a famous spy, or a shell-shocked grunt. We'll look at Goebbels reading a comforting tale of Frederick the Great to Hitler in the Reichschancellery in April of '45, Nixon and Kissinger praying in the oval office while North Vietnamese tanks rolled south. We will look at the havoc left behind by the simple move of an Infantry Division across the French countryside, or at how many hands were involved in moving a can of C rations across the Atlantic in '44.

This will all be tied-in to the game components. The articles will always lead back into the game. We won't do reviews of games or books, no calendar of events. The magazine will sell for about $20 per issue. We are just in the initial stages of this project.

The OSG Cadre

We'd especially like to thank the following individuals for their "perfect record" of support to date (list effective 4 May 1998):

Nicola Contardi, Christian C. Strachan, Johr Chmiel, Max Zavanelli, Steve van der Waal Vince Solimine, Sadaharu Ichikawa, Kenneth C. Colby, Dennis Goonan, David Demko, Raymond Bursch, Martin Svensson John Connors, Andrew Preziosi, MassimoCesaro, Joseph Key, Ronald Rector, William A. Leaf, Shinobu Nagura, William Thomas, Maurizio Bragaglia, Philip Jarvio, Louis Joseph Sheehan, Pat Haley, Gregg Gallagher, Steve Mitchell, Coley Cowan, Andrea Bardelli, Carl Overshiner, Kouichi Shinoda, Karel van Schoor, Michael Rizzo, Thomas T. Engelke, Pascal Foulon, Andrew Rush, Roger Pearce, Kim Meints, Daniel Galan Perez, Jean-Luc Synave, Thomas F. Fine, James Ludwick, Jutta Borchert, David W Amburgey, Curt Kirkland, James W. McCarthy, Mark Cuomo, Andrew Atkins, Boyd Schorzman, Guillaume Daudin, Don Cogswell, Eric Iven, Thomas Scheben, BruceRogers, Mark D. Cooper, Jean-Philippe Tondeur, Robert Perry, Shinichi Omura, Sinji Tanabe, Nicholas Solomon, Kevin Swanson, James M. Stormes, Roger Hollenbaugh, Harvey A. Mossman, Vincent Frattali, MikeRuttle, William Kominers, Elias Nordling, Vesa Saarinen, Chris Leach, Will Volny, Charles D. Osborne, Theodore Barnett, Andrew Fornalik, Charles R. Paulson Jr., GeorgE Sauer 111, Bob Thorne, Kazimierz Rybak, James J. Ernst, Charles L. Innis, Paul Schill, David Starry Eric Lillienthal, Ronald Corry A. Raith, Joseph H. March, George Gibson, Richard M. Hughes, Mike Hoffman, Owen Jenkins, Michael Malone, Thomas Grode, Stewart M. Moulder, Mitchell Erickson, James Parmenter, Stan Sunderwirth, Carl Rugenstein, Masahi Ohno. Eric Walters, Ichiro Koshida, Martin Dallago, Lee Ewing, Steve W. Knopf, Mike Traynor, and all the others who purchased their copies of eithei or both games in retail outlets:

WORK IN PROGRESS

Six SS Panzer Divisions in search of a title ...

I'm currently playtesting Perry Moore's design covering Germany's Last Gasp offensive in Hungary; with a view to adapting it to the tried and tested "Dark December" game system. More on the back burner, I have been entering the playtest map for "Massena in Portugal" into ADC2, and continue to liaise with Geoffrey Geddes with a view to setting up a playtest of his 1812 design and integrating it into the work being done elsewhere. I also have a playtest copy of Chris Moeller's "Napoleon Eagles" card game which looks wonderful (especially the full colour portrait of Blucher!) but to which, to my shame, I have not been able to give the amount of time it deserves. I also volunteered to do some preliminary design work on an adaptation of the NaB system to Jackson in the Valley but have done little other than some preliminary background reading. As the say: "mes yeux sont plus grandes que l'etomach!" I'll get to everything eventually though I promise!

Matthew Hayes

Duel on the Danube

Duel on the Danube is about the Austrian Archduke Charles' attack in early April 1809 on Napoleon's scattered and hastily- assembling Army of Germany around the town of Ratisbon. The game uses a slightly-modified "6 Days" /"1806" system and at the moment it covers an area from south of Landshut to north of Ratisbon, west to Abensburg and east to just past Eggmilhl. The game has about 480 counters. It needs that many as there are breakdown units to show step losses and the ability of the French to deploy certain units as brigades (Davout's III Corps). The armies orders of battle do not fit that easily into one counter sheet (why they could not have simple organisations to help wargamers I do not know).

The game also has a strategic map which covers the areas to the north of the Danube so that you, as the Austrian player, can try to get Bellgarde to attack the French rear. Expect the same level of frustration as Charles had. The area to the west is also covered so that as the French player you can move the arriving units of the Army to where they are needed.

The game has scenarios covering every day of the campaign and they all link together to form a campaign game with variable start dates. (As "1806" the later you start the worse it is for the non-French player). The game includes special rules to cover transfer of units within corps (which was a favourite Austrian trick to make designers pull their hair out), Charles' illness, III Corps troop ability and many more.

At the moment I think we have a solid base to work on. Mr. Zucker thinks that the game is too narrow in scope and would like to expand the map area so that it covers two sheets and would like to expand it to include an optional March attack scenario. He wants to tidy up the unit transfer rules, a major part of the game, and I am not so sure.

M J Bowen