Gentlemen and Ladies,

I've been asked a few times to consider founding and publishing a new magazine to replace the faithful old "Boardgamer", whose demise is upon us. As some of you may know, the Boardgamer is ceasing publication with the
October issue, Bruce Monnin the editor has become the new editor of
Operations the house organ of Multi-Man Publishing. And, I as one of the last major contributors to his magazine have been contacted several times by a few of his readership to found a replacement. In this effort I've discussed on a couple of wargame websites the methodology of publication and costs involved, as well as the goals of such a publication.

The editorial goal of the magazine is to produce articles on unsupported wargames and long out of print wargames. Articles on games such as 1830 or Advanced Civilization will also be welcome, even articles on Sports games such as the old Football Strategy will also be just fine. The publication is not limited to only Avalon Hill games. Articles on games from other companies such as West End Games, Clash of Arms, etc. … are more than welcome, in fact the goal is to produce articles on games that people play and like that are
older. My goal is to produce a publication every 3 months, and if it warrants every other month (one can hope anyway).

I seek to publish articles on strategy, tactics, and variants (which is a biggie for me as a veteran tinkerer). In fact the only type of article that will be de-emphasized is the review article. That shouldn't be a problem as the games covered for the most part will be older games whose review in magazines should have been accomplished long ago. And this single de-emphasis is one of the two distinctions between this proposal and those of extant publications (the other being the emphasis upon older unsupported games).

Articles on newer games are also welcome as long as they tend to be those games that are not having mounds of press thrown their way. I seek to serve that which is not largely in the public eye. In this way the "Old Soldiers" can help smaller wargame companies to prosper.

It has been suggested that the magazine begin as an e-mail publication. That is to say begin with the least costly method first with an eventual goal of reaching enough subscribers that the publication can proceed to print media. This helps international subscribers as they don't have to pay the exorbitant costs of international postage. And, as someone else pointed out, the lack of
paper is eco-friendly. It will be set up so that subscribers will be able to print off the entire issue, or specific articles as they desire or need.

I also have a desire to provide a graphics insert or counter sheet at least once a year. Though we will have to see if the cost can be born.

I have not yet set a subscription cost, but I do want to keep it to less than $25 a year, and prefer $20 or less. I also have not figured out the remuneration for submissions. I hope to follow the example of the old Boardgamer in that remuneration is offered in future free issues of the magazine (subscription extensions).

If anyone truly wants to subscribe to a publication such as this, please respond to the following e-mail address, which I've set up in order to manage this effort. Please DO respond to this address as I've set it up to build a subscriber database and e-mail list.

tgunslinger@excite.com

Take Care,
Tom Cundiff

Howdy Gents,

In just two days we’ve reached a total of 40 committed subscribers. We’re doing very well. The goal is 110 subscribers, counting on at least a 10% drop out rate, which always occurs. If we keep up this rate of subscription we’ll have enough people by the beginning of next week to begin work on the first publication.

If that happens, I’d like to get the first issue out within a month (30 days). Toward that end I’d like to encourage potential writers to begin work on, prepare, and submit your articles. Standard Word.doc format is best for submissions, and pdf is absolutely useless for me. My computer simply doesn’t like Adobe products. Any graphics you wish to submit with your articles should be in jpg, bmp, or png formats.

If you do submit graphics with your article(s) please provide contact information for the game publisher, preferably e-mail, so I can clear the usage of their material.

We’re doing very well in our subscription drive. Keep it up! Do your best imitation of Aunt Bea, go grab Opie (i.e. your best wargamer buddie) by the ear and make him send a letter of subscription to the following e-mail address. This address is set up solely for the usage of “Old Soldiers Magazine” for the purpose of building an subscription list.

That address is tgunslinger@excite.com

Again, I thank you all for your commitment, keep up the good work, and let’s push hard to reach the “Go Threshold” of 110.

Take Care,
Tom Cundiff
“Old Soldiers Magazine”

Tom
good luck. Will old fashioned hardcopy work for subscriptions?

Umm... by "old fashioned hard copy for subscriptions" do you mean a "letter of intent" to subscribe?

Sure, if you wish to write, be my guest. But, it would probably just be simpler, since it's obvious you have access to a computer, to just reply to the e-mail address provided.

tgunslinger@excite.com

In this way I can maintain a unified mailing list, which is what it's set up for.

By the way Carl, I'd very much like to see you write some articles on PB/PL/AIW for the publication. Even to the extent of an entirely new rule book for both PB/PL written to AIW standards. That's something I've thought needed to be done for a long time, and I can't think of anyone more qualified to do it than you.

Thanks & Take Care,
Tom

Howdy Ladies and Gents,

After a flying start things have slowed down to a crawl. This was not unexpected. There’s always an initial burst of enthusiasm in all projects. Success goes to those who work to obtain the results desired. To that end, you, and I have to work to enlist the aid of our fellow wargamers, that is recommend, beg, and cajole them into subscribing. We’ve reached 45 subscribers. Since Wed. last there has been only 5 more people subscribe. I’ve spoken with Bruce Monnin as to what type of initial interest he had when first he floated the Boardgamer, and it took him 6 months to get 100 subscribers. One thing Bruce did that is probably a good idea is to produce a sample issue as a marketing tool. That would probably serve us well too, and I note several of you have mentioned the same thing. To that end, I hope those of you who have offered to write will forward articles for that first (free) issue. As one subscriber humorously wrote, “you probably have enough old articles and as yet unpublished articles to populate a magazine for a year”. Well, he’s correct of course, but diversity of authorship is of value in a magazine. To that end I truly desire the work of other authors than myself overall, as well as for this “free trial issue”.

Getting to that golden number of 110 subscribers will be hard work and require the devotion of us all. Only the dedication of all of us will see “Old Soldiers” succeed. Don’t let this effort fade away. I’m asking for your help to make this a success.

Article Guidelines:
The only type of article that is probably not useful is the “Review” article for old games, though this is probably just fine for new games from the smaller game companies. Older games have long since seen review articles written on them, so the need for more of the same seems redundant to me.

Strategy, Tactics, & Variant articles are all fair game. Series Replays are well received also. But, there’s a difference between a SR and an AAR (After Action Report). AAR’s don’t interest me in a publication such as this. The difference is the neutral commentary. I was asked if purely historic articles would interest my readership. I am guessing that being wargamers we all would enjoy reading the occasional good military history article. Book reviews of military history books, spy novels, nautical fiction, etc. would probably also interest the readership. I’d be especially interested in an analytic look at the best of Napoleonic Literature, or Age of Sail Literature, US Civil War Literature (even on specific battles since there is such a plethora of books on the US Civil War). Book reviews of this type done in a scholarly manner are a boon to all interested in military history. There’s so much to read and so little written to help us decide exactly what is of value amongst that which is published. Perhaps half a page or so can be devoted to such each issue.

Articles should be submitted in MSWord.doc format. Pdf is a strict no-no. My computer simply doesn’t like Adobe products. If you submit graphics with an article, and they are copies of copyrighted material, please provide a method for me to contact the game company possessing the copyright so I can clear its use in the magazine. I’ve no desire to tread on the all too touchy toes of copyright holders. In this context, the use of small sections of boards or counters should be seen as good press for those who hold the copyrights, but the ways of mankind are all too illogical.

If you do send an article to be used in these first few free issues, or for any other purpose for that matter, please provide me a name and address for the author(s).

Well, I think that covers it for now. If you want to see “Old Soldiers” grow, you and I need to move our friends off the fences to subscribe. And the writers amongst us need to write good articles. Bad articles, though they may occasionally get through, and we’ve all seen them, are really bad for free sample issues attempting to demonstrate the value of a new publication. So, the first articles need to be really good ones to show case the value of the writers and the magazine, for afterall a magazine is nothing but a cover for the pens of its authors. After that, let’s use those first excellent articles as a benchmark by which to judge our work in the future. Hopefully, those few bad articles that always exist, will have a jaundiced eye to brave before they see print. Quality work is very important.

Hopefully enough of you will take up the gauntlet and go tilting at windmills to see this venture succeed.

Sincerely,
Tom Cundiff