HEROICS - July 2003

A Call to Action!

By Bob Sohn

Heroics is looking for game reviews from our EPGS members. We will provide you the review-game, and you will get to keep this game. We want YOU to volunteer, and you will get to see your name in lights, top billing, etc., or at least on the pages of HEROICS.

Recently, I ordered some games from Avalanche Press and got into a discussion about EPGS and Philly with one of the company's managers. He's originally from Norristown, and he was willing to provide some games for our club to generate more noise about Avalanche with our club. After discussions with the EPGS Editor (Dave B.) and President (Bob H.), we thought the following would be the fairest way to distribute these games. Bottom-line: you can get your grubby hands on one of these games, but you will then owe EPGS a game review for our club newsletter.

If we do a good job, we can certainly ask in the future other game companies (and Avalanche) for similar game donations in return for press in our club newsletter that goes out to all EPGS members. We have the following games for review. First come; first served. If you need more info before deciding, go to www.avalanchepress.com.

· Panzer Grenadier: Airborne. Platoon combat in the hedgerows of Normandy.

· Winter Fury. Russians versus the Finns.

· Operation Cannibal. Mid-WWII in the jungles of Burma.

· Midway. Early WWII naval battles - I have dibs on this game review already.

Before volunteering for a review, please strongly consider the following:

· Review must be between 1,000 and 1,500 words.

· You get to keep the review-game copy only if you actually submit a review within the timeframe agreed upon with me and Dave. Otherwise, I will have send some heavy-set gamer to sit on your kneecaps. Also, it must be returned in acceptable condition.

· We're looking for a strong, opinionated and original writing style. No recycling of stuff on the net. Again, see above bullet for what will happen with plagiarism. (For full disclosure, these points are stolen heavily from Boulder Games' submission requirements, but hey, this is not the game review.)

· Again, be opinionated. If you don't like the game, say so, but you better back up your opinion. Realize that negative reviews will limit our chance of getting free games in the future, but you will be doing a greater service to EPGS. In the end, love it or hate it; tell us WHY. We will send a copy of the relevant Heroics to Avalanche to show what we did with their donated games.· Please, don't use 1,000 words to repeat a description of the components and rule mechanics. UGH! Who wants to read that? The main part of your review must be a cogent analysis of the game, pros and cons, with a brief component and rules description.

· PLAY the game. We would strongly recommend that you play at least one game, and with another member of EPGS preferably, before you finalize your review. It would be real nice if you played the game at an actual EPGS meeting.

If you are interested, please let me or Dave Bohnenberger know which game you want to review.

Visor Game Sale

From Keith Tracton

Every summer my distributor wants to clear off its warehouse shelves of a ton of crap that does not move because it is too expensive. So during this time they reduce prices to me drastically, and I finally have the software to get the info they send me into a format I can pass on in a timely fashion.

I have a .pdf (528k) at:

http://home.earthlink.net/~ktrac/Summer.Sale.brochure.pdf

(For details of individual items, check out

http://www.alliance-games.com as usual and log-in as a guest)

The 19-page .pdf lists items which are all 40% off between July 1^st (i.e. NOW) and August 31st.

(Except Games Workshop items which are only 30% off. Oh and net-cost items are cost + 20% and cost + 30% respectively for non-GW and GW items.)

And of course anything that is available on the website but not listed in the sale catalog is still the usual 20% off. :-D

It’s a good time to pick up those items you may have been holding back on. I am not much of a hard sell but I will say this: last summer when I tried to get stuff for myself and it was GONE in the first month. Stores buy up this stuff fast because its costs them a little and they can sell it for full price. So you may want to order, like, NOW, rather than later. I'll be doing my usual Monday orders (actually I want to move that back to over-the-weekend orders via Web, it insures the order will be FILLED Mondays for Tuesday deliveries).

And shipping to you is still FREE, as usual. ;-) Go figure...

Enjoy!

Yours,

Keith

Keith Tracton, Owner

Vizor Publishing - VizPub@comcast.net

Keith Tracton

1041 Clemens Ave

Rolsyn, PA 19001

USA

Games People Played

Here is a nearly-complete list of games played at the last meeting:

6/21/03

GAME	PUBLISHER	PLAYS
Advanced Squad Leader	AH	1
Amun-Re	Rio Grande	1
Axis and Allies – Europe	Hasbro	1
Axis and Allies – Pacific	Hasbro	1
Bean Trader	Rio Grande	1
Carcassonne	Rio Grande	1
Carcassonne - Hunters and Gatherers	Rio Grande	1
Citadels	Fantasy Flight	2
Die Macher	Hans Im Gluck	1
Domaine	Mayfair	1
Duel of Ages	Worldspanner	1
Evo	Descartes/Eurogames	1
Feudal	3M	2
Fist of Dragonstones	Days of Wonder	1
Flower Power	Kosmos	1
La Guerre des Moutons	Asmodee	1
Legend of the Five Rings	AEG	1
Lego Racers	Roseart	1
Lunar Rails	Mayfair	1
Meuterer	Adlung	1
Odin's Ravens	Rio Grande	1
Paths of Glory	GMT	1
Princes of Florence	Rio Grande	1
Puerto Rico	Rio Grande	4
Ra	Rio Grande	1
Samurai and Katana	Tilsit	1
Settlers of the Stone Age	Mayfair	2
Shadowrun Duels	Wizkids	1
Speed	Adlung	3
Star Racers	Gil Hova	1
Thirty Years War	GMT	1
Transamerica	Rio Grande	1
US Rails	Winsome	1
Wilderness War	GMT	1
Zero	GMT	2