If you're a regular listener to 'a certain general gaming podcast' The D6 Generation, you'll have noticed that though they discuss mostly non-historical games, they are not averse to history. Craig Gallant especially has expressed his love for Romans on more than one occasion.
Murray Dahm’s series in Ancient Warfare is running out of interesting didactic literature to discuss. There’s only so much that survives!There’s only so much that survives! So, we'll need to replace that feature with a new one starting with issue IV.1. For a while now he and I have been brainstorming about other possible options with the help of regulars Duncan B. Campbell and Jona Lendering. The current idea revolves around a feature that would be called ‘the debate’, which could be either short articles relating the status of current academic debate that deals with warfare in the Ancient World, or short articles that discuss detailed, concise ‘Frequently asked questions’, or common assumptions. Topics might be, and these are completely random examples, ‘Was there a leader of a Roman contubernium’, or ‘What evidence is there for women in Greek and Roman armies’. I’d like to hear the thoughts of the readership on this.
I have to say that, so far, the themes that the readership of this blog and I came up with, seem to have congealed into interesting issues. Sure, some themes cause me to go bald with worry about appropriate photography, but I seem to be genetically pre-disposed to be sparse-haired anyway.
Every time I open the first box with a new issue, take out a copy and browse it, I get a knot in my stomach. Will I see something that should've been different? I almost always find something, so far remarkably few and minor. However, in our firs Special, I forgot to replace a 'For positioning only'-type map with the artwork made by Andrew Brozyna. Oddly (luckily?) the temporary one doesn't look that bad or out of place, but I'd like to apologize to Andy and Duncan, the author, for this gaffe. This is the correct map. Feel free to download it and include it in your copy.
The recent request for reviewers in our newsletter and the News section of Ancient Warfare III.1 seems to have been very well received. That's to say, I've got a lot more interested wanna-be reviewers than books to divide.
The results from the 'Artwork as prints' poll are pretty clear. Now I'd like to zoom in a little more. I've selected three images for 'soldiers' and three for 'battle scenes'.
Time to select your favorites.
It's a bad idea to move house and have a magazine deadline on the exact same day. Too many things in one head, it just doesn't work very well. Luckily, in the case of II-4, it seems to have worked out in the end. Thanks to our writers, illustrators, designers and of course the printer who put it all together.
I promise I have excuses for the lack of blog postings, I do! I'd rather get on with it though. Moving house has given me a comfortable train commute which increases the likelihood of me reading books every day and allows me to muse on new ideas.
Sometimes when you're laying out the contents of a magazine, it appears you have an extra page. The usual quick 'n dirty solution is to insert one of your own or a charity ad. Or perhaps there is a good photo that can be enlarged to fill a page. The latter especially is not a bad solution, but I´m thinking of something new.
As you may or may not know, getting good quality illustrations for our articles is a constant concern for me. Simply put, I can illustrate Roman imperial stuff forever and a day, but when it comes to Roman Republican soldiers, Alexander's troops or, dear me, those wonderfully interesting Successor armies, it's another story.
