Flagship Issue
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£3.95 Flagship THE MAGAZINE FOR GAMERS Destiny 2002 PBM Ratings Awards Age of Steam Asheron's Call: Dark Majesty Battle of the Five Armies Boardgame Expansions DungeonWorld Legends: Head to Head Lords of the Earth StarFleet Warlord Games Galore! Women in Roleplaying Boardgames, Yahoo! Online Gaming D20 Roleplaying, Web Games, Conventions ... ... plus news from plus ... Essen 2002 Board Games, Roleplaying, Issue Zine Scene and Conventions ... 100 1983 - 2002 ... and all the gaming news, views & reviews! AUSTERLITZ The Rise of the Eagle THE No 1 NAPOLEONIC WARGAME AUSTERLITZ is the premier PBM & PBEM Napoleonic Wargame. An award winner all over Europe, unparalleled realism and accurate modelling of Europe’s armies make this a Total Wargaming Experience! Main Features of the Game Two elegant battle systems Blockades, coastal defence and realistically simulating strategic fleet actions involving the period’s and tactical warfare. major naval powers. Large scale three map action Austerlitz offers you the chance to encompassing both European and play the wargame of your dreams! Colonial holdings. Command Napoleonic armies of over 100 battalions in the field. Try Active political and diplomatic your strategy across all the old system which encourages grand battlefields of Europe and fight alliance and evil treachery! battles that history never saw! Austerlitz is the ultimate challenge; Sophisticated trade and economic a thinking man’s dream of world systems give authentic control of a domination. Napoleonic economy. Austerlitz is now playable fully by email at a reduced price. For details or for a FREE Information Pack contact: SUPERSONIC GAMES LTD PO BOX 1812, Galston, KA4 8WA Email: [email protected] Phone: 01563 821022 or fax 01563 821006 (Mon-Fri 9am –5.30pm) Report from FLAGSHIP #100 the Bridge December/ January '02-'03 100 not out! IN THIS ISSUE ... HERE WE ARE, with the hundredth issue of Flagship. Not a bad anniversary for a hobby magazine, though I say it myself. It’s wonderful FEATURES to be at this point, but I won’t try to take the Explorer’s Findings (game reviews) credit: so many of you have helped to keep us Destiny ....................................................................................................................... 26 going since 1983 by buying the magazine and Asheron's Call: Dark Majesty ................................................................................... 32 by filling its pages. My heartfelt thanks to you Two Boardgame Expansions ..................................................................................... 36 all. DungeonWorld ........................................................................................................... 38 One exciting special inclusion for issue 100 Age of Steam ............................................................................................................. 40 is the free CD. It’s from Harlequin/Middle Earth Yahoo! Online Gaming .............................................................................................. 43 Games, and contains details for their new Middle Test Flight (game diaries) Earth variant, Battle of the Five Armies. But it Battle of the Five Armies .......................................................................................... 16 also has a special issue of Flagship: one we’ve Lords of the Earth ...................................................................................................... 22 put together from previous articles. The CD is Legends: Head to Head ............................................................................................. 45 intended for shops as well, so should introduce A Piece of the Action (beginner's guides) newcomers to our hobby. We hope you’ll enjoy StarFleet Warlord ...................................................................................................... 24 this - let us know what you think of it. Flagpole (featured articles) We start this bumper sixty-page issue with A Founder's Memories ................................................................................................ 4 some memories of our early days from the man 2002 PBM Ratings Awards ...................................................................................... 10 who founded Flagship and kept her going Roleplaying News ..................................................................................................... 12 successfully for many years, Nick Palmer. It’s Spiel 2002 (convention report) ................................................................................. 14 been inspiring to have had Nick’s example to David Blair's Sports News ........................................................................................ 20 follow. John Harrington's Zine Scene ................................................................................... 35 I’ve made some changes since taking control, Women in Roleplaying .............................................................................................. 42 however, mainly by introducing more general gaming material because we think you’ll find this interesting. We continue this trend in this REGULAR DEPARTMENTS issue, though we'll never abandon our PBM roots. Report from the Bridge (editorial)................................................................................. 3 It’s been good to have readers supporting these Newsdesk ........................................................................................................................... 6 developments. It’s also good to see so much proof The Mighty Pen / Feedback (letters) ........................................................................... 19 in this issue that the type of gaming from which Rumours from the Front (gossip & personal comment) ............................................. 47 we originated is still going strong. Yes, there are Advertisers’ Index ......................................................................................................... 53 many more PBeM games than PBM ones running Galactic View (game listings)........................................................................................ 54 nowadays, but the actual concept of turn-based Meets & Conventions .................................................................................................... 58 gaming remains a powerful one. Perhaps it’s a disadvantage for me as your editor that I’ve never been a great player of games, unlike Nick. But I soon grew to admire the quick wits of PBM players when I was a Founding Editors Contributors moderator myself, and the other members of my Nicholas Palmer MP & Chris Harvey House Artist: Larry Deyell. family have played every type of game: which Cover Art: ©Kurt Miller Editorial Team Illustrations: MEPBM Games (p18), Martin Helsdon makes me a bit like the lady who ‘didn’t think Editor: Carol Mulholland [email protected] (p23), Madhouse (p27 & p39), Shirley Ghozalli much of music but just loved musicians’. So I’ll Consultant Editors: Nick Palmer, Mo Holkar (p42), RayTech (p46). try to keep it as my editorial policy to listen to Assistant Editor: Colin Forbes [email protected] Articles & Reviews: David Blair, Larry Deyell, Jeffery people - just keep talking to me and telling me Sports Editor: Situation vacant! Dobberpuhl, Paul Evans, Gary Forbis, Lisa Fordham, Web Games Correspondent: Matt Mingus Patrick Gleeson, John Harrington, Dave Harris, what you think. Roleplaying Correspondent: Gary Forbis Martin Helsdon, Mike Lay, Matt Mingus, Scott Moyes, My gran had a notice on the wall in her pub USA Correspondent: BobMcLain Nick Palmer, Wayne. which warned ‘No politics, No religion’: this Webmaster: Tom Fyfe [email protected] seems a pretty good motto for staying tolerant to Advertising Manager: Colin Forbes [email protected] me. I don’t promise to agree with you - hey, I don’t even have to agree with everything that gets printed in Flagship - but I reckon that SUBS, QUERIES & CONTRIBUTIONS Produced by Westpoint Ltd., Flagship, 14 The Hollows, Exmouth, 113 Fazeley St, Digbeth, Birmingham, B5 5RX, U.K. listening to game players is a fun way of listening Devon EX8 1QT Copyright © 2002 TimePatterns PBM Games. Articles to life. (01395) 276632 (9am-6pm) Next issue includes: Renaissance, Godfather, submitted to Flagship will be assumed to grant copyright [email protected] for first publication and non-exclusive republication by World's Apart, Harnmaster, and the Lost Gold www.pbmgames.com Flagship, unless otherwise agreed. of Stronnmark returns. ADVERTISING: 2A Guinea St, Exeter, EX1 1BS The views expressed by contributors do not necessarily represent the views of Flagship, TimePatterns PBM Tel: 01392 420582 [email protected] Games or any of the editorial staff. 4 FLAGPOLE - CELEBRATING FLAGSHIP'S 100TH ISSUE Flagship 100 A Founder's Memories NICK PALMER takes a frank look back ... ISSUE 100, good grief! Secrets’ would have strategy. ‘The Ghost in the Machine’ would cover Steve Tierney’s Retroscope and Bob McLain’s columns have already design issues. ‘Galactic View’ would list games in one convenient place. covered many of the early days, but readers may like to know a bit about And ‘The Spokesmen Speak’ [now ‘Newsdesk’] would corral the boring, how it seemed from the inside. Flagship was launched back in 1983, self-serving hype of the press releases into one place. The last was which seems another era altogether, like World War 1 or the Aztecs. I’d virtually unreadable, so we quickly