GOLDEN ANNIVERSARY VOLUME Celebrating 50 Years of Service and Participation in the Wargaming Community Volume 50, Issue 1 February 2015 The Kommandeur : Conflict Simulation Comment and Analysis From the President Kenneth Oates From the Editor We are well into a New Year, and I hope you are all We are officially into our 50th-year celebration. enjoying at least one game in process. This past year I Three contests are in this issue. More will follow. A was fortunate in meeting quite a few new opponents, reproduction of the first Kommandeur is printed on and I look forward to more of the same in the coming pages xx-1x. The first issue was printed on one 8½ x 12 months. 11 sheet of paper and folded in half. I have enlarged One of those begun last year (and still in progress) the reproduction so it can be read more easily. How- is the AHIKS Hunters Tournament. Check out the ever, the quality is not high. forum to read about the exploits of submariners in the The various photos of our early officers are from Battle of the Atlantic. This is a good little solitaire my files. game published by Consim Press. On the horizon is The K at the top of the page was a contribution Silent Victory , the Pacific Theater version. from Redmond Simonson. He was going to create a And this year is a lot about looking back, across 50 complete Germanic alphabet but never got around to it. years of competitive gaming. The celebration has I am sorry to see the football season end. I will es- started with The Russian Campaign tournament. But, pecially miss the pickup truck commercials in which how about some personal remembrances, maybe about they speed through large puddles spraying up huge your first match or great plans gone awry? AHIKS is waves of water. made up of game players, how about sharing those ex- There were extra odd spaces in this issue, so I will periences of the past in the next months? It does not put various odds and ends in these spaces and ask you have to be a long article, just a sentence or two, maybe to identify them. Identify them as well as you can. In- a paragraph. stead of writing "Stuka," give the model number and By the way, take a look at the masthead. It was de- the date it came off the assembly line (well, maybe not signed by Bob Best and will be used for this year. that specific). The winner will receive a game or two Great job, Bob! books. If I listed the books and games, I would have to Another blast from the past will be the reinstitution add three more pages to this issue. The winner will of the Iron Man Trophy at the WBC this year. Randy receive a list and he or she may pick from the list. An Heller has agreed to take this under his wing. It will be example of a book would be Max Hastings’ great to see AHIKS take part in one of the greatest “Catastrophe 1914: Europe Goes to War.” An example conventions held each year. of a game is Borderlands from 1982 published by Eon And looking over the pre-pub lists from the game Products; another game is Mark Herman’s Empire of publishers, this promises to be a banner year, which the Sun published in 2005 (still in shrink wrap). I will will be covered in The K . need any entries in hand by midnight March 14, a Sat- And so, we enter our special anniversary year cele- urday. Send them email or by USPS. bration. Enjoy the special attractions, the articles in The K ! Kenneth 2 The Kommandeur Secretary’s Notes Bob Best Today is Sunday, January 17, 2015. Happy New Year to you The Members' Guide covers how to obtain passwords, request all! game matches, and how to play-by-mail and email, along with a Well, I hope Santa brought you all some interesting and fun number of other AHIKS related topics. games for Christmas, and I hope all of you are now enjoying a Charles Marshall, our Vice President and Web Master, is favorite game or two as we begin a new year here at AHIKS. looking into making an upgrade to the AHIKS website that will Our big news this issue is that our newsletter turns fifty. allow a member to change his snail mail or email address di- That's right. This is the first issue of Volume 50 for The K ! The rectly from the AHIKS home page. This module will send a K newsletter has been in continuous publication now for 50 member's new information directly to all of the people here at years, and I believe that is a first for any wargaming group in AHIKS who need to know about these changes to keep your K the world! Certainly something worth celebrating and that is coming to you without interruption. This is a continuing project what we plan to do for this whole upcoming year. So, Happy from 2014. Golden Anniversary to AHIKS' Kommandeur. May we make it The Executive Committee has also been working with another 50 years! Robert Granville to set up a tournament of Avalon Hill's The In celebration of the Golden Anniversary Year we have cre- Russian Campaign . A $100 cash prize has been donated by ated a special masthead for this issue. We plan to run some of member Joel Ramsey for the winner of the tournament. Thank the other mastheads that have graced the cover of the Komman- you, Joel! The tournament is currently in progress, and Robert is deur over the past 50 years, too, so be sure to check them out as posting updates on the AHIKS Forum, the AHIKS Facebook each issue is published during 2015. page, and in The K . We are also running a few contests to kick things off. Our And your Officer Corps have been working and preparing Treasurer Brian Stretcher has put together a contest that I think for the Golden Anniversary year celebrating the 50th year of you will all enjoy. See Brian's contest article for the details but I continuous publication of the AHIKS Kommandeur. You will can say that the prize will be a shrink-wrapped copy of Bitter see the results of their efforts throughout calendar year 2015. Woods , an Avalon Hill Classic on the Battle of the Ardennes designed by the noted game designer and AHIKS member AHIKS Dues for 2015 Randy Heller. The game was donated by Dave Bergmann our For any of you that may still be wondering, dues are free for Ratings Officer. Thank you, Dave! 2015 if you get either an email attachment or member download And there is a "Secretary's Choice" contest with some inter- from the AHIKS website. Our few remaining print subscribers esting "goodies" for our members, to see who has been visiting have been advised by mail of the 2015 subscription rates. the AHIKS Forum and following our ongoing Starship Troop- ers game there. If you don't have computer access you can still The Ironman Competition play as the answers can all be found in the 2014 newsletters. As a reminder, the Boardgame Players Association (BPA) We also have some nostalgia in this issue for you including will hold their annual World Boardgaming Championships an article on how AHIKS got its start along with some interest- (WBC) August 3-9, 2015, at the Lancaster Host Resort in Lan- ing comments from AHIKS' first President Fred Webster from caster, PA. Member Randy Heller has volunteered to organize the very first issue of The K . Your Officer Corps is working and run AHIKS' Ironman Competition at WBC this year for hard to make the Golden Anniversary Year celebration enjoy- AHIKS. Randy will be heading up the Ironman Committee and able for all our members. We hope you find them interesting is still asking for input on what game(s) should be the focus of and fun! this year's trophy competition. Randy plans to streamline the administrative paperwork to keep it to a minimum, and AHIKS The "State of AHIKS" will be offering a $50 gift certificate prize to the 2015 winner. This is the start of a new year here at AHIKS, so we will be So, if you have any ideas, please contact Randy. We hope you presenting our "State of AHIKS" report. This past year has been will be attending the event and playing in the AHIKS Ironman a busy one for your Officer Corps. Recruiting new members has games! Thank you, Randy, for taking on this project. We appre- been a priority for this slate of officers. As a result, our mem- ciate your contribution! bership continues to grow steadily. As of today, we have 429 members. Last year at this time we had 385 members in the On the AHIKS Forum Gaming Front society. The year before that we had a total membership of 339. The Hunters long campaign tonnage game being run by That shows a continued growth rate of approximately 14% per Duncan Rice, our Match Coordinator, on the AHIKS Forum is year over the past two years. progressing into the summer of 1940 as I write this. We have Another goal of your Officer Corps for this past year was to five U-Boat skippers taking their Type VII U-Boats into enemy update the Members' Guide. It has been many years since this waters hunting British merchantmen and warships.