Let's crack on with this because I want to watch The People v OJ Simpson in a bit.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS: A really big wargame set in the Indian Mutiny on the cover and I mean really big in the amount of troops and things happening. One of the best MW covers I've seen.
BRIEFING: Henry pays his own personal tribute to the late Bob Marrion, military artist, who died towards the end of 2015.
WORLD WIDE WARGAMING: There's a bit on the new look MW website, which it now shares with Tabletop Gaming magazine. Elsewhere there's hints and tips about starting and finding gaming Facebook pages and the blog of the month; Wargaming for Grown Ups.
FORWARD OBSERVER: Neil Shuck extols the virtues of gaming with cardboard counters…not quite the same as board wargaming, but wargaming with counters…get my drift? The woes of pain-on varnish (oh look, someone's snowed on my model soldiers) and spray basecoats. It's often the less glamorous side of the hobby that throws a spanner in the works. Yep, I've been there, Neil.
CLAPPING IN TIME: Save up those Starbucks and Costa wooden coffee stirrers (and your free My Waitrose coffees as well) because they're ideal for making American clapboard style walls. Anyway, as usual, it's all here for you to try at home.
FANTASY FACTS: John T casts his eyes over the new 7TV second edition plus some superb figures just released (Nanu Nanu), Beyond the Gates of Antares (I'm still imagining Lt Uhura singing that tune) which he's played as well, and the latest hard SF offerings from Brigade. Lovely photos included.
SEND THREE AND FOURPENCE: Conrad Kinch offers some thoughts on setting victory conditions for scenarios. Again, this article could have been twice as long given that he raises some interesting points but just misses out on expanding on them.
BOB MARRION: A tribute from Charles S Grant to the aforementioned Bob Marrion. It's brief but heartfelt and there's a good selection of his excellent artwork on show.
THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING: Carving out your own pocket empire in an Imagi-nations setting, a genre MW is often quite keen on. It's a campaign system which can suit various rules and even eras, from ancients to right up to the end of the Colonial era.
HAMMERHEAD 2016: the pull out centre section of the magazine devoted to the show. It's nice MW has expanded from just offering a pull out Salute guide and is now covering other shows, including this highly regarded newcomer to the scene.
TRAVEL TILES: Now this is interesting. Almost following on from Neil Shuck's piece about the convenience of cardboard counters for wargames, here Paul D Stevenson shows how you can flip over a standard Styrofoam terrain tile and paint 2D terrain onto the white side for quick, fast play battles. His artwork is very good.
EINDECKER: Part 1 of a 2 part series looking at the Fokker scourge of 1916, and in particular the Fokker monoplane that dominated the skies for a while. This is all history and scene setting, presumably the gaming side will be covered in part 2. I found this very interesting.
HEX ENCOUNTER: Brad Harmer-Barnes on the importance of narrative and storytelling in games, without getting bogged down in too much detail. Now one boardgame comes under fire here: Advanced Squad Leader. Yes, I know it's a behemoth with a daunting rule book and yes I know how much detail there is and how that does put people off but….dammit, it's got EVERYTHING! I still love it, I can't hate it and I feel protective about it, Brad. And it's still going which means it must be doing something right. Oh, and Star Trek is better than Star Wars.
A GAME EFFORT: Turning the books and the TV show Game of Thrones into a wargame. The writer is having fun writing this and his enthusiasm shows through but he wonders what rules to use for it? He's looking for a skirmish game and settles for the now out of print Games Workshop Lord of the Rings set. I was sitting there shouting out DRAGON RAMPANT! Well, in my head I was. Anyway this is a hefty article with the special rules woven into the text instead of bullet points and charts but you get a scenario thrown in and an AAR.
RECCE: The new Painting War book about the SCW and Charles S Grant's Refighting the 7 Years War Fighting Withdrawls get a review; two slightly off the well beaten path topics there. Elsewhere there's the Z War One boardgame and Star Wars Imperial Assault game.
SUMMARY: I really enjoyed reading this one. It does a bit of everything and it does it nicely. This issue has found a good mixture of the gaming past, present and future and perhaps it's well poised to be the one of the three biggie titles to have that overarching perspective on the hobby.