News from SPUK Over the past three months we have received numerous letters from Gamers asking how we intend to handle Phoenix once it has been successfully launched, happily I am now in a position to answer this question. Of the 95.29% S&T subscribers who wanted to subscribe to Phoenix, 85.39% wished to receive it as part of their S&T sub at the cost of 15p per issue whilst only 11.46% did not want this arrangement. Since this 11.46% did in fact want to subscribe to Phoenix we drew the conclusion that these people intended to drop their S&T subscriptions but that they still wanted to have Phoenix made available to them. Thus starting with issue 57 of S&T, subscriptions, both new and renewals, will increase in price to cover the cost of Phoenix (i.e.15p per issue). Those of you who have an S&T subscription running will not be asked to pay anything extra until your present sub runs out which means that Phoenix will not be paying for itself for approx.12 months. Until such time as it does, SPUK will continue to pick up the bill. Phoenix will also be made available to non subscribers, price details are given in our new brochure, a copy of which is enclosed. Continuing on the theme of Phoenix and what you want from it, we learnt from the Phoenix 1 feedback that 68.95% of you wanted SPUK staff to contribute articles. To counterbalance this 70.19% felt that Phoenix should concentrate on boardgame articles contributed by outsiders. This seeming contradiction leads us to believe that whilst you want to have your say in Phoenix, you also want to be sure of regular good quality articles. In order to satisfy both camps we have come up with the following compromise. SPUK staff will not in fact contribute articles since Phoenix is being produced as a platform for UK Gamers not for SPUK, however we have contacted six gamers who have agreed to contribute art- icles on a regular basis. All six have already submitted articles and these have proved to be of very high quality indeed, their future contributions will be the framework around which Phoenix will be built. Having said that we still want and need individual contributions so please keep them coming in. Having encrouched on the editor's ground for too long already I will now switch back to what this column is intended for and bring you up to date with developments at SPUK. First off I must apologise to those of you who did not receive a feedback card with S&T 56, these were packed during a week end when the management was swaning around Anglesey in a pair of swimming trunks, chasing the heatwave. The packers, in their blind enthusiasm, ripped out all the SPI inserts and neglected to insert our own brochures, but they did get them out on time which is some consolation. S&T 57 will have an SPI feedback and starting with issue 58, there will be two feedback cards in Phoenix, one for the Phoenix feedback and one for the S&T feedback. In S&T 57 out going mail J.F.D. breaks the bad news about certain price increases on 'Backlisted Games'. These increases will not effect UK Gamers for at least six months thanks to a deal hammered out with SPI. The only price increase to hit you games wise is 'Fast Carriers' which went up to $10.00 in the States earlier this year. The printing of 'Sinai', 'Seelowe' and 'Normandy' has proven to be a big success, at the close of the special offer we had sold 1168,1022 and 876 respectively, a total of 3066. Since we set a target of 3000 games in total to be sold, it is safe to say that we will be looking seriously at the possibility of printing more 'released games'. Nothing will be done until 1977 since we now have our busy period coming up and I doubt very much if we could handle a similar response in the middle of our winter season. The next new game to be printed over here will probably be 'Outreach', more details will be given in Phoenix 4. Two new SPI games now in stock are 'Terrible Swift Sword' and 'Russian Civil War'. 'Firefight' is expected late September, 'Napoleon's Last Battle Quads' late October, 'Wellington's Victory' and 'After the Holocaust' late November. Also expected by late November is the 'War in Europe Kit', this can be used in conjunction with 'War in the West' to make up the full 'War in Europe' game, cost œ6.75 boxed, œ5.75 unboxed. Moves 28 is scheduled to go into the post October 20th and S&T 58 on November 20th, 1976. In S&T 57 you will find an advert for 'Emperor of China', this is a non-SPI game and is not yet available in the UK, we are taking steps to obtain supply of this game, more about this in a later issue of Phoenix. On the subject of non-SPI games, the Phoenix 1 feedback has indicated that 66.21% of you would like us to stock more of these. This puts us in a rather awkward position as the presentation of some of these games is a little doubtful, to put it kindly. The following are two letters received on this subject:- "....ln case you haven't seen them I can comment on Jadgpanther Publications. The magazine 'Jadgpanther' is another attempt to do an S& T, and quality is fair. The magazine is produced by a photo-reduction process and has single colour card covers. I have two copies, No. 11 containing 'The March on India 1944'and No.12 containing 'Anvil-Dragoon'. The magazine carries an article to go with each game and the rest is made up of game variants and 'boundin' rulesheets. I think the contents are rather poor, very amateur. The games themselves at first glance don 't look bad. The game maps are professionally printed and of good quality. The counters are well printed but are on very thin card-- before you can play they must be remounted. As for the play of the games-- I have not played 'The March on India 1944' but can comment on 'Anvil-Dragoon'--it's hopeless! Poor rules--no play balance, a situation that would never make a game in the first place. As for the rest of Jagdpanther's output--Bataan is crude and poorly printed from what I have seen. 'Span ish Civil War' has had favourable reports. 'Marine' was in the magazine so above comments apply.'' Geoff Geddes, Nottingham ''.... I see from it (Phoenix) that you are considering stocking products from the J.P. (Jadgpanther) people. I think you are buying yourself a load of trouble if you do so. I have been dealing with them through Omar Dewitt, for over a year and believe me, their service, even to Omar, has been atrocious. Far worse even than the old Poultron Press experiences. The games too, leave a lot to be desired. Indeed they are reminiscent of the old test series, only worse, thin counters, pitiful map, half tested rules and not even a decent game at the end of it I shudder to think of the impression a newcomer to the hobby would have of SPUK if he received as his first game 'Bataan' or 'Anvil-Dragoon'. Please Malcolm, don't read this letter as a criticism of SPUK My intention is only to pass on to you my own opinions of J.P. for what they are worth in the hope that it will save yourself and others a load of trouble." Dennis Wilson, Boston Bearing these comments in mind, I trust that you will understand if we do not rush into a huge spending spree on non-SPI games. l have never felt that it was my place to judge a game on its playability, or subject matter, one man's meat...etc, however I do believe that we have a responsibility to set a minimum standard on the physical quality of the games that we handle and it is quite on the cards that we will reject certain titles (even if they have been feedbacked) because they do not come up to this standard. We learnt a good deal from our first feedback, much of it reinforced our own beliefs but there were one or two surprises for us. The biggest surprise was the number of subscribers who wanted to see more shops stocking SPI games, 66.82% of you did. In response to this we mailed out details of SPI games to over 300 hobby shops in mid-July, it remains to be seen what sort of response we get. So far we have had encouraging signs from one large northern multiple store and frorn a small chain of hobby shops. According to your answers our service rates high, 71.66% put our service at between 7 & 9 (good-excellent), 47.87% felt our service was improving against 3.36% who felt it was declining. Our after sales service was not quite so hot with only 65.09% giving us bet ween 7 & 9. There was a distinct no to the suggestion that we should stock non-wargame board games and miniatures, books you were a bit more enthusiastic about. 82.09% of you were gaming with miniatures before you took up boardgaming and the majority of you boardgame because they give you more scope than figures and are more convenient. 86.12% buy predominantly SPI games and mainly because of quality (18.88%), availability (27.13%) and range of topics covered (34.04%). SPUK prices are competitive, so say 71.16%. 3.5% only subscribe to S&T for the discount but 11.76% would not re-subscribe if we dropped said discount. Point taken, it will not be dropped.44.26% are encouraged to buy more games because of the multiple discount, and 10.48% are unhappy with us for drop ping the 6 month sub. In deference to that 10.48% we have re-instated the 3 issue sub. My apologies for the brevity of the feedback report but I do not want to eat too far into the article space. Finally, Origins 3 (the big US Wargamers Convention) is to be held in New York next year. There is no definite date yet but it will be around the end of July. SPI have suggested that we might like to charter a plane to go over to this. I have contacted Thos. Cook and they reckon they can fix us up with a return flight from Manchester to New York plus 2 weeks bed and breakfast for around œ240.00 - œ250.00 per head. If anyone is interested in spending their holidays in New York next year please let me know, if there is truly an interest in such a venture I will be happy to organise the trip. Malcolm Watson