The 'issue' WITH ''Re-issues''

They're beginning to 'crop up' with much greater frequency, or so it 'seems' like this will become the FAD for many company's considerations. Sure, lots of them ought to get this 'treatment', while for many folks, then it will usually NOT become the 'one' of which they'd like. For myself, then it was Avalon Hill that tended to go whole-hog on their acquisitions from other GAME companies, when they 'gobbled' them up. Now, they didn't 'do' this with every 'product' from the many 'lines' of which that they could have, such as 'Battleline's' ''Insurgency'', ''Armor Supremacy'', ''Custer's Last Stand'', ''Objective: Atlanta'', ''Seven Days Battle'', ''Shenandoah'', ''Viva Espana!'', and some of their 'Rules Sets' as well. It's not like they already HAD anything produced on their OWN, based upon any of these mentioned, while it is too bad that they couldn't find the time & gumption for almost all of them. Then again, that has allowed plenty of others to fill in the gaps on these 'topics' as well, since I do believe that 'Decision Games' produced their own version of the ''Seven Days Campaign'' akin to their reissue of the ''Blue & Gray'' QUAD games, and even some others for that in a bunch of issues of 'S&T', when they were covering this. There have been several additional 'remakes' from a few relatively NEW Companies as well, as I've seen those over the years, or should I 'say' decades! I can think of even a ''Custer'' game being released here shortly and that looks to be very decent for it's subject matter, while many would believe it to be a 'lost cause' sort of background material. I happen to be a huge(and getting 'huger' in girth) FAN of the 'Cavalry & Injuns' types of games and even when we didn't have enough of that, then we'd even create some of our OWN! It would involve some 'Campaigns' using the Western portion of the ''War between the States'' gamemap, and allocating 'forces' around various locations on it. Then we would 'Strategically' move our Groups about, and when they encountered one another, we'd find and use an appropriate 'Battlemap' of some game's, and set up our 'Combattling' Units where they ought to 'be'. Since we only had the game counters from the 'Battleline' game of ''Custer's Last Stand'', or actually '2' complete sets of that, then we had to limit ourselves with just those. Yes, there were a few others out at the time and even somewhat later AFTER we had been getting into this, but they didn't mesh well with what we liked to become 'involved' in, with regards to our whimsy.

For those wishing to delve futher into the matter regarding 'rights' to publish something or another, then Good Luck! I know that it was mentioned at one time, about those for a certain game, of which it could be 'obtained' for the paltry sum of around $10,000, yet I wouldn't believe this until I actually saw the 'contract' concerning that. Still, many an owner of the original games under serious considerations feel somewhat justly, that theirs would somehow become 'devalued' with re-releases of them. Then there are the folks who just HAVE to 'have' the very first 'version' of one, for its 'collectibility' factor no doubt, and I'm not really that type, but if I can then I would get me one, and I have on several 'accounts'. But for the most part then I just 'lucked out' on these since I might have another later edition of which I happen to like better for the more obvious reasons on this. While even with the later & greater looking products, then it is just nice to know that having the ''one that begat the others'' has that certain desirability and will garner envious appeals from others. A very good example of this has to do with the original series of the ''Star Trek'' T V show and their 'Concordance' for that. Some of you might recall this with its slick front cover and the multitude of information minutae for the episodes of the '3' seasons contained within this. But what you probably didn't know until NOW, is that there was an earlier version of that and of which I happen to have a copy of IT! Mine 'only' contains & covers the very first '2' Seasons of the series, and is very plain looking with just Black & White typeface & drawings of the contents. I took this one time to a devout 'Trek' shop in the Tacoma area to get an appraisal from the owner of that establishment, and the look on his face was...''priceless''! He'd never seen or even heard of this particular 'one' that I had, and of course he wanted to 'buy' it from me at the time, but I said NO way! I'll bet that he's been trying to 'find' one ever since and this was like 7 or 8 years ago! They may not be too RARE, but they're most likely 'very' and I've never seen another just like this one, although the later version can be found much more easily. Yep, I'm fully admitting being a ''Trek'r'', while I'm NOT the 'only' one and I could 'name names', but I won't.

In relation to that as well, then I also have a copy of ''Lou Zocchi's'' Rules Set for the ''Star Fleet Battle Manual'' and then he lost the 'publishing rights' to another, of which 'Task Force Games' managed to get that. They made quite the pile'O'money off`n that, while yet another company might even be doing thusly even today. I even recall ole 'Lou' being the first to offer some very nicely detailed MINIS for the game, with some of these being White plastic, Clear plastic, and even ''Glow in the DARK'' plastics! For any 'die-hard' fan of whatever, then they don't care WHO happens to produce this sort of stuff, just as long as they can still get their 'fix' on the most recent product of it. I don't know if any of the ''Up Front'' crowd got the chance to actually 'see' the expansions that have just become available for that, but I did! It was even ON the BGG site and is where I got to view those, although I can't even recall their exact 'names' for them, but I did notice that one covered the Polish, and another was on the SS forces, and maybe '2' more, but I forget their exact details, so get busy and 'find' them yourselves since I've never 'cared' for this myself. Hey! I did discover one of these and it is called ''The Waffen SS'' (subtitled 'Fuhrer's Firemen') with the BGG Game ID of 19588-heh heh heh-''veeeeeery interestink!'' Maybe contact the guy who submitted this and then you too can take a gander at the others that I attempted to recollect. They must have been just submitted to the site during the past week, so if it helps anyone in their 'Quest' or search on this, then good for you! It sure was nice of 'moi' to at least have mentioned this for anyone else to partake of those once they've located them, although I couldn't re-locate the others from this one 'source', but maybe someone else will be able to?