Total War is getting much closer. We have signed off (and paid for) the counters and boxes. We have not received proof sheets for the map changes but we are expecting those soon. Once the proofs have been approved, we will receive a production date from the printers and can schedule shipping of the components here to Denver. We will let you know as soon as we know.

We Need Your House . . number that is. We are updating our preorder and TEM subscriber address file in preparation for mailing Total War and TEM 88. Due to new U.S. Postal regulations, bad addresses will be very costly for us and for our customers. We will have to pay full shipping to recover games or magazines sent to a bad address. That will have to be passed back to the customer. Please send us your current address, even if you have not preordered or subscribed. For those who have, we will be mailing preorders first to those who have updated their addresses recently. If we send a game or magazine to your old address and have not received your new location, we will be sending you that charge before we can remail the game or magazine. Please take a minute and e-mail or send your current address to HMS at the addresses below.

For those who are interested in receiving unfolded maps with your preorder, please indicate that when you send us your address. We will let you know by e-mail or post what the additional cost will be to substitute the flat maps for the folded set that comes with the game or to add an unfolded set to the preorder. This is not the only chance to order unfolded maps but it will be the least expensive.

We have asked that the final proofs be done on the same paper the maps will be printed on. This will allow us to accurately [[assess the final weight and thus]] predict the mailing cost and whether the shipping containers we would like to use will cause problems.

For those who wanted to wait until the last minute to order, this is the time. You won’t get the great preorder price but you can still get the bonus 1939 to 1942 Soviet OB and die-cut counters. Call 800 236-7442 to order.

E-mail your address and map interest to:

garolmsted@earthlink.net or ArthurGoodwin@netscape.com

or mail your address and interest in unfolded maps to:

Historical Military Services

c/o Gar Olmsted
540 S. Forest St. #G
Denver, CO 80246

or if your computer is down and stamps won’t stick, call us at: 303 377-6255

The web site has a new look, as you can see. The site is now searchable and has an archive of older postings.

The site will now allow moderated comments. Please feel free to comment. I will review and post all comments as time permits.

There is also a RSS feed (click the grey/red icon on the top right), so you can automatically see new site postings.

The dimensions of the Total War maps prompted questions from gamers looking to the next big game. Next in the East front series will be Turning Point, the 1942 campaign. The maps for Turning Point should fit on the same table used for Total War. Click here for a view of how the maps will lay out . The kids won’t mind sleeping on the couch..

The changes we recently announced to the map sizes have have been followed by a number of requests for the dimensions of the Total War maps. While the changes to the maps are underway, we wanted to let those working on the Total War layout know what the new maps will measure. We have a download that will give you the dimensions of the maps for Total War. The kid’s room could use a real table . . Click here

As we announced last week, we will have full sized maps after some extra work is done here to combine the half maps. We didn’t mention that the full-sided maps will cost HMS more. However, by specifying that the maps are to be delivered unfolded, we avoided the extra cost. This is not something the printer has ever done with sheets this large but they have suggested special packaging that should insure their safe arrival. We will have to fold the maps here but that will not take much extra time. The up side to this is that we will have unfolded map sets for sale. More details on this to follow later when we have a better idea of postage costs.