Its finally that time of year: time for Fine Games' ANNUAL CLEARANCE SALE. Plus, we have a host of other info to convey to you, our valued customer. So much so that we recommend reading this Newsletter in its elaborated form on our web site at: <http://www.finegames.com/newsltrs/archives/2011/fg_111711.htm> [this page]

 

TOPICS: * Annual Clearance * Big New Game Releases * Going Out of Print * FG on Amazon.com * Personal Games for Sale * Game Industry Changes * UPS MyChoice * Lost Customers * This & More Online

 

This online version of our emailed Newsletter elaborates on many of the topics touched on in the emailed version.

 

Our ANNUAL CLEARANCE SALE begins today. As always, it will include several "rounds" or sale offerings. Round 1 focuses on the full breadth our of Magazine & Mag-Games inventory. We offer over 400 unique items with discounts of 10-30% off our everyday, already discounted prices. This is the time to fill in the holes in your collection of S&Ts, World at Wars, ATOs, Commands, Vae Victis, C3is & AH Generals. Now thru 30 Nov.

 

For full details of our Annual Clearance Sale, go to <http://www.finegames.com/eoy_clear.htm>.

 

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Many BIG, NEW GAME RELEASES to report.

 

Decision Games published a rash of games recently including a 3rd edition of Totaler Krieg ($90) which now mates with a new sister game, Dai Senso! ($90) to cover WW2 thruout the world in a well-received, card-influenced game system. In addition, they recently published Conquerors 2nd ($60); Mighty Fortress 2nd ($30, and a might nice deal for what has always been a personal fav); Ancient Conquest 2nd ($35), and John Hill's popular Battle for Stalingrad 2nd ($43). And then there are the mags: World at War #21, Rhineland War 1936-7; S&T 271 Kharkov & S&T 272 Lepanto, each $22.50.

 

Multi-Man reprinted King & Country ($70) and the Rules binder($70), and will release its biggie, Where Eagles Dare ($125), in a week or so. They had a bad batch of countersheets that delayed this one. This is the sister game to the sadly out-of-print & missed Devil's Cauldron; together, these cover all of Op. Market-Garden in Sept. 1944. In December, MMP expects to release ASL Action Pack #8 ($28), Angola 2nd ($55; we have the Ragner Bros 1st ed available via our personal games).

 

And of course GMT has good good stuff out. They've reprinted Twilight Struggle 5th/Deluxe ($42); Labyrinth ($42); and Urban Sprawl, an interesting game akin to the SimCity PC game in that players build a city & encounter the problems growth creates in the modern world.

 

Against the Odds mag #has Meatgrinder 2nd ($28), a reworking of Perry Moore's game of the bitter two week, last ditch defense of Saigon by an ARVN division deemed "unreliable." It arrives here next week.

 

As always, you can follow new game releases on our web site at http://www.finegames.com/text/new_rels.txt

 

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Things come, and they also go. Going is the very notable 4th ed of La Bataille de Moscowa ($112.50). It will be out-of-print soon, only 6 months after its publication. Such is wargaming in the 2010s (see below for more on that). Best act now...

 

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We've added about 6 apple boxes of games from my personal collection in recent weeks, with more to come. These are now listed within all our normal catalogs so you don't have to do any special search to see them. We'll be adding more, and in 2012 we'll offer a set of Poultron Press games via private auction. (Poultron Press was the predecessor to SPI, one of Dunnigan's little jokes was that it mean 'idiot press' in French. These games set the stage for SPI's glory days.)

 

There are lots & lots of odd games, rarities and some jewels as well among the many games I've thrown on the block. As you might expect, most are very clean & well taken care of. Its just that as I look toward the future, to my own tastes in what I'd play even given infinite time (ala retirement), and also to the prospect of moving all this 'stuff' again someday, I think it best to lighten the load somewhat. Cause no matter how much I cull, it seems to make hardly a dent.

 

You can view these personally-owned games within each of Fine Games' normal catalogs; they're now integrated. But if you want to look at only my personal games, you can do this via http://www.finegames.com/text/personal.txt. Note that this list is updated 1-2 times a month.

 

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We report here on some significant recent changes in the game industry - none for the better.

 

Columbia Games just this week announced a Minimum Advertised Price policy that demands purveyors of their products sell at no less than 90% of list price. We've generally sold at about 80% of list for as long as we've carried their products, and its not like we're sweeping the market even then. For us, it means that this slow-moving line of perfectly good games will move even slower if and when we adhere to this policy. Another possibility is to simply sell off what we have at current or reduced prices. Seems silly, but these are the kinds of actions-reactions slowly degrading the wargame business as we've known it. (Read the policy, which dictates not only advertised price by actual selling prices at http://www.columbiagames.com/trade/)

 

Then Decision Games, perhaps the single biggest force in the wargame industry currently due to its 2 & soon 3 magazines & its many board games, changed minimum order terms. It makes sense from their own operational standpoint. But the effect for dealers is to make it more difficult to order from them at all, and to restock games freely. Two examples: they will ship orders of their boxed games during a 5-day window out of each month. And recently they simply skipped shipping S&T271 to us due to the change of their terms, despite have a standing order that goes back nearly 17 years. We'll adapt to this by ordering fewer magazines so that we can meet the higher minimums when we need to. And we'll have to increase our normal stock of board games to accommodate the longer lead times to restock. All of which takes more time, more investment to satisfy a declining demand.

 

We placed an order on a secondary distributor a couple of weeks ago. We ordered one (1) of many items, which was good because that was all they had in most cases. Which is pretty sad, since they are are distributor, and our stocking level as a retailer was deeper than theirs.

 

We placed a large order with Critical Hit in March. Followed up on it several times thru June. Ray said they were "busy" but assured us it would be shipped "soon." Never seen any it. Still. Since life is short, I gather its one of those autistic divorces....

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You can determine when UPS delivers your packages using MyChoice at UPS.com.

 

Sometimes the 800 pound gorilla of the shipping industry gets things right for all concerned. UPS recently announced a new and free ability that anyone receiving packages thru UPS can use to regulate & change just when delivery is made. If you sign up for MyChoice on the UPS.com web site, you can alter the default delivery timing of packages coming your way. You can authorize a "driver release" so that the package is left on your doorstep with the need for anyone to be home. You can even alter the delivery address for a fee.

 

Its a useful feature we recommend you take advantage of. And its one of those all too rare examples of technology being used for mutual advantage.

 

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Fine Games is now on Amazon.com. We explored it with the hope of finding some incremental business. We're finding that the more abstract & family-oriented games have a good market there. And close to 50% of our customers are women (definitely not typical of our customer base)! We're also gaining contact with many wargamers that seem not to be well connected to the hobby, and thus are entirely fresh blood. We have only a few hundred items listed, but we've only been on for less than 2 months.

 

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Our special offer on the RANGER 4.1 BUNDLE ($79) by Omega Games continues. But our $5 back offer expires in December. For more info & pictures, see <http://www.finegames.com/Ranger_offer.htm>

 

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All the 14,000+ gaming items available at any of our primary distributor's 4 warehouses are always available to you at hefty discounts of up to 35% if they are special ordered for you. You get the best possible prices in exchange for a longer turn-around time. Plus, you can clearly see how 'available' any given item is based on how many of the 4 warehouses it is available from, and whether its in the key western warehouse. See our New Game Price List w/ Availability at:

 

<http://www.FineGames.com/text/newgamepricelist.pdf>

 

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Other items mentioned only in this elaborated newsletter online (aren't you glad you read this?):

• Christmas Shipping Guidelines: USPS & UPS have both become pretty proficient in handling the holiday shipping season. While nothing is "guaranteed" during most of December, we are pretty comfortable suggesting normal transit times of up to 8 days within the continental US. Still, for you procrastinators out there, best to place any last-minute orders you need before Xmas by ~14 Dec on the east coast of the US, somewhat later for the western states. For our customers in other nations & APO/FPO addresses, very early December is about your last hope.
  
  Our last shipping day of the year is Friday, 23 December, at about noon.
  
• We have a What's New page visible thru our RSS feed, and also via a link in the left side bar. You may find it handy to keep up on things here.
  
• Lost Customers: we snail mailed several hundred of our customers we no longer have valid email addresses for in October. Many have moved and so are lost to us. If you have a moment, check out our Lost Customer list to see if you recognize anyone listed in your current or recent location. Perhaps you can put us back in touch with someone you game with?
  
• Fine Games offers many services to our subscribed customers. In particular, you'll receive timely notification of Fine Games special sales as well as our insights into this funny little hobby and the industry that supports it via our emailed Update Newsletter (which you are reading here). We maintain a want-list for you so that whenever we see a game item in our stock that you've been looking for, we notify you of its availability with a complete description and price. (No commitment to buy it, but we keep you informed.) And we also pre-order games such you will receive the first copy in the door here, guaranteeing yourself a copy as soon as we get them.
  
  Subscribe now if you aren't receiving our emailed Newsletter already.
  
• Our September newsletter, sent on 12 September, bore a subject including the words "9/11 Specials." One one person mentioned this, but still we'd like to make our intent clear. That was that we were associating our newsletter with a very specific time, one that many if not most of us remember vividly just where we were on that day in 2001. A short paragraph early in our newsletter spoke to that.
  
  Here, I just want to make it clear that we were not making 9/11 of each year into another shopping opportunity. In hindsight, it was a poor choice to use 9/11 in our subject line. I apologize if this was read as a flippant use of the date.

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