OSG Report / October 2008

[kzucker]

OSG REPORT
October 24th 2008

Contents:
Page 1) Announcing OSG's Biggest Sale
Page 2) Where do We go from Here
Page 3) Special Offers, Order Form

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Operational Studies Group News Oct. 24, 2008 Page One

OSG's BIGGEST SALE EVER! 50%-off Going Out-of-Business Sale...

After over ten years in business, OSG is closing the doors forever at the end of November 2008.

If there are any items that you want to complete your collection, better order them soon. All merchandise that is still on the premises on November 24th will be sold into distribution channels.

Take 50% off the suggested retail price of any item in stock (see prices at the end of this email). ALL offers expire November 24th, 2008. All Sales Final. There will be no OSG customer service or replacement parts service after November 30th, 2008.

Take an additional $7 off the price of any game if you want the game in ziploc (unboxed).

We've had a great run, we have accomplished a lot in moving the state of the art forward, and almost completed a survey of all the Napoleonic campaigns. I sincerely hope you will continue to enjoy the games we have produced. It has been my great pleasure to serve you and an honor to be your guide. Fare well friends ...

-Kevin Zucker

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Operational Studies Group News Oct. 24, 2008 Page Two

Where Do We Go From Here?
In 2005, while I was working on Four Lost Battles, I had a number of small symptoms, nothing really wrong, weird headaches and the like; but I felt like I was dying. Later, it turned out I had been infected with Lyme Disease, which medical tests had not revealed. In the process of recovery, I discovered the Bach Flowers, a form of vibrational healing that helped me so profoundly that I began to study the theory and use of these remedies, and began to consult for my friends and neighbors.

Some of you may know that, in addition to being an expert on Napoleonic History, I am also a trained music teacher. For many years I have been pursuing the link between music and healing. The Flower Remedies added a piece to my understanding of this art, and I will be going into this work full time. Please see my new website- http://www.pathforhumanity.com

If you, or some one you know, are suffering, but you don't know why and doctors are unable to make a diagnosis, I am now available for consultations either by email, phone or in person.

-Kevin Zucker

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Operational Studies Group News Oct. 24, 2008 Page Three

ORDER FORM

IF YOU HAVE PRE-ORDERED The German Campaigns and you have already sent payment, please check box below to indicate how you’d like OSG to handle your credit:


[ ] Apply to purchase of in-print OSG games (see below)
[ ] Apply to Vibrational Healing consultation http://www.pathforhumanity.com
[ ] Contribute to OSG contingency fund (thanks!)
[ ] OSG to issue refund (paypal)


You can print this form and include a check, or make a purchase at our online store ... http://www.napoleongames.com/store.html

Indicate quantity of each item desired and total.

Shipping: Make sure you add postage for each game and extra postage for overseas orders.

TITLE / ITEM * PRICE

Special Study Nr. 2: Pultusk* $40.00 50%-off=$20.00

Special Study Nr. 3: Eylau $40.00 50%-off=$20.00

Special Study Nr. 4: Friedland $40.00 50%-off=$20.00

The Habit of Victory $81.00 50%-off=$40.50

Napoleon at the Crossroads $53.00 50%-off=$26.50

Four Lost Battles $76.00 50%-off=$38.00

Seven Days of 1809* $56.00 50%-off=$28.00

The Sun of Austerlitz* $52.00 50%-off=$26.00

1806: Rossbach Avenged $48.00 50%-off=$24.00

Napoleon at Bay Deluxe Edition $120.00 50%-off=$60.00

The Last Days of the Grande Armée* $40.00 50%-off=$20.00

Wargame Design Nr. 8 50%-off=$2.25

Wargame Design Nr. 11/12* Double issue (48 pages) 50%-off=$5.50

Shipping, US and Canada: First game $7, each additional $4.
Shipping, Overseas airmail: First game $17, each additional $8

Complete Your Order:

SHIPPING ________

LESS TGC CREDIT ________

ORDER TOTAL ________


Name______________________________________________ ____

Address___________________________________________ _____

City__________________________State_______Zip_____ _____

Country___________________________________________ ____

[kzucker]

OSG SHIPPING UPDATE
November 15th 2008

Now I want to thank everyone on this list for participating in the Closing Sale. So many people wrote of good wishes (see a selection below). We are working hard to empty the warehouse. However we cannot stop to respond to every query or we will never get the games shipped. Thank You for your understanding. Enjoy the games now and in years to come! -Kevin Zucker

INVENTORY SELL-OFF CONTINUES
We were surprised by the avalanche of 600 orders during the sale. Based upon the demand we ordered a few parts from our printer, box manufacturer and die-cutter (in cases where all other parts were on hand), so as to offer additional copies of the following titles (only):

-Habit of Victory box or zip
-Napoleon at the Crossroads zip
-Four Lost Battles zip
-1806 Rossbach Avenged zip

The abovementioned items will go on sale for 40%-off at our storepage (see "Online Discounts") AFTER we have shipped the current backlog of orders.

READERS RESPONSE TO OSG CLOSURE

Kevin, Although I’m disappointed to see OSG go, I greatly appreciate all your efforts and wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors. I often thought about coming up to Baltimore to help out with game assembly, but unfortunately never found the time.
Kevin,
I am so sorry to hear about your condition and wish you a quick recovery. Take care of yourself and the best of luck in the future. Words are insufficient to say thank you for everything you have done. You and OSG will be missed.
Dan
PS: In the last years before my father passed away, he became involved in both music and meditation as a way to cope and find balance.
It really helped him more than the dozen or so pills he took.
Positive thinking and feeling do indeed heal.
Anyway, good luck with this new path. It will be a success, I'm sure.

I think I'll be playing forever those games. Have I your permission to create vassal modules for playing with my friends? It's a shame that I can enjoy them only once a year because I moved from my parent's house. If you ever come to Navarre, or Spain ...
Sincerely, Edgar.
Hi Kevin,
Your announcement has left me without words, really. I'm sure you has deliberated your decision a lot, and think it's the best for you. But I was accustomed to "grow" with your games. I liked a lot the napoleonic age before, but it has been the main habit
Best wishes, we have only one life.
Edgar.
Hey Kevin,
I will not join the concert of tears and sweet stuff on Consim...
What else... you are not dead ! just changing life. I know what that is, I wish you the best.
Didier
I know better than to try to talk an intelligent person out of a decision he has already made. Perhaps if someday you decide you want to take up a hobby you might consider Napoleonic studies(?). Best of luck and great success in your new endeavour. Thx
Kevin:
I am very sorry to hear of the demise of OSG and your ongoing health problems. Although I have not financially contributed to your company, you have had my moral support over the years.
I fondly look back at the day Mark and I visited your Baltimore home. You were very kind to host our game play that particular day. I want you to know that you were, excuse the pun, instrumental in motivating me to return to playing the violin.
I looked for you at WBC this past summer, but noted you were not there. Perhaps it was due to health issues. In any event, I trust we will cross paths again.
If you have an OSG game design in your inventory that covers the Waterloo campaign, please mail it to me, along with an additional set of unpunched counters and I will promptly remit the discounted sale price.
Randy Heller
My best wishes for the future and thank *you* for bringing the Napoleonic world to life for us.
Karoly
Kevin.
I'm a firm believer in both positive thinking and especially music.
Music stirs something deep inside and brings back great memories.
Take care and fly high.
Robert Tunstall
Kevin, best of luck and all good wishes! We didn’t meet, but I feel like I’ve come to know you over the years. Your wargaming work has brought me countless hours of pleasure, and a deep appreciation of the Napoleonic era. Thank you so much for all that.
Kevin,
Very sorry to see you go, so to speak. Though, who knows, perhaps one day you'll resume designing and/or publishing wargames again. If so, please do let me know. I appreciate your work and output over these many years.
Kevin,Best of luck in your new endeavour. Sorry to hear about closing OSG :-(.
Thank you for teaching me a lot about Napoleonic era and experience with designing board games!best wishes,
Mikolaj Lenczewski
Good evening Sir,I would like just to thank you for all the hours of enjoyment and history debates we had - and I'm sure we will still have - around your Nap. games : I just remember how fascinated I was when I first discovered my first "Kevin Zucker game."
I modestly feel like a simple sad "grognard", in front of "les Adieux de Fontainebleau à la vieille garde". Maybe will you come back one day from "l'Ile d'Elbe" ?I wish you all the best in your future projects.
Keep courage, I think you should be quite busy these days !"Vive l'Empereur !" Robin ALLOUI

Shoot...given my backlog I just read this for the first time.
WHAT A DRAG!!! I'm truly saddened.
Thank you for so many unbelievably great games and memories that will
continue to live on my gaming table. You are one of the good ones!
jfk
Hello Kevin
I am sad to her about your health.
My best wishes for you and all the best in the future.
Thanks for all nice Games & Support.
Jürgen Kasperzak
Quirxel Games

I'm still playing Struggle of Nations, still trying to crack Napoleon's problem with those little "packages."
My old copy of Napoleon at Bay is in the store room because I have the new copy. And I have still have a browning Xerox copy of the TSG Rules for NaB.
It's been a long ride. Thanks again. Just placed an order for Four Battles.
Goodbye old friend. 30 years I've been buying and playing your games. You've done some fantastic work. Good luck.
Roger Pearce

Sorry to hear that Kevin - I have followed your work since the first Napoleonic games in the 70's and I treasure your games....even if I don't find time to play anymore - I guess there's always retirement. Good luck on your new endeavours ...
Colin Fraser
Hi Kevin!
At first I thought: what a sad news!
Then, reading through your mail, I realized that you have moved to something else that maybe it's more important to humankind than Napoleonic warfare. Yet, your gaming work can be seen as a set of several huge milestones in the wargaming world.
Anyway, thank you for everything you designed, developed and produced.
I hope you to have all the health you deserve. I'll take the chance to look at your new website (I've already given it a glance; it seems very interesting and akin to other my interests. I'll go in depth at the first free moment).
Take care! Ciao (arrivederci!)
Alessandro
Kevin,
I'm really sorry to hear that you are shuttering OSG. I guess will have to learn to love those microscopic hexes in my AH copy of Struggle of Nations. :-)
Thanks -- and more power to you in your new endeavor. I really admire somebody who is willing to follow their unconventional dreams. Roger Pearce
Kevin,I’m sorry you’re leaving the business, but I wish you the best of luck in the future. I’ve just placed an order.-Jim
Kevin, I am saddened at our loss of your talents as a designer. I have a number of your games, and have enjoyed them, and the website. You and I had lunch some years back – 2004 or so – when I was down to visit my son at Peabody.
Hi Kevin,
Well, I am glad you are well and happy with your new projects. I am very fond of music: All the evenings, when I arrive from work, I spend 2 hours or more as a home-teacher of violin for them (you know, kind of Suzuki method with strong support at home).
It´s sad to see the end of OSG though :-(
I´ve liked your games a lot over the years, specially the GCoN, even if I never understood why the rules allow attacks of 1 hex vs 2 hexes and 2 hexes vs 1 hex, but not 2 hexes vs 2 hexes. I think it´s a mistake due to the original game system having been
Joaquin
Kevin,
I am sad to see OSG close its doors once again, but wish to encourage you in
your new pursuits--you are the most "renaissance" and eclectically-bent
Renaissance Man I've ever come across!
It will be a long time before these wargame designs of yours are superceded,
if ever.
Semper Fidelis,
Colonel Eric M. Walters, USMC

[kzucker]

I have enjoyed immensely all the games and books from OSG from the very begining. And of course I was selfishly expecting the new titles at the rate
of one or so per year. Sort of relieve for me. It is interesting
that you are going to devote your time now to music and healing:
I reckon that playing (mainly solo) and reading Napoleonics has
always had a sort of soothing, healing, certainly benefical
effect on me for many years now.

Andres Mujica
Hi Kevin,
Now that is quite a surprise! Are you dedicating yourself 100% to
herbal healing now?
In any case, I wish you all well in your new life.
Pierre

Thank you for the note and I am so very sorry to hear about OSG’s demise and your own struggle with Lyme disease. Your Operational Level games are the best Napoleonic simulations ever and I’ve always looked forward to new editions and new campaigns.
Paul Dangel
Hi Kevin, Although I have to admit I haven't played them yet (but do plan to), I admire the superb quality and research that has gone into each of them.

Kevin,
I'm sorry -- shocked, in fact -- to hear that you're going out of the wargame business. We'll miss you, tho you & I haven't done business in many years. The hobby will miss your creativity.
MD

Good luck Kevin on all your future endeavors.
Sincerely,
Terry Doherty
Hi Kevin,
Four Last Battles sounds real good. I just put my order in. Thanks for all your help, and I look forward to setting up and playing FLB. Good luck with the new venture -- I'll be checking that website out, too.
You are definitely at the top of the Pantheon in Napoleonic era wargames.
Mike H.
Hello Kevin:
First, I am saddened to hear you have been stricken with Lyme's disease. I
know people who have been affected by it some severely. I am also glad to
hear of your recovery and your exploration of holistic medicines. I wish you
well in this new endeavor for you and hope you will bring to many a chance
for healing that traditional medicines do not fill.
Finally, I am selfishly saddened by your departure from historical
simulations. I still have an original copy of your "1814: Napoleon at Bay"
in the SPI black plastic tray. It was then and still remains one of my
favorites. A great design system that was ahead of its time and with your
updating, kept fresh and new though the years. The CON series remains a
favorite and I am saddened that we will not see the campaigns 5X completed.
I will have to decide what to do with my credit with you (I think I have
one). I'll let you know later.
I always marvel at the path that life has carried me. How one gets to where
one is today, influenced and chanced by singular and collective events
beyond comprehension. The path imagined is never the one realized. And it is
in many ways the journey that matters more that the goal. Enjoy your
journey.
If you don't mind, I am going to pass your website along to an old
girlfriend, who now lives in BC and practices a number of holistic arts. I
think she will find your site of interest and as she still has a strong
connection with the holistic community back here in Philly, may be a useful
connection. Also, if you plan on generating a mailing list to keep people
informed of your progress, please be sure to keep me on it.
Good luck to you.
Gene Rodek
Dear Kevin:Wow, this is a thunderbolt from Baltimore! I am so sorry that your talent and positive influence will be leaving the wargaming sphere but wish you well (literally) and much success and contentment in your new endeavors.

Good luck
in your new occupation. I shall say that the hobby of historical
games will miss OSG, and by that I mean mostly your input and
It was a pleasure and an honour to have been allowed to
participate and help (on a very small measure) to some of
I hope that you still will have time to read and post from time
to time in some of the wargames forum you were often seen
and are known to kindly answers.
Merci pour toutes ces belles années de jeux d'histoire napoléonienne
et meilleurs voeux pour la suite.
With best regards,
Pierre---
Kevin,
All best with the new direction. And thanks for giving us OSG. Matt
Hi Kevin,
I hope you're doing okay, and wish you well with this new chapter in your life. I want to tell you how much I admire what you have created.
Chris
Hi, Kevin,Wow - your most recent came as something of a bolt from the blue, as I'm sure you may imagine! While I'm very sad to know that your fine games will no longer be an expanding feast, I can well understand your desire to follow the new path.
Kevin,It was with great sorrow that I heard the bad news. I hope we still see you around, but I know you deserve a break and a rest. The level of quality you have been responsible for and the fun you displayed (that was a revelation to me when I met you).

This comes as both bad and good news. You are truly one of the giants of the board wargaming industry, and I have been a collector of your games since "Battles of the Hundred Days" and "Arcola" and have almost all of OSG's Napoleonic titles.
Sincerely,
John E. Meyer

Bonjour Kevin, Je suis attristé d'apprendre votre départ.
Quoi qu'il en soit, je vous remercie pour tout le travail que vous avez accompli. Je possède chacun de vos jeux et je suis heureux de les étudier. Vous manquerez à bon nombre d'entre nous. Je vous souhaite une bonne continuation.Amicalement. Pascal SAIDANI
Hi Kevin I am saddened by the news, I have always felt that you where the only designer who was able to capture the flavor of the period, and it is always a wonderful experience to play your games. I have now started using your games to enhance our miniatures campaigns.
Hi Kevin
Sorry to hear of your leaving the hobby, believe me I'm not exaggerating it when I say that it will not be the same without you and OSG. Best of luck with your new endeavour.
Maurizio
Hello Kevin,
I have been away for a long weekend and have come back to this news and I am shocked. I have caught up on reading all the posts on CSW and I must echo all the good that has been said about you and your contribution to the hobby.
I am sure that you will be missed greatly by your many hobbyist friends and Napoleonic enthusiasts across the world and although I never met you I feel a loss in that. I was so looking forward to all your planned future publications and games.
May I take this opportunity to you wish you well in your new venture - good health sir (with a tear in my eye).
Warmest regards
Richard Lawrence

I have been very sadly struck by the news of your illness and I sincerely hope that you will be able to fully recover.
Moreover I am also sadly hit by the news that you will stop your activity as game designer and Napoleonic researcher. In all those years I have highly enjoyed you games and also have appreciated the high level of research and study behind the final products.
Again I send you my best wishes for your future.
LAVINIO CANAVESI
Dear Kevin, I was sorry to hear you are ending OSG, then went to your flower healing website and was blown away. More power to you! Then I remembered the old movie, "Dinner with Andre" where the famous Findhorn farm/commune in Scotland was mentioned ... Michael Thompson
Kevin, I dropped in to the site and saw OSG was closing and then looked on Consim and found out why. I in some ways do not know what to say, many have already said so much in recognition of your work over the years. I would just like to add a thank you for years of enjoyment.
Sorry to hear that you decided to give up wargaming design. I understand your decision to concentrate on the link between music and healing. But there’s also a linking between gaming and healing. Many years ago (10 more or less) I had a really difficult time...
Now I am feeling much better my health recovered fully and my life is much better (indeed Now I have a family and two fantastic little kids). But I still need my wargaming evening. It still remains a moment in my life when I can forget all little problems.
So I wish you all the best in your new project, but hope that you will still find some time to continue design your games. Your games have done much more good things than you can image. Jan
Kevin,
Cela aura été un grand plaisir et un honneur d‚avoir été autorisé à contribuer à des wargames si brillants, aux côté d‚une entreprise authentiquement désintéressée comme OSG.
Comme beaucoup d'autres j‚imagine, je ressens de la tristesse à penser que votre grande oeuvre (inachevée ?) s'arrête là ; de la nostalgie déjà à voir la fin de l‚aventure plus que trentenaire d'OSG qui aura ponctué toute ma vie de passionné de l‚épopée Napoleonienne.
mais surtout je ressens de l'admiration pour votre capacité à vous remettre ainsi totalement en cause !
Mes meilleurs voeux de réussite pour votre nouveau projet, pour cette nouvelle vie, loin des grilles d'hexagones et des calculs stratégiques ...
et merci pour le passé, et pour l‚avenir, car vos jeux resteront !
Très cordialement,
Hello Kevin –Congratulations on moving from a labor of love to a higher calling! I would like to take this opportunity to let you know that Napoleon’s Last Battles was the first game I ever bought, way back in Junior High and I still have a copy. I’m going to miss looking forward to the yearly new game OSG always put out. Oh well…
Alternative healings are very big out here in Northern California. Do they get a lot of acceptance back in Maryland or do people just roll their eyes? Forgive them for they know not what they need… *If you ever want a copy of the freebie local weekly, with their list of alternative healing classifieds, I can send you one.
Good luck, keep it simple, and vive l’empereur
Walt Olawski


OPERATIONAL STUDIES GROUP
PO Box 50207
Baltimore, MD 21211