It felt slightly indulgent sitting in a pub on a Wednesday afternoon drinking, eating, and talking wargames, but ultimately I hope you find the fruits of my ‘labours’ interesting. In the name of research for this month’s magazine theme, I bravely volunteered to head over to gaming luminary Rick Priestley’s local and talk through the implications of weather and the elements with him, John Stallard of Warlord Games, and Nick Eyre of North Star. Our enlightened observations form the basis of ‘Facing the Elements’ – the lead article from our theme on page 28.

Look out for more element-themed articles where you see this symbol, as we examine the effects of earth, air, fire, and water on miniature modelling and wargames. Once you have explored the elements you can hear from the designers of four new and intriguingly different wargames. Thalassa (pictured below) by Ricard Fortun fits our elements theme with its ancient naval battling, Graham Davy shows off 02 Hundred Hours – Grey for Now’s new game of night-time WWII covert operations, Gav Thorpe and Andy Chambers whisk us to Tír Na Nóg and the Sláine: Miniatures Game from Warlord, and we scale down to 2mm with Mark Backhouse’s Glory & Honour from TooFatLardies. 2022 is already shaping up to be a good year for gaming as Lockdown projects emerge from isolation for us to enjoy!