We look ahead to 2024 and work out upcoming themes in this month's Insider Insight While the last couple of months of 2023 approach we at Wi Tower are already thinking ahead to 2024. It's time to work out our themes and decide on the magazine schedule for next year so that we can get on with writing content and ask our regular contributors what they might have for the new issues. There's no real science as to how the themes are decided. We tend to just sit together for a few hours in our gaming area, with miniatures and rulebooks surrounding us, and chat it over. Certain themes have stood out this year as ones to be repeated, with 'Revisited' being a particularly popular one that will return. We will also repeat our smorgasbord theme at some point - notable for being a theme with no theme, just a random selection of articles to ensure an issue of varied, vibrant content. Some other themes on the docket include: From the Screen (gaming based on film and television), History and Scenario (the type of article that regularly comes up as a favourite in our Annual Reader's Poll), Steampunk (a fad that has already passed or a great mine of gaming opportunity?), Billhooks Revisited (we have lots more exciting Billhooks ahead and are eager to share it with you), and Battlefields (a closer look at terrain, how to work it into your gaming, and how to build it). It should be a very good year! Do you have ideas for articles that might fit one of those themes? Or a non-theme idea you've been itching to write? There's never been a better time than now. We'd love to hear from you with a contribution; check out our information page for more details. Zaragoza besieged - a contributor's tutorial Our Napoleonic Peninsular War issue is on the way soon, with a small selection of articles based on this brutal and fatiguing conflict. One of those articles, penned by me (James), looks at the first Siege of Zaragoza and how to convert it for use in Valour & Fortitude. It's not an 'official' addition to the game, more an article explaining how I approached the siege and converted elements of the history into gaming opportunities. I've written the piece with notes on my development process in the hope it will inspire other gamers (and potential article contributors) to approach the history with more of an eye on its gaming potential. We get many contributions sent in each year that are far too heavily weighted towards history, with the gameplay clearly an afterthought tagged on to finish. We are WARGAMES Illustrated, not HISTORY Illustrated,
