ANNOUNCEMENT

[jdm]

Firstly, a big welcome to you all and a ???health warning???. These rules are not a revision to any popular rulesets that you may have recently played. This may be a surprise to some and a disappointment to others, but we ask you to keep an open mind.

You have been individually invited to join the 2nd phase of our closed beta test as you are all respected and knowledgeable wargamers and we value your opinion.

We will be employing the same techniques that we use when testing our computer games. Our usual practice is to limit the number of testers on beta tests, as we simply cannot cope with the volume of feedback that can arise from an open beta. That??™s why we have split the Beta into phases. Later as matters progress we will widen the pool again. This allows us to manage the process and respond to your feedback in a much more focused way.

Please note that the entire pack will be contained in two separate mails
1 Playsheets
2 Sample Army Lists & AOW Rules both fingerprinted

Some of you will be working in pairs others in small groups. Whilst we want everyone to air their views, we ask that when you prepare your reports on a session that your ???Team leader??? compiles the information that you send to us. This will make it much easier for us to respond to your suggestions. However, we hope to hear from you all in open discussion on the forum.

It??™s also very important that you understand the need for frank and if necessary even brutal feedback. You cannot hurt our feelings. You have been selected because we are certain that you will give us your honest views no matter what they are. Hopefully between us we can produce the next generation of Ancient Wargames rules that we will all be proud of. Your efforts and your contribution will be credited in the final version.

This is your forum and you must have already signed an NDA and registered to be here! So you can be confident that your postings are private and of course confidential and you can talk freely to other members of the beta test. The writing team will not be posting in this forum; however, we will allocate one of the team to respond to your queries.

Ideally we would like a report from you at least weekly, but we encourage you to post more regularly, as issues that you have resolved or have concerns about may be of value to others.

In order to drive the process forward, we will consider a testing week to end at midnight each Sunday. We fully recognise that you may not be able to provide a report in any given week. This is not a problem, as we will consider what feedback we have received and pick up on yours later.

It??™s important to remember that we cannot possibly all agree on the issues, but we are confident that you appreciate that someone has to make the judgement calls. So even if a particular decision does not accord with your own views, we will have fully considered it before reaching a conclusion.

Another point to bear in mind is that it is our intention to produce a fully localised version of the rules in each of the major wargaming territories. Some of you are already enlisted to help with this task, but for obvious reasons work on this will be delayed until we are satisfied that the project is nearing completion.

You have been sent a report form to help you provide us with your initial impression. The report also has a second tab to report your views after your first game. It is helpful to us if you can complete these when appropriate and return, thereafter you can contribute in any way.

Finally James Hamilton has agreed to act as Forum Moderator and he will assist us with the information flow in both directions.

Regards

The Art of War Team

Richard Bodley Scott
Simon Hall
Terry Shaw
Iain McNeil
JD McNeil