The Spartan, Vol. 1 No. 8 (December, 1968)

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Title: The Spartan, Vol 1 No 8, December, 1968
Type: Wargaming Club zine
Copyright: n/a
Editor-in-Chief & General Editor: Phil Pritchard
Contributors: Scott Duncan, Bill Hoyer
Diplomacy Editor: Conrad von Metzke
Game Reviews & Ratings: Lewis Ritter
Illustrators: John Bobek, Lenard Lakofka, Michael Reese
Military History Editor: Tony Morale
Miniatures Editor: tony Morale
Regular Infantry and Armor Features: Michale Reese, Gary Gygax
News Games & Variants Editor: Gary Gygax
News Items: Bruce Ogden
Outrageous Opinions: Mark Goldberg
Regional Director Reports: Vice-President, to be elected
Serialized Fiction: Terry Stafford & Gary Gygax
Society Editor: Lenard Lakofka
Typist & Printer (pant, pant): Phil Pritchard
Committee Reports: Various Committee Chairman
Place of Publication: Tuscon, AZ
Cover Price: n/a
Mass: 150g
Dimensions: Height 27.8cm, Width 21.6cm, Depth .2cm
Format: Full sized, 34 pages. Two staples. Folded once lengthwise for mailing, but then apparently placed in a separate envelope (no mailing label or sealing staples).

Contents:
Tactics with Miniatures (Michael Reese)
Icosahedron: A Game of Tactics (Len Lakokfa)
Pentominoes: A Short, Portable Game (Gary Gygax)
IFW D-Day Revisions (Bill Hoyer)
German Victory in WWII (Gygax and Stafford)
No Second Front in 1942 (Tom Webster)
Bulge (Primary Attack) (Lenard Lakofka)
Space-Filler (Phil Pritchard)
Arbela Strategy: Lowering Enemy Morale (Gary Gygax)
Realism in Jutland (Gary Gygax)
Hastings Correction (Scott Duncan)
Re-Make of Campaign!! (Scott Duncan)
IFW Membership List
Western Enterprises (Phil Pritchard)
Reviews: Tactics & Variants and Canadian Wargamer (Scott Duncan)
3M Games (Gary Gygax)
Society Page (Lenard Lakofka)
Shrapnel (Bruce Ogden)
Name the Monthly contest
Outrageout [sic] Opinion (Mark Goldberg)
Odds & Ends (Phil Pritchard)
The Common Market (Phil Pritchard)
Election Month ‘68
ALL CAPS RANT (Phil Pritchard)



Inky’s inklings:

Note that an editorial staff is credited, as of this issue.

My copy is missing page 3-4, which should be the one right inside the cover. From the condition of the issue I suspect this is a printing/collation error.

That unfortunately means I lack the entirety of Mike Reese’s miniatures article and much of Lakofka’s interesting piece on the icosahedron. From the bits of that article I do have, I can surmise that Lakofka provides instructions for the creation of a twenty-sided die. The die is used, however, to produce a random number between 1 and 10, so is numbered with each of those ten integers occupying two color-coded faces. For serious game history geeks, this has to be one of the earlier mentions of an icosahedron in commercial gaming.

Gygax’s “Pentominoes” is a game where players take turns setting Tetris-like blocks into a fixed square; the player who is last able to place the last block is the victor. The first installment of “Victorious German Arms” also appears here.

The “Name the Monthly Contest” promises that “the name will be fixed next month – the Spartan stopped at Vol 1 #6, and we really must begin renumbering.”

At this point the quarterly International Wargamer (presumably #6) has been released; it is references a few times throughout.