Membership: 77 active, 153 total

1) The General Staff has been reorganized, combining several posts to make better use of manpower and get the commanders to troopers ratio more in line. The running joke of the HF being a subgroup of chiefs and few indiands is being squashed. The new General Staff looks like:
-Prefect (PRF)
--Executive Officer (XO) - combines CD and CP
---Commander, Operations (CO)
---Commander, Training (CT)
---Commander, Internet (CI) - combines CI and CDe
---Commander, Security

2) We have had many vacancies in the General Staff. With the above restructuring, these vacancies have greatly shrunk. Also, I have assigned our new XO, LTC Mordred. The post of CO is vacant and applications being solicited.

3) The HF Field Manual is finally undergoing a major revision. The format is the same, but the content is being rewritten. The last revision was in February of 2001.

4) There is also a shake-up in the upper- and middle-range officers. More on that next week when it has all been threshed out.

5) Operation Darkscreen has been running for a bit again, but activity has not picked up on it as it had before it was put on hold. Fires are going to have to be lit to get it up to steam again. When members realize the operation didn't die, it should be fun.

Prefect of the Legion
Field Marshal Ares

Overview
The position of Grand Moff is unique among subgroup commanders in that the Grand Moff runs a subgroup and also must maintain the Systems Manual. The successful applicant will need to demonstrate long term committment and consistant levels of output to gain this position. Applicants must address the following criteria:

Selection Criteria - Essential
1. Prove command experience, at the level of at least TIE Corps Wing Commander or a similar position of responsibility.
2. Good written communication skills
3. An acceptable level of presence in online media, such as IRC, message boards, etc.
4. Fast email response time.
5. The ability to work with a wide range of EH personnel, including the Executive Officer, Fleet Commander and members of the Directorate.
6. An outline of plans or ideas for the Directorate.

Selection Criteria - Desirable
1. Experience in the creation and/or maintaining of online reference works
2. Proven experience in turning around an aspect of the EH.

You must address each of the criteria with supporting evidence. Simply saying "Yep I can do that" won't be good enough. You must also include three references, at least one being a current superior. These references will be checked and your application will be considered in an extremely negative light if you have not gotten permission from people to use them as references first. Applications are to be directed to the Fleet Commander and Executive Officer with the subject "Application for Grand Moff".

I've been doing some cleaning up because the database ran out of space. The result is about 40 megs of reclaimed datbase space and about 20 megs of reclaimed disk space allocated to the web site. The only visibly affected area of the database is the message board - I deleted all the posts prior to the start of this year. The 20megs of disk space recovered was from the deletion of the TO site. You can find the TO site now at http://www.imperialacademy.org/. The course and staff pages are pulled right off the TC database and should be accurate. If you encounter any errors, email me and I'll have a look at it.

Due to some problems with my phoneline supplier my short 2 day leave is turning into a week.
MAJ Aeishline Strathaven has taken control of the courses I cover. (CORE, IIC and M) Any enquiries regarding these courses should be directed to her.
My leave is now scheduled to end on Wednesday the 4th September, providing all is ok.

Applications are now being accepted for the position of Wing XIII Wing Commander, onboard the ISD Greywolf in the ASF. Interested applicants should be able to meet the following criteria:

1. Must have held the position of CMDR in the TC for no less than 6 months in one tour.
2. Must have passed SM/2 & SM/3.
3. FCHG must be of a reasonable standard.
4. Be able to reply to mails and process BSF's within 24 hrs.
5. Good with communications.
6. Report on time each week.
7. Must be willing to handle a great deal of admin work to aid the running of the wing.
8. Good working knowledge of the TIE Corps database.
9. Be able to motivate pilots and keep the CMDR's working to improve their squads and performance.
10. Must be able to create and run various competitions for the wing when asked to do so.
11. Applicant must be 100% dedicated to the wing to see goals achieved, and have the will to drive to that end.

Wing XIII is XvT multiplayer, and applications are to be sent to Vice Admiral Azazel Djo'Tarr and Admiral Cyric with "Wing XIII WC" as the subject.

Please be sure to add your future plans for the wing, and what steps you'll take to encourage recruitment, activity and keep things running smoothly. Any comp ideas you may have will also be a bonus when applying for this position. Good luck.

Players are still needed for the Advanced Wargame (taking advantage of many optional rules, and exploring the limits of XWA skirmish editing) and slots are still available for the Basic Wargame (learning how to play Project Faithful-style wargames). If you are interested, please email the War Officer ASAP. The games will run on a less brutal pace than Imperial Storm did, and help will be given by the WO and others.

Congratulations go to Flight Officer Fleet Admiral Priyum Patel who has been awarded the Order of the Renegade for his work ! Way to go, Pri !

just a quick note to state that a much needed Trainng manual update has just been completed
you can find the manual at http://www.imperialacademy.org/to/manual/

i am aware that there are no images currently, this is being fixed.

VA Grail Soulchaser has resigned from the EH to focus on RL.(seems this is a trend lately)
Applications for ASP Professor to me no later than the 2nd September.
Include reasons I should make you PROF and provide evidence of your ASP work.

Something I forgot to put into my report: The Wing Commander of Wing XIII, Colonel Wes Janson, has decided to step down from WC and take up a Flight Member's position in Phoenix Squadron. Applications for a new WC are being accepted, and requirements will be posted shortly.

Rejoice, another FO report is out. It contains some important information, so use the mouse thing to click here!

Congratulations to the former Wing XV WC, Rear Admiral Ekim Yellek, who has been selected as the new Commodore for the ISD Vanguard!

Membership: 78 active, 150 total

1) The General Staff (the HF's command staff) is undergoing some upheaval and reorganization. We have lost and are losing in the near future over half of our general staff. This provides for a unique opportunity to slim down the number of positions (currently eight) with a minimum of hiring/reassigning. Differing proposals range from four to six general staffers.

2) My Commander, Internet Affairs / Commander, Training Zsinj has taken on two assistants to help him with his double duties. Dron and Nightflyer are A:CT and A2:CT respectively.

3) The CSMA mail feature is down for some reason. Zsinj is trying to get it fixed.

4) CoL awardees!
Sergeant Tacky (Aries20414@cs.com)
Major General Lander (Martlander@hotmail.com)
Major General Vradin Jonusk (jeffshelton@gru.net
Brigadier General Sithspawn (ziggy@klondyke.net
High Colonel Darkheart (blind_mr_smith@hotmail.com)
Lieutenant Colonel Mordred (troopermordred@caverna7.cjb.net)
Second Lieutenant Shadowmaker (shadowmaker83@aol.com)
Sergeant Major of the Legion Haztix Vel (iw_mozidude@yahoo.co.uk)
Sergeant BaleFire (lloret@gol.com)
Specialist Matti Kuokkanen (matti_kuokkanen@yahoo.co.uk)

5) Anyone remember that on-again, off-again Unreal Tournament Star Wars conversion being made? UT:EH? The whole thing got sucked into a black hole last week. Everything lost to a series of bad clusters on my older hard disk. So the project must start anew. This may seem like a disaster, but it gives me an opportunity to make version 2 better (that's what I tell myself). I will also be modifying Jedi Knight 2 to better suit the Hammer's Fist. One glaring deficiency is the player being a Rebel in the single player mode. First priority is making the player a stormtrooper, as he should be! :) I will likely also include a modification to make the player an Imperial officer for those TC members who play the game too. It should encourage levels made from the Imperial perspective.

Prefect of the Legion
Field Marshal Ares

The Vanguard COM, Vice Admiral Bevel Leeson, has been appointed as the new CA:IO. This obviously means that the position of VanCOM is vacant, but applications are NOT being accepted.

You are not authorized to skip any mission. Bug or not. All missions of the Compendium have been completed one day or another, you may have misunderstood the way to complete the mission. Fatal bugs are very rare, and if it happens to be that, just wait for it to be corrected and hold on your pilot file, do not submit it. DON'T SKIP ANY MISSION. The battle would be anyway removed later from your profile. Just a waste of time for everyone.

I'm pleased today to be able to promote two individuals to the position of Commodore...

~ ISD Relentless COM - Rear Admiral Theodore
~ ISD Subjugator COM - Rear Admiral Smitrock

Both are veterans of the TIE Corps, and I'm sure they'll enjoy every success in their new positions. Congratulations!

Well, in case some of you haven't heard of it yet, the Auroran News Network is a fictional EH newspaper that's based on real newspaper style (an example would be www.holonetnews.com). ANN will be taking over the TC Battlecry, so anything you had to submit for it, send in for ANN. ANN is meant to have a mainly humorous aspect to it, but serious articles will be accepted. Please try to keep the articles fictional though - for example, an article about your wing competition would probably not be so interesting. However, if you made it seem like a real story like a real reporter, describing the grudges between wings, certain events, the outcome, but all in a fictionalized way, that'd be good. The main purpose of this is to be entertaining. You can find a list of the topics at http://www.ehnet.org/article.php?a=view&id=64. Please try to get in your articles ASAP, no later than about the 1st or 2nd week in September. I'll give a more firm date in later IO reports. Send your articles to Fleet Admiral Ari & Fleet Admiral Priyum.

The Commodore of the ISD Subjugator in the ATF, Vice Admiral Grail SoulChaser, has decided to retire from active service in the Emperor's Hammer. Grail was a great COM and he will be missed.

For the time-being, applications for a replacement Commodore are NOT being accepted, so please don't send them. Same goes for Relentless COM.

I don't know if anyone saw, but we're at ~5,028 total Members !!!!

Since I have traditionally tasked the XO for increasing our #s, he's the first I will congratulate...Fine job, SA Astatine...you have truly led this club (sometime by sheer force of will :) to this new achievement !!!

Secondly, the Command Staff...(pat yourselves on the back now) Without your hard work, we'd never be where are today...the largest, best organized, one of the longest-running Star Wars gaming clubs on the web...bar none...!

Thanks for ALL of your work to get us here...on to 10,000 !!! :)

Newsletter 86, the BHG birthday edition, is now available. Download it from mirror 1 or mirror 2 (4.8MB) or view it online here or here. Get your submissions in ASAP for the next NL.

With increasing duties as Grand Moff, our current webmaster, ROA Keldorn has little time to update our webpage. Keldorn has done a great job as webmaster, and I really respect him for his work and his dedication to his duties as Grand Moff. I would like to start looking for a new webmaster. If you are interested, please e-mail High Admiral Keiran Idanian with a link to your work. I would like to have an ASP or PHP website, but classic HTML with a good presentation is just as good. :) If you are accepted as new webmaster, you will be appointed as ROA, and once the website is completed, be awarded for your work. You will also be awarded every now and then for maintenance work. :) Thank you!

Membership: 73 active, 137 total

1) Membership is exactly the same as last week. I don't think I've ever seen that happen before.

2) "Lost" Dark Legionnaire found. Some months back, a Dark Legionnaire was put out, but for some reason many missed it...and then it disappeared from the 'net. ACD Astix as located a draft version of it and is fixing it up for rerelease.

3) The CSMA is now under the HF site. This is a major move since the two are now finally on the same domain. A link has been added to the HF site's sidebar for the CSMA. A direct link to the CSMA is http://www.minos.net/~hammersfist/CSMA

4) More news next week as I get back into the HF groove coming off of school.

Some HF stormie facts from Zsinj:
In 6 Item Categories there are 42 items currently, with over 508 items owned!
From our 137 Members there are 33 medals, with over 465 being owned by the members!
There are only 3 security notes. (this is a good thing)
7 Operations and 96 Operation Participants.
Also there are 205 reports in the database.
Salary Payments are in their 54th week of being issued!!
There are 31 CSMA certs listed in the database, and 395 owned!
There have been only 95 news reports.

Prefect of the Legion
Field Marshal Ares

Greetings,
It has recently come to my attention that members of the Dark Brotherhood are still participating in TIE Corps Gaming Nights, and trying to use their Dark Brotherhood PIN numbers. Unfortunately, due to agreements with the COO, all Multiplayer Nights are now listed as either TC or DB, if you are taking part in a "TC:" event, you can only fly for the TIE Corps, and Legions of Combat. If you are taking part in a "DB:" event, you may only fly for the Dark Brotherhood, and Clusters of Fire. You can of course continue to make use of DarkFyre !dbxwaadd and !dbxvtadd but the simple fact is, is that if they're being done in a TC event, you're not going to get your CFs.
Sorry for the inconvenience everyone!

It's my honour to announce the opening of yet another IWATS Course!

IWATS OPTing Course - http://www.gimmie.tudelft.nl/homes/blok10b/ender/iwats/

Congratulations to RA Ender mBind who earns himself a SS for writing the course!

USA - November 12
Canada - November 12

Europe
Italy - November 11
Germany - November 28
Scandinavia - November 15
Spain - November 14
United Kingdom - November 11
Elsewhere - November 20

Latin America
Brazil - November 14
Mexico - November 15
Elsewhere - November 15

Asia
Korea - November 15
Taiwan - November 15

Australia
Australia - November 13

Full details on special features included with the Episode II DVD and VHS releases can be seen at http://www.starwars.com/episode-ii/news/2002/08/news20020801.html

During the last few weeks, my time for handling EH matters has declined. Thetime has now come for me to make my intentions known, I hereby resign from theposition of Security Officer of the Emperor's Hammer effective immediately.

For over two years now, I've been doing very demanding jobs within the EH.Firstly Supreme Director (SDIR) and now Security Officer (SO), my time requiredfor the EH has stayed constantly high and I feel it's high-time I took somerest. My time in these positions has been both rewarding and gratifying, and Ithank all who have worked with my during that time. I want to take this time tothank especially FA Brad, who was first mentor to me and attaché during my timeas Security Officer.

With that thanks comes a request... I hereby officially recommend FA Brad forthe position of Security Officer, he's far more qualified than I ever was andhas a great attitude for the job. Myself, I wish to return to my advisoryposition within the Intelligence Division and will hopefully return to commandsomeday, when time allows.

Thank you for your time, that will be all.

After due consideration, I've decided to appoint Vice Admiral Krax Tarnisar as the new Battlegroup Commander of the TIE Corps Battlegroups. His experience as a Flag Officer in the BGs should hold him in good stead as BGCOM and I have high hopes for his tenure. Please be sure to congratulate him on his promotion if you get a chance!

Due to restrictions in real life, Captain Werdna Elbee has decided to transfer to the Reserves. This means that I'm now looking for a new Editor of the TC's magazine, The Battlecry. The individual I'm looking for should be well motivated, have a keen eye for humour and be able to organise themselves into receiving and compiling submissions on a regular basis.

I don't have specific requirements from those interested, but graphics, editorial (examples please) and HTML skills are a big plus. If interested, please email me at spellfire@btinternet.com ASAP.

Congratulations to the new Science Officer of the Emperor's Hammer, Rear Admiral Ender mBind!

As some of you may know by now, Vice Admiral Drake has resigned as Battlegroup Commander. I will NOT be accepting applications for a replacement, so please don't send them. With any luck, a new BGCOM will be in place in the next couple of days.

If you are interested in playing in a War Game, the WO is proud to announce that he will run TWO games, after he returns from leave. Game 1 will be designed for beginning players, or those who want to brush up their basic skills, it will be a re-run of Imperial Storm 3, with a few small changes. Game 2 will be a more advanced game, with many more rules and options. It is intended for those who already have a firm grasp of wargaming. If you wish to participate in either of these, please send mail to VA Pel and specify which game you wish to participate in. All emails will be read after the 21st of August, when the WO returns from leave, games will start in September.

Membership: 73 active, 137 total

1) I am in the marathon stretch of finals week. This being such a tough time for me, while I will be reading email every day, I will not be replying to anything unless it is dire or comes from the FC or XO. I have never had to do that before, but I am having to take serious measures this term to succeed. I will be back on solid footing after the 18th.

2) The Hammer's Fist website has undergone a facelift. The new look was created by our Commander, Design Mordred and is much shinier and cleaner. Thanks to CDe Mordred!

3) Short report, but I'm short on time. Until next week!

Prefect of the Legion
Field Marshal Ares

In the last few weeks, we've seen a few very high profile HCI cases. The details of those cases are unimportant. What is important is the behaviour of other members in relation to those who have been tried and of the trials themselves. Behaviour such as bragging about someone being punished by the HCI or baiting those who have been tried or their friends/associates is not acceptable behaviour. Such acts show poor taste, a lack of maturity and a "sore loser" mentality where the person in question feels the need to stick in their boot to someone who is already on the ground. I've been through a trial and in itself, it's a bad experience. It's made even worse when your peers conduct themselves in this fashion. While I don't want to throw around threats, it looks like I'm left with little choice. Those found conducting themselves in the fashion I"ve outlined will be subjected to a one-month, EH-wide IRC ban. No questions, no appeals. This is your "warning". If you continue this sort of rubbish after that ban, it's trial time and then you will fully realise what the victim of your venom and mocking has gone through.

Treat other members as you yourself would want to be treated.

With the resignations of both BGCOM/VA Drake and SL Quake from all active positions in the EH, openings for TIE Mission Creation Professor and Graphics Professor have opened.
The sucessfull applicants will be knowledgeable with TIE and TFW or graphic design respectively and should also be able to show evidence of this.

Applications to mell@tiecorps.org
Closing date for applications: 15th August 2002.

After a recent spell of bad links and 404's i have compiled a temporary list of all IWATS Courses and emails for the PROF's for each course, this link can be found at http://iwats.kweeky.net
if anyone has any problems with any course then please email the PROF, CCing me.

An interview/chat was held in #emperor's_hammer yesterday with Star Wars author Bill Smith. If you missed that, you have another chance for talking with a Star Wars name, artist Ian Liston (also named Wes Janson), on September 7 3pm EST in #emperor's_hammer.

I'm pleased today to announce the appointment of two new Wing Commanders in the TIE Corps:

~ Lieutenant Colonel E. Tarkin takes over command of Wing XV on the Vanguard
~ Major Charles Spencer returns as the WC of Wing XIX on the Avenger.

Many congratulations to both Officers.

We bid farewell to General Devin who has announced his retirement as Omega CMDR and from active service in the TIE Corps. After two years, Devin's presence at the helm of the Elite Squadron will be missed.

His replacement has already been selected and we welcome another veteran of the Corps, General Compton, to the position!

Its that time of year folks, the time when we all gather around the Ronin-Tree, and celebrate the birth of our Fleet Commander, GA Ronin. That means, recommendations for the Commendation of Loyalty! (YAY!) Nothing has changed since January...but since a great deal has changed (in terms of personnel) since January, I'll refresh everyone's memory.

For the TIE Corps:
Each squadron commander can send any number of recommendations for awards to their respective Wing Commander. The Wing Commander chooses three (3) awards. Then these recommendations are forwarded up the chain of command to the respective Commodores and Battlegroup Commanders, making any possible corrections. Then the Battlegroup Commander collects the recommendations for his Battlegroup, and emails them to the Operations Officer, CC'ing the Flight Officer. Also, each Battlegroup Commander has the discretion to award a maximum of three (3) awards to his Flag Officers.

For elite squadrons (Avenger, Praetorian, Tau, and Omega), the commander can recommend up to one (1) award to their Battlegroup Commander (Omega - SovCOM; Avenger - ASF BGCOM), in the case of Praetorian and Tau Squadron, the CMDR will directly email the Operations Officer, also CC'ing the Flight Officer.

FA Howlader