Longtime board-game maker Avalon Hill is preparing a number of wargame titles for the market between now and the end of the year.

	Kingmaker was prominently featured at the company's exhibit at the Summer CES in Chicago. Their adaptation of the popular board game was the company's first computer release. Avalon Hill also announced plans for the imminent release of Operation Crusader for IBM compatibles. The WWII game, built around the North African desert campaigns of Rommel, has already been released for the MacIntosh.

	Also expected out before the New Year are two more WWII games: Third Reich and Stalingrad. Third Reich redefines the concept of a broad-based game, since it gives you a chance to play the European theater of the war between 1939 and 1945. If you aren't quite that ambitious, you can opt for shorter scenarios. Stalingrad is a specific game, based on the battle for control of that city between the Russians and the Germans.

	5th Fleet, set in the near future, will give wargamers a chance to use their favorite weapons in a naval wargame, along with some proposed weapons currently on the drawing board. The armament of the future should be pretty accurate, since Avalon Hill is using a Washington, D.C., company that has served as a Defense Department consultant to help with the design.

	Finally, in another adaptation of one of its popular boardgames, Blackbeard will give gamers a chance to pretend they're a pirate sailing the Spanish Main, earring and all.