FADED GLORY
For several years Old Glory (OG) has provided beautifully sculpted, quality lead miniatures at very reasonable prices. The staff is pleasant; they have quickly and pleasantly responded to any customer problems that I have personally had. Recently, however, there seems to (have) been a serious drop in the quality of the figurines produced by OG. Advice from colleagues to quickly purchase any new figures OG produces before they lose their definition or detail is advice well heeded. Much of the work, regarding their 15mm line, loses the detail for which OG has been noted. Significant flash, poorly molded figures, lost detail and unbelievably poorly cast pieces now seem to dominate their work (for similar comments on their 25mm line see some of the product reviews in the Magweb online magazine).
Several examples of these problems exist: in the WWII series, the armored fighting vehicles quickly lose their detail, molding lines become prominent on all the figurines produced and severely substandard work is packaged and sent out (e.g. all of the Soviet KV tanks' turrets were incompletely finished, with huge seams or indentations on them; several had huge tears in the lead, with gaping holes/seams in the turrets). The mounted SS have but three poses - which is unusual for OG which generally has produced a wide array of figures for all their ranges. As well, in their American Civil War commanders packs are included figures for a mounted naval admiral (when did Admiral Farragut ever fight a battle on a horse?) and McClellan with a full brimmed hat (has anyone ever seen "Little Mac" in anything but his kepi?) - poor choices and lack of complete research.
A new pack of WWII German wounded figures is just so poorly molded and it has taken so much effort to clean/prepare them that it is very easy to lose interest in painting them - at least the pack does include 11 different poses. It is unknown why this general decline has occurred; it is not the purpose of this critique to describe why these changes have occurred. What this brief is trying to do is to bring this problem to light so that Old Glory may become aware of a growing displeasure at the decline of the quality of many of their products, to investigate the causes and make the appropriate corrections
Old Glory Miniatures has been rapidly expanding their line and working on methods to keep the cost down so that they can pass a lower price on to the hobbyist. endeavors like this always have teething problems. I sure that if their customers bring their attention to the problem by returning poorly cast times they will be replaced and improvements will be made. Old Glory has always attempted to bring a low cost, high-quality product to the gamer - DICK BRYANT
PHIL BARKER'S CHOICE AND ANCIENT RULE SETS
In my judgement, Phil Barker is an excellent choice for one of wargaming's top honors. I have a number of his excellent rule sets, which I might add are not even ancients! Probably like many, I have bought his Ancient rules and guides throughout the years. Perhaps like others, I have never made the plunge into ancient wargaming since somehow they never captured what I truly wanted in a game. I appreciated his intelligence and the fine balancing of factors, such as morale, impetuosity, skirmisher, and the like but his rules never seemed to capture the essence of manipular legion tactics. Nonetheless, I cheered him on from the sidelines.
For this reason, I truly appreciated Bill Haggart's article on Roman manipular tactics. Although I do not necessarily agree with him, the article was well written and merited publication. I too was shocked how other rule sets, not only Phil barker's failed to capture the essence of manipular tactics. Even though they are not the ultimate word on wargaming, Bill Haggart and others should be alerted as to two rule sets which did try to tackle the problem. One was Andrew Grainger's Its down to the Triarii printed in Miniature Warfare, #2, and Simon MacDowall's Legio currently available via Aegeme Publications. Both are revolutionary! Again Kudos for two excellent issues in a row - I will be resubscribing.
The Courier received many letters agreeing with Phil's selection for The Scruby Award. Thanks for your kind words. - DICK BRYANT
FRENCH WARGAMER SEEKS HELP
I'm an old Breton wargamer and the illustrator and principal writer of the (newsletter) of the French Federation of History Gaming with Miniatures (FFJH). Please excuse my bad "Anglo-Saxon" - but help me! I need figures, rules and documents on the Korean War (1950-53) because its my favorite 20th century war!. Figures for this war are rare in Europe (outpost and Quality Castings), but not in the USA. I also need rules and documents (not Osprey) specific to the Korean War. I do not desire rules on WWII or modern war as the Korean War is the Korean War. I also am looking for figures for the Indian Mutiny (1857-59),, The Maori Wars (1845-47 & 1860-61 & 1863-66) and the Indochina War, 1945-54. Please help with addresses of suppliers of these items that are very rare in Europe.
I am sorry to disappoint you, but MOST of the figures we use in the USA come from Europe - mainly England. Of those manufactured here, most are under licence or use masters developed by companies in England. US manufacturers who produce US designs, such as Old Glory, Musket Miniatures, GHQ, Stone Mountain,etc, tend to specialize in the American Civil War, the American Civil War, etc. Outpost and Quality castings are probably the best US bet for Korean War items. Frei Korps, 6 Ashbury Ct., Bangor, County down BT19 2TJ, Ireland sells 20mm figures for the French Indo China wars.
I don't agree that a special set of rules is needed for The Korean War, most of the WWII sets will work if they have data for the Pershing tank, the 3.5" Bazooka and the Recoiless Rifle. All the Korean/Chinese material was vintage Russian WWII stuff. I've had good luck with Command Decision and Cross Fire. Spearpoint probably works as well. I hope rules authors will write in to tell us if their rules can handle the period.
I hope that our readers will take it on themselves to write to Pascal to help him out. He may be able to provide us with info on what is available in France - DICK BRYANT
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