Fellow Historians: Let me start with the more important business of life… my condolences to the family of long-time Gauntlet subscriber, R.W. Duncan and to the family of the renowned David Barnes. Although I never met Mr. Duncan personally, he resubscribed with clockwork precision and was always cordial in his letters. Mr. Duncan's passing serves as a reminder that we will all become a part of history some day. Mr. Barnes untimely passing at the hands of a heart attack will also take from the world someone we've all grown to appreciate. My condolences again, and they can never be enough. MOSCOW! What a great city. There is so much to do here. At souvenir shops throughout town, there are the popular 70mm painted lead figures. Also, 15mm Medieval troops seem to be everywhere. I don't think they are from any UK/US sources. They may be from Russian molds. I'll have to find out more. But the best thing that is available here is historical books and info. Okay, so I haven't been a Napoleonics guy in the past, but the Russians are incredibly passionate about the period and their victory over Napoleon. There are museums and monuments everywhere. There are used book vendors here and there throughout the city and the plethora of material available is staggering. I've picked up quite a few books already. I've translated a fair bit, with reams of stuff to go. My translations will get smoother, but the Russian of the early 1800's is not the same as that of today. After getting here, I found that my Russian was a little rustier than I thought, so I have a private tutor three times a week to get me back up to speed. For my lessons, we are translating the Army of Peter I. My tutor is not a military history buff, so between us we are getting there. Also, you'll see in this issue, a translation by my good friend Nikolai Semibratov, born and raised right here in Moscow. With Nik's help, Napoleonic material will pepper these pages. The opportunity to provide the historian and historical miniature wargamer (often one and the same) with never before seen information and pictures is great. Along with the variety of articles and rules sets that you like to see, I hope the Gauntlet will be your magazine of choice. My satisfaction in publishing the Gauntlet comes from the letters and e-mails where Gauntlet readers say they read it from cover to cover on the day it arrives in the post. There's no better compliment. When I receive Hal Thinglum's MWAN, I do the same thing (and for good reason) - what a great magazine. Pirates! has been updated and expanded. With the kind permission of my good friend Hal Thinglum, I've added the very rev'd Aelred Glidden's very quick ship to ship rules for the Age of Fighting Sail. I then added a couple tweaks to the rules for boarding and now it is a complete package. I also noticed a few miscues in the original printing and cleaned those up, too. Now, it is a complete set of rules for all your Pirate needs. All those Foundry and Redoubt Pirates sitting around and doing nothing? What about the Peter Pig Pirates? WHY!!!??? Pirate games are pretty easy to put together and the fun is unlimited. Like a quick and dirty Wild West game. Okay, okay, to help out, I've thrown a couple of Pirate scenarios into this issue, one for ship to ship combat and one for pillaging ashore (my personal favourite). With limited space for storing pirate ships (and my complete inability to find one), I've taken to using a cardboard cutout of a galleon. It really saves on space and is great for the boarding actions. BUT, and again, Moscow is a great city, there is a company here that allegedly makes 15mm model sailing ships. I wonder if they need a minor cash injection? What a silly question… With just Pirate stuff, there's enough material to almost double the size of this issue, for pete's sake. Again, you should have seen that the last year left me in the gray Korean doldrums. I lived the Korean War every day and was getting depressed. Now, it seems like the whole world has opened before me, especially regarding Napoleon and his campaigns. But this is Europe and everything is here. From Pirate adventures, to the Great Northern War, to the Great Patriotic War of 1812, to WWI, RCW, WWII, the list goes on and on. I am envious of all those who have a large permanent game area in their homes (like I used to have). I'll be here for the next four years, but everything is undersized in the big city, as those who have lived in NYC or elsewhere know… It seems that MWAN's Hal Thinglum is moving to a bigger, better house with even more gaming area than his wife let him have before. I really must get to Chicago and see this for myself. MODERN AFRICA!! Yes, it is finally done and on the street. For those of you with e-mail, you should have already seen something from me. For those of you without, here's your notice! I've received a number of things over the past three months. Yes, I know that seems hard to believe with the slow-boat to Moscow mail system. I received the last three MWAN's (98, 99, and 100). I'm probably the last one on the planet to get these. I wrote a quick commentary about MWAN 98 the day I received it and I was told that 99 had already hit the street. The fact that the military mail handlers mis-sent it might have had something to do with it. I also received the last two issues of The Lone Warrior (126 & 127). Rich Barbuto's turnaround of the English classic is very similar to how and why The Gauntlet U.S. gets done. My compliments to Hal on #100 (most belated. like everything I do) and my compliments to Rich on another fine issue of the Lone Warrior. As a matter of fact, these are both so well done, that I'll put some better words to them inside the review section. I received a huge box of zulus from Larry Brom. I saw the ad in MWAN and sent off an e-mail to ensure he still had them. Big score as he did! So I sent a check for a mere $30 for over 1000 of the pesky rascals. The whole evolution took right at a month and I'm quite pleased. These came in bags of about 40 figures each. I'll get some 20mm Brits to complement, then get on with a good rousing zulu game. Rhett Scott has a set of two page convention rules that he uses at each show and they work very well. Very quick and dirty. I'll snag a copy and with permission, get a variation of them into these pages for anyone else who wants a quick-play set of zulu rules. Hal?? I have the last 9 years worth of MWAN and I don't remember any zulu rules therein? Hmmm. It's confirmed. The readers want a set. Consider them on their way (maybe in the Christmas issue). Scenario books. I will take a break from the rules-writing business and get on with the scenario and figure business. Look for a scenario book for Pirates! and one for Modern Africa. The Pirates! scenario book will have a Treasure Island section to replay those battles with the Foundry figure line and Modern Africa will focus on events from the book "Blackhawk Down", U.S. Rangers in Somalia. The cover picture is from a set of postcard-prints I picked up at a flea market in Moscow. The company that produced them is now defunct and what a shame. The price was right. I bought all copies I could find and sent nearly all of them to MAGWEB's Russ Lockwood as promotional material for him. I have the complete set in high quality digital form and may re-publish them, depending on gamer's desires. The worst part about it all is that this set is #2 of a four pack set. Number 1 is The Grande Armee (artwork not as good), Number 3 is other nationality troops, and Number 4 is just uniforms and equipment. The artwork in packs 2 -4 is superb, all done by the same gentleman. The artwork in 1 is not bad, light years ahead of anything I could do and historically accurate as far as I can determine. The problem is that I haven't found an intact set of 3 or 4, let alone obtain a digital set. Never fear. I will come up with a set somewhere and then make them available to gamers in the States. I've also joined the Civil War Roundtable here in Moscow. A number of Embassy employees are history buffs and then there's our sister embassies from the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, not to mention all the other countries of the world. We've put out the word and a small group gets together to hear presentations on certain battles. If you can't wargame… Then there's the Napoleonic reenactors/wargamer group. They are Napoleon's 46th Infantrie de Ligne. A quality group of people that reenact and play the little wars, too. True students of history. You really have to see some pictures from these games, they are really incredible (40mm with thousands of troops taking up a whole dance studio). Look for a battle report from the next game, although every time Nikolai plays the French, the English line tears him up… Good luck on those morale rolls! Back to The Gauntlet No. 17 Table of Contents Back to The Gauntlet List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 1999 by Craig Martelle Publications This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com