Dear Mark Just a brief note from one of your subscribers to say thanks very much for the latest Gauntlet. Chock full of the most useful stuff as always (want to do something with the Spartakist article - don't know what yet, but something is bubbling away in the darker corners of my mind!). Anyway, I was intrigued by your comment re: no figures being available for the constantly re-incarnating JB (is JB a Timelord, I wonder?) as there are quite a few useful bits in 20mm. Platoon 20 do a range of armed civilians that don't require much working on to produce acceptable figs. Obviously, a lot of companies produce both regular and, in some cases, irregular forces for him to go up against and certain manufacturers of railway bits produce reasonable bystanders for most post-war periods. The big gap is in the slinky "companion" type of figure but there are ranges of swimwear-clad figures in the european railway figure ranges which, again with a little work may suffice. So, I for one would be most interested to see your Bond ideas in print. Just because we may need to do a spot of hunting for suitable toys to play the game is no reason for the article not to appear. I for one am tired of the spoon-fed, everything you need in one box approach to gaming. This isn't to say that I pine for the "good old days" when gamers had to convert airfix blobby figures with semi-hardened plasticine. Sod that. I just mean that it shouldn't be too difficult to come up with something suitable. Anyway, already looking forward to the next Gauntlet. Cheers . . . Entil Some very good points there. The Spartakist games have been very much make-do affair - My Spartakists wearing raincoats and hombas were actually World War One Belgian Carabineers. Isn`t there a Secret Agent GURPS resource book especially for Bond etc ? . . . Mark. Mark For a 15mm Bond in 'Black Kit', take the pistol armed figure out of the Peter Pig British Commandos pack and carve off his webbing (very WW2). Now carve down his woolly hat into hair, or down to the rough shape of his skull (to be painted as an SAS style balaclava !). To portray the classic suave Bond dinner jacket effect, the collar of the battledress blouse can have a bow tie added from scrap card or putty. Then you can build a false jacket collar and lapels. Lengthen the jacket, again paper or putty and fill in the puttees so his trousers are long. Last touch is to pare down the boots so they don`t look so bother boyish. Another good figure is the petty officer (?) in the RCW Soviet Sailor Pack who is firing an automatic over the crook of his elbow. As he is already wearing a long jacket, just need to work on the head and again lengthen the trousers over his boots. Cheers . . . Mathew Sparkes There are some nice bareheads amongst the Professionals with M16 from the AK47 Range, which can just be swopped over. One of these figures could also be used as Bond on Ops. They can also be used as bad guys as can many of the figs from that range. I was just thinking that other officer figures from the RCW range, I`m thinking of the ones in greatcoats, can be used as 1960`s bad guys if you give them the heads from the Red Guard figure with the trilby. Paint the greatcoats tan or grey to be raincoats and the figures can be CIA/KGB etc . . . Mark Dear Mark I have been playing Great Batles of WW2 recently using Peter Pig US & Germans mainly. I am still waiting for Drop Zone to arrive from Caliver Books, when I will know what to get to complete my British Para`s. I recently got some of Irregular Miniatures new 10mm Crusader and Arab figures - I was amazed at how detailed they were. They paint up beautifully and have as much charcter as 15mm figures (I could never get enthusiastic about 6mm figures for some reason, probably because I can`t see them as individuals when I paint them). As I have a reduced gaming area at home since the birth of my son the change of scale allows me to fight reasonable sized battles on the 4`x3` table available to me. I am busy basing them for "Armati" on half sized 25mm bases, and halving all movement and ranges. Your review of For God, King, and Country tempts me to try their 10mm ECW range too. Sincerely. . . Neil Simpson Mark It looks like you can also be terribly influenced by that 'Last' book into buying figures for the most obscure. I have as you know, a Williamite Dutch Army comprising of half a dozen foot, four cavalry, including one of Bavarian Cuirrassiers! (not strictly Dutch but did fight in Flanders and I had to do them!) and three large guns plus half a dozen battalion guns from those 'WRG' competitive days. I would still like to do the French to go with them, but am hanging on till I find a set of rules to use. No progress there yet! I have a huge amount of 1944 British and German 20mm WWII, these seem to be unemployed at present. We gave up on Command Decision and never really got started again. Again I have Unemployed 15mm Napoleonic French, Austrians, 15mm Vietnam and 25mm Cowboys, although the rules in issues 13 will probably change that. I have just finished painting 20mm 1914 BEF and Huns from Britannia and although some of them look more like fantasy Dwarfs I really like them! Currently I have gone back to my favourite (curse the day I sold all my 25mms) period of the Sudan (15mm). I'm using Essex figures, I feel you can't go too far wrong with them, except for the 'cast on' flags on some ranges are a pain. I went to the Tunbridge Wells show the other week and the normal Essex dealer around the shows, I think they are called 'the Painting Shed' are stopping taking them round to concentrated on ready painted armies. They were however selling off there existing stock cheap which enabled me to buy vast amounts especially camels, and all the bits you normally leave to last, so getting me off to a good start. I plan to use the old 'Science Versus Pluck' rules which are really good for getting the players to interact with each other! (Usually abusively!). I dislike Old Glory figures, I have found them unhelpful in the past and I don't like having to buy a huge pack of artillery etc when I only need a couple of guns. I also feel there is an unacceptable amount of Elitism in the hobby, in that if all your figures aren't Foundry and painted by Special Forces then your game can't be any good, which is crap. I played through all the scenarios in 'Volley & Bayonet' with a friend who labelled Lego bricks and thoroughly enjoyed it. Better still didn't have to outlay a fortune to play. I know this is an extreme example but I feel that especially magazines like Wargames Illustrated encourage this sort of attitude which can reduce us to the level of trainspotters. You may be interested in two books covering the Spartikist Uprising and the Freikorps in general, "Hitlers Heralds, Story of the Freikorps 1918-1923" by Nigel Jones, ISBN 0719543908 and "Red Rising In Bavaria" by Richard Grunberger (London 1973). I read it a couple of years ago when I was going through a Freikorps fad and it probably would be of Interest. Though the Jones book is more 'dangerous' as it describes quite a few small actions and gives many ideas for scenarios (more figures, more vehicles etc!). One that sticks in my mind is when a dozen Freikorps riflemen are surrounded by the reds in a schoolhouse. Its the Alamo again, with the main body trying to relieve them and ammo running short. Eventually they are forced to capitulate and meet a gruesome fate. The leader a former one armed WW1 fighter ace, is strangled by the ribbon of his Blue Max. Anyway keep up the good work . . . Nigel Jolly 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