Patrick Wilson

Got #109 about two weeks ago and, as usual, devoured it (could you start using tastier staples?).

As I hope you've seen a few weeks ago, the HELIOGRAPH has been added to our page of LINKS with full particulars on how to reach you and a strong recommendation to our readers to do so. So far, only the MWAN follows you on our list of "print 'zines."

Thanks for running that letter with the (then) address for BY JINGO!, but could I please ask that you make some mention that we've been up and running since the first of November at this address?: http://members.spree.com/sip/byjingo/

A further mention of the December issue containing the The Hun, The Frog, And The Lion (THTFATL) scenario for TSATF with its ready to print full color desert buildings, unit flags, rules, tables, and movement card deck would be especially appreciated.

Finally, your readers (and possibly yourself) might be interested to know that Larry Brom is opening his own TSATF Homepage within BY JINGO! The first "issue" of his monthly pages will be on line by the end of December (hopefully before your own next issue). There will be news of his project to have the game reprinted in an extensively updated and expanded 4th Edition (possibly with optional rules for a 1:10--or so--scale version), as well as an "Official" rules Q&A section as well as new variants and rules in addition to Larry's own editorials. What with "John Company", TSATF, and (just maybe) "Mad Dogs And Englishmen" all coming out in 1999, next year could be one of the best in a long time for our favorite hobby period.

Please don't be a stranger at the 'zine! HO! HO! HO! Okay, now that's over with so let's get down to cases. The first of your Christmas Presents from By Jingo!, the monthly Colonial and 19th Century History and Wargames magazine, has just posted the first of your holiday goodies!

Remember Larry Brom? Well, just like Santa, he hasn't forgotten you and just left a package under the tree for everybody! "Volley Fire!" his latest wargame rules for one-to-one scale miniatures battles in the Sudan , ca 1896. A game where one foot equals 25 yards and a full sized 6' x 12' table suddenly represents only 150 by 350 yards!

Yes, Virginia, you ARE in range!

How it does it feel at the sharp end? Just a little naked? Well don't worry. Soon the Fuzzy-Wuzzys will stop shooting at you. They'll be chopping you to chutney with their Nile Frog Stickers and those nasty old bullets won't bother you any more.

A complete set of rules with all necessary game tables, organizational information and formation diagrams, all you need are a few figures, some dice, the bloody Sudan, and you've got a whole new gaming experience for peanuts from the acknowledged master of Colonial skirmish games!

Hurry under the tree and have a RIPPING good time with your newest toy, courtesy of BY JINGO!, at: http://members.spree.com/sip/byjingo/ But wait! Quit spiking the wassail and stalking the lookers with that holly leaf! There's more!

The new "Ballads Of Barrack & Battlefield" page just opened in the "By Jingo! Bulletin." We've gotten some bully flights of poesy from otherwise normal folk that must be read! And now we're calling for more of your poetry, art, and stories. Let's show the rest of the hobby how Gentlemen go on about their period of choice! And Santa's not through! The Jolly Old Elf is sharpening his Kukri for your NEXT big surprise! Patrick ("I-Used-To-Have-Ears") Wilson

I have had lots of email from Patrick Wilson concerning BY JINGO. I have included the latest here, check it out at http://members.spree.com/sip/byjingo

Can anyone give me the address of the military history site???

John Hollyoak

Many thanks for the latest issue and for publishing my plea for help, hopefully someone will take pity on me! The good news is that Frontier are now available over here. I have managed to see some samples and am impressed, I shall certainly be investing in some of these.

I must also thank you for the kind review of PoW magazine, I have already picked up a couple of new members.

I have sent issue 7 (PoW magazine) by separate post, not a great deal of colonial but I hope you can find something of interest. Next issue includes a scenario of San Juan Hill (incidently there will also be a different article on the same subject in the next issue of FTR (From the Redoubt). You are welcome to use them if you haven't had overkill by then.

I collected some catalogs for John at Fall In! that include 15mm figures for our period. I hope tat you find them useful.

Scott Hansen

I subscribe to Wargames Illustrated so I would prefer not to see the Darkest Africa series in the Heliograph. Regarding the 3rd Edition of The Sword And The Flame, Greenfiled botched it. Having read a review in the Courier and talking with people, the third edition has several typos and mistakes. The 2 boxes of ESCI figures with the rules aren't enough to have a game. I still don't understand the popularity of this set after 25 years. I guess it's easy to play but the card sequence movement in the game is outdated. Whin I play a wargame, I dislike having my unit surrounded because my colored card didn't come up. However, this is my personal taste and there is no published set of easy play colonial rules. Hopefully the new edition of Soldier's Companion published by Old Glory will remedy this.

Will the West African rules coming up cover the Ashanti's? Savage and Soldier had an article on gaming the wars years ago. Since the Ashanti's loaded their muskets with stones, glass, and other junk, a British soldier that was shot was usually bruised. The article suggested a savings throw.

The 25mm Ashanti figures are tempting that you mention.

I started out with 6mm and went to 15mm a few years ago. I'm trying to limit the size of my armies so 25mm looks more attractive. I bought my friends Russian and Poish Napoleonics to wargame the 1830 Polish revolt. I also need to finish my Russo-Japanese war miniatures.

The West African Rules are supposted to be specifically for the Ashanti war, as it is my understanding I have not received them yet.

Stuart Asquith

Very many thanks for the two issues of The Heliograph. I enjoyed reading them and I have given the magazine a mention in issue 13/1 of Practical Wargamer.

It was good to meet you, if only briefly, at Fall In! I had a great time, quickly realising that all my pre-visit fears were groundless.

It was nice to be able to see an American conventionat first hand and to chat about the hobby in totally different company. I went to see Gettysgurg on the Sunday afternoon and spent the next few days in Canada looking at some of the War of 1812-1814 battlefields. A great end to a great week.

John Baxter

Article on Stanley follows. Wargames Illustrated stole a little of my thunder with an excellent article in the Dec issue.

I have been looking at Chris Ferree and Pat Wilson's rules (John Company) that they are still play-testing. They are certainly detailed, probably a little too much for me. Have you seen a journal called "Durbar" on the Indian Army. I found it on the Military History site and there are some fantastic articles on Indian military history. I have sent away for a subscription and some back-copies. I will fill you in when I get them.

I have seen some of the Old Glory British and Mahidists. Its fair to state that they encapsulate everything thats good and bad about most OG figures. With the amount of Foundry unpainted lead that I've got, I couldn't really justify any OG stuff (well, maybe just a mountain gun mule team or two. And perhaps a heliograph team..)

Russ Lockwood, (www.magweb.com)

In reply to Grant Sigsworth's letter in #109, I'm glad he is enjoying MagWeb. With over 10,000 articles (and growing), it is the largest military history and gaming site on the Web. And he needn't feel guilty about downloading--all the 57+ magazines in MagWeb signed agreements to allow their material to appear.

Why? Three main reasons (feel free to jump in here, Richard).

First, marketing clout. It's hard to attract subscribers if they don't know a magazine exists. Banding together to form a coalition of publications attracts more attention than going it alone, and that means you reach a greater audience--especially those who visited MagWeb for one topic or publication, and ended up finding others of interest as well. Every so often, they'll add a print publication that caught their eye to their snail mail mailbox...as has happened with The Heliograph. And since MagWeb advertises in and out of military history and gaming magazines, not to mention getting written about in newspapers and magazines, in effect, MagWeb is helping to advertise their publications as well.

Second, royalties. MagWeb pays royalties to the magazines. While admittedly Richard (or other publisher) is far from retiring based on MagWeb royalty payments, it is another revenue stream that helps him maintain the quality and increase the size of The Heliograph. And it puts those back issues to work as well.

And third, it's painless. Maintaining a web site is still time intensive, and MagWeb takes care of all the work. The publisher mails a copy of the magazine and e-mails some files (or sends them on disk), and we take care of the rest. And I'd like to believe we do a great job of displaying the magazines and their articles.

So don't "feel guilty," Grant. Enjoy MagWeb. Our coalition has grown from 8 magazines in 1996 (with only a single issue each!) to its current 57 publications with an average of a couple years worth of back issues each, plus sample book chapters, memoirs, and original material. We've kept the membership fee the same at $59.95 per year, and best of all, MagWeb continues to expand in quality and quantity.

I am not sure what more I can add, at first I lost several subscribers to MagWeb. About a year ago I started picking up new subscribers--at least a dozen who mentioned MagWeb. So I know that it is working for me and helping to bring you more colonial stuff to read and view.

Howard Whitehouse

Just got the latest Heliograph, looks wonderful! Moving forward all the time, eh? Lately I've not been doing that much in the way of colonials, a couple of Science vs Pluck games in the last year.

For the Wargamer's Reunion convention I dusted off "Tamai 1884", a veteran Science vs Pluck scenario noted for its concealed Fuzzy-Wuzzies and poor communication between the British officers and various Syrian interpreters and Abyssinian scouts. This game was unusual in that Cowan Hunter, acting as British G.O.C., took charge at the moment when total chaos was about to ensue, gave everyone a good collective chewing out, and got them to cooperate against the enemy rather than squabble among themselves. Often in big SvP games (the ones with 15 players all with competing briefings) the commanding general turns into a hapless soul who watches helplessly as his subordinates create a disaster around him. It was a great victory for the soldiers of the Queen. Usually, well, it isn't. Tamai has a lot of scope for disaster; on one memorable playing my friend Bill McGinnis (the most devious man in wargaming) played the one Abyssinian who had a grasp of sailor's English. He persuaded the commander that a group of Hadendowah circling off to a flank was actually his cousins from the hills, who would need some ready cash to bring them into the fight. He would take it to them. When given a big bag of silver Maria Theresa dollars he disappeared into the bush and was, ah, not seen again ----

Model Making; Oh yes, as usual. Lots of scenery for paying customers. The whole of the Little Big Horn Battlefield, 4 tables each 6' x 10', done in an absurd hurry and not as nice as I'd have liked (not my fault). Khartoum from scratch in 25mm, which had a bit of a disaster in transit when all the cardboard buildings warped, damifino why. Most of the North-west frontier of India. Some big civil war - both the real civil war involving King and Parliament and the American disturbances of the 1860s - things for various people. A lot of painting and basing commercial buildings, including the amazing Hudson & Allen Alamo (10 hours painting). Still can't get the medieval buildings to smell right, need more dung in the paint. Just got a big box of WWII Russian front things to paint for my friend Tim Mullen, not my favourite period, but, hey, everything's rubble, so how hard is that? Plus there's a tractor factory, and who could resist the romance of a tractor factory?

Painting: Not much time this year. Mostly 15mm Dark ages Picts, Scots, Irish, Arthurian British, some more 25mm gunfighters (I have about 9 Earp brothers and 3 Doc Hollidays it seems, all black coats and moustaches) and 25mm Vikings for the Nashcon project - enough for 20+ players. Not a single colonial (because I already have so many in 6mm, though the new Foundry 'Darkest Africa' range does speak to me).

Howard when do you have the time for all this stuff you must have a government job! and we're here to help! I have a few terrain pieces made by Howard and I wouldn't trade them of a complete Geohex system, well I might I only have 6 small pieces. These scenery pieces Howard makes are excellant and not very expensive compared with what he gives you, well worth the money!! HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!

Aaron Leiberling

The Heliograph has easily been the best sing magazine I have found on magweb. It is simply a great read with interesting articles, and I eagerly await every issue. Do keep up the good work!

I primarily play Principles of War (For which some good alternate rules can be found in Clash of Empires 3/4 (Double issue) - another excellent magazine), with a large Zulu army of mixed Essex and Old Glory. I suppose I'll start on the Sudan next (it's de rigeur after all), but have currently been waylaid by beginning some Napoleonics.

Actually, I should mention Carnage & Glory, a wonderful computer moderated set of rules for many periods. They cover SYW, Napoleonics, ACW, and (most applicably here from a timeline standpoint) the Franco-Prussian War. They play quickly, can be taught in mere minutes and work with any figure scale (everything is based on "paces", so you can decide how many paces to the inch dependant on how your figures are based). Additionally, accompanying the tactical/grand tactical rules is a completely computer moderated campaign system. Carnage & Glory allowed us, for the first time EVER to complete a campaign. It takes care of ALL the messy details and lets the players simply revel in the strategy. I'll forgoe singing their praises any more or listing additional features (like the quick battle simulator for the campaign system in case you don't want to fight out a particular battle on the table), but simply give their contact info. they can be reached on the www at: http://home.attnet/~npmarsh/ and in the US:

David C. Bonk
720 Bennington Drive
Raleigh, NC 27615

Before getting into miniatures, I was primarily a uniform collector and recreationist. I have around 25 original Victorian uniforms, most of which fit me, and I'm always gathering more. If there is interest, I could compile a list of places to purchase original uniforms. I collect primarily Rifle Brigade uniforms and accessories, but have a bit of everything. Additionally, I have some wonderful reference books. The first being "Dress Regulations for the Army 1900", which is the actual regulation book of the time. It contains b/w photos of many uniforms, as well as copius detail on trims, badges, headwear, etc... Although it is rare, a book search will turn it up (though I've never found a copy for less than $50.00). My second favorite reference is "Uniforms of the British Army, Navy and Court". It is a reprint of an original tailors handbook for the construction of the uniforms. There was a facsimile edition published by Fredrick Muller, Ltd., but it is almost imppossible to find.

Although the latter manuscript is more oriented to the reenactor or uniform buff than the gamer (it is second to none if you want to create a copy of any of the original uniforms)' I have been trying to come up with an angle that I could use to write an article for The Heliograph. Do let me know if you can think of one.

I am hoping to have all of my uniform information up on a www site if I can ever finish scanning it all in. I'll keep you posted when I finally have it up.

I have played Carnage and Glory with Napoleonics, with an older computer they don't play quite so fast but they are easy to learn and fun to play particularly with rules lawyers around, makes them madder than a wet hen. Sorry about the barnyard humor, just a plug for my lawyers.

As for an article, anything relating your uniforms to figure painting woould be great!