The Foundry Ruga Rugas went half to Mark Keigwin and half to Joe Seliga whose requests arrived the same day.

Several articles have arrived both long and short, for which I am most grateful. But please don't stop now, everything sent in is of interest to the readership. I would be especially interested to hear more about peoples armies, how they paint them and what you game. As well as what you like to see in the Heliograph.

Recently Ben and I have become interested in the pirate articles in Wargames Illustrated and have determined to build several ships and paint up some pirates,while thinking about that several days ago I thought that those pirate ships as designed should make over into Chinese junks rather easily. So I have begun a little research into junks and will make some changes to Gary Chalk's drawings and try to make a junk from that. If it works I will include the drawings in a future issue. I do not think that it should be terribly difficult. Finding figures might be though. I think that Pass of the North made some Moro and Malay pirates in 25mm and I have a few to begin terrorizing the South China Sea and put some of my British and French Marines to work.

Tabletop time has been nearly lacking since the December issue so I am still working on an examination of rules sets for Darkest Africa. To date the best I have tested are Blake Walker's rules variant for TSATF from a few issues back and Brian Ansell's The Rules With No Name, with American Plains Indian variant added.

This issue has several articles by Gerry Webb on the Ashanti War 1873-74. 1 hope that you will use these rules, or make your own by stealing his, getting figures from Castaway Arts and having a go at this somewhat forgotten war. Now that figures are available for this war, particularly the Ashanti, native scouts, and West Indian troops there is no reason not to try gaming this. I think the West Indian troops are a real boon to gaming. Their availability now opens up a lot more West Coast African campaigns.

Next issue will contain another gem from Blake Walker on the French and Italian campaign rules in Africa based on TSATF. Also the first part of two or three by Grant Sigsworth on campaigning in Darkest Africa.

It is that time of the year again, if you received a slip letting you know your subscription has run out please respond so you don't drop off the mailing list.

IF THE NUMBER ON YOUR MAILING LABEL IS 112, REENLIST IN THE HELIOGRAPH CORPS

Flash!!!!!

Here are some last minute items of interest that will show up next issue:

Masai Shield Designs and Painting Guide
African figures from a new Australian firm
Darkest Africa meets Conan Doyle's Lost World ideas
Lost World figures and Iron Steam Launch
Battlefields is back in print
Unfortunately Age of Empires is not
New colonial manufactures (at least for me)