Anonymus

I'd rather not be quoted, but I will offer my opinions, for what they are worth. In the last issue, you were asking about standardizing the length and I would have to say I’d rather have a short, interesting issue than a long one packed with filler. Actually, I would rather have a long interesting issue, you get what I mean. I could care less about color covers.

My favorite topics are: uniform information, battle reports, painting tips, new product news, historical articles, reviews of books, figures, accessories, terrain, brands of paints, what have you. What I definitely don't care for are rules sets. If Larry Brom has a new wrinkle for TS&TF, I'm ready to read it, but otherwise, I can live without them. I'd also suggest not publishing material that has been offered to wargamers before. A case in point would be the Larry Brom article in the last issue. I know it's been out there for a long time.

If you like, I will submit some material for use in the magazine; just let me know your requirements for art and copy.

You might want to set up a want ad type situation for readers to sell and trade unwanted items.

Finally, I am interested in the ship arms and fittings you mentioned in the last issue. Let me know if you have any left for the $1. Got to be the best deal in town. I wasn't meaning to be critical. I realize you have to use what you get.

It's just that the Brom material had been up on the web for at least a year, maybe longer. And, I feel there are so many rules sets floating around that they all start to look the same. Copies of copies of copies. Soon we can look forward to the Tactica colonial variant or some such. I always get a laugh at the simple ones that run to reams of pages. I will work up some material for submissions.

Thank you much for the email. I will use it without your name, you are not the only one to ask for no more rules, I can publish what I have and receive. Larry Brom offered his rules so I took them because not all my readers have access to the web. Like other readers I devour MWAN from front to back the day it arrives, but tend not to read rules sets(unless they are colonial) and then I really don't like to. What you want to see is really where I want to go, along with a number of other readers. So I will. As to requirements for the Helio, what ever you want to send in whatever format, no color, is fine with me.

Eric Kolber

Hi Richard,

For once I actually have started reading the H'graph the month I got it, not because I don't enjoy it because I do (it and MWAN are my favs) but I'm always so busy it is hard to get to it in a timely manner. Oh well, the reason my letter, is I noticed you said you had some figures to get rid of, are any of them 25mm Wild West or 15 mm colonial? If so I'll send you off a letter today just tell me how much you need for postage. Thank you.

Keep up the great newsletter.

Have you seen any plans that describe how to design a set of modular terrain pieces? I have a lot of 3" thick styro sections that I would like to use but I know there is a real science to make the each section match up with the others no matter which way you turn them.

Sorry I haven't got back to you sooner, your email got lost in a pile I rec'd while away on business. The figs available are true 25s, but not Wild West, more like early twentieth century, underwater divers, or Kings African Rifles Machine Gun team.

Richard, Thank you for your prompt note. No, I don't object at all. If you do stumble across any more info especially any examples that show the way the grid or terrain should be laid out per square would be helpful. Do you use one of the electric styro cutters or something else?. It would be helpful to me even though I know it has been done other places before to give the primary manufacturers of figures sizes and comparisons so that it is something we could have as a handy reference. In other words Old Glory are what size of 25mm (and or 15mm) figure and they are compatible with xxxx manufacturers. Thank you for your help and insight.

Yes, I have seen plans and descriptions. Once you decide on a size, one foot or two foot squares, cut either 1/4 or 3/8 inch masonite to the same size and glue to what will be the bottom of the squares. Then whatever terrain features you place on a square it is strongly suggested that roads and watercourses exit the square in the middle of a side so that each road or river will always join the next square. Also make sure that you make extra, level terrain squares, as you will always need them. Any exceptionally tall side or end squares should be reinforced with masonite to protect the edges.

I have a battery-powered cutter that I have yet to use but is supposed to work very well.

I would also use Durham's Water Putty for some of your terrain, maybe even to cover each board completely with it. Make sure you stain it an earth color first so if it chips it does not show too much.

You also have to consider the buildings you use and their bases, if any, for use on the terrain boards. If you have big bases you need to make room for them on the terrain boards. Well it really does not matter how big the base of a building is just that you have to make room for it on the boards.

If you are near a hobby shop that sells model railroad stuff check out any mags they might have on terrain building. Most of their systems do not support modular terrain, but there are a few, or at least there were, that do support it that are well worth having for the ideas. Even some of their other systems of terrain have useful ideas.

If you have any further questions about this let me know and I will find the mag with the modular terrain descriptions, if I still have it, to answer any questions.

As to the figure manufacturers and a chart showing compatibility it is in the Heliographs Guide to Figure Manufacturers.

Timothy Boyd

Thanks for another year of the Heliograph. If you need to increase the subscription price go to it! As for color cover, well, if it pleases your aesthetic sense, that’s fine with me, but black and white is also just fine and, should you want to lay out money for, say, more figure review pages instead, that would be even better. I live in a place where there’s no possibility of visiting a store and actually seeing (let alone picking up) new figures, and your method of laying out new figures as you do is extremely helpful.

As to my opinions on changes/improvements, etc.--although I will occasionally look at other people’s rules (always more ingenious and complicated than anything I can create or would ever use), I have no great enthusiasm for such. MWAN tends to have too many sets at times and as much as I love MWAN and think that Hal T. deserves knighthood, sainthood, and season’s best seats at the sport of his choice, I tend to flick through those pages quickly. I would vote for more articles on:

1. out-of-the-way historical periods/events covered in the way the old S&S used to cover them (and whatever happened to Greg Rose?);

2. well written accounts of original wargames and campaigns, but only of a very limited number of reenactments. I know that they have a certain worth (although more to gamers, I have the feeling, than to outside readers), but I guess that I’ve read just one too many replays of Napoleonic battles or Isandhlwana or Gettysburg over the years.

My own latest venture into a new historical period came when a box fell on my head about a week ago. I was looking for something else on those haunted shelves which groan with the ghosts of unpainted metal people and oooops! Down it came. After a few choice words about the box, gravity, and Fate in general, I had a looksee and, inside, neatly packaged in unit-size plastic bags, were a large batch of Ral Partha, Hinchcliffe, Frontier, and even a few WGF figures (who look like they’ve been gorging on beer and beef since birth in comparison with the other lines).

I had a dim memory (the lump from the box didn’t help) that I had bought all of this stuff in--1992? It was clear, then, that Providence was about to guide my (painting) hand. I started rooting through my bookshelves, pulling out things like Boris Mollo’s The Indian Army, and, well, the decision was made. So far, I’ve finished and based the 32nd Bengal Native Infantry, two heliograph teams, a mountain gun and gunners, and have everything else primed and ready to go. It won’t be a big setup: half-a-dozen units on the British/Indian side and their equivalent on the Pathan (for a country I’m calling Ghazistan). This means that, by midsummer, I should be laying out the desert Geo-Hex and having at it. If you would like a campaign report for the Heliograph, let me know. I can’t guarantee that it will be in the deathless prose of Kipling at his best, but I have some hope that I could make it readable.

And thanks, as always, for the effort you put into the magazine, color cover, holograms of the Masai at picnics, or whatever you choose to do in the future.

First, thank you for the warm fuzzy. YES, I would like a campaign report we haven’t seen any in a long time.

Ron Telucky

Enclosed are a few variations for “Volley Fire!” by Larry Brom. I wrote him about some additional rules concerning Krupp Guns and the like,and he encouraged me to come up with some things myself. He’s one nice gentleman! (Yes he is!!) I plan on sending him a copy of what I’m sending you, to see if he has any suggestions.

If our readers haven’t tried “Volley Fire!”, I encourage them to do so, as I find ‘em better than his Sword and the Flame!

I attempted to base my variations on things I’ve read in a number of books and periodicals about the wars in the Sudan and what I’ve viewed in movies such as The Four Feathers. They seem to work!

Well, here’s my contribution to the Heliograph I hope others will be contributing articles as well. See below after the reviews.

At the moment, I can’t recall how the Gardner Guns were transported on marches (or Krupps). I believe I read where they were pulled by manpower, but I find that a bit unbelievable as the sun would kill them?! I’ve seen pics of Egyptians pulling them by mules, ridden by Egyptian troops.

Thanks for the variant, Ron, much appreciated. Here is one of the photographs Ron sent along of his gaming table. Very nice Ron! You have given me an idea.