1. The Foundry, the Foundry Web site has announced the latest Darkest Africa figures, Azande Musketmen. I think these will be the last of this set from Foundry as Mark Copplestone has left and started his own company (see below). www.wargamesfoundry.com HIGHLY RECOMMENDED FIGURES!!!!

2. Copplestone Castings, P.O. Box 9298, Birmingham B14 7PN, UK www.geocities.com/gisby.geo/dda.htm is the web address. No email orders but you can fax them to 44 121 444 7646. Carried in the US by RLBPS.
Return to Darkest Africa - Mark already has a five pack (at £ 5.50) of Azande Musketmen (not the same as the Foundry’s). The first eight packs will be ready in November:

AF1 Azande Musketmen AF2 Azande Musketmen AF3 British Naval Officers AF4 British Sailors in Sennet Hats - at the ready AF5 Ngoni Warriors in Feathered Headdresses AF6 Ngoni Warriors in Feathered Headdresses AF7 Married Ngoni Warriors - with Zulu style headrings AF8 Young Ngoni Warriors
Coming next: more sailors and Ngoni, plus some Somali tribesmen then definitely Germans and Hehe, maybe a few Zanzabari regulars.

Advance orders for Return to Darkest Africa packs will have their orders sent off first and get a free otherwise unobtainable African Elder miniature. I just posted my advance order to Mark and am hungrily awaiting the lastest figs. There is also an electronic newsletter available on his site for Return to Darkest Africa. Some other figs of interest he thinking about are Barbarian tribes to go along with HLBSs ranges including Fantasy Africans. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!

3. Articles of War, Ltd., 3 Rodeo Road, Silver City, NM 88061-8710, (505) 534-8840. Checkout their new web site at www.articlesofwar.com, I ordered six books from Articles of War and received them within a week, all in great shape and reasonably priced. Highly recommended! email: warbooks@aol.com

4. Bob Burke, 4726 Apaloosa Court, Antioch, CA 94509. email: BURKER1@aol.com See the ad See Bob for back issues of the Heliograph and Savage and Soldier. Also They Died For Glory Rules set. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!

5. MWAN, Hal Thinglum, 22554 Pleasant Drive, Richton Park, IL 60471, $35.00 a year for six issues. Issue 113: Not too much in the way of the colonial period this issue, but "Hal Pasha's Reconquest of the Sudan" by Hal Thinglum is more than worth reading it's full of useful ideas for scenarios as well as a review of figures for 15mm engagements. Very nice, as always, great job Hal. Also check out his editorial! MWAN IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!

6. HMGS Mid-South “Dispatch” August 2001 contains a set of rules entitled “Being a set of rules for hunting big game, or indeed, having it hunt you” by Howard Whitehouse “who never even saw the rhino coming.” Not only do youget to be a Great Hunter but you can also play an animal stalking your friends. A couple of the more interesting section headings include “How to act like a wild animal”, “Don’t step in the hippo poop!”, “Melee” (with Lions - Oh Boy!), and, of course, “Animal victories”. Even if you don’t play the game these 13 pages will certainly set you off laughing at the ideas Howard has for having a great game. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

7. Ian Knight, www.kwazulu.co.uk PO Box 290, Chicester, West Sussex, UK

Ian Has a new book out entitled With His Face to the Foe: The Life and Death of Louis Napoleon, the Prince Imperial, Zululand, 1879. This looks like another winner for Ian. If you order online now for £ 27.50, plus postage outside of the UK, you also receive the audio tape Wet with Yesterday’s Blood and the publication Dead was Everything. Don’t foget that Ian also takes tours to the South African battlefields, so contact him. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!

8. Victorian Military Society, Dan Allen, 20 Priory Road, Newbury, Berkshire, RG14 7QN Great Britain. If you don’t belong to the Victorian Military Society you should, and tell them the Heliograph sent you.

Soldiers of the Queen 106
There are two articles here well worth reading, all are but these two are more interesting to me. "The Many Hats of the Diehards" by Graham Gillmore contains more info on the Diehards and the new "Four Feathers" movie. "Rates of fire of the Victorian service rifle" by Adrian Whiting contains usefull information for those writing their own rules for most any colonial conflict from the Zulu War to the Boer War, very nice. VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!!!

9. The Melik Society, 202 Lambeth Road, London SE1 7JW, Great Britain. The purpose of the Melik Society is to advance public awareness of British and Sudanese history, particularly the development of river gunboats and the achievements of those involved in the military campaigns between 1883 and 1899. One of the immediate objectives is to facilitate the preservation and restoration of the remaining gunboats Melik and Bordein so that they can be exhibited, maintained and demonstrated to the general public. Every dollar or pound helps. Highly recommended charity!!!!

10. Wargames Illustrated, 18 Lovers Lane, Newark, Notts. NG24 1HZ Great Britain.

Number 169
While this has got lots to read nothing is really colonial. "Campaigns for Scenario Writers, The Franco-Prussian War" by Jeff Fletcher contains some useful information and many scenario ideas as well as four color photos. Great to use with Bob Burke's They Died For Glory FPW rules and with Castaway Arts new Franco-Prussian War figures. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!

11. Osprey Military Journal, Osprey Direct, P.O. Box 140, Wellingborough, Northants, NN8 4ZA Great Britain. www.ospreypublishing.com

Osprey Journal Vol. 3 Issue 5 Unfortunately nothing colonial this issue, but still a good read.

12. And That’s the Way it Was, 213 3rd St. NE, Hickory, NC 28601-5124 This is where to get your copy of The Sword and the Flame, this is a great set of rules and at 52 pages it is packed with great information and packaged very nicely. My favorite set of rules!!!!

13. Ultimate Miniatures, PO Box 3959, Visalia, CA 93278-3959 Are working on a new catalog, adding new figures. www.ultimateminiatures.com

14. Military Classics Illustrated issue 2 I don't remember the first issue but this has three articles worth reading. First, "The Ten Greatest War Films of All Time" by Dan Gagliasso is interesting and contains several of our favorite films from the colonial period (Four Feathers, Gunga Din, Zulu, and The Charge of the Light Brigade). Followed by Joseph Musso's "Men of the 24th, Arms and Equipment of the British infantry during the Zulu War" very nice and by Garry James "Martini-Henry, Probably the best Military Single-Shot Breech Loader Ever". These two articles compliment each other very nicely with some interesting info on the M-H and full of color photographs.

15. Old Glory Corp, Box 20, Calumet, PA 15621. www.oldgloryminiature.com

As I wrote above I recently bought some FFL-Sons of the Desert (SOD) figures from Old Glory and got pretty good service. HEY! Why doesn’t Osprey have a book on the FFL??? These figures I purchased included:

SOD1 Foreign Legion Command, three mounted and foot Officers, SGTs and buglers. The SGTs and buglers are in great coats and packs so they can’t be used with SOD4, they could really use a bugler without a pack and greatcoat. Useful poses on mounted officers.
SOD3 Legion Advancing, in packs and great coats, seven poses and 30 figures.
SOD4 Legion Skirmishing, no packs or greatcoats, 30 figures. Comes with two hand grenade throwers, which I converted into SGTs. Figures are in five poses and have canteens, haversack and cartridge boxes all useful poses.
SOD14 Mounted Chasseurs d’Afrique, ten mounted figs. I was very surprised to find that none of the horses matched any other, one did match one in the command set, but no big deal there. The men have two poses. I have never really been thrilled with OGs solid bridles but I guess that’s a molding problem.

Generally speaking the figures are pretty good, a bit of flash, especially between the legs, and a few figures had mold line problems but not too badly. The horses were ok animated but too wide for the men to sit properly. I had to really jam them on with pliers to get them to fit. Now that they are there to stay they look pretty good. The command pack figures are different and nicely animated. The mounted are a lot looser fitting on the horses. The Skirmishers have no pack or coat, which makes it weird to give them a bugler since they are in coat and pack. They come advancing, standing firing, kneeling firing, and loading with some head variation. But basically there are only seven posses. The animation isn’t too bad

You don’t quite get enough figures for a coy and too many for a platoon using TSATF rules but using Old Glory’s Sons of the Desert rules one bag of figures with command gives two units which works ok.

I thought, above, that I might buy some more bags to fill out the ranks, but I would rather add another unit or two using the Sons of the Desert rules than TSATF. No I am not blaspheming, since all my figures are individually based I can always make up a unit to 20 figures, instead of 18, to use TSATF variant for the FFL. Now if they just had some Senegalese and Spahis it would be perfect. I don’t even want to think about how many more Arabs I’ll need, or whether or not I’ll buy their fort.

Does anyone have enough info on FFL uniforms for a short article or painting guide???? PLEASE. Also has anyone bought Old Glory’s FFL fort I’d like to hear about it.