DON’T FORGET, PLEASE, IF THE NUMBER ON YOUR MAILING LABEL IS 132 IT IS TIME TO REENLIST FOR THE HELIOGRAPH FOR ANOTHER YEAR.

Once again another issue has snuck up on me without being ready.

I have two books available for free, well I want a review back from you. (Note: Only available to Heliograph print subscribers. Sorry, MagWeb.com subscribers. If you want to participate in the [fairly regular] Heliograph giveaways, send $12 for a print subscription to Richard. -- RL)

Scalp Dance: Indian Warfare on the High Plains, 1865-1879 by Thomas Goodrich, a Stackpole 2002 reprint of the 1977 edition in paperback.

The Custer Companion: A Comprehensive Guide to the Life of George Armstrong Custer and the Plains Indian Wars by Thom Hatch, a 2002 Stackpole book, paperback.

Both seem to be quite good but I would like your opinion, no I have not read them this is not an area of interest to me, but I know some of you are interested, please do not hesitate to contact me about reviewing either or both books for the October? Issue.

I took a short vacation to see my father in NJ and then went to Wilmington, DE to see the Winterthur Museum, if you are interested in decorative arts or gardens this is the place to go (as well as the MESDA Museum in Winston-Salem, NC). Obviously, my son and I had to check out the local hobby shops, not much in Bergen County, NJ which is a shame, don’t they have any hobbies up there outside of clothes and shoes. However, they do have the largest Barnes and Noble bookstore and that is nice. Ben and I always make a habit of checking out as many of the local hobby shops as possible, as you never know what you will find you can use for any number of gaming projects.

However, for the gamer Wilmington and Newcastle, Delaware is heaven. While historical game figures were not really available, Wilmington has two stores worth visiting—-Mitchell’s Trains and Toys (on Concord Pike) and Simpson’s Hobby Shop. There are one or two others, especially the shop on Main St. in Newcastle where they put on friendly historic games once a month (sorry I forgot their name) and have a huge variety of board games (old and new). If you need scenery items, stuff for ships, models, or plastic figs Mitchell’s is the place.

On the other hand Simpson’s (on Foulk Road) has a wide variety of stuff of all scales, models, plastic figs and die cast vehicles. I had been looking for some 1920ish or earlier trucks beyond the Atlantis Disney stuff. Well, I walk in Simpson’s and bingo right in front of me are five trucks and they are only 3.99 each, I must have been in heaven. I haven’t been, or seen a hobby shop like this since the early 1960s stuff crammed everywhere. I have since taken the trucks apart, got rid of the loads, and repainted the yellow, red and green bodies to a flat black. I will turn one I made into a flat-bed into a water truck while one remains a supply truck the other three will carry troops or something. I will get a plastic thread spool and cover it with thin narrow strips of balsa wood, glue them on then cut some narrow bands from some plastic black electrical tape for the banding around the tanks and it will look great, may be even adding a bent piece of paper clip as a faucet on the end. For the top I will need some sort of hatch looking thing, may be from a small tank I’ll look in Ben’s bits box, no better let him do that.

The trucks may not be exactly 28mm but they are close, and much cheaper than the $12 scale trucks at Toy R Us. I think I have seen these before in fancy packaging for a similar price in a mega mall discount toy stores a couple of years ago. These were made in China for Welly.

Anyway they will now take the place of the much smaller 20mm scale trucks I have been using. This just goes to show there are vehicles and things out there we can use you just have to dig for them.

We also went into a Michael’s Arts and Crafts store and I found some very nice paper, cloth and wire 5-6” wing span dragon-flies for my Lost World Campaigns as well as silk plants to make jungle foliage from. I am also looking for something to make a Stargate from so I can transport my colonials to other worlds for some variety with TSATF.

Speaking of TSATF I ordered some of the new supplements from Larry Brom So possibly by next issue I will review them.