Colonial Campaigns: Ethiopia 1887-1896, 10 Colonial Wargame Scenarios, by Mark Fastoso, 1911 R St. NW. #402, Washington, DC 20009 ($15 plus $5 shipping and handling). Check the website out www.colonialcampaigns.com or email Mark at fastoso@ix.netcom.com

There are ten scenarios (duh! including two for Adowa for TSATF and they are very nicely written, but I progress too fast. The booklet includes: a painting guide similar to TSATF, 12 pages of background information (that places the battles in perspective), a discussion of each army, rules changes and plan your own campaign. The maps are a little pixally, but not bad, possibly better than the Italians had. The rules changes mark the Italians as British, Askari as Egyptians, and Abyssinians as Zulu. This is my only objection, I am not sure that these troops are as good as indicated (heck I don’t think the Egyptians are this good). Just because they had better weapons does not mean they can hit anything. The Egyptians are thought to be good, but by most accounts prior to their reorganization, and possibly after, they could not hit the broadside of a barn, even with live fire training. Even volley fire was not that good. The only Sudanese/Egyptians that were, before reorganization were the Sudanese that made up the Black Corps d’elite with the French in Mexico. I digress.

The revisions to TSATF include eight man units rather than 20 or more, yes more, these eight figures can represent any unit in TSATF from a platoon to a battalion. Which makes this rules revision even more interesting. Each scenario includes setting, orders, historic overview, scenario options, victory conditions, notes, map-generally historically accurate, and OBs (but only for TSATF, you could convert this to other systems with a little effort, by units not numbers), and finally campaign rules. This set of scenarios and TSATF revisions can all be played with about 250 figures, which considering most other periods is very good, especially since you already have Dervishes. At first I thought there is quite a bit of wasted space on the scenario OB pages, but the further I got along, the more involved I got and am filling the blank space with notes, figure info and true OBs when I can find the information on the units or battles, which I did.

Figure availability for the scenarios: 28mm Bicorne, Cannon Fodder, Italwar, Strategia & Tattica, and Copplestone; 25mm Falcon US, Irregular, and Matchlock; 15mm Gladiator, Irregular, and Tin Soldier. There are more scenario books planned, The Boxer Rebellion, Seymour Relief is scheduled for Spring 2003. Other titles soon will include South Africa 1875-1882, Zulu War and 1st Boer War; Sudan, The Rise of the Madhi; Spanish-American War, To Hell with Spain; Boxer Rebellion, The Siege and Relief of Peking; Afghanistan 1879, and Sudan, The Nile Campaign.

I eagerly await the Boxer Rebellion and Sudan books.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED