1. Falcon Miniatures , PO Box 426014, Cambridge, MA 02142. Falcon US is under new management (Keith Astrofsky) and is offering at least the Boer War, Sudan War, German Southwest Africa, and FFL/Arab again. These are true 25mm. The list of figures available includes: German Southwest Africa – infantry and mounted, askaris foot and mounted, sailors, marines, artillery infantry and naval, Herero foot and mounted. FFL – Legion foot and mounted, zouave, chasseurs d’Afrique, arab foot and mounted horse and camel.

Sudan and Boer War – Boers foot, artillery and mounted, Dervish foot and mounted camel, British highland, infantry and cavalry. 10 foot 8.95, 4 cavalry 7.95, 8 command 7.95, 3 artillery 7.95. See Keith’s Dispatch.

2. The Gunboat Company, 1001 Warrenville Road Suite 175, Lisle, IL 60532. www.thegunboatcompany.com

This new company offers three different gunboats for 25-28mm figures. Made from precision cut wood (laser cut?), waterline models of river gunboats.
HMS Firefly - $249 kit, 24 X 3 3/4 inches carries Vickers MG, 12lber, & 6lb quickfire (Far East and Mesopotamia in WWI).
HMS Sultan 28 X 4 inches with 2 – 18lbers, 4 maxims $269 kit (Sudan).
Yangtse gunboat – 29 1/2 X 6 four deck levels, $329 kit.
Each model comes either as a kit or partially assembled (more money), apparently everything you need is included, except crew. From the website photos these are beautiful models! They are quite large, but if your scenario uses a gunboat these will give you plenty of room for your figs.

3. Lone Warrior, issue 144. As always great and inspiring articles for solo gaming, unfortunately nothing colonial this issue.

4. The Virtual Armchair General, announced last month that Richard Houston had made several more models of river gunboats for sale. The models come completed with crew. They look as good as those above. I received from Patrick Wilson a set of TVAG 1st and 2nd Sikh War Flags done by Chris Ferree. WOW!! See the Review
Also from TVAG are 15mm resin ships and boats for The Kris and the Flame, see the review. Definitely cool ships. And a snap to put together.

5. Castaway Arts, has announced new Tuaregs for their FFL to fight. I have taken my Porch off the shelf and have begun read his Conquest of the Sahara and looked over his Conquest of Morocco and The French Foreign Legion. If I can’t find some scenarios to write up here I might as well quit. And no I wont quit.
Gerry is also working on an English Lancer for the Sudan. Alright Gerry! Just take my paycheck already! And send’em to me. If he makes any red coated English Infantry I’m done for, I’ll have to sell son Ben’s figures to buy them. HMM! Not a bad idea that way I can buy tons-o-lead.

6. Soldiers of the Queen, The Victorian Military Society, PO Box 5837, Newbury, RG14 7FJ, UK Nothing to report this time.

7. Narrative Press, PO Box 2487, Santa Barbara, CA 93120, publish first person accounts of travel, adventure and exploration. Some of the titles include:
African Game Trails Theodore Roosevelt
Albert N’Yanza (Great Basin of the Nile) Samuel Baker
Autobiography Henry Morton Stanley
Confessions of a Macedonian Bandit (A Californian in the Balkan Wars 1905) A. Sonnichsen
Dead Men Do Tell Tales (1930’s Archaeological expedition to Abyssinia) B Khun de Prorok
Digging for African Gods (5 years archaeo. Excavation in North Africa) B Khun de Prorok
Into Darkest Africa 2 Vols Stanley
Ismailia (Suppression of the Slave Trade) S. Baker
Kachalola (Ivory Hunter in East Africa 1868-69 plus more) Sidney Broomfield
Lake Regions of Central Africa 2 vols. R Burton
Missionary Travel 2 Vols David Liningstone
Mysterious Sahara (excavation of tomb of Queen Tin Hinan) B Khun de Prorok
Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia S Baker
Wanderings in West Africa 2 vols R Burton
Zambesi Expedition D Livingstone

8. The Devil Soldier, Caleb Carr. I had been looking for a copy of this for some time and finally found one in Borders Books. The book details the life of Frederick Townsend Ward in 1859-1863 China, his development of the Ever Victorious Army, and the battles against the Taiping rebels for Imperialist China. Ward was killed in action and Chinese Gordon took over the Ever Victorious Army. Quite a good book with loads of scenario ideas, Ward uses gunboats to move his troops to the battlefield and fire their guns on rebel positions. His main steamer was the Hyson “a small iron paddle-steamer, of about ninety feet long and twenty-four feet wide, drawing three to four feet of water, and carrying one 32-pounder on a moving platform at her bow, while at her stern there was a 12-pounder howitzer. Loop-holed protection of planking ran around the bulwarks to a height of six feet, and the steam-chests were protected by a timber traverse. She averaged eight knots an hour.” (249) The corps used “commands and bugle calls as well as western weapons” and “decidedly non-Chinese uniforms… Boots and leggings were in the European mode, as were the tunics: Ward’s infantry wore light green and his artillerymen light blue…a number of Manilamen…as personal bodyguard… given…uniforms of deep navy…As headgear, the entire corps wore deep green turbans.”(162-163) Highly Recommended Reading

9. From ‘And That’s the Way It Was’

I received three sets of rules—Gunboat Diplomacy, The Kris and the Flame, and The Sword in the Punjab. With the release of Gunboat Diplomacy, TSATF, TSNS, 800 FE, and all the various Sword and Flame variants available from ‘And That’s the Way It Was’ the whole world of 19th century empire building is available for recreating. The rules systems have been integrated so if you know the basic TSATF the rest pretty much follow suit. See the first review of TKATF, fuller reviews of the others will follow as soon as I play test them.

The Sword in the Punjab ($14)
Rules for the First and Second Sikh War 1845/46 and 1848/49 by Mark A. Stevens and V. Jay Stribling. The set includes 21 pages of rules for battalion level games, loads of uniform info, changes and additions to the basic TSATF rules for this expansion set. In this set rather than individual figures the units are based either 4 infantry or 3 cavalry. Looks great, will report back after I play test them. Even if I don’t have figures strictly for this war I’ll use something else.
To go along with these rules are flags for the Sikh war from TVAG, see the review.

Gunboat Diplomacy ($30)
Is a system for colonial naval wargaming, originally written by Bob Duncan, edited, revised and expanded by Patrick Wilson. The rules have been revised to work with the TSATF system, are for European gunboats, and include the expansion set of “Nautical Native Bashing” otherwise called Rules for Native Vessels. The set includes 8 action deck cards, wind speed markers, compass, torpedo markers and 45 pages of rules with great illustrations. For keeping track of the various ships there are ships logs (copy these for each use) for ironclads, wooden, protected cruisers, Chinese and Burmese River gunboats. Named vessel ships logs include Infernal, Incredible, Perch, Intolerant, Inflamable, Eel, Crocodile, Safieh, Wadi Halfa, Pu Hao, Ting Hao, Suleiman, Kwai Pu Hao, and Tzu Hsi. As soon as I can I will play test these and report back, hopefully next issue. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED RULES SYSTEM

10. Old Glory, announced last month that they are starting to produce 10mm figures. So far nothing for the colonial period has been announced. Personally, I can’t see that small without my trifocals so I’m not about to buy any colonials to paint for the period. I also don’t see myself gaming very large-scale colonial battles, I much prefer skirmish or regimental level not army level. However, I could see playing army level for the Wars of Spanish Succession, also for Napoleonic (not buying any more of them) or ACW (also not buying any more of them).

Spencer Smith, The Old Rectory, Wortham, Diss., Norfolk, IP22 1SL, UK. under the name of Jacklex now offers 20mm figures for the Boer War, Sudan, Zulu War, NWF and Russo-Japanese War.

11. OstAfrika@yahoogroups.com This newly formed discussion group is as the name says concerned with colonial German East Africa. I posted the German Casualty article from 138 to their files section and asked for comments.

12. Foundry, has announced that their books will now cost $70, holy cow! So far they have been pretty good stuff. But, if/when I next buy another one I’ll try Amazon or BN first, even if they don’t give a free figure it has got to be a better price.