Sadly, you will note on page three of this issue, the passing of David Barnes who did the beautiful drawings of toy soldiers and accessories for his column, "Miniature Products Review". David started writing and drawing for MWAN with MWAN #65, and never missed an issue. I had been aware of him for many years prior to that because I had subscribed to LONE WARRIOR, of which I believe, David was a founder. We shall miss his contributions; he was a very talented man. David Love, who prepared his column for MWAN since #65, had planned to visit him in Scotland. I have finally caught up, well, nearly, with the times and now have "e-mail" (halmwan@hotmail.com). Do not, I repeat, do not e-mail me attachments, as I do not know how to do this yet. The last time I tried, I knocked out my computer for two days and Kate, our youngest, had to get it going again. It is all right to send me e-mails which I will then put into the letters column. I would wish that you include your home mailing address with you e-mail so that I don't have to spend time looking it up. There are many people who don't have e-mail and may wish to contact you. Please be patient if you e-mail me and don't get an immediate response. I have been purchasing 20mm FPW B&B miniatures as well as 15mm Essex and Outpost FPW. I know this doesn't make any sense and I won't try to justify it to you. I just like the figures from both of these scales. I have also been looking for 20mm. terrain items and buildings. I have ordered 20mm buildings from Sentry Models and Scenic Effects and am anxious to see what they look like. I did a Sentry Models building at Men-At-Arms hobby shop (nice shop, Bill!) And it appeared to be a "large" 20mm. If you are aware of other items, please drop me a line and we'll print your letter for everyone to see. I have decided to have terrain squares built for me. Curt Murff lives perhaps ten minutes away and we got together over the Fourth of July weekend to talk about it. We also made a trip to Men-At-Arms hobby shop in Lombard, Illinois as neither of us had been up there. We enjoyed talking with Bill Krieg, the owner, and spent several hours browsing through his shop. Anyway, the one hour trip each way gave us time to discuss the project. This is something that I've dreamed of for years and I finally decided to go ahead with it. The terrain squares will be two feet x two feet. I am having Curt construct a 15mm European town on one of the terrain squares. If I remember correctly, there are about a dozen buildings which go on this square. In addition, there will be different sorts of city walls and lots of extras. A river will go through the town in some fashion and there will be a bridge. This square will be the only one having permanent structures on it. All of the others, villages, farms, manors, etc., will be mounted on irregular-sized bases and then placed on top of the completed terrain squares. In this way, I can get more use out of the squares. I will also have roads and rivers on the terrain squares. I am planning on having 24 such squares made for my table, which is 8'X 16'. I'll keep you posted on this project. Russian Train Several issues ago I mentioned the B&B 20mm Russian Civil War train and stated that the engine did not have any wheels. I have since found out that the engine I reviewed (the "Red" armored train) was not intended to have wheels, however the "White" armored train engine does. A rather strange thing, I think. If someone has this train and wishes to have wheels for it, I would think it would be a relatively simple thing to take it over to a model railroading shop, show to them and ask for some help finding wheels and an undercarriage for it. If someone does this, please let us know. I've had several requests from MWANers regarding the indoor/outdoor carpeting I use for my wargaming table. I found it at NY Carpet World, and it is a "Fanfare Carpet," product type 1659 6158. It comes in green (18117-05) or sand (18117-10). Sometime ago I received a Seven Years War book by James Woods, from the UK, in which he details a SYW campaign he ran. I wanted to review it for MWAN, but couldn't find his address anywhere. Does anyone know how I can contact him? I'd like to comment on the work John Stafford has done with "Wargame Clubs of America." John has a list of 189 clubs in his column. Isn't that something? Good work, John and thanks a lot for your efforts! I hate to say it, but for the first couple days that I was "online", I was "surfing the web," something I said I'd never do! I didn't spend all that much time doing so, but enough so as to become aware of the amazing websites out there for wargamers. Henry Hyde, from the UK (battlegames.co.uk), publishes a "magazine" which I found very interesting. He has an editorial, notice board, reviews, wargaming section, re-enactors section, bookshelf, battle reports, beginner's section, links, battlechat, advertising, and much more. Some very good stuff. Another good site I found is the Wrexham and District Wargames Club Home Page (http://www.wargames.freeonline. co.uk/dispatches.htm); quite a few rules sets and several which I have obtained permission to print in MWAN. An outstanding site for colonial wargamers is Major General Tremorden Rederring's Colonial-era Wargames Page (http://zeitcom.com/majgen). This is a fascinating site with color pictures of their wargames in progress. In addition, they have sections on how to make the type of terrain you see in their pictures. I was very impressed with it! Historicon After a twelve year hiatus, I attend Historicon '99 and had a great time. I drove out to Lancaster with Greg Novak and Tom Harris early Tuesday morning and returned home early Monday morning. I plan on writing an article about it for MWAN # 102 so I won't say too much about it here except to say that very much enjoyed meeting and talking to so many MWANers. Also, judging from the number of "young" (20-30's) people I saw in attendance, I don't think this hobby is in any serious danger despite all we hear about the "graying of the hobby." It was especially nice to see Donald Featherstone again and meet Charles Sweet, who describes himself as the world's "oldest wargamer." I also met a number of other people for the first time including Larry Brom and Michael Blake (the "Father" of skirmish wargaming). Everyone I encountered was a "gentleman." It was a good, but tiring, time! It is simply amazing the vast number, variety and quality of products we have available to us as wargamers. I never thought we would see so many great products in this hobby. More on all of this in next issue! If anyone is doing any WWI or WWII wargaming in 25mm out there, I sure would like to hear about it. Battle Honours has their 25mm WWII Japanese out as well as a number of vehicles and German and Russian anti-tank guns. I was sorely tempted to get some at Historicon but fought back the urge. Hey, I finally played in a wargame! I drove down to Decatur, Illinois, the week prior to Historicon and spent the day at Len Brewer's house. Len was kind enough to set up a 15mm Peninsular War game using Shako rules. I was impressed with the rules feeling that I, the world's worst rule-learner, was able to understand and grasp the mechanics after a few turns. I am not going to "brag," I'll let Len tell you about my "generalship" in next issue; however, I can tell you that I commanded the Spanish on the center and right flank (the British were on my left flank) and my militia fought off the Swiss Guard! Always knew I had it in me! I just needed someone who rolls even worse dice than I normally do! I've also been working on my 20mm SYW Project and enjoying it. To me, the most exciting part about this hobby is planning and organizing a new period. I have huge 25mm armies for Prussia, France, Russia, Austria, England and Spain, but when I saw Hap Jordan's excellently done SYW 20mm, I couldn't resist them. We were talking sometime ago in MWAN as to what "attracts" us to a specific period. For me, it is usually a figure line which grabs me. I do "hope" to keep this project limited to Prussia and Austria; of course, that was my original intention some ten or so years ago when I did the SYW in 25mm! Lucky 13 I sat down a few weeks ago and listed the periods I intended on doing and ended up with about thirteen(!) of them; quite a few more than I thought. Some years ago I "down-sized" my collection as I felt I had far too many periods of interest and it would appear as though I am at that same stage again. It's difficult to resist new lines of toy soldiers but one would think I would be capable of a little more "self-control" than I've exhibited. On the other hand, I find it encouraging to be so excited about the hobby again. It's enjoyable to be driving to work and have thoughts of organizing an arrny running through my mind. I am hopeful that when my terrain squares are finished, I'll feel motivated to play some wargames on it. I've mentioned a number of times within this column that I would love to try some solo gaming and a solo campaign. I'll have to dig out my files on solo wargaming and campaigns and take a look at the ideas I jotted down as well as articles on the subjects I've collected over the years. By the way, I would highly recommend going through your collection of magazines and photocopying articles of interest, making up manila files for them, and storing them away in a file cabinet. I did this some years ago and now am in the routine that whenever a new magazine arrives, I automatically do this. It is very helpful as just last night I wanted to read up on the Spanish Civil War and just pulled out the file. I was pleasantly surprised to find about fifteen articles as well as three rules sets. Saved me a lot of time going through back issues of all my wargaming magazines. Another thing which has been of assistance is to enter all of my thoughts and ideas about a period in a notebook. OFFICE MAX has some really nice notebooks of perhaps one hundred pages each more than enough room to store valuable information in one place. I also enter all figure needs and orders in these notebooks which allows me to easily keep track of my plans for the period. I find this especially helpful when writing rules - I can follow my thinking process as to rules changes and compare different mechanisms. See you next time! Back to MWAN #101 Table of Contents Back to MWAN List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1999 Hal Thinglum This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com