The Year 2000! As I write this, it is December 12, 1999, and I am using my new computer with a new scanner. The old computer, which I had for perhaps seven or eight years, stopped functioning and I had to get a Dew one. Instead of Word Perfect, I am using Microsoft Word, and there is a learning curve involved here! Unfortunately, I am unable to access all of my files in the old computer; so much information needs to be redone. I am also having difficulty getting the scanner installed -- thus, this has set me back quite a bit with this issue.
The anticipated move has not gone well, to say the least! We've gone through two potential buyers, lots of cancelled closings, and too much worrying for the last five months. Continue sending your correspondence to the Manteno address. Hopefully this will work out toward the end of January!
With everything packed since the second week in September, I haven't had access to much of my hobby stuff I've really missed this and am very much looking forward to having everything unboxed and set out on the new plastic storage units, so I can easily access them, I am very excited about my new storage units; I've purchased some from Target as well as Menards and am very pleased with them! They have ranged in price from $32.00 to $36.00 for a five shelf unit. We had two of them in the toy closet and both have been requistioned for hobby use and I purchased an additional five. This should be sufficient for my figures, hobby supplies, terrain, buildings, and back issues of MWAN. While shopping for the storage units at Menards, I checked out their carpet department as I routinely do. I found 6' X 9' carpets in green and tan for about $25.00 each and purchased two of the green ones for coverings for my wargames table. I think they are a very good buy. The tan carpet would go well as a desert type terrain and I am tempted to go back and get them while they are still available. I will try and find the green carpets I purchased so I can give you more information on them.
What has made it even more difficult without access to my hobby stuff has been that I have received a number of painted figures for the 25mm SYW, 20mm FrancoPrussian War, and l5mm English Civil War/Thirty Years War. Whenever I get painted figures, I really enjoy painting and terraining the bases, gluing them to a metal movement stand, and finishing off the whole stand. This morning, while looking for the Christmas decoration boxes in the garage, I found a hobby box containing my terraining materials so I am hopeful of working on this if I get some time off around the holidays.
With my ECW/TYW project, I have moved a little "east" and have been building some Polish units of horse and foot including Winged Hussars. I've never had such a wargames unit and am anxious to see how they took on the tabletop. I've also been adding TYW Cuirassier from Essex and Irregular Miniatures, both of whom make nice figures which are compatible. From what I have read, there were many Cuirassier units during the TYW.
I'd like to congratulate Duncan MacFarlane on the great job he has done with his two wargaming publications he has produced over the years. Between MINIATURE WARGAMES and WARGAMES ILLUSTRATED, I believe he just went over the "200" mark in issues, a remarkable achievement. It is not, however, just a matter of "numbers", as Duncan has consistently produced a high quality product in each and every one of his issues! I've mentioned before how I felt that his publishing efforts have resulted in a dramatic increase in the quality of figure painting, terrain, and figure basing because of "color pictures". I've met Duncan a number of times over the years and enjoyed chatting with him. We have been very fortunate indeed to , have Duncan publishing throughout the years. I am hopeful he will be doing so for many years to come! Congratulations, Duncan, on a job very well done Sir!
In MWAN #100, I mistakenly credited authorship of "Plastic Figures in 25mm Plus" to Kenn Hart, when it should have been Jonathan Aird. Sorry, Johnathan! I don't like to make those kinds of mistakes!
I find myself almost out of articles for MWAN 104; 1 would really appreciate it if all of you would take computer keyboard to hand and send an article, letter, or review. if possible, please send both a disk and hard copy. Specifications are on the contents page. I still don't have my e-mail hooked up yet, I will try to answer all the e-mails I have received but this may take me some time! Thanks very much!
Looking over my Russian Civil War book collection, which is growing steadily, thanks to the efforts of Craig Martelle in Moscow, I am more excited about doing something with this period in 15mm. Peter Pig has a nice line of figures for this period although I have not seen them. I am very surprised at the variety of uniform types and colors for this period! Very colorful indeed! I am also "swayed" by the fact that Peter Pig makes a 15mm. RCW armoured train. I wonder what size track it would use. Does anyone out there know? I understand that True North in Canada will also be releasing a line for the RCW. I have not seen the True North figures either, though I am told they are quite good. I think they started out with WWII Poles if I am not mistaken. I know that Peter Pig also makes some 15mm Russian buildings and Hovels has their excellent l5mm line as well. Between these two, you would have some very nice buildings. My intention is to merge the Russian Civil War and WWII Eastern Front in 15mm so that I can use terrain and buildings for each.
While at THE EMPEROR'S HEADQUARTERS last weekend, I picked up some BATTLEFRONT WWII items, Russian and German limbers, guns, and mortar crews. I haven't had a chance to open them up although they look quite good. I hadn't seen this line before either. I understand that they match very well with OLD GLORY WWII stuff. I picked up a few vehicles, just to see what they were like, and they seem to have resin bodies with metal track sections. Upon initial examination actually, just looking at them through the plastic box - the detail looks good. I really like it when companies turn out horse drawn limbers for the WWII period as from what I understand, much of the German and Russian transport was horse-drawn.
I may have mentioned previously that I would love to have one period which is intended for "winter warfare" and it would stand to reason that the Russian Civil War and/or WWII Eastern Front would be perfect for this. The problem is, as you know, that it requires two sets of terrain including trees. I suppose I won't do it, but it sure sounds good. If anyone has done any "winter" type terraining, I sure would like to see an extended article on how it was done and how it turned out.
I've been slowly adding 25mm WWII figures and vehicles to my collection of Germans and Russians for the Eastern Front using the excellent BATTLE HONOURS vehicles and figures. While at HISTORICON, I noticed they had released anti-tank guns and crews, but haven't been able to pick any of them up as of yet. I had a number of 1/48th scale plastic vehicles for this project, but decided to go with the lead vehicles instead. From what I hear, more gamers are using the plastic models for 25mm. I know that "scale" is going to be somewhat of a "problem" on a table top for 25mm WWII guns/vehicles.
In my mind, the way I am going to deal with it is to not have a lot of vehicles (sure, that's what you say now!). I don't intend on having a company of tanks, or even a platoon. Any tanks I have on the board will be a "hodgepodge" of different types of vehicles and scenarios will probably involve German rearguard actions against Soviet onslaughts; come to think of it, I probably will get a platoon of Russian T-34's or something like that. The Germans will be throwing together whatever they can find to stop or slow down the Russian advance. Again, Hovels makes an excellent set of Russian 25mm buildings, including a great church, and I used a lot of the TCS terrain items, such as fencing/etc., for Russian villages.
I have Andrew Doyle's (3-D Contours) 4" rivers and 2" streams, which are excellent for the 25mm scale. TCS makes a great log bridge in 25mm, which is perfect for Russia. It would also work very well for 20mm as well! Some years ago I had Andrew make me a 25mm "swamp" which was perhaps 2' X 2'; this would be ideal for Russian terrain, I have been doing some thinking about basing 15mm figures. My English War/Thirty Years War project utilized Howard Whitehouses' system of three stands per 11 unit". This looks quite good visually and reduces the number of stands in a game to move. Arty Conliffe's Napleonic Rules SHAKO, uses basically three 4-man stands for a battalion. I am seriously considering going to three stands per "unit" for other l5mm periods such as the Malburian period. I think I would do six man stands for infantry and perhaps four to five man stands for cavalry. I have nine-man stands for the ECW/TYW and four- man cavalry stands.
This gives, in my opinion, an excellent "effect" for the period - the foot are in three ranks, something I've never done before, and they do look good! Horse are "sort of' in two ranks, however, the ranks are more "blended" together than the foot are. I used to feel that a single "stand" should represent say a company; however, I don't necessarily think that any longer. For the 15mm scale, I find myself moving more toward the "abstract", For some reason, I would have a hard time doing this in 25mm.
As mentioned in the "What's New in Hal's Mailbox" section, I recently had the chance to see Adler's 6mm Seven Years War figures and was very impressed. See also Robbie Rochliss's arcticles in this issue on 6mm wargarning. Adler is producing a 6mm line of WWII which would, I think, be very interesting to see, given their high quality and detail! There have been times when I have been tempted by micro-armor - even going so far as to purchase some many years ago however, what always stopped me was the difficulty in representing infantry. I didn't want to do WWII wargaming with only tanks on the battlefield. If I were to do 6mm, I would go with the one stand equals one "unit" concept like Robbie - as does VOLLEY & BAYONET. I haven't seen many V&B armies, but the ones I have seen are most impressive with skirmishers out in front of two separate battalions of infantry - all on the same stand! If we are trying, as wargamers, to recreate "armies", 6mm would be the way to go, wouldn't it!
I do think, however, that the Irregular Miniatures 6mm system of having "blocks" of 6mm figures would be more preferable than the "individual" system used by Adler in terms of painting and mounting - I can't see myself having the ability to paint individual 6mrn figures and glue them in place using these bulky fingers of mine! I am going to have to try painting some of these 6mm to see what I can do with them. They sure have an attraction for me! No matter what period I've entered, it's always been with the intention of building large armies - 6mm, would take care of that!
My heart is not really into this next subject, however, it bears mentioning one last time. I've come to realize that people get into organizations such as HMGS for many different reasons; sometimes for other reasons than to promote this hobby that we all love so much. However, having seen some of the emails which have been sent out to numerous individuals, as well as articles printed within the HMGS publication, dealing with "mudslinging," for lack of a better word, I think it serves no purpose whatsoever other than to "turn people off' to "organizations." Personally, I think HMGS does a lot of good things - even if they did nothing else other than run three national conventions, they would be doing a lot of good. I can understand how there can be differences of opinion about how money should be spent and what direction(s) should be taken by the organization; however, I fail to understand how anything can be gained by "bad-mouthing" other people, or finding fault with previous administrations. When the "normal" wargamer (is there such a thing?) or person reads such "opinions," I can not imagine them thinking this is a positive thing to be doing in print - it is not even positive saying such things verbally.
When I was involved with the founding of HMGS MIDWEST some years ago, I could tell there was much opposition to such organizations. Much of the opposition had to do with prior experience(s) of people who supported groups such as this and then found that personalities then "took over." I was naive enough to think that wouldn't happen again, however, I was wrong about that. Why is it so difficult to accept what we do as a simple hobby - an activity which we greatly enjoy; a love for history and toy soldiers which we share with so many other like- minded individuals which ends up drawing us closer to people whom we never would have had a chance to meet if it weren't for "the hobby." We can disagree about rules systems, figure scales, painting techniques, etc., however, we always enjoy reading about someone else's view of the hobby even though it is different than that which we have adopted.
I personally am not interested in doing 54mm wargaming; however, I can greatly enjoy reading an article about 54mm written by someone who loves it. I can sense the feeling the individual has for the subject, the only emotion I can sense when I read "mud- slinging" is of a negative nature. I don't need that in my hobby and I can't think of any reason for it. Serves no need! Nuff said, I guess! I won't mention it again in MWAN.
If you have access to the internet, check out Henry Hyde's "wargaming publication" at battlegames.co.ukk - very interesting stuff Also the Wrexham & District Wargames Club home page at http://www.wargames.free-on1in.co.uk. They have lots of rules systems which you can download. There are a growing number of such websites available! If you are aware of any sites which you find especially interesting, please drop me a line - or e-mail me at halmwan@hotmail.com - I should be getting it set up again soon. I haven't had it available to me since the beginning of September and find that I really miss it, after thinking for so long that I didn't need it!
Every time we go shopping, I check the area where they have plastic storage boxes. There are an amazing number of different types and sizes which are perfect for storing anything from wargaming troops to terrain. Many of my troop storage boxes are the old "true" hard plastic sweater and shoe boxes with magnetic strips attached to the bottom. When they were no longer available, I began picking up the newer plastic boxes - many of them are quite a lot larger than my old ones and the bottoms are not completely even, thus making it difficult to use the magnetic strips or to store the troops without them shifting around.
What I've thought of doing is to cut out some tempered hardboard pieces the size of the bottom of a large plastic box and lay it flat. I could then either use magnetic strips, if I have metal bases for my figures, or if not, just line up the units base to base. I've recently seen some very large, shallow, plastic boxes for storage under a bed. These would be great for my 15mm trees, which are mounted on terrained bases. Stores frequently have sales on these boxes and it is not difficult to pick them up for relatively inexpensive prices.
I use the smaller "shoe boxes" for storage of static grass, periods I may be starting to collect, and just "odds and ends." One of the nice features is that one can stack them three or four high on the floor under the wargames table or on shelving units. Very useful items!
Hope to hear from you soon!
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© Copyright 2000 Hal Thinglum
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