From Ken Raetzman Through MWAN I was able to hook up with George Johnson of GAJO and purchase a few of his prepainted troops. They are excellent with special orders, so I was able to purchase a few figures at a time. After a little touch-up, some finish applied, and after mounting for gaming, these figures look outstanding and the detail is excellent. In my situation it is especially helpful to have someone to do most of the work for me. Also, quite some time ago, I sent John Price a handful of my extra figures to paint. He did a great job on some Bavarian line infantry, especially matching some colors I wanted. Both of these companies/individuals filled my orders in a speedy fashion. GAJO is especially fast at getting figures to you, usually within ten days in my case. Finding these people has made it possible for me to continue in a hobby I love, since I can not do much painting myself anymore.
From Tom Barkalow I have been working on my rewrite of ON TO RICHMOND for the regimental level (not surprisingly, it" called Regimental OTR). As usual, I decided to make further changes so it has grown to nearly twenty pages. I feel this is too long so I am trimming it. The main problem is dealing with different figure scales as this has resulted in two sets of charts and explanations of certain rules that must be handled a bit differently. I'll keep plugging away at it and will have something later this year.
(Editor's Note: Thanks for update, Tom; hope you'll submit them to MWAN!).
From Bill Amick Just wanted to take a moment to wish you and your family a wonderful holiday season. It seems as we get older we find all sorts of things to be thankful for with family and friends.
On a more earthly note, I wanted to thank you for the years of enjoyment you have given all of us gamers by publishing what many of us consider the best wargaming magazine in the world. There is no other gaming publication that I am aware of that touches upon so many styles, periods and philosophies. A proverbial "United Nations" of gainers. I feel it is the broad mix that gives MWAN its appeal. It is this broad appeal that has caused many of us to game in periods that we had not previously considered, thereby helping to create this new golden age of wargaming that many of us consider to be happening (by buying rules, figures, etc).
Things with our gaming group have been slow, several of us sold off our collections to finance those things that happen in life. We are now rebuilding our collections slowly. We are still concentrating on SYW and the Marlborough/Grand Alliance periods.
Eventually, we will also have 18thC Prussians and French; our grand plan here is to have armies built to run nice games at conventions by 2005/2006. We are actually planning to have our first large game as a group in almost a year in February of 2000.
(Editor's Note: Thanks very much for your remarks,. Good luck in rebuilding your armies - sounds like a very interesting group project - I'd like to see an article from your group as to how you went about such an approach.)
From Harv Schmit Haven't talked to you for many years - I serve a Lutheran church in Wayne, Michigan, where Tom Wirsing introduced me to wargaming more than a few years ago. I had a subscription to MWAN back then which somehow lapsed. Fortunately, I renewed several months and was really amazed and impressed with the vast improvements and upgrades to what was already a fantastic publication. Thanks for a great publication and best regards to all the Illini wargaming community and a special hello to Trinity in Normal, Illinois. (Editor's Note: Glad you are back, Harv; good to hearftom you again!) From John Merrit of 16, Gainsboroueh Sangre, Bexleyheath, Kent DA6 8BU UK: I have not seen any/many(?) articles in MWAN about the CROSSFIRE set of rules. I would like to recommend that your readers take a look at them. We have been playing them since they were brought out. We particularly like the way it handles the use of infantry, and the way when you lose the initiative (and you will!) your whole plan goes out the window. I would point out that we have some reservations about how the rules handle the use of vehicles. But it is quite easy to graft on your own amendments. We use the rules in the TAKE COVER set. What do other readers think of the set of rules? I would like to see some scenarios and rules amendments published in MWAN. Please contact me for any discussion.
(Editor's Note: Thanks for note, John. Hope this scares up some interest in MWANers)
From Mark Stevens We had an Aztecs vs Conquistadores games (Sword and Flame variant) New Years Day. The Spanish were attempting to steal the sacred golden idol of Itehypoodle but never made it. The Spanish knights got bogged down and several were sacrificed. Check out the Jackson Wargamer's Website. There will be a battle report plus rule sets. This is a great site you should see the photos from our games in the 1970's. Larry Brom in those plaid pants!
From Robert Dean Congratulations on reaching #100! It was interesting to read all of the "state of the hobby" musings, although I did miss the Letters column. It looks like we got a double portion in #101 to make up for it, though. While waiting patiently for #101, 1 have been rereading my collection of back issues. I do this periodically, which helps me from reinventing the wheel on occasion, especially when considering new projects. This time around, I was struck by the number of people who were discussing 54mm gaming around 1991. Any of your readers who are still interested in large figure gaming, and who don't already know about it, may wish to consider signing up for the Little Wars computer mailing list This list was started earlier this year, and had about fifty members as of September, 1999. It is devoted to discussion of all aspects of gaming with large figures, including painting, conversions, new figures reviews, rules, and battles. The list typically generates half a dozen messages a day, although occasional hot topics can drive that up into the teens. While I am working on a couple of 54mm projects, my main effort in large scale wargaming continues to be in my 40mm projects.
I ordered a catalog of their 42mm releases from IRREGULAR MINIATURES recently, and was pleasantly surprised to see that they had added a 30-figure "AWI" line since the last time I had checked. Many of the figures are actually more suited to the French and Indian War (such as the French Marines in waistcoats and stocking caps), and the blend in fairly well with the Nuernberger Meisterzinn homecast figures that make up the bulk of my forces. They are a little shorter than the Meisterzinns, but well within the range of normal human variation. The only problem that I have is that the sample British grenadier sent (from the Seven Years War Line), is not as tall as a Meisterzinn musketeer. I am of the opinion that the IRREGULAR 42mm's are close to being my ideal wargames figures. They cost about the same as most 25mm lines, and are sculpted neatly but without a lot of extraneous detail. Therefore they paint up quickly, and have a very nice "toy soldier" look to them. They also take up less space than 54mm's would. Garners who were using FOUNDRY ACW 40mm's and found themselves orphaned when FOUNDRY discontinued the line might want to check out the IRREGULAR 42mm. ACW line. Personally, I'm also intrigued by their Spanish Civil War range, which includes cavalry, an Italian tankette, and a Russian T26 tank. I - don't regret the plethora of choices available to the miniatures gamer today, but it does make it hard to stay on budget and on task long enough to finish a project before starting the next one.
I finally succumbed to temptation and bought into THE FOUNDRY's Darkest Africa range. As someone who spent his youth reading Tarzan and H. Rider Haggard African adventure novels, this is a natural interest for me. I've since supplemented these with more historical materials, but we all know that our sources of inspiration often tend to be more fictional than factual. I am surprised at the wide appeal of the line, though - I had not thought there were that many gainers who would be interested. Since it would appear that I'm going to break into 28mm colonials, I am also considering adding a Northwest Frontier project as well. Some of the troops will be usable in both, which is a plus. I'd almost rather do the Northwest Frontier in large scale, but the lack of affordable figures or molds in either 40mm or 54mm dictates going with 28mm (We ought to just call them 30mm per our hobby traditions and be done with it!).
The HAWKS, of which I am a member, continue to be active. We recently put on our fourth Barrage Annual Game Day, for about sixty attendees. There were about twenty events, and we were able to have flea market tables in this year's venue, which was apparently considered to be a big plus. We have been forced, by circumstances beyond our control, to move each year, but this year" venue worked out well enough that we all hope to be able to use it again next year. Having convinced a number of other club members to paint 40mm semiflat "Charge" figures in fictitious colors, I have been trying to run a small 18th century campaign. I'm using "Charge" as the tactical rules, and have adopted ideas from C.S. Grant's campaign book for the map movement sections. We're using an adaptation of a map sold by someone in the hobby for Jackson's Shenandoah Valley Campaign, with the towns renamed. It's been interesting so far, but it's also been a lot of work, and I'd advise would-be campaigner moderators to start small! Business travel has been killing my painting lately (as well as being one of the contributing factors to delay in the campaign) although I sometimes take figures and paint with me, along the lines suggested in the article in issue #100.
My track record on actually getting to paint has not been good, although I did finish off a batch of IRREGULAR AWI 42mm figures mentioned previously on the one day off we squeezed into a recent trip. Any time that I'm not keeping up with my painting, I find that I start brooding about the amount of work left on my unfinished projects. I ended up selling off a couple of unstarted projects recently, as well as some painted figures that haven't been on the table for a long time. This has helped to allow me to feel like I could take on something new. I'm afraid that I'll never be one of those people who can concentrate exclusively on a single period and scale.
I have been trying to rationalize my projects a bit, and I was sympathetic to Dave Smith's letter in #101. Like Mr. Smith, I'm looking at having pairs (or more) of armies in the sword and shield, pike and shot, horse and musket, colonial and twentieth century periods. In some cases I'll end up with more than one project in a given broader period (i.e., French and Indian War and American Revolution), although priority for new projects is being placed on those that break into new territory entirely, such as the colonials mentioned above, and a proposed project in WWII naval wargaming. I'd prefer not to duplicate projects between large scale (40/54mm) and 25/28/30mm, but I am also putting together small scale projects in each of these periods (except, perhaps, colonial) as well. The small scale projects are configured as a "game in a box", where a single tool or tackle box is used to carry the whole thing from the figures to the ground cloth and the scenery to the rules.
So far I've done 6mm Ancients (4 DBA armies), and 6mm Spanish Civil War. Having the whole thing in a box is convenient when you need to take a contingency/spare game for a club night, or want to take something to a distant convention by air. I've also had the boxed sets out to one of my cronies while he was hospitalized several times this year. I'm sure the nurses thought we were insane.... I'm working on 6mm English Civil War, and bought a batch of IRREGULAR MINIATURES 10mm 18th century figures to test whether I would enjoy painting them up for a French and Indian War game... Plains of Abraham in a box. The 10mm's are a little odd to work with, since they seem to me to be very finicky to handle during the preparation phases. Once primed, though, the test sample painted up in a snap, and was generally admired by the guys in the club. I will probably end up planning out the rest of the project and ordering it sometime before the end of the year.
(Editor's Note: nanks for your lengthy, in-depth letter, Robert! I love to get letters like this when people outline what projects they are working on and why. I, like you, get carried away with periods and scales and have to sit down and justify collecting more than one scale in one period Currently, I have 25mm and 20mm Seven Year War projects going on - the 25mm one being essentially finished except for some figures farmed out, although I continue to purchase any SYW figures released by THE FOUNDRY I have quite a few 15mm SYW figures from OLD GLORY and ESSEX in a plastic sweater box separated into 24 - Prussians - and 30 Austrians - bags and this scale tempts me greatly. Not only that, but I just pulled out my 6mm IRREGULAR MINIATURE and ADLER SYW figures last night from a plastic shoe box and admired them. I even got out some WARGAMES ACCESSORIES metal stan& - 3"X3" and 1"X3" - as used in VOLLEY & BA YONET - they would look so good, I am sure, with 6mm buildings on a table. One could really fight out large historical battles and have room to move around on the tabletop! I could easily resolve this problem, at least to some degree, by going with Napoleonics for 6mm - the Waterloo campaign, for example, although I am putting together a 15mm Peninsular War project for this period and continue to collect 25mm REDOUBT Peninsular War figures mounted individually.
However, I find myself drawn to the SYW and if ADLER would only produce some limbers for the SYW, I might be "moved" to start yet another scale for the SYW period! I've even considered writing to ADLER and asking them to make a generic limber, as OLD GLORY did and offer to finance itfor them. A number ofyears ago, I did sit down and write down all of the periods and scales that I had and those which I had an interest in. As a result, I sold off much of my unpainted lead and even some painted armies. I did the same a short time ago and came up with the following:
- 15mm Franco-Prussian War
20mm Franco-Prussian War 25mm Seven
Years War 20mm Seven Years War 25mm
W97I Eastern Front 15mm WWII Eastern
Front 25mm Northwest Frontier
encompassing 1840-1900 with four distinct
periods within that time period - Sikh War,
1860's, 2nd Afghan War, and 1890's. I
however, prefer to consider this one period,
rather than four! 15mm Malburian War
15mm Napoleonic Peninsular War 25mm
Napoleonic Peninsular War 15mm English
Civil War/Thirty Years War 15mm Early
Sudan with Gordon 6mm Seven Years War
25mm Spanish Civil War 15mm Russian Civil
War 20mm American Civil War
That gives me 16 projects total; 19 if I count the NWF as 'four", instead of "one". I've probably neglected to recall several that have been on my mind. Obviously, this is too much for any one person to undertake and illustrates my "compulsive " nature, but I do know I have the characteristic within me! I guess I've given up trying to 'justify " my collecting, projects as I just seem to return to it whenever someone releases a new range of figures which I really like. Being unable to paint anymore does put a different twist on my collecting as well, but I've managed to work that out to some degree. Your letter, Robert, made me feel much better - thanks very much!)
From Jerry Lannigan
The folks who do colonials far and away have the finest web sites with Major General Trernorden Rederring's site having a lot of great photos and accompanying text. SAVAGE AND SOLDIER has a web site though it is poorly maintained. With MacDuff on the Web is also great fun and of course there are the three hobby related newsgroups. This is not false praise, but as entertaining as all of these are, there is no substitute for MWAN, THE COURIER, and Wally Simon's POTOMAC WARGAMER'S NEWSLETTER. My collection is growing considerably which is odd since I have cut back drastically on my real-time wargaming. My university obligations have grown and my day job as a teacher haven't been reduced either. Oh, well. Yet, there has been time to do some "Hal-like" planning/collecting, particularly with my WWII 20mm figures.
We play RAPID FIRE and it's been fun building the 10th SS Division. Between grading papers today, I have been priming some buildings for the game we'll be playing down at the shop in the next week or so, having elements of 4th US Armored slugging it out with the SS. Another path recently taken has me painting 20mm SYW` figures which I picked up from Hap Jordan at BATALLIONFEURER GAMES.
Unfortunately, my painting will have to go on hold until he gets back from wintering in Florida. I did not purchase enough gunners for the artillery according to WARFARE IN THE AGE OF REASON nor was I smart enough to check the order when it came through. The latter was a problem as a number of the figures had broken leg/base joints which comes about as a result of the metal Hap uses. Generally working with Hap is a pleasure and his welldeserved winter retreat is only mildly disconcerting. Would anyone know if there is a plastic alternative that might be out there such as REVELL, IMEX or the like? That's the problem of dealing in such a restricted figure environment.
The recent trends in figure design - Pirates and Africa - look like fun but there's simply no space in the house to collect any other periods or ranges until some stuff is either moved to storage or sold. One last thing, several of my fellow gainers who attend the east coast HMGS cons and I are looking to run a D-Day invasion game this summer at HISTORICON. We hope to highlight a rules set called KOMPANIE KOMMANDER as American landing craft attempt to hit the beach which should be twelve feet long and about six feet deep. The rules were initially drafted by my friend, Jim McGaughey, and are being finalized. We've playtested the scenario using BATTALIONS IN CRISIS and will re-test the game using the new set prior to the convention.
(Editor's Note: Thanks for e-mail, Jerry; good to hear from you again! You are correct about colonial websites; outstanding stuff indeed! Re Hap Jordan's 20mm SYW line, I haven't had the problem you report re breakage. I'm not familiar with plastic 20mm figures but maybe someone out there can give us some information. I agree with you that it can be a problem to collect in a restrictive period such as 20mm. I find it sort of interesting as well, because of the fact that one has to either stay within that one manufacturer or have the fun of looking around for items from other places which one can use. When I did the review On B&B's new 20mm American Revolutionary War line and saw the listing for Hessians, I immediately thought of whether or not I could use them in my Hap Jordan collection of SYW figures! I just ran down the basement and pulled my box of 20mm SYWftom Hap and am now comparing them with B&B - the foot appear to be a perfect fit size-wise. This is a real plus if the Hessians - and I don't know this - had the same uniform in the A K as they did in the SYW B&B makes three guns/crew for this line - heavy, medium and light, as well a pack of three Hessian mounted staff. Hap makes two different types of Austrian guns - heavy and light? - as well as gun crews, but does not, atpresent, have limbers and limber horses available, though he reports to me that they are in the making.
B&B, I can only assume, is going to make a limber and team, if their past performance in other periods is any indication. Their Hessian foot come in both tricorne and mitre. Can I assume the mitre is the same for the A WI as for the SYW Prussian Fusilier? Could I use their Jagers for the SYW as well? Will be fun to write some letters, gel some samples, check out some uniform books, and find out! Let us know about your D-Day project and rules as well! Hope to hear from you soon.
From Kenn Hart Appreciate you publishing my small tribute to David Barnes and it is getting near our annual reunion and SKELP will never be the same again without him. Mark Bevis, who I usually bump into at shows here in the North of England, in his article on Bands, missed out on a very important point which I read in one of Don Featherstone's books on the subject. The bit that always stuck in my mind is that bagpipes were not regarded as musical instruments but weapons of war. Make up your own mind.
From Eric Ackerman I noticed the advertisement and review of FAA's new SCW 28mm figures. WOW! Just what I was looking for. However, I've never ordered from an overseas company before, and judging from your review, you've done business with FAA. What is the best way to contact them? Do they have a US distributor that they prefer working through?
(Editor's Note: FAA uses BROOKHURST HOBBIES - see their address in their ad in this issue - and they are excellent folks to work with! I want to mention that if you are attempting to order figures from the UK and the company does not have a US distributor, the best way to handle this is to use your credit card if the company accepts it. That way, you don't have to deal with conversion charges, which can be quite costly. I always ask that my credit card be used to pay for postage and that as such, I be charged only for actual postage, not 25% or 40% as many UK companies list in their ads. This has worked out very well for me.)
From Mark Dudley
I get my copy of MWAN from CALIVER BOOKS and have been a reader of MWAN for the past five years. I am part of a group known as "The Ilkley Lads" from Ilkley, West Yorkshire (about twenty miles from Marston Moor if that helps). We are heavily into PIQUET at the moment and play a lot of ECW, SYW, GNW in 25mm and I do 20mm B&B FPW. Also we do WWII in 20mm, (D-Day and Desert) and 15mm (Eastern Front).
(Editor's Note: Looking forward to hearing from you again, Mark; would like to hear details of your group's activities)
From Milton Soong Just received MWAN #101 and it was great, as usual (kind of missed the usual columns such as Brother Glidden, Fanion, and Skulking in the Rear. In the miniature front, I have been busy in the last year after jumping back into the hobby. Here's a list of what I am working on:
- 15mm Renaissance (Early Italian War)
using DBR, 15 mm Ancients, Central
Turkish and Tang Chinese using DBR,
Finished my 25mm Foundry French Foreign
Legion in Vietnam figures; just have to
decide on a set of rules to use. Will probably
start out using TSATF 20th Anniversary
Edition to see how that goes, Have to rebase
my 25mm Sudan colonial stuff to be used
with BATTLES FOR EMPIRES rules, Have
to finish my last OLD GLORY Peking
Legation building for my '55 Days at Peking'
convention game, Also have been playing a
lot of PIQUET lately. Have some gripes
about individual facets of the rules (who
doesn't?), but I like the general flow of the
game.
From Allen Curtis I belatedly add my congratulations on the 100th issue. As I lookover the rank of issues of the shelf, I remember how much enjoyment has come from all those pages. I'm sorry to read of the passing of David Barnes: we will all miss his informative reviews with their wonderful drawings and great humor. As far as any news out here in sunny California, I saw that you had reviewed ARMIES OF ANTIQUITY (Army lists for WARRAMMER ANCIENT BATTLES) in MWAN #98.
I didn't see you mention that one of the authors (blush, blush!) was a long-time MWANer! Nigel Stillman's Chariot Era army list book has just been published. There are other supplements in the works on the "Fall of the West" (Later Rome, I believe) and the "Age of the Vikings", according to Jervis Johnson (don't you send him MWAN, too?). I'm working on a supplement to cover Republican Rome's Italian and Punic Wars. From what I can see, this system has the potential to bring a lot of new blood into the hobby, as well as energizing some of us old folks! I'm also busy building armies for some of Martin Goddard's (PETER PIG) systems: AK-47 WARS (Modem Africa and Middle East) and SQUARE BASHING (The Great War and the Russian Civil War). These are great fun! I've been fortunate enough to see Martin demonstrate both at a couple of iterations of the Conference for Wargamers in the UK, and he came out to L.A. this past February and demonstrated SQUARE BASHING at BROOKHURST HOBBIES. You were looking for suggestions for 25mm WWII? Well, why not try WARHAMMER PANZER BATTLES? I'm not kidding: go look at Phil Yates Web Page (Phil is also the author of the magnificent Dark Age lists for WHAB published in WARGAMES ILLUSTRATED). Go to: http://www/geocities.com/TimesSquare/Alle y/2541/Rules/Rules.html - These are a labor of love, obviously very well researched, and they look like they work! WARHAMMER 40K's applicability is not just indicated by Phil's variant-, some of the HMGS-Pacific Southwest folks here are also working on a modified 40K for WWII. I'm painting up 15mm Soviets specifically for these. Spoke with Jeff Lista of WARGAMES ACCESSORIES on the phone today, to get his postage and shipping rates. I'm glad you reviewed his line: they're a great product.
(Editor's Note: Whoops! Missed that one, Allen; belated congratulations to you, Sir! Thanks for information re WWII rules; will have to check that out when I get my internet back on line here)
From Bill McHariz For 20mm items, you might check out STONE MOUNTAIN. Jim makes a lot of stuff for his 20mm ACW that might work. And his son, Jeff, is making terrain for 20mm. WWII that might have some useful stuff I know he is on the web, although I am uncertain as to what his site is.
(Editor's Note: Thanks, Bill; you are right about STONE MOUNTAIN; they have a lot of stuff that will carry over to other periods!)
From Jeff Hudelson Please include me in the event that you publish a list of MWANer's e-mails. I'm about ready to get some friends to playtest my "Lace Wars Rules", which basically cover the period from Louis XIV to Frederick the Great. I think that they are simple, elegant and very diaramic - but the playtests will undoubtedly cause me to do some re-design on them.
(Editor's Note: Would like to see an article from you, Jeff, on your rules. This is one of my favorite periods!)
From Phil Viverito
If you are interested in the Dacian Wars here
are some interesting pages you might want
to look at:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Cyprus/8849/page4.html
http://www.geocities.coni/Athens/Cyprus/8849/page30.html
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Cyprus/8849/page31.html
From Patrick Wilson With some regard over the passing of an era, I have been asked to post the following for Richard Houston who is now letting go the last of his production line. Mr. Richard Houston is offering for sale his "Battles in a Box" series of l5mm wargame and figure sets. Four titles make up this line: "San Juan Hill, 1898", "El Caney, 1898", "Moro Wars!" and "Rorke's Drift." Sale of these lines includes all 57 production molds, 4 full color box art covers, two full color flag sets (for 1898 games), 3 different rules sets, 3 full sets of l5mm scaled color cardstock buildings, and all headers for packaging figures. Approximately 1,100 to 1,225 production master castings, including 21 artillery sets (6 different gun types). A full color master set of Unit Action Cards printed on cardstock for the rules set "A Splendid Little Wargame" is included. Additional color cardstock game aids accompany the other rule sets. Asking price is $10,000 which includes $300 freight within the US. Complete details, questions of publishing rights, etc are available, Serious inquiries should be sent to me and I will forward them to Mr. Houston.
Back to MWAN #104 Table of Contents
Back to MWAN List of Issues
Back to MagWeb Magazine List
© Copyright 2000 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