Painting wargames figures is such a psychological activity. I had a unit of 15mm French Malburian line infantry (18 figures) on my painting table with the coat and trousers/stockings done, the next step being to put on the leather belting. As time went by, I found myself picking them up thinking, "I can't paint these" and placing them down again. Finally, I picked up a paintbrush and finished them off in about an hour's time. My point here is that I can be so intimidated by painting at times and all it takes is to actually "start it." Do you ever encounter this? I also have a mental block about painting 15mm cavalry. I have tons of Malburian horse units (12 figures strong) sitting in plastic storage bags and I can't, in my own mind, imagine me having the ability to paint them myself. I did take out five IRREGULAR MINIATURES horse units last night in preparation for cleaning flash and gluing the horses to tongue depressors and the riders to wooden dowels and actually trying to paint them. Maybe I can work my way past this "block." With the horse, I find myself thinking I can now do the horses, however, I "can't" make out the coat details well enough so as to know how to paint them. I find myself thinking too many "can nots" and not enough "let's give it a try and see what happens." Well, I will have an opportunity this weekend to do some painting - I'm envisioning an "oldfashioned painting jag!" I think I'll prepare a horse unit and try it out. I can always prime it black again, can't I! I find myself getting excited about my 15mm Malburian project again after concentrating on my 20mm Franco-Prussian War effort. I had the chance to pick up a large number of 15mm DIXON Malburian figures for sale at a hobby shop and it was exciting to sit down and fill the gaps in my incomplete units. What I normally do with a new period, after purchasing lots of figures, is to organize them into battalions of foot, regiments of horse, and batteries of artillery and bag them in plastic snapshut bags placing a white label on them stating what is inside. I do this with incomplete units as well so I can quickly determine what else I need to purchase to fill out a unit. Plus, when I obtain new items, I can quickly add the needed figures and change the label to reflect the change in the contents of the bag. This allows me to count "bags" to determine how many units I have on hand. Goal I've determined a goal for my Malburian project - Blenheim! I emailed Charles Sharp and Pat Condray, both Malburian "experts," as to an order of battle and am anxious to see it. This will give me something to shoot for! Thus far, I've painted eleven battalions of French foot and eight batteries (two guns/limbers/ten crew) of French artillery. A long way off from completion, no doubt! David Jackson of TRUE NORTH in Canada has mentioned that he plans to release a new 15mm Malburian line that has been moved back to 2001; I'll be anxious to see it! Charles Sharp mentioned to me in an e- mail that Tom Dye's MINIFIGS Prussian infantry are the best he's seen for the period so perhaps I'll try some. I painted up a MINIFIGS French battalion and they look good! After reviewing my collection of Malburian unpainted lead this weekend, I realized that I have enough grenadiers for a man to man representation for all countries involved in this conflict. Time to start purchasing more line infantry. REDOUBT ENTERPRISES keeps sending me samples of their excellent 28mm Napoleonic line and I am very close to being pushed over the edge into 28mm Peninsular War. I've talked for years as to how I would love to use Barry Edwards' PLAYABLE NAPOLEONIC WARGAMES rules and this would be a golden opportunity. I've been going back and forth on this period/scale as of late; it sounds tempting to do a "THE SWORD AND THE FLAME" type Napoleonic approach but I know what the outcome of that would be. There's no doubt that I would end up building so many units that it wouldn't make sense to do single figures anymore because there would be so many of them. I might just skip this phase for once and go right into the old 36-figure French battalion approach. My goal would be to keep it at a reasonably small size. What does this mean? UMMMM. What does it mean? Ten to fifteen battalions of foot per side; some 800 foot figures? That doesn't sound too small, does it! There are other variables involved in this decision however. I have FAA's 28mm Spanish Civil War figures, most of which have been painted up to represent German Allies on the Eastern Front for WWII, though I am currently have some Moroccans painted up. The Spanish could do double duty on the Eastern Front and in Spain. OLD GLORY has a wonderful sounding 25mm Pirate village which they report can double for the Peninsula; in addition, HOVELS has a line of 25mm line of Spanish buildings. I could have them set up on my "clesertlike" terrain cloth and I just know it would look great! I could use the buildings for both the Peninsular War and the Spanish Civil War. CONNOISSEUR, available from I&T MINIATURES, fits in well with REDOUBT, as would OLD GLORY, and they all offer some very nice figures and accessories. Very tempting indeed! An MWANer recently wrote and requested a set of my Rorke's Drift rules written many years ago. He mentioned that I had sent him a set of the Isandhlwana rules at that time. It brought to mind how exciting that wargaming project was to be involved in. I cast many of the Zulus (Joel Haas molds) myself and painted over 4,000 25mm figures for the game, which was played perhaps ten or so times. The Zulus, if my memory serves me correctly, always won, but it was always an enjoyable and fun game to play and run. I enjoyed watching the battle unfold and the excitement build as the Zulu players (who really had no control over them; they just served as "Zulu figure pushers", though I never told them that!) rolled for morale at the beginning of each turn to determine if the unit could move or not. There have been times lately when I pull out 10mm figure catalogs and dream about redoing this battle in what I believe would be the "ideal" scale for a struggle of this size. If I could paint as I used to, I would definitely consider going ahead and doing it again. How long would it take me to paint 4,000 10mm figures? I wonder if anyone out there would be interested enough in this next subject so as to send in their thoughts. I have always been interested in how people conduct local wargaming groups. I would include "groups" that meet at someone's house, a central "public" location, rented facilities, hobby shop, or taking turns hosting game activities at various gamers' homes. UK vs. US The way gamers in the UK and the US handle this sort of thing seems to me, from my reading of English publications, to be quite different. It would appear as though UK gamers use the "club" approach more than we do over here. This apparently involves actually "renting" a facility where figures and terrain and be maintained and game nights are scheduled. I don't hear of this happening very much on this side of the pond. Steve Dake, sometime ago, wrote an article for MWAN in which he described his local group renting an area for their gaming. The New England group, in which COURIER's Dick Bryant is a founding member, does it this way as well. It would seem to me that the most common US approach is to either meet at the same house all of the time or have a schedule where the group's gamers meet at different houses each time. It has been many years since I initiated the group that MWAN grew out of, but we met at the hospital where I am still employed. I can't recall how often we met, at least once per month and possibly twice for awhile. Prior to that time, we used the approach of attending games at each other's homes. There was also a time period where I had games scheduled at my house on a weekly basis. There are, I believe, many pros and cons of all of the approaches I've outlined above. There may be something to gain by sharing our thoughts and experiences with others re this subject. To be sure, the real determining factor of this is concerned with the specific individuals within the group." From my experience, another main factor is "how much structure" are you going to have in what you do? When I started the "hospital games", there was no support, other than myself, for any type of structure. Attendees just wanted to game and not be concerned with "rules". The problem with this, as I see it, is that this type of approach, though it fulfills the needs of those who don't want the structure, leaves the group's organizer with the problems which can pop up and no guidelines for attempting to address them. It becomes a situation where one person is trying to resolve an "issue" affecting the entire group and of course, no matter what they decide, it will not please everyone and this provides the potential for group discord. I suspect that individuals who take the time and energy to organize wargaming groups are the same people who organized sporting activities in their neighborhoods in their younger years as I did. They are, for some reason, drawn to getting people together to take part in activities shared by members of the group. It is possible that they instinctively know that some structure is necessary for the group to function well. Without some degree of structure, I think the primary organizer(s) reach a point where they get tired of conflicts and pull back leaving the group without "leadership." The term "leadership" as it pertains to what I am talking about is viewed by many in a less than positive manner. What the term actually refers to, in this instance, I believe, is that someone takes the time and initiative/energy to find a location, make the arrangements, get the key, open up, schedule the appropriate number of games based upon possible attendance, try to insure that everybody's game has people playing in it, clean up, make sure that facility rules (not club rules, but the facility you are meeting at) are not broken, stay till everyone leaves, try to act as though you aren't "in charge" so you don't offend people, and lock up. Urn, interesting! See any need for "structure" there? Doesn't sound like anything I'd like to try again! Having been in middle management for over twenty years, it sounds like the old "responsibility without authority" approach. I think its clear there has to be some sort of middle-ground on this type of thing. Too much structure can probably negatively affect a group as much as a lack of structure. I'm sure that MWANers such as Howard Whitehouse and Chris Engle, with professional experience in group dynamics would have some interesting things to say about this process. How does your local group handle it? I'd like to hear from your thoughts and experiences. Net Every once in awhile I am moved to "surf the net" and continue to be amazed by what I find out there concerning our hobby. Seems as if everyone has a website! I expected wargame manufacturers and stores to capitalize on this opportunity though I didn't even consider that hobbyists would put together a web page about their personal hobby involvement. In time past, if I was interested in obtaining a figure listing from a certain company, I'd have to sit down and write them a letter requesting information. Now, I just access their web site and their figures are listed. They may even have pictures or illustrations of their products as well as interesting articles about the period. What a plus this is for us as consumers as well as for the manufacturer/store! We now have "on-line" hobby publications (Chris Engle and Michael Blake come to mind as well as SAVAGE AND SOLDIER, which I just ran across recently), not to mention Russ Lockwood's excellent effort with MAGWEB, where you can look at over eighty hobby publications by paying a subscription fee. The actual ordering of figures and products becomes much easier via credit card - I suspect we probably end up purchasing a little more than we used when we had to make out the order, write out a check, and send it in. There was always the potential for a 11 reality check" prior to actually sending out the envelope! Now, we can go "shopping" on-line and by pressing that "send" button, the ordering process is complete. It seems to me there exists much potential, via the internet, for conducting wargame campaigns, especially if you are doing a "solo" effort or serving as the umpire for two or more other gamers. Information and orders can be transmitted so quickly via e-mail resulting in campaigns moving along much quicker than was possible using the mail. Is anyone doing anything like this? I'd like to hear about it if you are. I'm surprised that nobody has used this technology to develop a website where historical miniatures gamers can list items wanted/for sale/trade. I'm aware of sites where you list general items, but nothing specific to our hobby. Seems as if it would meet some real needs: we all have items we'd like to get rid of; items we'd like to obtain; and items we'd be interested in trading for. With figure packaging the way it is nowadays, wouldn't it be a good idea if we could quickly and easily post a notice of specifically what we are looking for or have to offer someone else? The Sutler's Wagon seems to be used considerably less than in time past; perhaps this is already happening to some degree. Wouldn't there be some advantage to having a "list" of hundreds of historical miniatures gamers to whom you could immediately contact? Id have no idea as to how to go about this; any ideas? Since I started writing this editorial, I did have time to finish the 15mm Malburian horse unit of 12 figures. I used the black priming method and although I wasn't real pleased with the result as I was doing the riders, when I finished, they looked good enough to suit me. I've got another three day weekend coming up tomorrow and am hoping to get in some painting time. Such a psychological activity! I am still undecided as to how to organize my 6mm SYW project regarding bases; Frank Chadwick's VOLLEY & BAYONET rules are what I want to go with. The HEROICS & ROS figure packs have about 56 foot figures each including one mounted figure; they also have two sets of foot command per pack, thus it is possible to go with two separate "units", whether they be battalions, regiments, or brigades. I want to be sure before I start mounting figures on bases and terraining them as removing 6mm figures from bases would probably be a lot more difficult than larger sizes. I know I'm not going to use say, four bases of perhaps four or six figures each to represent a battalion. In my mind, 6mm just doesn't lend itself to that sort of approach because of the constant picking up and setting down of bases which are more difficult to pick up than larger scales; I know I'm going to use the "regimental" or "brigade" approach and I've set up painted H&R figures (all 56 of them) on different sized metal bases to try to get an idea (length and depth of ranks), but nothing has really struck me as "the right look" as of yet. I do like the "look" of a three-man deep line formation with fifty-six 6mm figures! It used to bother me a lot that having a regiment or brigade in "line" formation on one stand wouldn't work well because how could you depict that unit in "column?" I still feel a little uncomfortable about this but several members of the V&B website gave me some ideas on how they handle it. They make up two or so bases to be placed in back of the unit when it is in column and use several different approaches regarding what they place on the bases. They construct a road on the bases; some place cotton painted in brown shades (to depict road dust) while others paint up wagons, carts, and single figures marching on the road. The second option is what I'm going to do. H&R has a pack of marching artillery crew while IRREGULAR MINIATURES has some very nicely done wagons and carts which I'll use to represent the unit's baggage. Of course, these "column" bases will not have many figures on them; just enough so as to give the impression of a column when looking at the unit. Since I'm doing only Prussians and Austrians, the "column" base figures will only need to be painted Austrian white or Prussian blue. Actually, one could paint them any color; it wouldn't be necessary to have them the color of the unit, would V! That would be getting "carried away" a bit. I've "sort of" decided to go with two bases to represent an artillery unit; one base would have the guns and crew while the other base would have the limbers. Doing it this way would make it very easy to visually represent an unlimbered vs a limbered artillery unit. It seems as though there are many V&B gamers who are not using Frank's suggested organization re unit base sizes; as you would expect, everyone doing this is going with smaller bases, not larger. I suspect the main reason for this is to require fewer figures to represent a unit. I find it interesting that when figure sizes less than 20mm were released, the thinking was that it would allow for more figures to be placed on the same sized base (i.e., double the number of 25mm figures); however, the direct opposite has occurred with 15mm gamers using fewer and fewer figures to represent units and 25mm gamers seeming to increase the number of their figures for a unit! Why would that be?! In my own mind, I think it may be because the 25mm gamer is in this hobby because of the figures, while the 15mm gamer who is down- sizing the number of figures in his unit, is more attracted by the gaming and views the figures as a means to achieve gaming. Does that sound possible? I've done this myself, I guess; my 25mm SYW foot are 37 with horse at 24, though after I did the SYW, my 25mm NWF foot units decreased to 24 with horse at 12 to 21 strong. My ECW/TYW 15mm foot units dropped down to 27 with horse at 12, and currently my 15mm Malburian foot are at 18 with horse at 12. My 15mm Napoleonic Peninsular project will use the F&F for Napoleonics unit organization and if I ever did 15mm SYW, I'd probably go for the KONIG KRIEG 12-figure Prussian foot battalions on three bases though I'd have two battalions (24 figures) per regiment. I find it interesting as to "why" we do things a certain way in this hobby! I suppose when I really think about it, its possible that 25mm gamers )most of us anyway) "know" it is impossible to recreate really large battlefields in 25mm so we don't even try preferring to drop down to a lower level, such as brigade. 15mm gamers (and smaller scales) realize that the smaller sized figure allows them the possibility of recreating Waterloo on the tabletop, but only if they decrease the number of figures per unit. I am sure factors such as figure cost and time spent painting figures enter into the decision as well. Do you have any thoughts on this? I'd like to hear them if you do! Rich Barbuto's excellent two part series on Hougomount in MWAN #'s 107 and 108 got my wargaming juices going. LEVA PRODUCTION'S 20mm Hougomount, which is actually much closer to 25mm scale in my mind, would be perfect for a "convention- style" game with elaborately built terrain made just for this "battle!" The game could take up an entire 6' X 12' table and is the type of event that convention-goers love to participate in. There is something very appealing about a wargame in which a structure is defended against overwhelming odds. Pete Panzari did this in 54mm at the 1999 HMGS convention and it looked just great. Whenever I see one of these games being played at a convention, it is clear that there is a real excitement being experienced by the players! On Paul Trapani's painting ad in the last issue, I apparently put the incorrect prices for his figure painting. I am sorry for any problems this may have caused Paul and those who contacted him. It was entirely my fault. If you'd like to access a web site with many wargaming items for sale, visit: www.wargamesworld.com. Wargame flags are available for free on: www.warflag.com/default.htm. Colonial wargamers will want to visit www.users.dircon.co.uk/~warden/colonial/colonial. htm. The MINIATURE SERVICE CENTER (MSC), 1386 Portofino Dr., Yuba City, CA 95993 (phone/fax: 530673-5169) has added ICON MINIATURES, formerly HARLEQUIN 25mm. They have released more 25mm WWII figures (HMG teams for the Germans and Russians for their Stalingrad series; Soviet riflemen scouts for Battle for Berlin; German Occupation Forces - Wehrmacht infantry with rifles and SMG's; and figures for leading WWII personalities) as well as a 25mm Zulu War line. I've been very impressed with the now ICON line. MSC has also added TOTAL SYSTEM SCENIC, a UK company offering two foot square terrain boards; TERRAIN 2000 which has one foot square terrain boards; THE MISSING LINK which carries resin ships and buildings; and CALPE MINIATURES, a new UK 25mm Napoleonic line. Found an excellent website for Maiwand, the fascinating battle of the Second Afghan War: www. britishempire.co.uk/forces/armycampaigns/indiancampaigns/campafghan1878maiwand.htm. Dedicated to the Battle of Maiwand, it offers in-depth information. This was of particular interest to me as I have the figures (25mm) for this battle and as soon as I replace my desert-colored terrain cloth, my plan is to write a set of rules to allow me to recreate it. SAVAGE & SOLDIER is online at www.dnai.com/~soongliu /SavageAndSoldier/index.html George Johnson (GAJO), longtime supporter of MWAN, 930 Mellish Drive, Lapeer, Michigan 48446 (810664-5655), offers quality painted wargames armies and remains the most "customer-friendly" person you can find! OMEGA GAMES, PO Box 2191, Valrico, FL 33595 sent along information re new board games: Eastern Front Solitaire ($34.95), 1864 Year of Decision ($34.95), and Field Command ($35) which combines chess and wargaming. PAPER WARS is a bi- monthly wargame review journal $29.95/6 issues) they offer. They also apparently carry the Europa series and magazine as well as the Avalanche Press games and MultiMan Publishing (the old Avalon Hill games?). The latest issue of THE COURIER (#80) announces that Tony Bath died at the age of 74 and Bob Beattie did a very nice piece on Tony's passing as well as his contributions to the hobby. The MINIFIGS line is available in the USA from GAME FIGURES, Inc., 538 Olathe Street, Unit E, Aurora, CO 80011 (303-361- 6465; www.minifigs.com) and in the UK from Miniature Figurines Limited, 1/3 Graham Road, Southampton, S014 OAX, UK (0238022- 0855). Just the mention of "Minifigs" brings me back to the daydreaming I used to enjoy with the massive Minifigs catalog when they were located in upstate New York (White Plains, was it?)! They published several "newsletters" ("house organs") and it was very exciting in those early days! What a hobby, uh! Back to MWAN #109 Table of Contents Back to MWAN List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 2001 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