Things have been quite busy (and enjoyable) here since the last issue was put out! I have been hard at work rebasing my Sudan period figures and working on a new set of rules for the period. The draft I came up with last week, which was used at the Champaign WINTER WARS con several days ago seems to work quite well and although it needs a few modifications here & there, I think it will serve my needs rather well. We had nine Egyptian players and four native players for 750 native foot and about 250 Egyptian figures. The game went just under two hours (eight moves) and resulted in an Egyptian victory although It was a close-run thing for awhile. All of my Sudan stuff is now mounted on 3/4" washers and this can be a problem when you have a fair number of natives to move around. I found some 5"X8" magnetic strips for $1.59 each (which I thought was cheap but Rich Black knows where I can get 'em even cheaper so I shall wait till I find out from him where and pass that on to you) and can put 50 natives (foot plus one camel/horse jeader figure) on that area. It has a self-adhesive backing so I cut out 5"X8" tempered hardboard sections and attached the magnetic pieces to the hardboard and painted them desert dolored from the HOWARD HUES range. Great for transporting troops! I won't allow the British/Egyptian players to use movement stands as there will always be more of them than there will be natives (actually, I hadn't planned on having any native players as I was going to run the datives myself -- great solo games this way! - but there were too many players in the game) than Imperial players. Have also been enjoying some solo games with my Sudan period while playtesting my rules. Solo play seems to work out very well when there are native armies involved. More on this in a future article. The Sudan period holds a lot of romance for me and I have been picking up books as time goes on and I am looking forward to having some time to work out a campaign. My good friend, ex-model railroader and scratch-builder supreme, Clem Clemens, keeps coming up with great 25mm models of Sudan buildings and is working on a fort at present. I keep telling him to make some things and bring them to conventions to sell but he doesn't seem to be interested in that aspect at present. He has a great "feel" for making wargames buildings functional, which is quite important. Clem, whose goal is to build Rorke's Drift,, called me up several days ago and reminder me that yesterday (Sunday, January 22nd) was the 110th anniversary of Isandhlwana and Rorke's Drift. Mad I not attended WINTER WARS on Saturday, it would have been nice to do both of the battles on the same day. Maybe next year I could work out something were we do this! Would be a good time! While I was at WINTER WARS I sold a number of my Sudan figures (all natives) as I didn't need such large amries for this period any more. I now have a computer fund set aside which I shall try very hard not to touch. Seeing what good work can be accomplished with a computer by the good people who type for MWAN has me fired up on the subject. I've received a number of letters commenting on how much better MWAN has looked as of late and it is wholly due to their efforts! Thanks much! After reviewing the regular columns to be in this issue, I was most impressed with all of them as to the high quality of writing exhibited by the staff writers. MWAN is quite fortunate to have attracted their talents! Please drop me any comments you may regarding Duke Seifried and his sizeable contribution(s) to our hobby and/or his effect upon your war gaming. Also, I need lots more home-grown rules sets for the special issue! Just a note stating that having people type for me and others, such as Steve Dake (refer to Wargaming Magazines and Bits b Pieces in this issue) take over regular columns for me has been great as regards saving me time in putting MAN together, The last two issues have gone together very easily/quickly; my wife no longer feels that I spend my life in the basement pounding on a typewriter (very important to me!); and I feel as though I have time to play wargames. Because of this I think we'll see MWAN around for a long time to come which makes me very happy! I've gotten back into working on my ACW project in 25mm with the arriyal of a large number of Front Rank figures from England for this period. I'll be it's been over ten years since I last painted an ACW army (15mm) and I've been enjoying painting them. Also have been working on my terrain for an ACW scenario of a Union attack upon a Southern Mansion defended by one or two regiments (65 men to a regiment). I have the majority of the buildings, lots of stone walls, trees, etc., and am in the process of making split rail fences, farm fields, perhaps a creek, and other farm-type items. I'm quite anxious to see what this one will look like on the tabletop; ACW terrain was always fun and relatively easy to construct. I also found some female figures in 25mm from Frontier Miniatures which can be used for the British Colonial period as well as the ACW; Southern Belles, that sort of thing. I will take some pictures of this setup when it is finished and use them in MWAN. Back to MWAN # 38 Table of Contents Back to MWAN List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1989 Hal Thinglum This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com