From Tom Barkalow: The new look for MWAN is certainly slick and professional. Still it's what between those covers that makes the magazine and so far Hal is doing a great job at keeping that special "after the game chat" feel to MWAN. I continue to be busy with work, home, and family which restricts my gaming time. Rick Stoffel remains my best gaming buddy and we keep chugging along in our periodic Sunday afternoon games.

We have "'morphed" On To Richmond to the point that Paul Koch would no doubt disclaim all knowledge and responsibility. We have a Napoleonic battalion level version, two ACW versions (one scaled to fit in with the Fire & Fury 1 stand = 200 men scale used in the Gettysburg scenario and Great Battles of the West Supplement), and a battalion level version for the ARW. Each version plays just a bit differently from the other due to special modifications and game chart adjustments, but they all use the same basic play system.

Hal has asked me to prepare an article on our OTR modifications, but I have turned a blind eye to his signal. Writing an article runs hard against the fact that we use an old marked up set of rules for consultation on rare occasions and mostly play from the modified charts and largely verbal agreements as to how things work. This makes it very difficult to prepare an article as I would have to rewrite the rules to reflect what we really do and I've been too lazy to do this. Homebrewing has its pitfalls!

Rick and I also have been using the Napoleon's Battles rules in order to become more familiar with them (for such a supposedly simple and straight-forward set, they require thorough reading as so many special situations are addressed somewhere in there). As usual there is stuff we like and don't like about them. So far we have resisted the temptation to change them.

It's been tempting to comment on the various ACW artillery related articles that have been in MWAN during the past two years, but I always wind up deciding that I pretty much had my say in my Great Myths of Wargaming series (can it really be 30 issues and 5 years ago? Wow!).

About a year ago, Hal wrote about the lure of the Napoleonic Peninsular Carnpaign and quizzed readers about their interest. I've enjoyed the various letters that resulted.

I've been gradually painting British and Portuguese forces for several years. After I started playing Napoleon's Battles, I decided I wanted to have enough units to play the Salamanca Scenario from the First Module. I also wanted to have units that I could use for battalion level games. After a bit of pencil pushing, I found that building full paper strength battalion units on a 1 figure = 30 men scale would also give me units of the appropriate size for use in Napoleon's Battles. A 600 man British line battalion is represented by 20 figures on five stands; a 720 man French line battalion is represented by 24 figures on 6 stands. As units in actual battles were seldom at full strength, I can also use these units on a 1 figure = 20 men scale to reflect campaign strengths. I have painted a few "overstrength" units so that I can have the 28 figure units required in NB. So far I have finished the Portuguese, pretty much have the British complete, and have started working on the French.

One aspect I really enjoy with the Peninsula, and that has been commented on in other letters, is the variety of unit nationalities employed by both sides. This allows one to indulge in painting some different uniforms without a large expenditure of effort. For example, on the British side, I'd like to add the Brunswick line battalion, a few KGL units, and possibly part of the Loyal Lusitanian Legion. I haven't decided about the Spanish. It's hard for me to find enthusiasm to paint figures for units that may not last for very long in a game!

I have found myself in a slight dilemma regarding the British figures I have painted. They are all in late period uniforms (i.e., the infantry have Belgiac shakos and the dragoon uniforms have been "frenchified"). Back in late 1988, I bought a bunch of unpainted Heritage Napoleonettes from a buddy, Bob Bryant. They were still in their original packs, I got a pretty good deal on them, and there were both French and British forces with a good mix of unit types. Unfortunately, there were no command figures and I didn't realize at the time that the uniforms were for the 1814-15 campaigns (for years figure manufacturers seem to believe the British were only present at Waterloo).

I say unfortunately because the Napoleonettes are true 15's so it's been hard to find command figures that fit in with them (really gives one an appreciation for how large 1 5's have become) and the uniforms really don't fit in well with the Peninsular Campaign. However, being a good engineer at heart, the uniforms are "close enough for all practical purposes." Given my sporadic and low rate of painting, I'd never get enough correctly uniformed British figures painted to matter. It has been interesting to find out just how much and how often uniforms changed between 1792 and 1815. So I have to remind myself that I am a fully mature adult male who plays with toy soldiers and that helps maintain my perspective when people take this hobby with utmost seriousness (but that figure has the Belgiac shako and the blue for the collar is too dark to be cornflower ... don't you know your history? That's not accurate!).

From Carl Cannon Jr.: I like the new format, and I enjoy reading the entire issue. There is not much happening with me I've been painting a few figures for our club members, but since I've been showing and explaining how to paint figs that business has dropped off. It cost so much to paint a figure I hate to charge for it, as our younger members just can't afford it.

At our club which is connected with the hobby store we play lots Scl- fi, fantasy games, but every now and then we play some historical games mostly ACW. Has the card business hurt any hobby stores in your area? I think it has, because most of the younger people are buying magic cards and not miniatures. Fortunately at our club we have lots of miniatures for just about everything, and can loan new players an army.

We play a lot of ACW using Johnny Reb, because everyone here at the Yankee Peddler, and our wargamers feel comfortable using this system. In MWAN there seems to be little interest in these rules I wonder why?

Mike Kennedy who owns the store enjoys running battles in the British Colonial period most of the rules are home grown and are skirmish oriented. A few years back at NashCON we ran a French Foreign legion game. Hundreds of Arabs attacking a Fort with only a few legionnaires defending. One battle the defenders had to open the brig and use the prisoners when the Arabs breached the wall and desperate hand to hand fighting started. I enjoy these skirmish battles more than giant massive battles. I'm including an old picture from NASHCON; its a bad one, but if you have a magnifying glass you can see on the right is the Madhi and his forces attacking a column of legionnaires trying to make it to the oasis.

When things get back to normal I must make a decision on my 20mm WWII project keep them, or switch to the 15mm. I'll need to see these 15's before I decided the 20's have great detail and are the right size. The vehicles are a little expensive, and the models are a pain to put together. Well I have written more than I should. Thanks for the great effort you put into your publication I enjoy it. Take care.

From Terry Gore : It's been a while since I last wrote, so here a few thoughts and observations. I noted that in the last MWAN, you made reference to the fact that you felt that you did not have a responsibility to "drum up additional people for the hobby". This struck a chord in me, as we are the same age and have seen a lot of changes, both good and bad in the last few decades, hobby-wise. There have been more than a few conventions and get togethers where I felt that it was my duty to 'teach' gaming systems to new players, often very young new players.

Since my own kids have grown and moved on, I find myself much less tolerant of a lack of attention, or worse, rude, disruptive behavior at a game than in the past. I do acknowledge the fact that the hobby must continue to generate new blood, I just feel that obligation has to be passed on to some more energetic, patient members of our various Societies ... we have done our part in that respect.

The proliferation of the DBM gaming system has resulted in both pluses as well as minuses for the ancient/medieval wargaming community. It is always good to draw in new gamers, as well as attract back the disenfranchised players who have not participated in ancients/medieval gaming in a while. At the same time, others are leaving the hobby (note the loss of membership in NASAMW) because of the fact that they do not enjoy playing a particular rules system, in this case DBM, which has virtually supplanted WRG 7th in England and looks to be doing the same here in the U.S. I do not enjoy many of the mechanisms of DBM, though I do like the melee system, and have begun to play an occasional game of ARMATI as an alternative to WRG 7th (though there are still four of us in the Rochester area playing 7th on a semi-regular basis). Needless to say, there seems to be enough variety for the even the most hardcore gamer to find a system to his liking.

Lately, I have been working on the ACW rules, MISTER LINCOLN'S WAR. They are now in their second playtest version. These are a regimentally based, tactical set for the 1861-63 period of the war, aimed at both the casual gamer as well as the tournamentminded. So far, they are looking to be on schedule for release this fall. I'll send you a copy as soon as they are ready for production.

NEGLECTED HEROES has been doing well. I will be interviewed May 31 in Washington, D.C. on cable/satellite station NET for the show MODERN WAR, broadcast Sundays at 5:00 P.M. Eastern. I will let you know how that goes.

Keep up the excellent work with MWAN... the new format and color covers are great. If I can scare up some funds, I would like to go a similar route with SAGA. At any rate, Hal, all the best to your family.

From Mark Serafin: About #79 - wow, color! Really nice - you seem to be getting better and better at layout and making it look professional. Good work. The letters section looked like an NHMGS (Pacific Northwest chapter) convention, with submissions from at least 5 of our members. Hi guys, why aren't you writing for The Citadel? We had our quarterly meeting in February, and included the annual auction to help support Enfilade!. Attendance was lower than usual, due mostly to flooding that closed Interstate 5 and a lot of secondary roads in the area. Still, everything put up for sale found a home. Saturday was given over to actual gaming (and heavy panting over the auction items on display), with a WWI naval game in progress (part of an on-going North Sea campaign), ACW Ironclads, a Spanish Civil War scenario, a Franco-Prussian war scenario and my own Command Decision game.

After reading Charles Sharp's and Bruce MacFarlane's articles, and Pierce's letter, in #79 about WWII gaming I am in an even deeper quandary about how to proceed with my interest in that period. Lots of new rules sets coming out, and Frank Chadwick is working on Command Decision 3, which I think will clean up the firing system- there's been a lot of discussion of this on the CD mailing list (on the internet), which Mr. Chadwick recently joined. Well, I guess I'll have to see what the other folks up here want to play and follow along. Related to this is the fact that I have been wasting a lot of time playing a computer game called Steel Panthers, which is a tactical WWII armor simulation, at the level of individual tanks and squads of infantry. Great fun.

From Charles Sharp: Just got the No 79 issue of MWAN today: Wow! That's the kind of dramatic use of color on the cover that could be a book stand seller, and the contents are just as good as ever.

Enclosed is my first WWII column, which I hope you have time to get into No 81. At the Northwest HMGS Auction/Game Weekend in Seattle in February, I got a chance to play in one of Dick Larsen's No Pasaran Spanish Civil War games. Dick's rules were just published in MWAN No 77, and now, after a Hands-On test, I highly recommend them! About ten players, most of whom had never seen the period before, played to a conclusion in a few hours of fast and furious action. Unfortunately, I can't remember the names of all the other players, but Kevin Smyth, Jerry Nordbye, and I from the Tacoma Mob were running part of a Republican force that included about 6-7 battalions of mixed Socialists, Anarchists, and International Brigades, supported by artillery and the Heavy Armor of the war: Soviet T-26 tanks with 45mm guns!

Our opponents included several infantry battalions of Fascist Scum (you can tell, I get into the spirit of these games!) holding a town we had to take. They were outnumbered at the start, but received reinforcements that included some battalions of Italian infantry, some tiny Italian tankoids and a cavalry force. The battle ended in a draw, in that the International Brigades (all together now, a rousing chorus of Die Moorsoldaterlt) stormed the town, but were shot to pieces doing it. Our tank force was devastated by a lone Italian aviator on the first turn of the game, and the other tank company, of French FF-17s, was attacked by enemy infantry and destroyed! In the end, we were probably too weak to withstand a counterattack, but the enemy force originally on the field had been destroyed. Aside from playing very smoothly, one thing I particularly like about the rules is that they are designed to use "elements" instead of specific figure-counting. Dick uses stands of 2-3 figures for each element, but you could just as easily use several stands, individual figures, or anything you like. This allows you to make the game look the way you like it: theoretically, a battalion of 9-11 elements could be represented by as few as 11 or as many as 1100 figures!

Even while I was playing I got to thinking about how the rules could be used for other, similar periods. Dick keeps all the armor and artillery very simple, but by adding some differentiation between heavy, medium, and light artillery and mortars, and some rules for various armored cars and light tanks with both cannon and machineguns, it appears to me that the rules would work very well for, say, the 1939-40 campaigns in Poland or Finland, and the Russian Civil War. For the Russian Civil War, in fact, about all you'd have to do is add in some movement/weapon factors for some of the stranger weapons, like the cart-mounted heavy machineguns (tachanka) that both the Red and White cavalry used, and throw out most of the submachineguns and light machineguns, and you could get right into scenario-writing.

Here's a thought that should appeal to a painter of your output, Hal. At office supply stores you can buy Business Card holders, in stacks of 50-l00 each. Each holder is about 2" x 4", made of magnetized card about 1mm thick. Use one card for each of the Elements in Dick's rules. Since each element represents approximately one platoon, you could paint up, say, one officer and (in 20mm) 5-6 infantry, and mount them on metal washers temporarily (or permanently) on each stand.

Each of your battalions, then, would be about 50-60 infantry plus a couple of heavy machineguns (one with crew on a stand). Given the way the larger units varied in size during the Russian Civil War, a couple of hundred figures could represent up to a division's worth of infantry. If you want to run a scenario with more troops, just drop the number of figures/base: as few as 2-3 figures per elements, after all, is what Dick uses in his games. Don't forget, in the Russian Civil War, to include a red flag and a Commissar on the battalion command stand for the Communist units!

From Patrick Wilson: My partner Chris Ferree (designer of Richard Houston's Colonial Range, including the Sikhs) and I are (we hope!) in the last stages of preparation of the ms for John Company: The Conquest Of India, 1750-1860. We expect to send it to Bryan Ansell between the middle and end of April with an eye towards publication by the end of June. This weekend, Chris and I will be demonstrating the game again at Twistercon IV (Tomado Alley Annual Convention) and are expecting some supplementary historical OB's from Andy Preziosi within a week. Once we have tied up our loose ends, Chris and I will begin writing some supporting articles for eventual publication in Britain, but we expect to be able to offer at least one or two to MWAN. I can't promise exactly what we'll do first, but logically the article on the organization and OB for the Khalsa in the First Sikh War is the place to start. Chris has also been heavily researching the Mahratta and Mysore Wars and this data (with remarkable OB's and Organizational data) was originally intended to go into the basic rules set, but Bryan felt it was too Napoleonic but not "Colonial" enough for a first release. I hope I can convince Chris to finish with it now for first pub by you. Later all this material, and more, will appear in a rules supplement. Anyway, we'll get you something as quick as we can.

From Brian Carroll: Thanks for sending the AOR large unit modifications. As it turns out, we had modified the rule on our own to pretty much the same thing! We've played two games with the rules and they have worked fairly well. We still need to tinker. But, at least the toys look great! I do not recall reading much about your own games with your CHARGE project. Is it that you're left with no time to game? I feel guilty - I enjoy MWAN so much that it is painful to contemplate the hobby without it, yet I bet you get a lot less gaming done because of it.

Anyway, I have no regrets about choosing to game at the scale I've chosen (about 1:15). I just know that the shades of Young and Grant would approve of our armies!

You asked me to review the figures from Imperialist Enterprises. Actually, I think a recent Courier did so. The figures I have seen are pretty good - a little smaller than Old Glory, (though much more historically accurate). They rate about the size of Wargames Foundry. The figs are a tiny bit thin, but I think would paint up well. The proprietor of the company is Mr. R. Haggerty. I've written to him to send you a catalog, but your readers can write him at: IMPERIALIST ENTERPRISES, 229 N 2nd Street, #C, Elkhart, IN 46516-3024. I must say, he is absolutely great to deal with. He loves the period (War of Spanish Succession), and seems willing to do anything to help. After "Cold Wars", I will try to take up your offer to write a short piece on our Marlburian project, and perhaps a battle report to accompany it. Again, MWAN is the best. Thanks for doing it.

From Rich Borg: If I could work it so I had more time, I would love to write up a few battle reports, or recap the gaming activities here in Orlando.... BUT.... We continue to keep very, very busy. - STAR WARS CCG is an on going project for Decipher - We also did a Hockey CCG last year for Playoff and now are answering questions about the Playoff Hockey One-on-One Challenge game. It came out right before the holidays and is selling well in Canada, but is very difficult to find here in the States.

Currently finishing up SQUADS, a English Football CCG for Waddingtons in England, and play testing a design for a kids board game for a California based game company and working out the kinks in a project for a U.S. card company. Had a chance a few weeks back to play some ACW miniatures using our Command & Colors game system. We have been playing with these rules for a few years now, but still have not taken the time or are willing to spend the money to get them published. Perhaps later this year.

For your info here are a few notes on the Commands & Colors game. I believe you would appreciate the simplicity of the system. The Commands & Colors - American Civil War game system by design is not overly complex. The game mechanics are presented to allow most novice gamers an opportunity, after a few turns, to feel competent in command, grasp the basics of the game, and enjoy the contest. We have taken this game to a number of local Florida game conventions and find card players, fantasy gamers, role players and historical gamers all seem to enjoy the system. For the experienced miniature player, the game system is challenging enough to provide many hours of stimulating competition. Pat Kurivial and Roy Grider are playing a Napoleonic version of the Commands & Colors system. We have over 30 ACW battles designed for the system. The battles depict a stylized ACW battlefield, however, each battle map still highlights key terrain features and the historical deployment of Union and Confederate forces in scale with the game system. The games play at a fast pace, with non-stop action throughout the entire contest. Most battles including the Battle of Bull Run, Kernstown, Antietam etc, etc... can be played to a conclusion in less than an hour. (We can usually play four games, including set up, and take down time, in an evening.). The game system, although simplistic and fast paced, still requires players to develop a sound battle plan, follow through with strategic card play, and with timely dice rolling, to achieve victory. Sound like an advertisement.... Sorry my retail background is showing. Most of our projects will be finished by the end of April. Hopefully we can pen some additional details at that time, until then ....

From Thomas S. Ballou: Greeting's from the snow covered East. I have just returned from Cold Wars 96. It was a good Con although the turn out was smaller than last year due to the big snow. There was a plethora of naval games on Saturday. Ranging from Cog Wars and My Galley Sally type rules to computer moderated fighting sail and W.W.I. Cruiser actions. Including a island attack with wave after wave of landing craft for Command Decision. Speaking of CD, Old Glory has picked up the rules and the Command Post. They are also planing to release a 3rd addition of the rules. As for MWAN, your new color cover was a real knockout. Please keep up the good work.

At the same time, there seemed to be significant increase in the number of naval games, in a variety of scales. Regardless of what scale or era, however, there were plenty of great games to play and inspire. Everywhere I looked, there were neat ideas to be gleaned on painting figures or scratch-building terrain. There are some really clever and talented people in this hobby! I played in an interesting World War I game using the ruleset "Trenchfight," which featured stunning and very realistic terrain scratch-built from blue-foam board. I had the good luck to play alongside rules author and all-around great guy, John Manning. As the Germans, we inflicted heavy casualties on the attacking Allied infantry and light tanks in the late-1918 scenario, but boy o'boy did we get whacked once the Allies made it over the barbed wire and into the trenches! The Allies won and a great time was had by all. I was also lucky enough to get into a 15mm Renaissance naval game, hosted by Steve Thomas and Steve Jameison of 19th Century Miniatures, featuring their great "Lepanto" line of galleys and galleasses. These guys know how to have fun and their games are always a hoot. I'd always had an interest in medieval and ancient naval games but found the small scale games unsatisfying.

Then, I played in one of Steve and Steves "Cog Wars" games. It was great! And I've been hooked ever since. I now have 6 cogs (medieval) and 20 galleys (ancient Greek Successor). At Cold Wars I purchased 2 decaremes for use as fleet admiral ships and two quinqueremes that I intend to join together for use as the foundation for a scratchbuilt shipborne siege tower. The scenario I have in mind for such a beastie is loosely based on Alexanders Siege of Tyre (inspired, again, by a game put on by Steve and Steve). The skeleton of the siege tower will probably be made out of card stock. I'll then cover it with wooden coffee stirrers to give the appearance of timber construction. That is, if I can ever find a place that sells wooden coffee stirrers. Anyhow, back to the game, which pitted a smaller but heavier gunned Christian fleet against a larger, less well-armed Turkish fleet. It was a clash which required finesse as well as brute strength as ships maneuvered to shear opponents oars, rake the decks of enemy ships with cannon, arquebusier, and bow fire, and grapple for boarding action. It was a very close fight which ended with the Turks having a slight advantage. The mix of ship, troop and weaponry types made for a very interesting and fun game. Cannons, arquebusier, crossbow, bow, heavy infantry; there was even a neat little rule that when the Christians captured a Turkish vessel, the Christian player rolled a die to see how many Christian slaves below-decks would be freed to come up and join the fight again the Turks. I think there are gonna be some Renaissances galleasses I my gaming future. Now, I just have to finish up painting the Greek galley crews and making the siege tower and then I can put together a order for......

The Armory had a terrific special for the convention: Buy 3 Osprey books, get 1 free. Naturally, I took advantage of the offer and got 4 books from the Osprey Campaign line, including Little Big Horn, 1876 by Pete Panzeri. I agree with John Skinners review of it in MWAN #79 - it's a very good book. I also bought a stryofoam cutter the Jenkintown Hobby booth (always very nice folks) and hope to put I to good use later this summer in making some WWI scenery with trenches (gee, wonder where I got that idea? :) ).

The flea market also offer some nice temptations, one of which I couldn't resist: a painted 15 DBA Midianite Arab army thatwill match perfectly the Biblical-era DB armies I painted last year. The games at Cold Wars seemed to be a good mix with no one period dominating. Ancient, medieval, Renaissance/pike&shot, SYW, Napoleonic ACW, latter 1 9th C., WWI, WWII, modern, Air (WWI & WWII) and Naval (Ancient, gunpowder & sail, 20th C.). A convention is a great place to rekindle the creative fire and crank up the enthusiasm chilled by a harsh winter. I can't wait till HISTORICON in July! ! !

From Michael Park : Just a short letter to accompany a copy of the Programme from the VMS Fair, which I thought might be of interest. During the Fair there was a small meeting of the Rayner's Lane gang, Mr.Asquith in the Chair, in the bar (of course). The Fair must be almost unique in bringing together all sorts of enthusiasts - re-enactors, medal and militaria fans, book collectors and historians, wargamers etc. About 1,000 people attended, including a number of overseas visitors, and altogether it was a thoroughly enjoyable day, with live martial music throughout. The demonstration games featured two set in Abyssinia, which must be some sort of a record. Ted Herbert and his men used a wide range of 54mm conversions (and Ted's excellent mountain scenery) while the others were 25mm using Wargames Foundry (of course) and Minifigs.

The VMS Wargames Group had a static display for their next demonstration game, Mexico 1866 and there was also a chance to try out the new "Principles of War" rules from Tom Penn. I don't know if you have seen or tried them yet but they have made a great hit with C19 gamers in Britain, written by wargamers (rather than professionals) for wargamers and covering formal battles as well as those against native irregular forces. I think they will be the "standard" rules for the period for other than skirmish games for some years to come. The other news is the excellent new range of 25mm figures from Guernsey Foundry, a sister company to Wargames Foundry and to the same scale, proportions and quality. The first 35 figures are very much Old West 1880 while the second release (this is going to be a very big range) includes Mexican peons and Federal regular troops. We now have Apaches, gunfighters, cowboys and townsmen with mounted figures to come. Many of the townsmen would fit any late Victorian scenario and the aim is to fill in the gaps in other ranges.

Over a long chat with a long suffering designer bids were put in for Maoris and Dayaks (plus Rajah Brook, of course) and already on the drawing board is a 7 Years War range that could upset a lot of bank balances. Altogether a mouthwatering prospect. No doubt you will soon have full details (probably already have them) but let me just say that the figures are superb, with a wide range of natural poses all the classic figures are or will be there for the Old West and I am dusting off my Louis L'Amour novels for scenarios. I ought to write something on the latest MWAN having renewed my subscription at the Fair through Caliver Books for simplicity. Good to be back with you - very interesting note on Maori Wars, which really does need a good new range of figures. However, time is very pressing, but good wishes to you and all the family and all wargaming friends in the US.

From Rob Dean : MWAN #79 arrived in yesterday's mail, just as the anticipation of Cold Wars is starting to become unbearable. I read my six year old son a chapter of - American Naval Battles and Heroes after dinner, got him to bed, and then settled in with a cup of coffee to read MWAN cover to cover. As always, a fine issue, and the color cover is most impressive. I hope it doesn't amount to a financial burden!

I was sorry not to see anything from Father Glidden and Chuck Vadun, two of my favorite regular columnists, and I hope they will be back next issue. The Russian Civil War is one of the periods that I've been tempted. You might have suggested a few books--I thought that Bruce Lincoln's Red Victory was pretty good, and should still be available, and I'll read a few more obscure books in college, but that's been a while ago. (The only one I can identify now is Master of Spies by Frantisek Moravec, the memoirs of the pre-WWII head of Czech intelligence. I seem to recall that there was quite a bit about the Czech legion in it, and I guess I'll have to see if I can find a copy in a library around here.)

The thought of doing a cavalry attack on an immobilized armored train is appealing--it would certainly attract attention at a convention in 20mm! Another practical advantage of the Russian Civil War for wargamers would be that the uniforms were fairly nondescript, which would give one the opportunity to switch a unit's allegiance from one game to the next for maximum flexibility. (I also make use of this aspect in my ECW project... ) I will be interested to see other people's suggestions about containing the urge to do new periods. Our local club recently polled the membership about their periods and scales, and I was appalled to discover that I have about *thirty* combinations of period and scale (with several periods being built in two scales, and a couple in three.)

I've been keeping records in order to encourage me to paint, and I find that since I started tracking in October 1995, I have painted things for fourteen of these projects. The biggest project has a thousand completed 25s; the smallest played project has fifteen 54s. Obviously, I do *not* have this completely under control. The only coping strategies that have had any success so far are: skirmish gaming, home casting, 6mm, and doing additional research:

1. I try to keep skirmish projects under a hundred figures.
2. Home casting keeps unpainted lead to a minimum.
3. 6mm projects are inexpensive, easy to store, and easy to paint, although not as satisfying as larger scales to me.
4. Figure buying can sometimes be deferred until additional (open ended... ) research can be done.

From Brent Oman : Just a quick note to update you on some Cold Wars items. Cold Wars' name was certainly appropriate this year - it was COLD! ! ! Attendence seemed to be down slightly due to the bad weather. The convention was still fun though. I will probably just attend Historicon from now on. It seems that Historicon has the "prettier, games that gamers have really put an effort into staging. Also, it has the painting competition which is always inspirational! The Piquet debut went well, with the seminar being well attended. We played a demo game in the open gaming area (flea market) on Saturday afternoon. We were stunned when the spectators broke into spontaneous applause at the game's conclusion. Something must be good about the rules!

I have finally broken and slipped over to the dark side and stepped into collecting Napoleonics. I purchased lots of 25mm Elite figures from Herb Gundt at his HG Walls booth. What a combination - beautiful figures and a great guy to do business with. Hard to beat! I am beginning by doing Austrians in the helmet and French. The French will be a ragged looking lot, with a mixture of shakos (70%) and fatigue caps (the remaining 30%).

I have so far finished up my first Austrian battalion and I'm very satisfied. The Elite figures are a joy to paint. I'll be limiting my collection according to my rule of 12 (12 core units). I figure this way I can collect several nationalities.

From Chris Sweitzer : Enclosed please find a set of Legion buttons. I got them from a catalog - American Science and Surplus, 3605 Howard St., Skokie, IL 60076-4014. They have a catalog of misc. items with fair to very good prices, some of which would be of use to gamers/collectors, tinkers, etc. This issue's Military pages included the Legion buttons, Soviet buttons, wooden boxes for 3.5" rockets (29 1/4" X 14" X 6 3/4" - big figure storage?), ammo boxes, rolls of warning tape reading "Mines!", WWII "Song & Service books and metal studded mitts for handling those hot shell cases, plus novelties and toys, glassware, office supplises, mechanical and other items. I like the new format. Consider the buttons your anniversary/birthday or Christmas gift, whichever is closer! (Editor 's Note. Thanks very much for buttons, Chris - appreciate your thoughtfulness! Nice looking buttons.)

From Terry Tellin : Enjoy the new format; I read with interest the Campaign of 220 B.C. The group in this area has struggled with trying to set up a campaign as background for miniature battles. I would be interested in more gamers experiences and ideas on this subject. I am also active in Play by Mail games - mostly fantasy, it seems the historical PBM games just do not seem to make it. I've had three go down under while playing time. Thanks again for making our hobby more interesting and providing a network for sharing ideas.

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© Copyright 1996 Hal Thinglum

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