In Wargames Illustrated #110, Mike Siggins reports that Wargames Foundry figure designer Michael Perry, of the "Perry Twins", recently "lost his right hand and part of his forearm due to the misfiring of a medieval field gun". Mr. Siggins goes on to report that he "is already making good progress with his left hand." I am sure you will join me in sending best wishes to Michael in recovering from this tragic accident. He can be reached at Wargames Foundry, The Foundry, Mount St, New Basford, Nottingham, NG7 7HX, UK. Michael and his brother Alan are extremely talented designers and I have always been impressed with their abilities. If you have a chancet Michael, please let us know how you are doing. Good luck!

Buildings

I think I've mentioned this for several years in a row around the Christmas season, but will do so again. Carson's, a department store in my area. again carried the "Liberty Falls" painted houses. These are perfect for ACW 15mm scale and represent small town American buildings for the last half of the 19th century. For $5.00 each, you can't beat the quality and looks. This is at least the third year, perhaps the fourth, that I have been purchasing them.

Beginning some time in October, they release a new building each week. They also have pewter 20mm figures at very reasonable prices and these would be handy for the 20mm gamer for use as civilians. I don't know if they can be obtained directly from the company, but I am going to give you the address and let you check if you are interested: Liberty Falls Collector's Club, 60 Revere Dr., Suite 725, Northbrook, IL 60062.

Solo Column

Rich Barbuto, who publishes Lone Warrior, publication of the Solo Wargamer's Association in the UK, has offered to write a regular column on solo wargaming and I have taken him up on his offer. Hopefully, we will have something from Rich by MWAN #86. There has always been a lot of interest in solo wargaming!

I have a favor to ask of you - are there any MWANer's who have any Heroics & Ros 1/300th WWII or Action 1/200th by Skytrex which they do not plan on putting to use? I am aware of an MWANer who could benefit from them. I will be glad to pay any postage costs incurred by sending them to me. Thank you in advance for your consideration in this matter!

I am becoming a little more computer "literate" having taken a Word Perfect 6.1 course at work. Specifically, I've learned how to successfully deal with disks sent me which show up on my screen in a far less than perfect state. This should be a big help to me in the future! One thing I have been working on is reducing the amount of"white space" in MWAN due to the fact that MWAN's 8 1/2t X 11-inch original format is photo-reduced by Rinck Huele, my printer, so as to fit into the "digest-sized" publication you have in your hands. Rinck informs me that if I change my margins, I can more effectively utilize page space. The new margins - please note for your submissions - are as follows:

Left Margin and Right Margin 1"
Top Margin 1" and Bottom Margin l/2"

Please single space and send me both a "hard" copy as well as a disk, if possible. I was able, with this issue, to use the above margin changes and I am anxious to see what it turns out like. Hope you like the small changes!

1/48th Scale Kits

Several MWANers sent me information as to where to obtain the 1/48th scale plastic Fuman (formerly Bandai) kits. They are available from The Squadron Shop, 1115 Crowley Drive, Carrollton, TX 75011-5010 (214-242-8663). If you contact them, please mention MWAN if you would be so kind.

Congratulations to Stone Mountain Miniatures for winning the "Best Miniature Gaming Accessory" award given by Origins in 1995 for their 15mm ACW buildings ! I've long believed that historical miniatures should have it's own award system rather than depending upon Origins to recognize leaders in our hobby. ] would assume that the most logical group to assume responsibility for this would be HMGS. Any other thoughts on the matter?

20mm Resurgence?

Seems as though there is a resurgence of the 20mm figure. Many years ago, it was "the" scale used for wargaming. then it switched to 25mm and then, 15mm in turn. 20mm was limited to plastics and to WWII wargaming. However, now it has expanded into Ancients! Russian Civil War, American Civil War, WWI Colonial, Spanish Civil War, British Colonial, Napoleonics, Wild West, French Foreign Legion, WWI, Korean War and others, I am sure. 20mm is a very attractive scale and an alternative space-wise on the tabletop to 25mm. There are a number of new 20mm manufacturers whose products I haven't seen, but of those I've had the chance to view Qualiticast and B&B Miniatures, I have been very impressed!

While listing 20mm figure periods above, it came to mind that Outpost Wargame Services produces a 20mm Korean War line which is available in the US through Brookhurst Hobbies, 12188 Brookhurst St.. Garden Grove, CA 92640 i714-636-3580). Thus far, there appear to be eight VS and eight Chinese figure packs, with five British packs and four vehicles (Sherman, Pershing, Chaffee. and T34/85 tank) just released. This would be an interesting line to view and even more interesting to recreate.

I keep thinking of how Pork Chop Hill would look as a wargame! Terrain would be a real problem, no doubt, but if one had the ability to recreate it and the space to store it, it would make a great convention game! When we think of Korea, we tend to think of trench-type static warfare, though thc first year or so of the war was actually a very fluid affair and would reproduce well on the tabletop. One could use many 20mm WWII items and with the advent of the Communist Chinese 2 figures, we are really getting somewhere.

You would still need North Korean figures however. If you wish to game Korea in 15mm, you need go no further than Quality Castings, PO Box 11714, Alexandria, VA 22313, who offer an extensive, and growing, line for the Korean Conflict. I'd be very interested in hearing from anyone who is involved in this period.

I noted with interest that SHQ Miniatures, again available from Brookhurst Hobbies, have WWII 20mm German limbers and infantry carts. These are very handy items considering the fact that the Germans heavily utilized horse transport.

MWAN 15th Year

The majority of you will note that it is time for your resubscription to be renewed. 1997 marks the 15th year MWAN has been published; nearly one-third of my life! At this rate, MWAN #100 will be published in August-September, 1999; just a little over two years away! It would be nice to do something special for #100. If anyone has any ideas that I/we can be working on, please let me know. As usual with resubscriptions, if you find it difficult to financially justify MWAN, please let me know or send what you feel you can afford.

Charles Oman's seven volume set A History of the Peninsular War is again available, at least the first two volumes. I obtained my copies from Cameron Robinson of Frei Korps 15 of Northern Ireland. I have been enjoying a bit of reading from time to time about this period, one I've long had an interest in. I understand that Old Glory will be releasing 15mm Peninsular War figures as well as an extensive (500 bags?) of 25mm Napoleonics at some point in the future.

There are so many manufacturers of figures in all scales specifically for the Peninsular War. The buildings of the period are very attractive and again, several manufacturers offer extensive ranges of beautiful buildings. Over the years, I've made it a habit to pick up wargames buildings when I have a chance to do so. Village Green, one of my favorite wargames accessories companies, some years ago released a large 15mm complex which could be used as a Spanish walled convent and it sits unpainted, of course, in a box labeled "Peninsular War Buildings"! There's another box entitled "Russian 15mm Buildings" which are perfectly sized for 20mm figures (Russian Civil War?), as well as large boxes of 3 15mm ECW, and ACW buildings. Redoubt Miniatures is planning, at some point, to redo their 25mm Napoleonic Peninsular line which was very extensive some years ago when it first came out. You could also check out Barry Edward's Playable Napoleonic Rules which are again available and one of my favorite rules sets. They are written specifically with the Peninsular War in mind; they are very straight forward rules, and the color pictures will give you some ideas (Barry Edwards, 18 Parsons Lawn, Shoebury, Essex, UK SS3 8BN; 4.50 pounds including 45 pence postage for UK orders; I'd check with him about overseas postage)!

Back to the Sudan

If I could find the motivation to return to my painting table, I would consider my 15mm Sudan project started many years ago. It went through a number of revisions, however, I recently returned to my notebook on the Sudan and enjoyed reviewing my ideas on the project. Essentially, I would have large units: eight 6figure infantry stands per unit for the regular troops and approximately twenty 6-figure native foot per "rub".

Although it is my intention have some British units (in red uniforms), I plan on concentrating on Egyptian and Sudanese units for the pre-1882 period where Charles Gordon can send out such units into the desert to quell the Mahdi's Rebellion. I have nearly all the figures I need to complete this fascinating period of military history. They are sitting in boxes in my basement, nearly all of them primed and glued to tongue depressors for ease of painting!

Within the last year, I obtained a 15mm gunboat for this purpose, and several years ago, Howard Whitehouse did a terrific job creating terrain (which can double for the NWF in 25mm) and painting/terraining towns and a small fort. As a matter of fact, it is looking at my terrain items for the Sudan which gets my blood flowing to do something with the period. I would think this would be a perfect period for a solo campaign.

Think of it: Gordon Pasha dispatches a large column of Egyptian and Sudanese to deal with the Madhi. There are units of regular Egyptians and Sudanese infantry and cavalry consisting of Lancers and Dragoons; a smallish Egyptian Camel Corps units; lots of irregular foot and horse units;Egyptian artillery and Nordenfeld guns. Wouldn't have to use a lot of strategy as the Mahdi knows where the column is at all times while the column is not sure of where the Madhi is, thus attacking is entirely up to the Madhi and this can be handled via die rolls. Morale can be kept rather simple for the Dervish as they were at fever pitch during this time period, while morale is a major consideration for the Egyptian column.

I really should do something about this. It would be easy to paint up the natives; I would use the "black primer" method which Len Brewer taught me and just dry brush different shades of"off-white" onto the black-primed figure which would go very quickly. Even when I used the white-primer approach, I could always paint up the natives very fast.

I had planned on using Howard Whitehouse's rules Science vs Pluck as a framework for my own rules development as he had so many good ideas within them. If you ever get a chance, pick them up as they are very entertaining reading, even if you aren't interested in the period. If you are, they will serve to motivate you to do something about it! I had planned to go with full stand removal for casualties (see my article in this issue on the subject, if you wish) and based the large units on this premise.

Glue Troubles

Sometime ago, I mentioned a problem I was having with glueing figures to metal bases using Elmer's White Glue. The figures were not always adhering to the stand after drying. I received several suggestions; Clem Clemens told me to wash the metal stands with soap and hot water to remove the grease. I did this though I haven't found it to be very successful as some 25mm WWII figures I had glued to stands came off rather easily.

Len Brewer suggested that I hot glue gun them on to the stands; however, I find glue guns to be rather messy, leaving strings of glue to clean up off the figure stand. Bill Widrick wrote and said that he uses Wather's Goo to attach his figures to metal bases. Some twenty years ago, I used to use Goo exclusively and think I shall pick some up and give it a try again. I remember that it was a quite effective agent for glueing. Thanks for the suggestions, gentlemen!

Visit to Emperor's HQ, Chicago

A few months ago, I was at The Emperor's Headquarters here in Chicago with Len Brewer and spent some time looking at modular terrain squares from several different manufacturers whose names escape me at this time. It brought to mind that I have often considered purchasing such a system for my wargames table.

At first glance, it would appear to be an expensive way to go, however, I would think one could probably purchase enough terrain squares to cover your table for under $300.00 or so. If anyone has purchased such a system, would you consider doing an in-depth article on the system you have and what you think of it? I think all of us could benefit from such an article.

15mm Franco-Prussian enthusiasts will be pleased that Irregular Miniatures, 69a Acomb Rd., Holgate, York, YO2 4EP (01904-790597) has released a 1870-1918 range with 49 packs of figures. In addition, each figure is reported to have up to five variants re poses. This has been a tempting period for me personally and I tried and failed to enter it in 15mm several years ago.

Monolith Design of the UK (available from Brookhurst Hobbies in the USA) is a company whose products I have never seen, however, they offer a large assortment of 15mm, 20mm, and 25mm resin buildings, entrenchments, and fortifications. What interests me most is the fact that they announce they will soon be releasing a 20mm line of WWII Japanese fortifications and they offer four 20mm Allied waterline landing craft.

Since I have an interest in WWII Pacific actions and have about 500 Marines, US Infantry, and Japanese painted, though not mounted, I am anxious to see what they look like. I started mounting this period singly on fender washers, however, it occurred to me that since I have so many figures, it may be better to mount them three to a stand but I just haven't gotten around to working on it. I don't have any rules in mind for the period but I am thinking of a figure scale of about 1:5.

I also have a few painted Japanese and American light tanks and Japanese landing craft. Waiting to be painted are a number of Australian infantry. I am thinking this period would be good for convention games where the players represent the Allies and the judge can handle the Japanese. There won't be a lot of heavy artillery or vehicles, both of which can serve to complicate WWII wargaming on the tabletop.

It's Thanksgiving weekend and I've had four days off. MWAN #84 went out in the mail yesterday (Friday) just before the flu hit me! My plan was to get this issue off to the printer this morning, but all I've been doing is sleeping. This issue has been perhaps the most difficult I've ever put together and I think it's because there are so many short articles; I can't even fit the table of contents in on one page! There are fifty articles within this issue, including eight rules sets; that has to set an all-time high for MWAN; thanks very much for your submissions and support of MWAN!

I would like to recognize the contributions made to our hobby by Major Bill Harting of the HMGS Midsouth group. For years, "Major Bill", as he apparently has come to be know, has been involved with this group and has published the H.M.G.S. DISPATCH which serves as their means of communication.

I have never met Bill and am not even sure if we have ever communicated by anything other than letter, however, from everything I hear from other people, from our infrequent letters, and from reading every issue of The Dispatch ever put out, it is clear to me that he is a man who does what he does for purely unselfish motives and does it as well as he possibly can.

I have to admire people who consistently function in this mode. These are the kind of individuals who are desperately needed in any type of group formed to meet the public need; unfortunately, they are usually overused and abused and reach a point where they burn out and "retire", or become callous. "Major Bill" appears to be made of sterner stuff, another attribute worthy of admiration and leans toward "moderation" and "fellowship".

There are certain words in the English vocabulary which unfortunately have grown out of popularity and are no longer utilized in the same sense they were intended. The word "Gentleman" is one of them and a word which I have great respect for. Bill Harting, in my opinion, is a "Gentleman".

Once more, keep those articles coming in. Everyone likes to see "home-grown" rules sets and with 192 pages, I can fit virtually any length of rules within the same issue. I personally enjoy "overviews" of a period which provide the history, figure availability, rules, etc. Hope to hear from you all in 1997!

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