Just yesterday, I sat down at the painting table and pounded out a regiment of 37 GUERNSEY FOUNDRY Frei Korps infantry which had been sitting there unattended for about three months. I must admit it felt quite good! Aside from completing a few figures for nonhobby friends (I do have some, you know!), my painting had been virtually nonexistent in 1996. I used to average 180 painted 25mm figures a month in prime(!) and over the last few years, I'd be fortunate if I could paint that many in an entire year. Well, it's not a complete loss as I would not choose to paint like that again because it just plain took up too much time.

Under my painting table is where I keep the "Other" figures - the unpainted ones. So while I was working on the Frei Korps figures, I pulled out the OLD GLORY 25mm SYW Austrian and Prussian gun crews (32 for each); OLD GLORY and WARGAMES FOUNDRY guns; and OLD GLORY limbers and went to work on them in a frenzy! I wanted four additional batteries (two guns per battery) for the Prussians and five for the Austrians as this would give me 12 batteries for each side. I need to pick up eight additional Austrian gunners to complete the batteries. Cleaned and primed them, and put the coat color on the Austrians as well as their guns/limbers/limber horses/riders. I think I may have made a slight error in that I may have mixed them up and painted the Prussians like Austrians, but, oh well, I won't tell anyone.

Noting that the GUERNSEY FOUNDRY figure bases are quite small and suspecting that my usual approach of using Elmer's White Glue to glue them to the figure stand might not work well, I went back to using Wather's GOO, a glue I'd used 20 years ago and discontinued in favor of the Elmer's. It does take a little longer to dry; give it a good 24 plus hours, but they stick to the base right away and a day later, they are very well affixed. You might check out this glue in your local hobby shop.

Every time I get back to painting, it does feel good - I find myself getting a little more "excited" about this hobby that I've had for about 23 years now. That's really a long time, isn't it! Probably not much more or less than the majority of MWANers. I even found myself imagining, as I used to, how the figures would look on the tabletop. I did resist the urge to put my SYW 25mm Collection out on the tabletop to see how it looks as I am expecting MWAN #85 from the printer any day now and when it arrives, the wargarnes table is cleared of everything so as to serve as my "work area" to get it ready for the mail.

I seem to notice a little bit of "bashing" going on in the hobby of the "larger" manufacturers, such as OLD GLORY for instance. I've long noted that people have a tendency to "knock" the "big guy(s)" - I don't know why this is, but I really don't know what purpose it serves. It would be difficult to justify any kind of "bashing" within our hobby.

Many of you may be regular readers of the regular column in WARGAMES ILLUSTRATED on the hobby. I can not recall, for the life of me, the name of the columnist, however, sometime ago, he took a considerable amount of"heat" for "pushing" WARGAMES FOUNDRY figures and the company in general within his column. The first thing I thought of is that THE FOUNDRY is one of the few companies which consistently send samples to the wargames publications. What does this have to do with it? Well, personally, I know that if I receive such samples on a regular basis, they are on my mind more often when I sit down to write. Also, I am not so "jaded" yet so as to be able to resist thinking about collecting figures when I receive a box of samples! So when I sit down to write, they may well be on my mind. I wonder if the same thing could be true for the columnist for Wl?

I would like to thank everyone for their continued support of MWAN! Each year when resubscriptions are due, I feel rejuvenated due to the large number of thoughtful MWANers who express their appreciation for MWAN. I am also impressed by the number of people who want to assist other MWANers - thanks to all of you!

Seems to be a growing amount of interest in the new 25mm WWII figures putting manufactured by BATTLEGROUP and FIRST CORPS with several articles/reviews within this issue. BATTLEGROUP, from what I understand, will be expanding their line to include the war in the Pacific which I think would be ideal for 25mm skirmish gaming. I have been told that the 1/40 plastic kits models also "look right" with 25mm. I've never heard of 1 /40th scale - does anyone else have any information on this? Scratch building would seem to be especially interesting for this scale/period. The one thing I don't care for in skirmish gaming is the breakdown in casualties. What I mean is when a figure is "hit", there can be a wide range of consequences: an outright "kill" (removal of figure from the table) or any range of "wound" ranging from "out of action one turn" to, I suppose, "serious wound" in which the figure is determined to be immobile. The problem I have with this is that of a general game "slowdown". One also has to "remember" the status of "wounded figures as well. This can ideally be done with casualty figures, I guess, and I think both BATTLEGROUP and FIRST CORPS make such figures. It just seems a waste of time though, as far as I am concerned. On the other hand, if you are doing a true "skirmish" game, concern for or removal of casualty figures would play an important part. I suspect that I've always viewed individually based figure skirmish games as much larger in scope and numbers than just a "skirmish" game. I've viewed them as regular games - the only difference being that the figures themselves are mounted individually instead of on multi-figure bases.

So many MWANers wrote to me and mentioned that the new margins, designed to more fully utilize the "white" page space, that I've decided to just go back to one inch margins on all four sides. MWAN #85 was a little better, but it is difficult for the printer to work with. Thus, please go back to your one inch margins when submitting material for MWAN. We'll live with a little waste of space for readability's sake! Thanks for your feedback regarding this issue!

You know, for so many years, I wasn't interested at all in having figures painted for me. I felt, justifiably so, that there was no reason to have someone paint figures for me because I was fully capable of painting whatever armies I desired. This was fine when I was churning out figures by the hundreds each month and a new period could so inspire me that painting was rarely treated as a chore; more of challenge. However, I've changed my mind. I recently received a painted regiment of twenty-seven 15mm ECW figures from Alan Hughes of the UK - see his ad in this issue and am very pleased. They are really painted to a high quality and I am anxious to receive more of them back. I mounted them nine to a metal stand in three ranks with two stands of musketeers and one of pike per regiment according to Howard Whitehouse's IRONSIDES ECW rules. Howard's rules have the same number of miniatures per regiment; a concept which I find appealing. One can have smaller or larger regiments as well as "pike heavy" or '`musket heavy" regiments, but this information is kept on a roster. All mechanics aside, a three stand regiment of foot with nine figures per stand looks good on the table. I've never had three rank units before in any of my armies and like the way they look. My cavalry will feature three stands per regiment with four figures per stand for a total of twelve per regiment. By the way, Howard offered to allow MWAN to print his IRONSIDES rules in a future issue and I am looking forward to this to see if he has added anything to them. They are quite interesting rules! I plan on doing the same thing with my villages for the ECW as I did for my 25mm SYW project, namely, to permanently group three to five buildings on a base and use it as a village. This allows me to add some dioramic type effects to the village and the approach is quite functional in nature. I can't recall if I've mentioned the composition of my 15mm ECW project. I am using primarily ESSEX figures with some FREI KORPS and MUSEUM MINIATURES castings. I have 15 regiments of foot and twelve regiments of horse per side. Each side will have a regiment of Dragoons and a unit of firelocks to guard the baggage train. As for artillery, I have a total of twenty guns, thus, it should be a fairly large period. I've always thought the ECW period would lend itself very well to campaign type approaches. FREI KORPS offers a wide range as does ESSEX. What I like about FREI KORPS is their cavalry castings - the figure and horse are cast together and I like this approach for 15mm. In addition, they offer limbers, oxen, and a number of other accessories for the period. The ESSEX range is excellent throughout. I've used HALLMARK for baggage wagons because their range is so extensive and one has to have a baggage train for the ECW, doesn't one? MUSEUM MINIATURES cavalry are also cast in one piece. Several years ago when was in Seanle, I recall seeing Bill Stewart's 15mm ECW cavalry and they always impressed me. Bill had about nine or so cavalry per stand in a very irregular fashion and they did look great! Bill, do you ever do anything with this period? Let us know about it.

It's been pretty cole out lately although I managed to slip outside several times when the weather let up to spray paint figures. I can't believe I used to brush on my primer color; it's so much faster too spray paint the primer on! I may have mentioned sometime ago that Clem Clemens made me a portable "priming" table which I keep in the garage for such purposes.

Again, a reminder to submit articles and rules sets. It takes a lot to fill up 192 pages.

Thanks again for all your lepers/remarks on your resubscriptions. It's always good to heal from MWANers! Glad you continue to enjoy MWAN!