At HURRICON 03 I couldn't help noticing the figures in "Along the Sweetwater Canal" -- the game by Jay Stribling using the battalion version of The Sword and The Flame. The ramrod stiff figures carefully aiming long Martini Rifles rang a bell. "Aha!" I said, those are Jack Scruby's 30mm African Wars figures!" True enough. Somewhere in the Crisfield attic are a platoon-perhaps now a battalion, of assorted Tom Cox designed brothers of those valiant warriors. But the memory became much more focused when I saw the picture above among my digital memoirs of the convention. Thirty-five or forty years ago when my copy of Table Top Talk arrived in the mail it carried a report of one of Jack's colonial battles. And to illustrate it there was a photo of those stalwart riflemen, seen from the back (where their prudent commander should be in a firefight) with their rifles pointed at hordes of "Worthy Oriental Gentlemen" (WOGS for short) closing in for the kill. That got me thinking. I studied several more pictures of the Sweetwater Canal game. Although less familiar I was able to identify most of the figures on both sides. Clearly the "WOGS", depicting the Egyptian Nationalists of Colonel Arabi, were cast from almost the same mold. Likewise, perhaps, the camels? But I wasn't sure of the British lancers and some of the other figures. Similar in style but... And then I noticed yet another vaguely familiar style-similar in size, but of a more prestigious hand than Tom Cox's. Slicing over and falling on the left of an Egyptian infantry force mesmerized by British lancers was a force of Bengal lancers. I knew those lads. But who were they? Then I recalled that Jack Scruby for several years produced the famous designs of Holger Erickson. The charging lancer figure-I had last seen that figure in a plastic version (Spencer-Smith produced this unauthorized edition.) It was in Don Featherstone's attic last May. Don had replaced the plastic lance with a copper tube and painted the 1911 Prussian Uhlan very carefully in the colors of the celebrated Uhlans of the Altmark-members of Von Bredow's Brigade. Quite versatile, the Imperial German Uhlan figures by Spencer-Smith are featured as 18`h Century troopers in "CHARGE-HOW TO PLAY WARGAMES!" by Brigadier Peter Young. Were these Bengal Lancers field conversions? Or were they adapted by the master (Holger Erickson) himself? And what of the British Lancers? As I circulated the pictures Larry Brom, who originally raised this army, was able to solve the mysteries: "The Lancers (17th) are Tom Cox figures that I originally purchased in 1960-63. And you're correct, the Bengal Lancers are HE. The Sudanese infantry are Scruby's. Thanks for starting the enjoyable trip down memory lane...." These classic figures are again available from HISTORIFIGS, P.O. Box 69 Cotati, CA 949-0069. E-mail: info@historifigs.com. Web page: http://www.historifigs.com. Back to Rebel Yell No. 24 Table of Contents Back to Rebel Yell List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 2003 by HMGS South 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