I have the November 1971 Newsletter at hand, and I must reply to R.W.Dickenson's column, "The American Scene". I think both Dickenson and I both forget that the United States is a rather large nation and that when he writes of the popularity of 20-25mm figures in the Chicago area, he is not correct re the scale of figures used in St. Louis, some 360 miles to the South. At the same time, I based my comments upon experience with wargamers and collectors (he is correct in assuming that I probably am in error in lumping both categories together) in a wider sampling. Right now Dickenson is probably correct in his assumption re scale because the smaller figures are less expensive and seem to be more available from some suppliers. The difference between some 25mm and 30mm castings is really not that great and I suspect that both scales are used rather interchangeably. Personally, I am a purist and stick to the 30mm scale (which is about as small as my old and tired eyes can paint these days!). Speaking only for the local (St. Louis, Missouri) area, I would agree that the board games are not as popular with wargamers as the games using actual figures. Many of the board games are played by people who are not figures collectors or wargamers in the true sense of the term as used by the Newsletter. There can be no doubt that Napoleonic period games are the most popular in the States, although in St. Louis British Colonial (or French late 19th century as well) games and World War II tank battles are by far the most popular. I, myself, deal only with the British Colonial and with set games (solo or with my son) of the Condottieri period, using Elastolin 40mm plastics, repainted to a large extent. I am somewhat of a "loner" in wargaming; in fact, I think my friend, Don Featherstones wouldn't call me a wargamer at all! Back to Table of Contents -- Wargamer's Newsletter # 120 To Wargamer's Newsletter List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1971 by Donald Featherstone. 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