Sitting here in Indonesia I am, to say the least, out of the general flow of the hobby but thanks to the Newsletter T am not that much out of date and with the "Must List" I am fully aware of the many new figures available to me. I must say that I agree with many of your comments over the past year on Conventions and share the concern on the pirating of figures; in this part of the world pirating is an accepted business practice especially in Taiwan and Singapore and I only hope that they do not catch on to the fact that military modelling is a popular hobby for I believe that it is very difficult to stop them in practice, as the cost of a legal action is far beyond the means of many small businesses. The choice of figures now available to wargamers in-Britain is very good indeed but I do have one criticism of the manufacturers in that they release a range of figures for a particular period but fail to issue a complete range. For example, Hinchliffe have yet to release an ACW standard-bearer, Minifigs have only just released an ACW Zouave officer though the actual men have been on the market for over a year. I am sure that this is true of many other periods. All I ask is that they issue officers, men, standard-bearers, drummers, buglers, etc., of a particular regiment or style of uniform at the same time enabling the modeller to have in one go the complete unit. Of course, I find the difference in scale between the figures most irritating as no doubt do many others. I have recently made a study of the Dutch campaigns against Javanese insurgents in the 18th and 19th centuries and it has proved most rewarding and would make for some interesting but different colonial wargames using very few figures. Information on uniforms and equipment is a bit scarce but I do have a few pieces and might one day write something on these campaigns if you are interested. I must congratulate you for a) keeping the price low (how you manage it I just can't imagine) and b) improving the content of the Newsletter which really has given it a new lease of life. One of the major attributes of the magazine is the publishing of criticism without the usual editorial snide remarks -- a practice that never ceases to annoy me. Back to Table of Contents -- Wargamer's Newsletter # 133 To Wargamer's Newsletter List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1973 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