Desert Update 2

Thanks to Carl (in another place) pointing out these figures are now up on the Pictart web site and can be ordered on line using the site’s shopping basket. The codes have changed from the list in the previous post, but this doesn’t matter as there is a photo of each figure which you will see when ordering.

Visit Pictart Studios to look or buy.

Deserty Update

I am glad to say that with a bit of detective work I have managed to track down this French Foreign Legion and Arab 20mm figure range and have completed an order which includes at least one of each figure. So far all I have done is to glue them to pennies, white undercoat them and basetex the coins. I am confident they will paint up nicely.

The range is owned by Martin Cameron and goes under the name Battlepac. They are not currently listed for sale on the web but you can contact Martin using the contact form on his Pictart Studio web site and the list below.

The listings are as follows:

Foreign Legion

F1 Mounted officer waving & horse
F2 officer standing
F3 officer running with sword
F4 Bugler rifle slung
F5 Marching rifle slung
F6 Marching rifle shouldered classic pose
F7 Standing Firing
F8 Standing loading
F9 Standing at porte
F10 Charging
F11 kneeling firing
F12 Mule company mounted & mule
F13 Mule company dismounted marching

Arabs

F14 Chieftain with standard 
F15 Arab holding aloft sword and jezail
F16 Arab firing jezail from hip
F17 Arab standing guard with jezail
F18 Arab charging with sword pointing
F19 Arab kneeling firing rifle
F20 Arab kneeling firing jezail from hip
F21 Arab kneeling with sword 
F22 Arab open handed mixed weapons on camel
F23 Arab mounted on horse with sword
F24 Arab mounted on horse with rifle 
F25 Arab mounted on horse with rifle


and three later additions


F26 Legionaire kneeling at ready, 
F27 Arab foot standing firing, 
F28 Arab foot advancing

(thanks to Carl for transcribing the list from a less legible pdf scan)

I have photographed them and tried to put them more or less in the order of the list, but with mounted first and foot second. I can't be absolutely sure I have done this 100% correctly.

prices are

55p foot
95p horse and rider
1.10 camel and rider (one piece casting)

All figures are 20mm


FFL

Mounted Officer; Mule Company

Foot figures

Arabs

Camelry and cavalry

Foot figures

Not exactly vintage but...

...can anyone help me identify the manufacturer of this range, and/or who sells them now?

They are 20mm figures and part of a larger range of Arabs and French Foreign Legion. I bought these as samples a few years ago from a seller on eBay, but when I tried to buy more they had a complicated system for ordering  from their listing which I couldn't get to work for me; when I tried to contact them to order more figures direct there was no response. I haven't seen them listed again since and I have no information about that original order.

My only other memory is that I think they had various other ranges, and described these as an old range.

Any helpful suggestions via comments gratefully received.

Instruction for Naval Landing Parties 1910

Published in Miniature Warfare Magazine in three parts in 1971 under a rather un-pc title, which I have removed, these three articles wre abstracted from the HMSO publication of the title, published in 1910.

Field Books: Battle in the Civil War/Battle in Africa

Vintage Wargaming seems to have been on a bit of an inadvertent Paddy Griffith kick recently, because of the Battlefields Magazine posts. This should be the last for a while.

Field Books was a collaboration between Paddy Griffith and illustrator Peter Dennis. The result was these two superb books - Battle in the Civil War, subtitled Generalship and Tactics in America 1861-5, by Paddy Griffith himself, and Battle in Africa 1879 - 1914.

I first had the Civil War book, and had been looking for the Battle for Africa book for a while before I came across a stack of them at a show - I think Dave Thomas was carrying them. Up to that point I hadn't made a connection between the two. Very well illustrated and structured almost in a scrapbook style - they strongly remind me of old Look and Learn magazines - they present masses of information in a very accessible way, in an A4 soft back format.

Howard Whitehouse is the author of the innovative Science vs Pluck rules for the Sudan. Battle in Africa is particularly noteworthy in including details of Belgian, German and Italian colonial adventuring, as well as he more usual French and British.

Both books seem to be fairly readily available at reasonable prices from the usual Internet sources. if you have an interest in either of these periods, I would strongly

Omdurman June 1977

It seems to be Battle Report Week on VW this week so here is another, from Wargamer's Newsletter #189 of December 1977. It presents a June 1977 wargame of Omdurman put on by the Wargame Study Group of the Victorian Military Society at the Aldershot Army Show in June that year. The players were Staurt Asquith, Jack Alexander, and Ted Herbert, with Dave Langley umpiring.

(By the way, if anyone has a spare copy of Ted Herbert's Handbook for Colonial Wargamers I have been looking for one for several years...)