New vehicles arrive

Twenty-five new Lledo 1930s cars and 80 trucks arrive this am.  These include 3- Packard Town Vans, 19-Model A vans, and 53-Model T vans.  We shipped to Historifigs our two latest creations of four alien eggs and a 15mm VSF/SCIFI skiff; and hope to have them in our hands by mid-March for Cold Wars.  We are also waiting for Old Glory to ship us our latest figures (8 civilians).  Finally, three new greens arrived for our modern horror line.

Book review

Just finished Men of Color to Arms! by ELizabeth D. Leonard and I am really disappointed, the Osprey Buffalo Soldiers was much better.  If I was interested in Fort Davis, this might be a useful book, but it is just a rehash of previous secondary works.  I found one interesting paragraph (alright there were more but this really stood out as an excellent opportunity to further her thesis that was missed). In 1871, William Shafter took two expeditions to explore areas around Fort Davis, they were away from one to four months covering 500 to 2,500 miles and she wrote one paragraph about it. An excellent, but missed, opportunity to discuss what Leonard called the "essential work in the postwar nation-building enterprise." (96) There is practically nothing concerning the participation of Black troopers in the Spanish American War. 
I could go on but will refrain, save your money, I would not recommend this book.

New figures coming from Tiger and Trent

We are expecting by the 27th two new packs of figures from Tiger Miniatures. The figures are available for pre-order now.   These are sculpted by Richard(?) and are 1920s US Naval personnel based on the 1966 'Sand Pebbles' movie. The first is a pack (SP001) of 5 figs command figures four officers with 45s and an NCo with a Springfield ($10.00). The second pack (SP002) contains 10 figs of Other Ranks 8 with Springfield rifles and two with BARs ($20.00).
Also, coming soon are 80 Lledo Days Gone By trucks and 25 cars.  These will be selling for $5 each.  Ben has updated or stock of Lledo as the resent TMP announcement was quite sussessful and will update again when the new stock comes in.
Finally, we will be receiving a stock of each pack of Trent miniatures lines French Revolutionary Wars, SciFi, DeeZee, as well as the Trent Personality figures North Star in the UK and RecreationalConflict are the only retailers for Trent.

First Post

I plan to use this blog to organize my thoughts and ideas on wargaming campaigns, figures and terrain. As well as reviewing books I read particularly historical and novels. Campaign reports will be posted as gaming time permits.  My gaming interests are Colonial (28mm), early WWII Pacific (20mm), Back of Beyond (28mm), Pulp adventures (28mm), Seven Years War (28mm), Napoleonic skirmish (28mm), Star Wars (30mm), 40K, and soon to come Naval gaming as my ships continue down the slipways. 
My sailing ships are approximately 1/87 to 1/72 scale and number 20 vessels.  Currently under construction is a tramp steamer/sub-tender/commercial raider, next in line is a tramp steamer/commercial raider/troop carrier (for miscellaneous badguys) for the South Pacific, followed by an interwar destroyer and trampsteamer "The Venture".  Two subs are available for use (one from Brigade Games and one from Stan Johansen), these ships are for 28mm figures. The ships are for outdoor gaming, I think I have permission from my wife to add some small 10-15mm ceramic structures in the garden to act as towns and cities to represent coastal cities of my naval imagi-nations.
By the title of this blog The Heliograph I tend to game the colonial period and have close to 2K figures of varying types.  I was also the editor of The Heliograph for ten years and remember that time fondly.  I have an imagi-nation - Byzantium- for my SYW and later period gaming up to the Pulp era.
We also have purchased an Old Glory Army membership and with it got most of the Gangland buildings, which so far have been cleaned up and are awaiting a warm enough days to prime.  To add to these buildings Plasticville has been a wonderful find on ebay and we have loads of parts and pieces as well as Miniature Building Authority's European and Middle-Eastern buildings.  While we were in England last May (2010) we purchased vehicles and building materials from every hobbyshop we could find so we could eventually game the "Geezers" from Killer B Games and have a good English feeling about them.

I will present figures, paints, vehicles and terrain pieces that Ben (my son) and I sell at http://www.recreationalconflict.com/ Ben will probably do some of the same at his blog http://www.leadbones.blogspot.com/