It's Salute Eve...and Death in the Dark Continent

It's Salute (or Sloot as my daughter used to call it) Eve and what better Eve to celebrate with than, in the centenary of Verdun, this fine illustration from La Vie Parisienne.  So, (that is just to annoy Mr Treadaway. who was fulminating about people who begin sentences with "So...") what am I looking for this year?  A restricted list, as ever, but possibly:

• some Iron Duke command for my further along than I remembered Indian Mutiny British.  
• Some Perry ACW Confederartes in Frock coats
• An Artizan North West Frontier gun with crew if someone has some old stock
• The Black Scorpion Salute special girly pirate (probably will have sold out)
• The Crooked Dice female minions (probably will have sold out)
• Victrix EIR Romans and shield transfers.

That is more than enough, especially as 12 more Artizan North West Frontier figures turned up yesterday to enable me to finish my British force (except the mountain gun is still missing!)   I bought into the latest Dark Fables Egyptian Indiegogo this week too, as you can never have enough under-dressed Egyptian girls.  I also backed The Drowned Earth Kickstarter but then cancelled it as I had a panic that I just wouldn't be able to do the figures justice with my increasingly blotchy painting.  I also had a panic over the amount of scenery I would have to buy and whether such a game would lend itself to solo play.  This all started to put me off and then, tipping me over, there were several things on the creator's and the community Facebook page I didn't like.  I'm not one of those people who happily accepts differing views and opinions!   Don't assume everyone agrees with what you agree with and don't expect me to buy into your product if I find other things on your Facebook page which are offensive to me. Or maybe I am just generally grumpy at the moment as I have had too much work to do and not enough painting time!  

Anyway, I was cheered up by the arrival of the new Death in the Dark Continent edition today, with its free African villagers.  I do actually have the rules in their old ring bound version (they are not materially changed) but this is a de-luxe product indeed.  These are big battle rules and I probably have enough Belgians and Azande to try them out (although they use the horrible stand basing. which I will ignore).  More on these another time.