In the 80s, Citadel released an extensive range of figures for Traveller. Shown above are the Tech 3 military. the figures were produced and are still available from RAFM. The figures above use a black undercoat with a layer of pthalo blue acrylic paint and some Testors gold paint on the visors.
Some days I wake up and have no idea where I am. Sometimes it is an interesting sense of disorientation, sometimes disturbing. You cannot get used to anything when nothing is in its proper place long enough to allow it.
My life has a certain inevitability about it. Part of that seems to involve being constantly on the move. In the last few months, I have moved from one campus to another campus and now to a building midway between both as a result of work. My tiny apartment remains the same though the people around it keep changing and more often than not disappearing.
Tonight, I will be back home but only until tomorrow morning when I drive the 120 miles back here again.
On the plus side, the 6mm Roman figures seem to be moving closer and closer to completion with a significant number of cavalry painted and a bunch more in process. Additionally, I finally decided on a look for the RAFM 15mm Traveller figures and they are looking pretty good. I have put a moratorium on figure purchases though I do not know how long it will last. The huge array of miniatures remains an island of tranquility in a steadily deteriorating world.
Following the success of Panzerblitz, Avalon Hill produced Panzer Leader, a similar design for tactical combat in Western Europe. The game included 4 modular boards, one showing a beach, and counters showing tanks, infantry, artillery, and aircraft counters for British, American, and German forces.
Scenarios start with a paratroopers holding a vital intersection on D-day and follows with beach landings, attempted breakouts, etc. in chronological progression. The game seemed a bit smoother in design than Panzerblitz but Panzerblitz had the benefit of being there first.
SPI in the meantime was taking the design in a different direction and introduced a similar magazine game, Combat Command with significant changes in scale and a promise of a continually evolving system.
Anyone who has seen Star Trek II: the Wrath of Khan will remember the simulation room and the Kobayashi Maru scenario. FASA had at one point gotten license to produce Star Trek gaming material and this board game was their answer to tactical space combat offering a simpler, easier to approach game than the more popular Star Fleet Battles from Task Force Games.
They also offered a range of ships derived from Star Trek Ship Recognition Manual which offered some unique designs that different from SFB and not necessarily appearing in any other Star Trek material. The offerings included Federation, Klingon, and Romulan ships as well as some others including the Kobayashi Maru for the completist.
The rules provide an introductory game, an intermediate game, and an advanced game designed for use within an RPG play thru where each member of the crew can perform in whatever role they are assigned to.
There seems to be little information on this company though it appears from the Star Blazer figures I have that they were likely producing miniatures for other firms licensed to handle particular products. I have read that the company was started by former employees of Grenadier Miniatures. The six packs below show only a handful of the available Star Blazers miniatures which were likely meant as a tie-in to a ruleset offered at that time. For those unfamiliar with Star Blazers, it was an early anime favorite in the US, altered from its original source to remove much of the violence and death in the original, Space Battleship Yamato.
SPI continued their exploration of tactical games with Dreadnought. James Dunnigan had earlier created the massive cardboard miniatures game Jutland for Avalon Hill. Here, capital ships are simplified to basic stats encapsulated on the colorful set of counters with simple silhouettes showing the ship from the air as little more than a black or white outline. The game covers naval warfare from 1906 through WWII and is supposed to include every battleship in action during those times. Cruisers and destroyers are presented more abstractly wherein a single counter represents multiple ships. Like so many of the naval games SPI was releasing at the time, this one uses the SiMove pad where orders are written for each ship prior to the turn.
I bought this game in the late 70s when I was frustrated with the limited range of tactical space combat games available and thought that with a little monkeying around this game could fill that role. I played it a number of times but always as a basic naval game.
There is an interesting campaign game where one is presented with 4 different battle situations and must allocate their ships accordingly. Overall, a pretty fun game with limited stacking for capital ships, none for cruisers and destroyers. A note, too, that submarines and aircraft play no part in the game. Maps are simply identical light blue modules.
A midway point in SPI’s exploration of tactical games begun with Tac Game 3. The game follows Red Star/White Star, an earlier effort covering roughly the same period. Here, some of the anomalies of the earlier game are cleaned up and new rules are added. The single large board of the earlier game are replaced by more elaborate boards highlighting differences in elevation which were noticeably absent in Red Star/ White Star.
The enthusiasm for tactical armor games is not too surprising in that the conflict in Israel had led to significant advances in armor and many of the folks playing SPI games were people in the military.
Not all theaters get the same emphasis as western Europe. The Middle East and Far East have only a single scenario each. The conflicts in the Middle East would be covered more thoroughly in SPI’s October War and Avalon Hill’s Arab-Israeli Wars.
A note, too, that SPI produced another game down the road covering the same theater but with an entirely different set of rules called Mech War 2 which actually consisted of two separate games, Red Star/White Star covering Western Europe and Suez to Golan covering the Middle East.
Starfire offers a unique set of rules for space combat. The rules are designed for play on a blank board with a hexagon overlay so is readily adaptable to miniatures. They were written by Stephen V. Cole and published in 1979 by Task Force Games as part of their pocket series, thin rules booklets, a small map, and a hundred pieces or less.
The basic rules use a simple system of laying out a starship’s basic design by a simple listing. The initial example given is a small corvette: S S A H R L I I This listing gives a quick layout of the ship listing its defenses, S for shields, A for armor, its movement points, the two I’s indicating engines, and weapons, an R for a missile system, an L for laser cannon. Additionally, there is a cargo hold, H. The sequence mandates where ship damage is taken. An additional value, turn mode, is based on the size of the ship as is the maximum speed.
The sequence of play is first move, then fire, with an initial initiative determination phase and a final record keeping phase. Following combat, there is also a tractor beam phase.
Ship movement occurs one movement point at a time. Each player expends their first movement point, then each player expends a second, etc. If ships do not have the same number of movement points, the ship with the greater number will continue moving after the other ship has finished movement. Each ship also has a turn mode indicating how many movement points they must expend before they can turn the ship 60 degrees.
The original rule book features 10 scenarios with Terran forces battling Khanate and Ophiuchi alien forces starting with a simple clash of 2 ships in the first scenario and finishing with an enormous 3 way battle in scenario ten.
Optional rules offer such things as restricted field of fire, planets, data links, simultaneous movement, damage control, and a section allowing players to design their own ships. A second book enlarges further on the game with additional rules for fighters while a third game adds a campaign to provide a link between battles.
At its simplest, it is a game that is quickly learned and played. Complexity is added through additional ships, weapons, and optional rules.
Task Force Games did license a range of Starfire miniatures no longer available but of course, a spaceship is a spaceship and any decent range ought to serve. A set of miniatures to match the current incarnation of Starfire can be found at Shapeways.
Starfire continued to evolve over time with later additions adding additional rules changes and switching finally to a 10-sided rather than a 6-sided die as well as further developing the Starfire universe. Newer editions of the rules may add on layers of complexity beyond what some players are looking for. The original game is simple and straightforward enough to present as an introduction to people unfamiliar with miniatures.
Still here, what’s left of me. The highway has been a mess since the start of spring break. I saw the remains of a great truck fire yesterday though yesterday seems like a week ago. The summer appears to entail a lot of travel. The trip to Taipei will likely entail another trip into miniature soldier hinterlands. There is one store that has a great selection but the aisles are only just wide enough for a single person and the ceiling is oppressively low. There are a couple of other negatives but the selection is remarkable and so are the prices. Not much metal but plenty of plastic.
In the meantime, I try to remain conscious during the day and get some sleep at night. The weekend promises much activity. I will be glad to get some rest. I bought some Langton miniature ships and as usual my fingers end up coated with cyanoacrylic glue. There are not many concessions made to ease of assembly but I will sort it out and post the results.
Book 1 of Napoleon’s Battles offers some generic formations for the main combatants. Shown above is a Russian corps with two brigades of infantry and a separate artillery force. Commanding officers’ ranks are indicated by the number of figures per base as well as the size of the base. Each regimental group includes a command unit with ensign, commanding officers, and musician. I have used larger bases for artillery than shown in the rules as it was difficult to cram all those pieces on the base size the rules specified.
The total number of figures here is 124 which gives some indication of just how many of these little guys is necessary for a game. A corps sized formation would likely be as small a force as one would field using these rules. Also worth considering is, that for infantry, the scale is 1 figure = 120 men. To recreate any reasonable size battle from the Napoleonic era would likely require hundreds of figures on either side.
Most of the figures shown above are Heritage/Empire, the artillery and crews and most of the mounted officers are Battle Honors, and the figures on the regimental command bases are by Stan Johansen.