Above, basic crew, a mix of the old Citadel Traveller and Laser Burn figures. Below, Armed crew for when the going gets rough, which it often did. I remember running a FASA scenario that pitted a crew against hive like aliens that came out of a downed starship fleeing from a dying world that had been unfortunately infested.
Very Aliens...
We would also use these boarding action games using either Snapshot, or the lovely named Ashanti High Lightening board games that allowed one to rove around the insides of starships shooting up things, lowering property values, and generally chew gum and having fun!
Robots, droids, whatever you call them they spell out that this game is SF. These were all for spaceship, or spaceport use, hence the uniform colour. God, I miss playing games of Traveller.
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I played a few games in the early 80s organised by some fans in my club, but never bought or collected figures. It was a popular set of rules then because they were translated into Spanish by some guys who also published the translated versions of Cthulhu and Middle Earth
ReplyDeleteNever got into Midle Earth, which given that I'm a big LoTR fan is a bit surprising I suppose? Cthulhu on the other tentacle, was a game that I played in a lot of great scenarios, usually involving loss of sanity, lizardmen, Nazis and more loss of sanity points.
DeleteI played a lot of Traveller, but never really mixed role-playing and miniatures gaming once I'd made the initial leap from Basic D&D (which, at least as we played it, was basically a wargame with a bit of connective tissue between the fights).
ReplyDeleteWhich is probably why I have no Cthulhu figures, for pretty much the same sort of reasons.
DeleteTraveller is still pretty lively if you know where to look. I grew up with the original "little book" version back in the 80s, but there have been several different versions over the years, and even a few reprints of the original material. You can often find people interested in a Traveller game at most decent sized conventions.
ReplyDeleteIf this kind of thing floats your boat, don't forget that there is still quite a lot of GURPS Traveller stuff available, too.
And SJG does dammed good source books both for Traveller and other stuff too, and I'm not just saying that as a MiB crony either.
DeleteAnd as an aside, I don't buy many minis, but those I do are mostly SF crew figures such as this. Many of mine have come from Jon at Ground Zero Games. If you're not already familiar with his range, then you might enjoy a browse.
ReplyDeleteJon and I go back quite a ways. We were both original SFSFW committee members, and knew each other way before that through trading figures etc.
DeleteI still have most of these. I remember playing a couple of games of Snapshot with them between events at Cangames. Needless to say a Ridley Scott style xenomorph doesn't stand a chance against a PGMP-15 (this was before Aliens).
ReplyDeleteHappy Times ;)
Oh definitely happy times indeed...
DeleteThese look great, Ashley! I just love the green colour scheme of the Merchant Crew.
ReplyDeleteThank you, and even if I say so myself, I've managed no to make them look over militarised either, but just got that professional look thin going for them.
DeleteYep, you're right there- a nice balance between military uniform and civil. Good on yer!
Deletefrickin awesome,,and here I thought I would only see battletech stuff. really enjoy your blog. youve inspired me to repaint all my BT clickies
ReplyDeleteI miss azhanti high lightning...esp the zhodani warbot missions, and the blobs
ReplyDeleteFor some reason your comment went into the spam folder. Don't know why, but as you can see I've fixed that for you. Thanks for commenting.
DeleteTerrific figures, Ashley. I LOVED playing Traveller and Laserburn in the early 80s when I was at school. I recognise some of these figures. Great memories, rekindled. Thank you so much for posting this!
ReplyDeleteMy pleasure. It has also made me start thinking about games of Aliens, as I found some resources for the old Leading Edge game on BoardGameGeek. I feel a post about Aliens coming on...
DeleteTalk about a game that destroyed the company! (OK, not single-handed - I always got the impression that Leading Edge Games was basically two gamers and one businesswoman, and Irene couldn't always keep the gamers in check - but being just about to go to press with the boardgame when Sigourney decided she was a Serious Actress Now and wanted her likeness taken off all the components really didn't help the finances.)
DeleteBut they also had some dodgy financial procedures that meant that they ended up surfing a wave that threw them off big time.
DeleteHi Great Minis! Very well painted:-) Hey do you happen to know if anybody is remaking the old 15mm Traveller Miniatures? Great Sci Fi work thanks for shareing. I have a Terminiator Blog myself on Wordpress Keep up the Good Work! Greyson in Va.
ReplyDeleteRAFM still do the figures, Here's a link:
Deletehttp://www.rafm.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=RAF&Category_Code=GRAV
Sorry for the delay in replying.