Striker Post #2: Priming, Research, Inspiration, etc

Hoping you all had a blessed Mother's Day!

 This is Home-6 with her two claims to motherhood. Came out better than I thought!

This national day of celebration was actually inspired by a home front civil war heroine, Ann Jarvis, daughter of a preacher who married the son of a preacher [click]. All this is largely forgotten, of course, like so many meaningful things. For those of us in the military, perhaps we remember it better that we serve at the sufferance of the wife.  As a son and husband, I do think there's something special about "Mom" and I believe my son would agree!  

As for Father's Day...doesn't move me.

High Tech Infantry Set #4 and set #5 Imperial Infantry experiment. I found some mossy green satin spray paint, and thought it would be an interesting change from the usual colors. I tried it out  and also gave some of the figs a quick wash of Vallejo German Reflective Green so see how they would look. Overall wasn't thrilled with the tones and the paint was a bit thick [which could have something to do with application, hard to tell]. I dunno...

Pic with much better lighting. Something about the paint itself I don't like, I think.

Green experiment in the background, Vargr up front. This Vargr Mercenary Unit, Set #7 came out well with first coat of a Tamiya spray. Bit dark...but just to get started.
The whole pack together - flash washes it out a bit.

Another pic with different lighting. 

Set #3, High Tech Infantry, cleaned up nicely in Pine-sol, with a bit of black left in the crevices - can only help, really. Some of my favorite poses, I really hope I can get more.

Same, in a lighter Tamiya grey. A thinner coat from nice quality paint, I think it is just right.

Also dusted the Vargr with the same paint. These popped quite a bit!

As for painting them, came across a great reference for Traveller in general, and plenty about Vargr: https://wiki.travellerrpg.com/Vargr They are at least as fun as I figured they'd be. Inspiration for their faces and such should be real wolves, I think.

Wolf pics - mostly interested in getting the face colors and patterns right.

As for the moss green experiment...after quite a lot of staring at them over several days, they ended up in the Pine-Sol. Uncertain what color they will end up now, but favoring a brown base tone.

Gordon R. Dickson "Childe Cycle" books, better known as "Those Dorsai books" to some. I had to get rid of all my cheap paperback versions due to their aging badly, mustiness, etc. Fortunately, they haven't gone out of print. Below is a very good copy of a compilation that I had in some other print runs. These were what inspired me to be interested in Striker in the first place, hence why I never got familiar with Traveller.

These are cleanly written in both style and substance. I could read them to my 10yo. Even the cuss words are not written out [is there a Soldier story without cussin'?]. Altho one can always argue about how realistic speculative fiction [aka science fiction] is, suffice it to say that this is a lot more realistic than 40K or any of that nonsense. And thankfully, there are no nuns with whips immolating sentient beings. Dickson has too much intellect and class for that, and it shows. And the splinter cultures are interesting in both theory and storyline.

Recent inspiration, if another old book. It's just the right level for wargame inspiration, and if all aspects of it aren't believable, you can always tweak the story line. There is definitely something to be said for taking a "Queen Victoria's Little Wars" approach to this "period". Strong narrative, historical parallels, and plenty of character way out in the fringes if civilization. Characters are nicely developed. Has a lot of the David Drake "Hammer's Slammers" style since it is also written by a Soldiers.

There are three books in the series altogether, and the second appears to also be worth reading. Again, like many older books, PG-13 seems to be where it's written, e.g."frosty" is a unit substitute cuss word for one more common and cruder . And there are some funny intellectuals in the group [Frezza was a staff officer]. Recommended for you Drake fans.

Finally, the Striker '81 Player's Aid is coming along. It is hard not to streamline it a bit as I can't motivate myself to write out all the niggling mechanical details of the RAW knowing I won't be using them. And of course a few didn't make sense or were unclear anyway. But hoping to get it close to the original feel and key mechanics before I remake it according to my own needs. More on this soon!

Retro Sci-Fi: Frank Chadwick's "Striker" 1st ed, 1981

Well, the 1980s are retro to me, anyway...

...at least the books held up well - 40 years later, binding and pages are intact!

I bought this as a box, and various miniatures in blisters and bags from Martian Metals and RAFM / Citadel from the dearly departed hobby shop at the mall. I loved it when mom dropped me off there while she went shopping. I got my micro games, pocket games, and more there. At some point, I bought the Striker box and miniatures, and even did some cleaning, priming and painting. Then these went into boxes for about 30 years, and are only now seeing light again. I find the Martian Metal figs varied - I like some and not others. The RAFM figs are really nice sculpts. https://www.rafm.com/

Official Citadel Guide to the Traveller / Striker 15mm sets. They were sculpted by the Perry Bros, who said they were great fun to do, when I asked them. They are a bit bulkier than lots of other 15mm which gives them stronger visual presence on the table. [CLICK] The unit sheets were included in the bag and are from the Citadel Guide in the link.

There are questions, some of them raised and answered here, much as I hate to steer anyone to TMP, aka "Toxic Miniatures Page": 

http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=143410

but another great link to the figures is here: 

http://www.solegends.com/cittrav/index.htm

Below is my quite battered Vargr Mercenary Unit sheet, Set #7. 

And this is what looks like if it wasn't 40 years old! I loved these little diagrams and the info - made it a lot more real and also helped steer you in the direction of "author intent".

I may not know much about the Traveller Universe, but I know a cool sculpt when I see it! The Vargr  are nicely animated and generally in sensible "action" poses if not prone, kneeling or otherwise taking cover. Their sergeant and medic are especially nice. There are just too many jokes about them to not use them in a sci-fi force. I think they'll make a great sneaky force; after all, they are wolves, right?

Mine had a bit of aging, but cleaned up just fine and are now ready for priming. I'm favoring a grey primer and then highlighting in grey, white and brown patches, as wolfy as I can get. Maybe a couple of the officers will look more like huskies, just to show that dogs are class-conscience, too - waddya think??  Below, the medics, officers, sergeants, and the plasma gunners.

Below, the two Soldier poses - running or standing at ready with Gauss rifle.

These are definitely my favorite of the High Tech Infantry. Great poses, would like more of them. At the moment, the 20 I have will have to be the scout platoon for the grunts below.

And here are my 20 painted set #3 in Pine-Sol. The black was just too dark. They were originally supposed to be Mercs from the Friendlies, the religious types from Gordon R. Dickson's "Dorsai" series of books. I painted the stripes to match their weapons, both to look cool and to make them easier to figure out on the table. Will have to revisit that and switch it to rank, perhaps? They will be some sort of green-grey, I think.


These guys and the one's below will be the "line" troops. I've one bag of each for 40, with 17 each of the "line" pose. I'm hoping to mix them up with some additional purchases and make some squads that are sensible. These guys are very close in appearance and weaponry to the next set.

Presently, they've white primer - dunno how or when I put that on...

Ditto these dudes - but their screens had a mold line that I had to file off. Notice the detailed sculpts and the nice shaping of the armor and other aspects of the figure.

In an unexplainable burst of interest and output, I've been working on producing a player aid for Striker 1st Ed., which I'll probably just call "Striker '81" from here on. The rules do have some overly complex mechanisms in places, and are also a bit vague in important areas - they remind of the "British Hand Wave" approach to handling conflict [HERE] whether in rules or space opera. Overall, the rules are a skirmish level [insanely, they suggest a battalion could be played with experienced players - not!] but use Teams of 4 or so on a base, and in fact the basing is almost identical to Flames of War.

I do think the rules have some promise, and they already have - according to their own tech fiction - nearly anything one might want. Their main issue is that being designed in 1980 they have no vision of the development in computers that we have today. Fortunately, much of the ground-pounding military has little use for the computers that we have today, so it isn't as bad as it might be.

:)

But I have to say...if one posits the sort of ridiculous power outputs that are needed to move thru space in a timely fashion, then having comms problems - without enemy interference - seems nearly impossible. 

I'm thinking that this Mosaic Warfare concept might provide an interesting platform to game - it could be granular while also being fluid and fast-moving [CLICK]. It also presents some lower tech approaches to tactical thinking, and that might work well. For historical scenarios, some worthwhile small actions from Afghanistan can be found [HERE]. These also might provide the needed framework of limitations for small actions to operate within.

In any event, it is time to get these figs cleaned up, primed and on the table!