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!