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!