Miniatures from the past

[Loki]

Please excuse me if I gush! I was digging around in my storage room and came across a carboard box marked "Game Pieces". When I opened it I couldn't believe my eyes.

I found 260 15mm TRAVELLER-era lead miniatures, 156 of them already painted! I even found the old purchase invoices dated 06-1983. I knew I'd bought some figures years ago (forgot I'd painted many of them) but I am amazed they are still in such great shape.

I need to break out the paints and finish painting these, including 3 K'kree (I forgot they even made these figures). Nearly all were the RAFM line, including some Citadel's Striker figures but I'm not sure who made the two dozen Zhodani troopers. Couldn't find the original bag or bubble they came in.

I just hope that we can find a new line of scale model ships and figures being made for us TRAVELLER enthusiasts to use in our games.

 

[Hyphen]

Dear Folks-

Originally posted by daryen:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Loki:
Whoops! You folks are supposed to catch my (all too frequent) errors. Apparently the STRIKER game doesn't have any cardboard counters after all. It's rules cover the use of 15mm miniatures, not cardboard counters. It's STRIKER that has some cardboard markers. ... Of course I was wrong about STRIKER (the brain cells are falling like flies) so I'm not 100% certain about those old ship plans.

I have no idea which game the third STRIKER refers to, but I am quite sure the second mention should be SNAPHOT. It was the Snapshot and Azhanti High Lightening games that had the cardboard counters. Striker had no counters.

Those other deckplans (i.e. from FASA) included cardboard counters for use with Snapshot (or AHL) rules. </font>[/QUOTE]Striker II (for TNE) included a counter sheet, but it was for things such as targetting, morale, and damage counters rather than being actual 2D figures.

 

[cgriffen]

Originally posted by hunter:
Give the Travellermini guys a bit of slack, they are working with Marc on obtaining license. They can't do much without it. Once they have it I imagine you'll see more from them.

Me, I'm looking forward to seeing what they come up with!

That's great news. I'm glad to see that there are at least efforts being undertaken to produce some Traveller miniatures. I have at least one of just about every Traveller mini ever made (most of which are painted) and I'd love to see some more produced.

My favorites are the Grenadiers from 1983. Great sculpts, all of them. Wish they could produce more character minis of that caliber.

 

[Lord Iron Wolf]

Excuse me if I'm ignorant but I don't ever remember ral partha ever offering Traveller miniatures. I know that Grenadier put out four sets: Adventures, Marines, Alien Mercenaries-? and Alien Animals.

If Ral Partha did put some out does anyone know where some pictures are? I'll take a check at www.solegends.com myself.

Thank You,
Lord Iron Wolf

 

[Loki]

Lord Iron Wolf:

Here is the info on the miniatures I re-discovered from my 1983 collection:

The small 7 1/2” X 8 ½” advertisement came with each set of purchased miniatures. On one side were the four sets (with 20 figures per set) of figures: Set 1: Adventurers, Set 2: The Military, Set 3: Ship’s Crew, and Set 4: Citizens. A small picture of each figure was included along with a 4 to 8 word description of each figure.

On the reverse side is Set 5: Aliens (Aslan, Vargr and Droynes), each with a small picture and description. It then listed 11 Striker sets for various Infantry (TL 6 - TL 15), Mercenary Strikers, Vargyr Mercenaries, Aslan Mercenaries, Security Unit, Boarding/Landing Party and Terrorist/Guerilla Unit. None of these sets included pictures but a brief description of the unit.

On the right side of the page was the following:

RAFM Company, Inc. of Canada offers you, the gamer, the finest in figures, games and publications covering all aspects of the adventure gaming hobby. We manufacture, in Canada, licensed lines of figures from the following companies:

RAL PARTHA ENTERPRISES
5938 Carthage Ct.
Cincinnati, Ohio 45212

GHQ
2634 Bryant Ave. S.
Minneapolis, Minn. 55408

CITADEL MINIATURES U.S., INC.
P.O. Box 12352
Cincinnati, Ohio 45212

MARTIAN METALS
Box 778
Cedar Parks, Texas 78613

For our complete catalogue, send $2.00 to:
RAFM Company, Inc.
19 Concession St.
Cambridge, Ontario, Canada
N1R2G6

At the bottom was a brief advertisement for Game Designer’s Workshop and it’s product line to support the Traveller game.

Hopefully this helps.

I hope we can once again get these 15mm figures or something comparable for our gaming. I especially liked the detail each figure had. I would love to get my hands on another dozen Aslan and Vargr. The Zhodani must have been manufactured by someone else. They are very slender and a bit delicate where as these Vargr are robust (but not fat).

 

[GJD]

Laserburn figurers are indeed back in production. Tabletop Miniatures is selling them, although the order process is a bit on the slow side.

http://www.wargamesworld.com/ttm.htm

I have a couple of sets, the enforcers are perfect for Judge Dredd and the adentureres and low tech military for adventureres. The flit car makes a fine air raft.

 

[Ross Heenan]

I know the guys from Eureka Miniatures (www.eurekamin.com.au)and they do a great range of 20mm SciFi minis and custom jobs . Unfortunately for the US people they are produced in lead not pewter , but they are reasonably priced .

 

[Loki]

Found a website where they have some 25mm figures that look like the troopers you would see in the Aliens movies or the Starship Troopers movie. It can be found at
http://www.1stcorps.co.uk/main.php?page=catalogue&army=18&era=Sci-Fi

Does anyone know a place where the Laserburn figures can be seen before just blindly buying them and hoping they turn out OK?

 

[Loki]

I’m really tempted to try this product line out. If you don’t mind downloading these products and then running them through your printer, cutting them out and assembling the pieces, you can have some great (inexpensive) 25mm or even 15mm miniature sets to run your Traveller episodes.

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=453& dirt cheap starships basic set

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=458 Starbase Omega 3 Cardstock Building Kits

Anyone tried this?

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by Loki:
I?m really tempted to try this product line out. If you don?t mind downloading these products and then running them through your printer, cutting them out and assembling the pieces, you can have some great (inexpensive) 25mm or even 15mm miniature sets to run your Traveller episodes.

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=453& dirt cheap starships basic set

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=458 Starbase Omega 3 Cardstock Building Kits

Anyone tried this?

Try before you buy! I came across this a year or two ago and voila the link still works

Check out Sparks, the link to the free downloads is at the bottom of the page. I thought I had another bookmark for a similar company and more freebies but can't find it now. I know I have a free pdf of a space game deliveries office and air-raft type vehicle somewhere around here. I'll have to check my other system later.

Happy Printing!

 

[plop101]

Ok, many, many moons ago, I took a trip up to Minnesota and visited the Mall of America. At that time, Starlog had a shop with all kinds of Sci Fi stuff in it [sadly, its not there anymore]. Anyway, cruising through this shop, I come across some Micro-Machine stuff for Star Wars, and, what looked like a Micro-Machine version of the Azhanti High Lightning [!]. Now, was I just on some serious drugs, or was it the brain tumor, or was there an actual Traveller Micro-Machine set?

I should've bought the thing right then and there, but I didn't. [starts beating right side of head] Doh! Doh! Doh! Doh!

 

[clementk]

Originally posted by plop101:
Ok, many, many moons ago, I took a trip up to Minnesota and visited the Mall of America. At that time, Starlog had a shop with all kinds of Sci Fi stuff in it [sadly, its not there anymore]. Anyway, cruising through this shop, I come across some Micro-Machine stuff for Star Wars, and, what looked like a Micro-Machine version of the Azhanti High Lightning [!]. Now, was I just on some serious drugs, or was it the brain tumor, or was there an actual Traveller Micro-Machine set?

I think the Babylon 5 sets had one or two ships that come close.

Here's a listing (with pictures and annoying background music) of the Star Wars and Star Trek
Micro-Machines.

There were Alien sets as well but I don't think those ships would look like the AHL.

Any of the micro-machines except the latest Star Wars are waaaay OOP, rare, and $$. They make perfect minis for say Full Thrust. Painted and nigh-unbreakable.

Casey

 

[thirdmargrave]

Bring back Grenadier's Imperial Marines!! They sported those great looking sallet style helmets (very fitting for Traveller's medieval inspired setting). Of all the myriad depictions of powered armor thorughout comics and sci-fi, this design is still my favorite.

 

[Leondus]

MFYI- artian Metals burned down back in 90's and never recovered.
So finding the figs are really hard

 

[Leondus]

Oops! I was going to add this in my last post, but hit the "Add Reply" too soon
http://wind.prohosting.com/~warbard/sg2fifteen.html

 

[GypsyComet]

Originally posted by Leondus Hutchison:
MFYI- artian Metals burned down back in 90's and never recovered.
So finding the figs are really hard

90's? Sorry to say, but they've been gone longer than that. Sometime before MT came out, so think 1984 at latest.

Really sad, as they had *just* had the sculpting epiphany that would have kept them up with the demand for higher quality. Say what you like about your fond memories, but most of the MM stuff was *fugly*. Their OGRE line and Rivets line (both Metagaming licences) were definite improvements over the TFT and Trav lines, and I saw a set of pre-production Chitin-1 Hymenoptera (another Metagaming license) at their booth at the last Pacificon they attended before the studio burned. Young and poor as I was at the time, I would have spent stupid amounts of money on those bugs had they ever seen release...

 

[clementk]

Originally posted by Leondus Hutchison:
http://wind.prohosting.com/~warbard/sg2fifteen.html

One thing to keep in mind is the difference between "true" 15's and 18's. I don't think any of the companies mentioned in that article approach Old Glory 15's ancients which are often 18mm but I know Peter Pig and Freikorps are often small 15's.

General rule of thumb, try to buy a complete unit of a type from the same manufacturer. Keep those figs together and any height differences between manufactures won't look as bad on the table.

Casey

 

[Redleg58]

Originally posted by thirdmargrave:
Bring back Grenadier's Imperial Marines!! They sported those great looking sallet style helmets (very fitting for Traveller's medieval inspired setting). Of all the myriad depictions of powered armor thorughout comics and sci-fi, this design is still my favorite.

I have 5 boxes of them painted ....... Now I'm
trying to find something close in 15mm...

 

[Loki]

Been away from the forum awhile and just came across a topic I started several months ago, along with several interesting posts.

One of my former ramblings dated 2/22/2003: “Please excuse me if I gush! I was digging around in my storage room and came across a cardboard box marked "Game Pieces". When I opened it I couldn't believe my eyes.

I found 260 15mm TRAVELLER-era lead miniatures, 156 of them already painted! I even found the old purchase invoices dated 06-1983. I knew I'd bought some figures years ago (forgot I'd painted many of them) but I am amazed they are still in such great shape.”

Thirdmargrave: “Bring back Grenadier's Imperial Marines!! They sported those great looking sallet style helmets (very fitting for Traveller's medieval inspired setting). Of all the myriad depictions of powered armor thorughout comics and sci-fi, this design is still my favorite.”

Don M aka Redleg: “I have 5 boxes of them painted ....... Now I'm trying to find something close in 15mm.”

Please don't hate me but I just came across an original box of those Marines, unpainted!

I finally got a chance to dig a little deeper into my game storage room and came across these gems. As soon as I paint the assorted Foundry figures I got a couple of months ago, I'm going to have to take a swipe at these guys. Don: What color did you use? All white like the Star Wars troopers or the red as displayed?

Guess it helps to be this old and having picked up lots of the TRAVELLER stuff 'way back when'.

 

[Redleg58]

Originally posted by Loki:

I found 260 15mm TRAVELLER-era lead miniatures, 156 of them already painted! I even found the old purchase invoices dated 06-1983. I knew I'd bought some figures years ago (forgot I'd painted many of them) but I am amazed they are still in such great shape.”

Please don't hate me but I just came across an original box of those Marines, unpainted!

I finally got a chance to dig a little deeper into my game storage room and came across these gems. As soon as I paint the assorted Foundry figures I got a couple of months ago, I'm going to have to take a swipe at these guys. Don: What color did you use? All white like the Star Wars troopers or the red as displayed?

Guess it helps to be this old and having picked up lots of the TRAVELLER stuff 'way back when'.

LOL you and I are in much the same situation in that regard. I spent over twenty years in the army and therefore much of my stuff stayed boxed up. Now that I'm retired it's been like a voyage of rediscovery ...