Get To The Hover! Or, How Reminiscence Of Times Past Generated Positive Action In The Present...

 A very good day to you, and thanks for stopping by.

You may recall, when we chatted recently, that I have fond memories of playing Laserburn in the early 80s, albeit at a scale which, even then, was in the realm of 'go big or go home' and beyond the scope of the standard Laserburn rules.

We would regularly construct a spaceport with 'buildings' made from the foam inserts of Citadel figure boxes, using haberdashers pins to hold them together, once we'd unpacked all the Traveller models from them.

Terrain was limited, and of course there were no starships on the table, we had to use silhouett, very simple silhouettes it has to be said, to represent where starships were located. We assumed that the defenders were freedom fighters, terrorists or alien invaders who would usually take control of the buildings around the spaceport and dig in, having to be rooted out by 'The Military', who would advance across the Synth-Mac under murderous fire and try to do some damage with the (normally few) survivors who made it.

The Vargr were a favourite 'OpFor' as were human mercenaries, of which I had a good number due to Games Workshop having a weekly special on the 'Traveller' adventurer figure with pistol and bed roll. I bought a load and painted them as a ragtag bunch of desperadoes in my at the time, standard, green enamel with orange flak jackets - a visual trope, I have retained to this day. Show me the Traveller 'Low Tech' infantry figures from the Citadel boxed set and I will say, 'green with orange flak jacket' every time. Even friends I met a decade into my gaming epiphany, will roll their eyes and tell you that's a fact. 

Those games were great, and so, doing my best to avoid doing my day's work (it doesn't work, because it simply means I have to finish the working day later) yesterday, I began thinking about revisiting that time, but with the advantage of money and skills I never had back then.

Buildings are easy enough. Brigade Models make excellent 15mm versions of their 6mm terrain, including a stunning control tower and loads of suitable hangers and habitation modules. As I said, it's an easy job.

The old RAFM range of sci-fi models are still available as are the Laserburn models, so I can essentially use the same models I had as a kid, but in much larger numbers. 

Vehicles were a problem back in the day. There were a few from the Laserburn range, but even then, they were a bit naff. Actually, they were naff apart from the hover cushion and air raft models. That air raft was a classic, and still is. Thankfully, Ground Zero Games have some stuff that is so 'on point' for that 80s sci-fi sensibility, that they will be getting a goodly-sized order as will Brigade Models for their 'Hammer's Slammers' range.

This time, I also want something imposing on the runway. I considered an Eagle from Space 1999 initially, tipping the hat to the White Dwarf scenario featuring one in a Cthulhu sci-fi scenario. But it did not quite cut the mustard.

15mm models are around 1/100 scale, so a 1/144 model would not be imnposing enough. Tamiya, make a space shuttle in 1/100 but the iconic shape of that vessel may not do the trick.

Then, I recalled the 'Orion' Clipper from 2001, A Space Odyssey. Airfix made one which was about 14 inches long, so approximately 1/144. It has few scale sensitive features, after all windows can be any size in sci-fi. Moebius make several versions, including a 1/72 version which comes in at a massive 28 inches, thereby ticking the 'eye candy' box and rendering the need for lots of models to fill the runway. It's also a lovely model with it's delta shape and would lend itself to being 'Fossed up'

Now, go and grab a tape measure and a 15mm figure and look at how large that model is. Unfortunately, it's also got a large price tag, coming in at well over £200.

However, if we remember that a decent sized 28mm church such as the one by Grand Manner, which I have, costs the same kind of money, it's not such a shock to the system. And let's be honest, it will look bloody awesome as a centrepiece. So, I'll be ordering one today.

And so, I have a project that I can work on personally, and at the same time, revisit my youth.

In other news, I took delivery of 4 modules for the long OOP 'Ghostbusters' RPG, which is a game I love. It's rules-light, storytelling-heavy and works really well, being the ancestor of the D6 system.

They were not cheap, certainly not the 65c each they were last sold at, but they were very fair, when you consider that they are still shrinkwrapped, and therfore, I can relive my youth afresh, and breathe some 80s atmosphere when I tear open the seal.

The one thing that was always a fear with the GB game was losing the D6 with the Ghostbusters logo on it. So, having two of those, safely locked away in a mountain stronghold, I decided to commission some myself:

 And that's about it for the present. I'm off to Fiasco this Sunday, the first show since the Memsahib's hospitalisation in August. If the Memsahib is not up to it, then we won't bother going. Shows are just not essential parts of the hobby for me/us anymore.

Right, I'm off to order that lovely 'Orion' before anoither day at the coalface of creativity.