Part of the reason I have selected Star Wars for one of my four 2015 projects is the fact that I was recently able to retrieve my old metal figures from my parent's place. That, combined with a sense of nostalgia after reading the original rules again, has really made me want to play more SW games this year (and I have an overview for a campaign that I am working on too! ).
For those who don't know, before WotC produced the collectible miniatures game, West End Games had a license to produce a range of metal Star Wars Miniatures back in the early 90s. The first edition of the game won an Origins Award in 1991 and was followed by a 2nd Edition in 1993. I started with the second edition, so must have been no younger than 13 at the time.
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| A classic set of rules |
Before I go on to the pictures, please remember this was probably my first effort at painting, in my early teens, and at that point I didn't even have my own paints. I was using my Dad's Humbrol acrylics I believe! I'm planning on re-painting most of them, but I thought I'd post some pictures of the figures in their current state before I do. Also, I took the rules very seriously when they specified the angles for line-of-sight, to the extent that I spent ages cutting out one inch discs of card and making the appropriate markings on them! Apparently I hadn't heard about basing materials at that time either!
Right, on with the show!:
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| Wookies |
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| Rebel Commandos |
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| Bobba Fett, IG-88 and Zuckuss |
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| 3 characters from the Darkstryder RPG campaign. Useful in a variety of roles in the miniatures game |
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| 3 more Darkstryder characters. The Rodian with the repeating blaster was always one of my favourites. |
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| Stormtroopers |
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| Imperial commanders |
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| Imperial Navy Troopers with an E-Web Heavy Blaster |
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| More Navy Troopers. |
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| Rebels with blaster rifles and one with a repeating blaster |
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| More rebels |
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| And a few more Rebels with blaster pistols |
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| These are nice. Mon Calamari Rebel Troopers and a commander |
And to finish the pictures on a humorous note, this photo is of my first ever 'conversion'... I wanted to have the Emperor in my games and so got hold of a model of a lich, which I superglued a pin to (painted it red) to represent a lightsaber. I have many memories of pricking myself on the end of the thing!
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| The 'Emperor' |
So what have I learnt about my teenage gaming from this nostalgia trip?
1) I seem to have gravitated towards figures with repeating blasters! Nothing like a bit of firepower!
2) I clearly didn't have a concept of planning an army and then buying the figures for it. 3 Mon-Calamari?! Surely 6 minimum for a squad? Still, they can be mixed in to my regular rebels for some variation.
3) It seems I only had access to gloss versions of green and black paints!
4) It doesn't look like I had much disposable income to spend on this collection! Probably explains why I never took up Warhammer 40K!
5) I really, really wish someone made metal Star Wars Figures again....
I'm now feeling really torn about repainting these. I know I could do better now, but there is something about having these figures in the same state they were in 20 years ago that appeals to me. Maybe I could just dip them and redo the bases?
What would you do in this situation? And do you have any old collections of figures from when you were young and first getting interested in wargaming? These are some figures I will never be putting on eBay!
Nooo! Don't repaint them! They are lovely as they are… I wish I still had my old minis. My parents gave them away when I moved out (and had lost interest for a long time). I just hope the kids who got them didn't repaint them :-)
ReplyDeleteI think you are right. I'm tempted to rebase them though. :)
DeleteI'd keep them for nostalgic reasons. I've got a few of my old minis...painted terribly :)
ReplyDeleteThere's a thread over on the Oldhammer forum dedicated to youthful paint abuse, here's the link if your interested;
http://forum.oldhammer.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=2496
Oh, and my badly painted & converted mini is on that thread too, with pins used as weapons also...and yes, I too stabbed myself quite a few times on them :)
Regarding the metal SW minis, I thought there were some manufacturer's still producing them? I may have imagined it. Are the old one's too expensive to source? You might try some of the mini forms, could find some for sale/trade on there?
Cheers.
Hi mate. Thanks for the link, very interesting! What is it about young lads and usingb pins for conversions?!
DeleteI don't know if you are thinking of the plastic figures that Wizards made a while back. Luckily I have loads of them, but I haven't heard anything about metals still being in production anywhere... And yeah, the original metal ones do go for quite a bit on eBay...
Was going to caution you on repainting them but I see the feeling is universal. I felt a presence in the force of hundreds of gamers yelling out at the same time, "Don't repaint them." You will always look on these as a time capsule of an earlier you and that can't be gotten any other way.
ReplyDeleteThanks for that, I'm pretty sure you are right! I'd probably always look at them and see them in my mind as they originally were anyway!
DeleteI doubt the paints were Humbrol acrylic as in those days the only acrylics I was aware of were artists paints and took ages to dry. I am still using some of the Humbrol enamels although probably not from those days. Not sure why I had no matt green and black.
ReplyDeletePins are very useful for conversions and no more deadly than wire pikes.
I agree with the other comments - don't repaint. Your painting then is better than mine now!
I see wargamingraft's parents gave his minis away when he moved out. Why haven't I thought of this? Only joking.
Always enjoy reading your blog and the comments.
Hi! Thanks for that. Thinking about it I must have mis-typed. My first paints would have been GW acrylics. Yours were the ones in the little metal pots and you had to clean the brushes in white spirit afterwards. So definitely not acrylics! Maybe I accidently picked gloss paint and only realised afterwards?!
DeleteI agree with the others - don't paint them. I still have some of my earliest painting efforts, some elves and such from Grenadier in the 1980s. I haven't repainted them, and at present do not plan to. They aren't great, but then again, I don't use them for gaming, either.
ReplyDelete