Old SciFi Games

All the painting for Saga has got me thinking more about miniatures gaming in general. This morning I'm back on the idea of pulling out some old sci fi stuff and running some games using the old rules. The candidates in reverse chronological order are:

 Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader, 1st Ed.  1987
I can field Space Marines, Orks, and Squats for it. Never got any Eldar finished. Back then 40K was much more free form than it later became with all the formalization of lists and intentional obsolescence of armies for previous versions. It was a fun game. When 2nd Ed came out and demonstrated where they were going with marketing the game I broke with 40K except to drag out my old stuff once in awhile and very rarely buy some bit of additional kit in a sale or at a flea market. Still have those Eldar & additional bits of the other armies to paint after all...

Laserburn, 1980
Bryan Ansell's pre-40K sci fi skirmish game, published by Tabletop Games. The figures are Citadel's first foray into sci fi lead. I remember it being a pretty fun set of rules. Re-reading it after the release of 40K you can see the germs of some of the style and ideas that became 40K. I really like the guys with the pseudo-Egyptian headdress. These are true 25mm, before the 40K scale creep.

Space Marines, 1977
 FanTac games, later FGU. Stan Johansen figures. Its setting later morphed into the Space Opera RPG. I have the rules and a few of the figures done (more bare lead picked up in a bargain box at Gamescape some years ago) and it can easily take other figures. Have had these rules since they were new but don't think I've ever actually played it. The figures are true 25mm. Notice the name and date in relation to GW's recent Amazon claims.

Starguard 1969
The grandaddy of them all.  McEwan Miniatures space skirmish game that I got into in its second edition with a starter pack from Lou Zocchi's wonderful newsprint catalog back in my early teens. This and Chainmail were my first staple miniatures games. I have my old stuff, Lee Forester's old stuff from when he got out of the game and expanded my collection maybe ten years back when John McEwan turned up at a convention I was at and some of that new stuff is painted. McEwan was on the small side of 25mm even in the 70s, more like 22mm. I don't think I ever fielded the Terrellians in their Hawaiian shirts in a game, its time to DO IT.

Might be fun to do a few Saturday night or game store games and work up a scenario series to run at conventions, sort of a sci fi gaming retrospective.