Starfire. Full Thrust. Battlefleet: Gothic. There are a lot of games out there that let you play out a space battle between massed fleets of ships. Of course, if you buy pewter miniatures for these games, your budget is going to take a big hit -- a single ship can cost between six and ten dollars. by Fred Wolke
Ouch!
It doesn't have to be this way.
A long time ago, a game came out called Traveller 2300. Since it didn't have much to do with the Traveller universe, they eventually changed the name to just 2300. All in all, a fair game, interesting background, lousy mechanics. What was important about it to me, though, was that in one of the supplements (it's been a long time, forgive me) they had some recommendations on how to build a starship miniature out of a golf tee. It was a fairly simple operation. Cut the golf tee off where the taper on the big end merges into the shaft. Glue the middle of the shaft to the narrow end of the other piece, prime, paint, and there you go . . . a nifty starship miniature that cost you about ten cents, max. They recommended making smaller ships by cutting the length of the shaft down.
When I picked up Starfire a while back, I remembered that article, and decided I would build a set of miniatures to use with it. The bases of the miniatures were perfect for the 1/2" hexgrid Starfire used, and it came out pretty good. I felt that something was missing, however. The ships all looked pretty much the same. The carriers, for example, . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: January 14, 2000
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