Saturday, October 23, 2010

Starfleet Wars 100mm figures

Historical note: A few years ago, I found an interesting auction on ebay: a series of figures of each of the five races in Starfleet Wars.  The seller had lead miniatures from Superior Models, (makers of the ships for Starfleet Wars) of a Terran, Aquarian, Avarian, Entomalian, and Carnivoran.  They were priced a little out of my range, but I thought it was interesting.  Oh, and they were all about 4-and-a-half inches tall.  I posted something to the Galactic Knights mailing list, and a couple of people remembered these figures when they came out.

Turns out the sculpts were by Ron Spicer, the artist who designed the spaceships for the game and drew the illustrations in the Observer's Directory & Identification Manual.  This publication, in turn, had drawing of each of the five races.  I'm guessing the pictures in the Manual came from or served as his concept sketches for the figs.

Judging from that long-ago auction, and the fact that I hadn't seen them since, I figured these models were long out of production.  I was pleased, then, to find at least some of them still available.

Perth Pewter evidently took up the mantle (or was spun off) from Superior and kept casting the 100mm figures, as well as versions of some of the larger Starfleet Wars ships, for the collectables market.  I didn't find any Starfleet Wars merchandise on Perth Pewter's website, but Armik's Fine Collectables still has some in stock.

You can find the Terran, Carnivoran, Avarian, and Aquarian figures at Armik's (but I didn't see an Entomalian).  In addition, they sell some of the old range of spaceships--mostly dreadnoughts and larger--but it looks like they're cast with bases attached--and the bases have some funky shapes, as you can see.  It looks like they're selling these as pewter collectables, instead of toys to game with.  According to the website, they're limited to the stock on hand, so if you want some of these figures, better get over there pretty quickly.

2 comments:

  1. 100mm miniatures?! That's a pretty solid scale to use.

    Did they only every produce a handful? I can't see this being a very cost-effective scale, from a players point of view, particularly if this was metal-cast.

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  2. I think these were more for collectors than wargamers. Superior also sold fantasy figures in this scale; they pop up on ebay frequently.

    P.S. Sorry for the late reply. I had meant to answer earlier, but I got sidetracked and forgot.

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