Equally- the shots I took of the trope (the
backs of the comics) were frankly kwarch, so at some point I borrowed
them, scanned them, added then to the rather piss-pot poor folder's contents
and forgot about them for a while. Then the other day I managed to pick a
near-mint set up for £1.50p and it was all back-on!
So, the 'trope' of the post: The
pre-production shots used by TSR for advertising the game contain some stuff
which never made it to the game, That - in itself - is not uncommon, relying on
catalogues for information is always fraught with the danger that the thing
never saw the light of day, but I thought it would be fun to compare, in the
hope that people might recognise one or two of the interlopers?
On the left is the earlier advert for the
game, the later on the right, now I forgot to note the dates of the magazines,
but they were only about four-months apart, and from 1988. Both were UK issues
of 'American Comics'; DC's Superman I
think?
The one on the left has several features
not found in the final set, while the one on the right (also advertising Dragon Lance - Graham A . . . post
coming soon now; thank you!) is accurate to the published sets, except in the
colours of the six armies.
The most obvious anomaly is this chap, who
stands in for the 'Gennies' (which I think should be pronounced Jean'eeze,
rather than Jenny's), genetic engineered humans, larger than the standard
humans.
Now, the question is - does anyone
recognise the sculpt? There are that many of them in the publicity shot it
seems they must have been either commercially available (probably whitemetal)
stop-gaps for the PR studios photographer to work with, or - possibly -
taken/borrowed from another boardgame, whether TSR or not?
They appear to be vaguely bird- or
animal-faced (respirator?), with a 'blaster' held high in the right hand and
the left holding a tapered shield. Do you recognise them, have you got some?
The figures eventually issued are the upper
row of the lower shot here, firing two blasters back 'over their shoulder' as
it were. I've also done an Airfix
comparison, and you can see how the gold 'character' sculpts seem to have a hierarchy,
with Buck and Black Barney larger (equal to the Gennies), Ardala and Doc Huer an
intermediate size while Wilma and Killer Kane are as small as the human 'Troopers'.
The same conundrum is to be found in the
space fleets, where the transports (left) are correct in the press-release
image as for the game (as the Troopers were), but the other two craft are very
different.
The 'Battler' (middle) is represented by
something looking more like the Triang/LP
'Supply Force Mercury' married to the wings of an SR71 Blackbird! It's replacement in the actual game having more in
common with a Klingon 'Bird of Pray'.
The fighter (right) too, varies between the
image and the set, but by not so much, the issue one being similar to a
Cutlass, the artwork using a sharper dart shape which looks familiar and may be
from another game?
A shot with upper and lower surfaces and
all colours, the transports look a bit like intergalactic ocean liners with
their wide deck and lines of port-holes.
The factories are hardly changed, maybe the
top right-hand corner tweaked/simplified to help the mould-release process. But
the 'Satellite' is completely different with the PR model being more of a
land-based radio-dish, while the game gets little killer-stations with a bloody-great
ray-gun mounted on them.
As an aside; if you have a Galoob Micro Machine Star Wars
collection, these satellites with their orange-segment, surface-detailing will
make perfect heavy-machineguns for Snow
Troopers on Hoth, matching the
larger sphere-enclosed accessories that came with a couple of those sets, or
the Action Fleet equivalents.
While the second set of magazine adverts
had the correct set's artwork, the box itself gets the incorrect artwork from
the pre-production publicity.
I have studied both sets of artwork, and as
far as I can tell, the gold characters are in the correct sizes and poses, but
there may be slight differences suggesting they were using masters or other
production-phase sculpts, rather than the final issue mouldings, it's hard to
tell.
And colours of all armies in both sets of
artwork are different from the final production choice, the pale blue being
closes in both pictures.
Finally; the near mint set that came in the
other day had three damaged figures, two 'shot-shot' mouldings, caused by
either the mould or the resin being too cool for proper production, causing the
flow to stop before the tool cavity is filled, low pressure at the injection
head in another cause of the same result!
I was going to replace the three with the
ones I had here loose, but noticed that while the bases on all the figures in
the set are smooth, the odds'n'sods are all marked with a reversed seven; so it
would appear there are at least two tranches?
I have a set in storage, not quite complete
and all the cards 'punched', but the box is better than the new one; I hope
that between the two, I will cobble-together a really good one.
3 comments:
nice game mini's. It always adds interest to a board game if it includes some interesting minis.
Stop posting such nice things I just took the money for the kids school uniforms and gave it to somebody on Evilbay for this game. So when the kids crawl back to school they will be in rags. (They stopped walking because I spent the money for food on space tanks so they are a bit weak.) Meanwhile I see that poor feline of yours has collapsed again due to being overworked and underpaid.
TSR: Gamma World: 5508 Androids
http://www.miniatures-workshop.com/lostminiswiki/index.php?title=Image:TSR-Classics-5508b.jpg
From: http://www.miniatures-workshop.com/lostminiswiki/index.php?title=Gamma_World_%28TSR%29
Also see 5511 Cyborgs
http://www.miniatures-workshop.com/lostminiswiki/index.php?title=Image:TSR-Classics-5511c.jpg
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