F is for Follow-up - Buck Rogers in the 25th Century

This post has a history almost as complicated as the bear's one yesterday, in that I noticed the main trope of the post a few days after the last post on the subject, which was a bit of a gap-filler itself, as I was working with a small sample. So I rounded up some new shots, but given how many there were in the previous effort, there was little else I could do with what I had.

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.