Starcraft. Bag O' Terran Marines and Bag O' Zerglings

 

I am pretty much unfamiliar with Starcraft and Warcraft. The only thing that caught my eye were these figures, which Billy Hill posted in the Army Men Homepage FB page. What with my recent work on sci-fi topics, I had to have them. They looked like superb characters for a sci-fi skirmish game.

Starcraft Terran Marines

I ordered a bag each of Terran Marines and Zerglings. What I gathered from a Starcraft fan site is that the Marines are armored and use weapons that fire metal spikes. The Zerglings are creatures with sharp appendages that can do great harm in hand-to-hand fighing. They seem to be a mix of insectoid, crustacean and reptilian features.

Terrna Marines and Zerglings

This reminds me of a starter set for Warhammer 40,000 from ten years or so past. We carried it in a hobby shop where I worked at the time. The game set had Space Marines versus a swarm of buglike critters. Starcraft’s Marines and Zerglings seem like a similar kind of nerdware.

On pages and sites of those selling the figures, each stated that each bag has nine figures. One said there were nine figure and six poses of the marines. He was mistaken. In reality, there are three each of three poses. The marines have one pose rushing with rifle pointed, one standing with rifle up, and one rushing with shield and rifle. There are three Zerglings in three poses. (Zergling sounds like something they would name a Pennsylvania beer). The figures have a lot of overhangs, which means they were originally molded in parts that were assembled prior to packaging. Marines are in light blue; Zerglings are brown.

Marines and Ajax Spacemen. Marines are shorter but just as thick.

Despite their thickness, the marines are about 54mm to 60mm size. It is their overall thickness that dwarfs Star Wars and Galaxy Laser Team figures. These guys are thick. The Zerglings have all sorts of appendages and it takes a while to figure which part is the head. Detail on marines and Zerglings is very nice. They could easily be fit into a game like Laserblade. (When I finish the Sci-Fi supplement for OMOG, I will have to accommodate figures like these. They are too cool!)

Marines with Galazy Lasrer Team. Marines are much larger.

The Terran marines resemble the space-marines of popular nerdware Warhammer 40,000. Of coure, they are not the same. I am sure that nerds who play both Warhammer and Starcraft can point out all the differences.

Zerglings with Galaxy Laser Team

These Terran marines and Zerglings would both look great if they were painted.

Marines and Hasbro Star Wars 54mm figures. Similar height, but the thickness of the marines makes the Star Wars figures look smaller.

Even if you do not want to add elements of Starcraft to skirmish games, you could use both Marines and Zerglings for other things.

Zerglings and Star Wars figures.

Good plastic sci-fi figures are a treasure. In 2015, we had Hasbro’s excellent Star Wars Command figures. These were 54mm size and had a nice variety of types and poses. An interesting set was a 40mm scale bag soldier set of Aliens Colonial Marines and Aliens. Though far from ideal, they gave fans of the Aliens franchise something with which to work. An old favorite, reissued by Tim Mee is the Galaxy Laser Team. The team is a source of various figures, from turtle-monsters to conventional astronauts. Throwing the Terran Marines and Zerglings into this mix could provide some intriguing scenarios for space skirmish games.

Marines and MPC Astronauts (Mercury - Gemini Type). Marines are massive compared to astronauts.

 

Sci Fi Galaxy Laser Team and Star Wars figures

 

Just for fun, I decided to compare several Galaxy Laser Team figures with the Star Wars characters who inspired them. Or did they? On closer inspection, some Galaxy figures are entirely different from those they supposedly portray. Star Wars may have inspired some of the Tim Mee brand figures, but both sets are distinct.

 

 

Chewbacca and Chompsnuffa

 

The main similarity between Star Wars’ Wookie and the Galaxy Fur Alien is the fur. Granted, the Galaxy figure was an attempt to take the place of the Wookie, but the facial features and weapon are entirely different. My suggestion for those who paint their figures is to use very different colors on these funny fellows. An imaginative modeler could get a very distinct miniature from the Galaxy fur alien just by creative use of paint. Green fur? Maybe...

 

Darth Vader and Magnutto

 

Darth Vader is a very distinct character. Side by side with the supposed Galaxy Laser team version, they are very different figures. The Tim Mee counterpart looks like a Marvel Comics character. Thigh-high boots, a pectoral chest-plate and pro wrestler belt are very different from Vader’s clothing. The helmets are also unique. The Tim Mee figure wears what looks like a variant of an open-faced Greek helmet. His cape is shorter and so is his weapon. A light-club? With a little work, it could be a Greek-type sword. Again, a creative painter could make the Tim Mee figure look stunning.

 

X-Wing Pilot and Soldier with Pistol

 

These two have more in common than the other pairs. Helmets, though distinct, have a similar overall shape. However, the pilot is obviously in a flight suit. The Tim Mee figure could be anything from a security officer to Buck Rogers type soldier. He wears a very different outfit and unique boots that seem to flop over the top like those of pirates. While he could fit in the realms of Buck Rogers, Death Star personnel or Rebel infantry, he is unique enough to stand out. It is all in the paint work.

 

Tusken Raider and Turto-lob

 

These are so distinct as to have no middle ground between them. The Tusken is a desert character. If not humanoid, it is still likely mammalian. The Turto-lob (Turtle + lobster) is reptilian with a bird-like beak, buggy antennae and lobster claws. Still and all, both are cool aliens to add spice to your spice adventures.

　

 

R2D2 and the Washboard Robot

 

Mistakenly called "droids" in the movies, short tin-can robots were a common feature of the Star Wars franchise. (Droid is short for android, a robot having a basic human shape. C3PO from Star Wars, Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation and the Terminator are androids. R2D2 and his type are not.) R2D2 is a small, cylindrical machine with a dome top and three legs. By comparison, Tim Mee’s Galaxy Laser Team robot is a flat, rectangular-bodied machine with two legs.

 

Small robots like both of these examples were common in the Star Wars movies. Another movie using small robots was Silent Running with Bruce Dern from 1972. He had a pair of two-legged, boxy robots. Cute robots seem to have been a thing of the times. For instance, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, a 1970s show, had a comical little robot named Twiki. (Think Hello Kitty goes Andriod: Twiki.)

 

Of course, Star Wars was not the only inspiration. Three of the characters in the Galaxy Laser Team had other origins:

 

The Astronauts

 

The two astronauts in the Galaxy Laser Team are somewhere between Gemini and the Space Shuttle. One pose is reminiscent of the early MPC "Mercury" type astronauts. The other has similarities to two other poses. However, these Galaxy astronauts are more modern. For instance, the air supply on the astronauts’ backs tells the tale. The MPC astronauts have tanks similar to a scuba diver. The Galaxy men have a boxy pack instead. It would have been more like that worn on the Space Shuttle. The Apollo air pack was much larger, wider and taller.

　

 

What happened to the woman with console? She is apparently based on the female crew of the original run of Star Trek. Unlike the others, there is no previous plastic figure on which she might be based.

　

The Galaxy Laser Team is a good source of affordable 50 to 54mm scale space figures. Because they are different from the characters of popular sci-fi movies, there is a lot of leeway as to how they can be painted and their use in games. A skillful modeler could get more than a few good conversions from them. The recent Hasbro "Star Wars" plastic figures are a great asset, but they will be getting scarce due to discontinued production. Perhaps Airfix will reissue their fantasy space men soon. They can accompany both of the aforementioned sets of spacemen.