Roebeast's Magical House of Sunshine: Vrusk

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Painting Vintage Star Frontiers Minis.

Having played Star Frontiers in the early 1990s, I have a soft spot for this forgotten game from TSR back when that company was the galactic center of the gaming universe. I found some of the miniatures a few years back and thought that it would be fun to paint them up. Unfortunately the boxes that I found had severe cases of lead rot and most of the minis were unusable. Luckily my buddy Dave, who also ran our SF sessions in the 90s, had some beautifully clean castings so I at least got to paint a few of them.

Lead rot can be caused by acids from cardboard leeching out and causing moisture in the air surrounding a mini to begin the rot. Shrink wrapping causes this to be even worse. Be wary of shrink wrapped boxes on Ebay and keep you minis in plastic that has good airflow. Don't let this happen to your vintage minis.

So far I've finished five minis. 3 Dralasites, 1 Vrusk in spacesuit, and the newest, a human in spacesuit with jet-pack. I now working on a Sathar in spacesuit, then a Yazirian. I'm also thinking about sculpting some of my own minis to add to the collection.

I really enjoyed Star Frontiers and was greatly disappointed by Alternity which promised to be SF's sequel in spirit if not actuality. But luckily I still have some of these fun minis and all of the original rules and modules for SF are available online. Might be time for another Star Frontiers campaign. And this time I'm not playing a Humma medic.