Reviewing Strontium Dog - Part 1 The Setting

Imagine my delight in finding that a reputable company had made a game about a beloved, if a bit obscure, comic character of my youth, and further, that it was written by a couple of heroes from my childhood.Sound too good to be true?Come have a closer look at Strontium Dog The Miniatures Game and see if it can live up to the nostalgia of a youth misspent...For those not familiar with 2000AD or the world of Strontium Dog let's do a quick intro: It's the future, but not a shining future. Everyone has bad skin and useless/weird looking mutations. 'Humanity' is out among the stars huddled on desolate planetoids and everyone is out for number one. Strontium Dogs are a search and destroy organization...bounty hunters. And did I mention that everyone has guns? Everyone. Think of a spaghetti western set in space with lots of mumbled dialogue, twitching trigger fingers, meaningful glances, and explosive gun violence and you begin to appreciate the setting.The boxed starter set from Warlord Games does a great job of providing players with a nice bit of scenery for games. You can begin shooting and stabbing down on the solar farmstead as soon as the MDF and cardboard parts are assembled and painted. I had it finished over a weekend and was quite happy with the results. The sparse landscapes of the original comics are brilliantly realized on a table set with little more than these few pieces.  When starting a new project I always first like to decide on a colour pallet and general style of what will follow. Lucky for me that the Strontium Dog comic was in black and white and only had a colour cover (in an anthology book) every few issues (or 'progs' if you are in the know...), giving me plenty of choices moving forward.  I will be shooting for somewhere between 'slavish devotion to the subject matter' and 'how I remember it being'. Conveniently, I'll try out my schemes on the scenery provided before moving onto the models.Skirmish games are a great place for a limited pallet and  I like to keep things simple so the game can hit the tabletop as soon as possible. The SD universe is a washed out place of consumer product gone to seed in the depths of space. I wanted my colours to be faded out but once bright and gaudy. Rummaging around in my paint box, I came up with sixteen Games Workshop colours which will be simply painted, dry brushed and highlighted onto the models and scenery. Everything will then get a coating of The Army Painter Quickshade: Strong Tone, providing the atrophy of a crusty universe.  The solar farm in all it's glory...with a few bits of cardboard and plasticard added for general wear and tear. You can almost hear the creaking of the generator fan, spinning ever-so-slowly as the paint continues to peel in the sweltering heat. The scene is set for a showdown, now to get those models done and have a proper read of the rules...

- Uncle MikeUncle Mike is a game designer but more frequently he is a game player. His specific sub-genre of nerd is miniature games and he boasts a large and varied collection dating back into the antiquity of gaming itself. Here he talks and talks about the things he likes.