Re: Space Marines?

>Morning All:
>	Yesterday, I was combing through the used game section of one of

>my local game stores when I came across a set of sci-fi miniature rules

>called "Space Marines."  They were written by one A. Mark Ratner and
were 
>published Fantasy Games Unlimited, Inc.  These rules are OLD (copyright

>1980!) and they looked pretty campy (at least by today's post-Star Wars

>standards).  However, they were only asking $3.75 for it, so I picked
it 
>up anyway.  At least it will make an interesting gamer conversation 
>piece.  "Hey Mike, Get a load of this.  This game uses FORCE FIELDS for

>infantry!  HA HA!  A take a gander at these goofy-looking aliens...."
>
>	Has anyone else heard of this game?
>
>Later,
>Mark A. Siefert

	Aye, as one of the resident dinosaurs I have a dog-eared copy
(without its cover) of this one.  Let me see, canine Rauwoofs,
crustacean
Klackons, avian Whistlers, feline Mekpurrs, reptilian Hiss, H-G-Wellsian
Mertuns, Heinleinian Bugs, ursine Blarads, skinny space-dwelling Irsol,
pseudo-Peoples-Republic-of-Chinese aliens, pseudo-USA (Federation?),
pseudo-USSR Galactic Peoples Republic, pseudo-Nazi Azuriach Imperium. 
Have
I forgotten anyone? :-)

	It was full of crap cartoons, and had sections at the back on
fighting primitives (apparently for those players who want to simulate
pulling the wings off flies!), and on linking with Dungeons and Dragons
and
Metamorphosis Alpha.  It definitely suffered from the "psycho-detail"
problem, and every tiny crap flitter seemed to be up to its knees in
weaponry, but it did have some thoughtful ideas on target acquisition
and a
reasonable set of morale and reaction rules, unusual for its time.

	I suppose I should confess that most of the play we got out of
it (I
was still at school) was taking a squad of powered armour troops down a
D&D
module...  Also a couple of games with WW2 plastics pretending they were
SF
types (which hardly seemed to exist in those far off days).

I suppose I'm a bit nostalgic for it really!

Cheers, 
Rob Paul

Rob Paul
NERC Institute of Virology 
Mansfield Road, Oxford OX1 3SR	  Tel. (01865) 512361
rpaul@worf.molbiol.ox.ac.uk
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  "Once again, villainy is rotting meat before the maggots of justice!"
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