re: (North) American games...

At 06:52 AM 12/14/96 GMT, David Brewer wrote:
>In message <199612140444.XAA01768@smtp1.sympatico.ca> Allan Goodall
writes:
>> There's the original _Striker_, _Soldiers Companion_, and BattleLust
>> (fantasy/Dark Ages).
>
>Don't know the last, am I right in saying the second was a Space:1889
>derivative? It seems SF wargames generally come attached to an RPG,
>to drawn in crossover sales of background material.

Yes, you are right. In fact, BattleLust is a skirmish miniatures set
derived
from the Harn RPG. So you're three for three.

>I did get my hands on Striker once. It's from the original black-book 
>Traveller days. I haven't seen StrikerII... but I'll wager it's a 
>bigger, squarer-bound, more illustrated, fatter book with a larger 
>typeface than the original... and as for outrageous design systems, 
>can the original Striker *ever* be beaten?
>
>I gave it a look-over we were playing DirtSide (one). No contest.

Different scale. Striker was mostly the same scale as SG2. It wasn't bad
(for the time) but had a serious deficiency since it lacked a book of
sample
vehicles. Striker II is, indeed, "a bigger, squarer-bound, more
illustrated,
fatter book with a larger typeface than the original". It's based on the
_Combined Arms_ game system. As such, it LOOKS like it should be a DS2
"replacement" but it only really works in the same scale as SG2. I'd
rather
play the GZG games than Striker II.

Allan Goodall:	agoodall@sympatico.ca 
"You'll want to hear about my new obsession.
 I'm riding high upon a deep depression. 
 I'm only happy when it rains."    - Garbage