"Starship Troopers movie miniatures?" Topic

I have an urge to do Starship Troopers in 25/28mm based on the movies…

(pause for Heinlein fans to fume)

…and I'm looking for some advice on which miniature ranges to go with. I've already narrowed my choice to two options:

1. Mongoose Light Armour Troopers vs various Mongoose Bugs (I know these are no longer in production, but they're still available in some places)

or

2. 1st Corps Colonial Troopers vs GZG/Eureka EM-BUGs.

I like option 2 because I much prefer working with metal miniatures over plastic. 1st Corps' minis and the EM-BUG also seem to be very true to the movie. My problems with this option are that my bugs are limited to Warriors only (no Hoppers, Tankers, etc) and the expense of building up hordes of Warrior bugs.

Option 1 forces me to work with plastic, but does give me access to the full range of movie-style troops and bugs and also means I could probably get more bugs for my buck.

Basically I'm on the fence here, and I'm looking for any advice that might help me make up my mind. I haven't had any of these minis in hand before, so any comments on sculpt quality or experiences of assembly, painting, durability, etc. would be most welcome.

Finally, there is the hybrid option 3 – in particular, how well would 1st Corps metal troopers work against Mongoose plastic bugs?

Thanks in advance for any help with this.

What about the Starship Troopers miniatures game? They have a full-line of stuff and it's mostly based on the movie (although they've been adding book-based stuff recently, too). Nice figures.

The Light Armored Infantry from mongoose were metal, if that helps. The CAP troopers were plastic (and really fiddly) – but if you want the look from the movie the like MI is the way to go.

Scott- Unfortunately the SST game has been more or less discontinued by mongoose and getting figures and support can be trying at times.

link Starship Trooper forum.

The Bugs are undersized in the ST game, so they should fit okay with 25mm figures…..the tankers and Plasma bugs would be in scale with 15mm figures.

I never did pick up any of Mongoose's light troopers; meant to, but never got around to it.

The metal MI figures for the Mongoose range were pretty good. The plastic ones, not so good. Fiddly, as Lord B says, but also the arms/weapons tended to look awkward.

The Light Armored Mobile Infantry figures were/are great AND metal! I use 'em for Alliance troops when gaming in the Firefly 'verse.

Al | rivetsandsteam.com

The Light Armored Infantry from mongoose were metal, if that helps.

That is very helpful to know, thanks! Makes me a lot more inclined to go with the Mongoose ranges for both sides. I'd also heard that the plastic infantry were quite poor and fiddly, as you and mweaver have commented.

Do you have any impressions about the sculpt quality though, Lord Billington Wadsworth? I've seen photos of and quite like the 1st Corps sculpts, but I've had difficulty finding good clear images of Mongoose's Light Armoured Infantry.

Praetor XII – thanks for the link, I'll explore that forum at my leisure. As for the scale – it sounds from what you're saying that the Mongoose Warriors would work well with 1st Corps troopers, which I gather are more 25mm than 28mm. As for Tanker Bug size – I understand that the King Tanker is a bigger kit, would this be closer in 'true' scale to a regular movie Tanker?

Thanks for all the advice so far, this is very helpful!

I've got a box of the Light MI and I am pretty happy with them. I wish there was some more variation – but for what they are charging for the box, it isn't a bad deal at all. They are pretty much directly from the movie :)

I don't think I've ever seen the 1'st corp sculpts. Do you have a link?

Here is a picture of one of the MI I found online
picture

Thanks for the picture – I have to say I'm increasingly tempted by these Light Armoured Infantry.

Here's a link to the 1st Corps ones:

1stcorps.co.uk/SciFi.htm

Kind of chunkier/stockier sculpts, which I find is commonly the case with 25mm minis compared with 28mm. I do like the fact that the 1st Corps range includes a news team, but otherwise I think I'm leaning more towards the Mongoose troopers.

The warrior bugs are closer to movie scale with 25mm figures, the Plasma bugs would be in scale with the GZG 6mm bugs (they are massive in the movie, way to big to have in a 28mm game), the Tanker bugs were shrunk as well and are probably more in scale with 15mm figures.

I've painted up some of the 1st Corp figures to go with large bugs in metal from GZG; pictures at

picture

picture

picture

picture

They're quite small for 28mm figures, but there are a lot of varieties, and some of the figures are multipart.

Thanks for the pics KatieL. Those 1st Corps minis do look like a good range, but I think I'm more tempted now by the Mongoose LA Infantry, particularly now I know that they are also metal.

The GZG bugs look good as well, but I reckon since I want to use at least some of Mongoose's bugs to cover the variety I want to use (at least warriors, hoppers and a brain bug – maybe a tanker) I might as well just go with Mongoose for the lot. I think I can also get about twice as many plastic warrior bugs for the cost of metal ones, which helps…

Thanks again to all who've helped me reach this decision!

Parmenion,

Hope this helps with your decision:

link
link

CC
link

Whoa, those Mongoose minis are big! Thanks for the links CC, that's definitely given me pause for thought. I may end up going for 1st Corps after all, they're much closer in size to what I'm accustomed to working with in "28mm" scale.

I think I'll still stick with Mongoose for the bugs though.

Parmenion, if you are not going to mix your Starship Trooper infantry with other sources of infantry units then their "heroic" size shouldn't matter. However, if you are going to multitask your "movie" troopers and mix them with other rules and figures, then CC did you a great favor by showing you their sizing.

Here are some pics of my "movie set." Interestingly, I'm much more of a fan of the book than the movie (go figure, heh).

picture

picture

picture

That's some seriously impressive work there! Nice job, it puts my own meagre intentions to shame.

I realise scale doesn't matter in a self-contained setting, but the issue for me is partly a concern that the figures will just 'feel' too big, as I'm accustomed to working with 25s or smaller 28s. Just a personal preference – for example, GW's figures got too big for my liking a few years ago.

However, I also don't want to rule out mixing up SST stuff with my other armies, which I think would be the case if I went for Mongoose infantry. I reckon the bugs would also look more impressive up against the smaller 1st Corps minis.

In any case, I'm certainly very grateful to CC for illustrating the size differences. Thanks again, CC!

Parmenion,

You should see how quickly DCP came up with those tents!

TMP link

As for the size of the SST figures, I was in denial until I finally took the pictures:

TMP link

Great detail in the figures though.

CC

Hello Parmenian

We still have some of the original Starship Trooper sets available on our site.

We also have the Starship Trooper Box Game…it comes with the Bugs, Troopers & Rules.

I did not read all the above Posts but I have been told that Mongoose Publishing is no longer making any of these miniatures.

If you have any questions visit us at legends-in-time.com

Skip

Thanks Skip. I'm looking into a variety of sources right now, and I'll bear your stock in mind. One thing I should say ios that I'm in the UK, so I'm not sure how shipping would work out for heavier boxes from your site.

One more general question for those with experience of Mongoose's kits – I understand that both the King and Thorny Tanker are based on the regular Tanker plastic kit. Do these variants come with the complete plastic Tanker kit in the box plus the metal additions, or only those parts required to make the variant?