"Man-Kzin Wars in 15mm?" Topic

Spent the morning wandering through Wikipedia's entries on the Man-Kzin wars, and I started wondering what sorts of figures beyond Khurasan's Felids.

my short list is;
Felid Telepaths, less armor and shorter.
Felid Civilians/Merchants… Maybe somes children.
Felid Space crew, both with and without Environment Suits.
Maybe Females if there is that level of sexual Dimorphism.

For Humans…. Well take your choice…..

I would also like some Puppeteers…. But that is pushing it…

Speaking of Kzin kittens,

I always LOVED this piece of artwork:

"Dad's Home"

Giggle…..

To be honest the entire kick of the Kzin got started by my watching the old Star Trek Animated series…..

Felids are nice models, but they're not kzinti to me at all. No tail, the ears are all wrong, and way too lightly built. The art above is almost as far off – those legs make it look like a human in a costume.

Not that I wouldn't mind kzinti minis to buy, or more felids for that matter, but if you do kzinti get the anatomy right. They aren't simply humanoid tigers – the Star Trek Animated Series is actually pretty accurate in most regards.

I just watched that episode last week having forgotten it even existed. It was a little jarring trying to reconcile Niven's "Known Space" to fit into the background of the TOS (even knowing that Kzin have been a huge part of Star Fleet Battles for decades).

What surprised me was that Larry Niven wrote that episode.

Not much need for female Kzin.

In the primary timeframe of the novels, they've been selectively bred to be effectively non-sapient. Might be useful as non-combatants, though.

Not much need for female Kzin.

Sure, but the presence of females in a miniatures line makes the line a bit less Kzin in a good way. If an end user can either sort them out or just not buy them in the first place and have Kzin, while the manufacturer can point at the females in the line and say "See? Not Kzin!" then the best of both worlds is available. Make some in fantasy gear and label them "Tiger Demons" just as icing.

Ahem,

'Chief Lackey Rich'

No animosity meant but the way Larry Elmore drew Kzinti is the CORRECT one according to Niven's descriptions.

Kzinti DON'T have digitigrade legs.

Check the relevant wikipedia article.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kzinti

Unlike some popularly depicted anthropomorphic animals, Kzinti stand on two legs like humans do; they do not have digitigrade or "backward-bending" legs.

I don't remember the Kzin wearing armor though.

No animosity meant but the way Larry Elmore drew Kzinti is the CORRECT one according to Niven's descriptions.

Kzinti DON'T have digitigrade legs.

I didn't say they did, and I'm aware of current canon. The Elmore piece is wrong because a creature with a tail, that masses as much as a kzinti does, and carries a lot of that weight in an elaborately-crossbraced ribcage, will NOT have legs that look like a well-muscled human being. They'll carry their weight differently, changing the relative length of thigh and shin, and the arrangement of the pelvic gridle won't be identical either. Elmore's a good artist on human anatomy, but that skill betrays him when he tries to do realistic xenos.

Also, I'll mention that Niven approved the art in the old Chaosium Ringworld RPG, which did show a digitigrade stance. That art was arguably wrong, but Niven did okay it (publically, at a convention panel Q&A session way back in the 80s) and that makes the "not digitigrade" thing at least mildly revisionist.

Or in other words, take wiki with a grain of salt. Fictional critters change with their creator's whim.

I don't remember the Kzin wearing armor though.

They wore whatever worked best for them, just like humans. Some time periods/tech levels made personal armor worthless, but not all of them.

In Paul Chafe's novel Destiny's Forge, there were more than a few high-status kzinti wearing stasis-field body armor and carrying variable swords.

I think the Felids are the best you will find for Kzinti proxies. They are beautiful figs that will be immediately recognizable (personally, I know my first thought upon seeing them was, "Cool! Kzinti!"), so weigh that against how much the not-entirely-correct legs of these fictional creatures may bother you while gaming.

The legs bother me less than the Felids not being 8-9 feet tall in scale. Kzin are BIG.

Felids are excellent in and of themselves, but while they aren't kzinti, they're decent proxies.

I would like to see civilians and (niven-canon would make them semi-sentient) females and cubs.

Hey all I need are decent Proxies… I am not a perfectionist….

"Not much need for female Kzin."

Tell that to the male Kzin.

infojunky, I just primed 50 Khurasan Felids to start painting.

"You scream and you leap."

Yep. scream and leap… Wait a minute, you just described the fighting style of my Teenaged son…..

And for the Niven Canon-istsas Sentant females do exist on Ringworld.

And the Kzinti of the SFB-verse are sentient as well as of GURPS: Prime Directive.

So guys, any ideas what a SFB-ish Kzinti Shuttle look like?

@infojunky
no idea what a SFB-ish Kzinti shuttle would look like,
but if Star Trek-Enterprise hadn't of been canceled, there were plans to include the Kzinti in the fifth season, they even had concept artwork for a possible Kzinti starship

link

my favorite rendition of Kzinti. And it doesn't really bother me if that's accurate. That would make for a rockin' 15mm fig.

The Kzinti ship in the TAS episode is a disk flanked by two warp nacelles. It is also pink, though this was apparently a mistake.