"Preferred Style Image for SF Skirmish Games" Topic

For Sci-Fi infantry ground/shipboard skirmish gaming with a focus on foot troops which image style do you prefer?
The big franchises get their own entry.
If you have another preferred one not yet listed, pleas nominate.

* Victorian/Edwardian SF

* 1930s/40s retro-SF (Buck Rogers type look)

* 1950s/60s retro-SF (Golden Age of SF movies type look)

* 1970s/80s/90s retro-SF (1969+ Apollonian and historical type look)

* Contemporary—Near Future SF

* Star Treky

* Star Warsy

* Grim Darky Future

* Generiky Future SF (including various media, novels, RPGs, other game settings)

I'm currently building for retro-60s look.

Have some old (and vefy nice) 25mm FASA Battletroops figures, but those are quite generiky-SF that could be mixed and matched easily outside of BattleTech games.

Agree with MiniMo,

The 1950/1960s type game.

minimo, you seem to see more subtle distinctions than I do. Your categories would place John Carter, Northwest Smith and Eric John Stark in three different "image styles" for instance, which is not how I see SF Mars at all.

Now, watch me be completely disregarded when the poll is set up:
For me, the broad divisions are:
1) Classic pre-Mariner SF, with much of the Solar System inhabited by humanoids close enough to interbreed with.
2) The post-Mariner version with FTL drive and inhabited extra-Solar planets--often, one way or another with humanoid inhabitants. Call it the "Captain (Kirk)'s paradise, if you will.
3) The post-Appoc Earth with no central government and everything made from scrap. Mad Max and Kevin Costner.
4) The seriously Dystopian, which has a strong central government and armored infantry to match.
5) So far in the future that human culture and politics as we know it are irrelevant. Welcome to Battletech and WH40K.

My sweet spot is roughly 1.5--the ancient dry and dying Mars wiped out by advancing science still lives for me with its lost cities, barbarian tribes and beautiful women. But for game purposes, I'm happy to put a few Jawas and a Squat land train in the desert, stock the last forest with Ewoks and Jawas and call in the Storm Troopers when Judges can't keep order in the cities. The default weapon is a handgun of some sort, but there are snipers and a good man with a sword or knife is often useful.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got half a treasure map to look into, and a captive princess to rescue. Continued next issue.

Tough to pick one. If I were starting fresh, I lean in hard on 50's/60's golden era. Currently is more the Genericky Future Sci Fi with horror mixed in because I like the look.

Robert, my question isn't about back-story as much as about the look of the figures.

Sounds like you lean into generiky mix & match look.

—Cat

Currently mixing Star Warsy with themes from the ‘80s +. Works well for games post Endor in the outer rim. Lots of prates, thugs, locals who want to be left alone, and even misguided Imperial warlords. Why, even a xenomorph can be added to the mix

Which one is this?

Something between 40k & "Children of Men".

Cat, if the backstory doesn't determine the look of the figures, we're doing it wrong. Nor can I be part of anything which thinks there's a K in "generic."

I'm packing up my Barsoomians and going home.

I guess reasonably realistic post-apo figures count as "Contemporary" here?

(Reasonably realistic = more Mad Max than GammaWorld.)

Yeah, Mad Max is most likely contemporaty-near, or strict original movie could be 70s+.

For Ewocks on Mars and others who don't think their visual style is covered, nominations for other categories are open.

I thought the orange and white was more of a retro-future look. The bell-bottoms make it resonate with the 70's. Still the current launch and reentry suits are mostly orange, for visibility in case of SAR.

A lot of different backstories would fit them. Likewise a number of designs would fit a retro-future, 1970's, or contemporary story.

Certainly brightly coloured suits fit the retro look and beyond, c.f. Moon Zero Two (1969).

Great reference! That is exactly what I remember from being a kid in the 70's (born in '69). Have not seen that one, but I will look for it and …

It was about — or supposed to be about — space travel when it had got to the beat-up-old-Dakota stage of grubby reality.… The people who made it were dazzled by Kubrick's 2001 and couldn't resist trying to make it glossy and improbably perfect, the exact opposite of what the authors intended: all the gritty realism was gone.

I will probably look for the story. Semms like an excellent setting for an RPG … or a campaign of wargames among the people who would inevitably be at each others' throats in such an environment. I think the feel of an improbably perfect veneer overtop of a beat-up old Dakota reality sounds good. It's not terribly unique, but there are a lot of opportunities for doing something special with it.

Other Category: Retro-Future (what the 70's through the 2000's would be like)