New Toy Store Minis for SG2 (and maybe DS2)

Status: RO

Using Micromachines Star Wars/Star Trek figures for FT is a bit of a
tradition around here. They are reasonably cheap, pre-painted ships
that let you try out the game system. They are also about the only ships
available for these popular backgrounds. Unfortunately, the supply of SF
figures for SG2 and DS2 are quite limited. There are the
stormtrooper/echo base troops for playing SG2 in 20mm, which are
popular, but little else. Well, I've found some more: Star Trek 20mm figures,
and a new toy series called War Planets.

For those whom "the Final Frontier" has a louder calling than "the Force"
there are some new sets of 20mm figures from Galoob. These are sets of 7
figures representing a Borg assimiliation crew, a Federation away party, a
Klingon war party or a Ferengi negotiation team. The Borg figures are the best
of the bunch. They are your standard Borg figures, but most are carrying what
looks to be some kind of gun (it might just be a Borg Dremel tool, but they
look like guns). The next most useful set is the Federation set. The figures
are armed with phasers or phaser rifles. The Klingon set is a bit
disappointing, as two of the figures are carrying those Baklev (Batlev?
Barlev?
Backleft? Trebleclef?) hand-to-hand weapons, which seems to take
something away from them. I didn't look too closely at the Ferengis.

These figures are more like your standard action figures than the Star Wars
20mm minis. The arms can move up and down, and the legs might be able to move.
I couldn't see the price on them, but they are probably about C$8 (US $5.75,
or 4 Pounds Sterling) per package of seven. Each figure is unique, unlike the
Star Wars figures where there are several duplicates in each set. The paint
job is that horrible "Indonesian sweat shop worker" quality seen on the other
Galoob figures.

Of greater interest is a new toy series called War Planets. I gather from the
toy packages that there are several planets (Ice planet, Tech planet, Fire
planet, Rock planet and Bone planet) with a force of good guys and a force of
bad guys on them (Alpha and Omega). There are three sizes of sets, which I
will describe below.

The figures are almost all of aliens. In fact, many of them look REALLY alien.
Each planet has about 2 different styles of alien per pack, with the good guys
looking like they are simply a different colour from the bad guys (red
shoulder flashing versus yellow shoulder flashing for the Rock planet guys,
for instance). The Ice planet critters came in two forms. One looked like an
armoured tick with a gun mounted on the top of it's carapace, while the other
had a spider like body, a vaguely reptillian head, and holding two guns in its
front limbs. The Bone planet xenos had a big reptillian leader, with Ridley
Scott Aliens (or small Tyrannids for you Evil Empire folk) with guns as the
basic troopers. The Tech world is apparently run by tiny (man sized) mechs;
these were obviously "inspired" from Battletech but smaller. The Rock planet
consists of big, rocky shaped humanoids. Fire planet has humans in what looks
like power armour and red lizard men. These figures look like they are a small
20mm or a large 15mm; at any rate, they would be a good fit for SG2. The tech
guys could work well in DS2 if you wanted mechs of about the size of Heavy
Gear mechs (as opposed to Battletech monstrosities).

Here's where these guys get interesting. The main pack is a "Heroic Planet"
pack. It consist of a varying number of figures (between 5 and 12), two
vehicles, and a "fortress." The fortresses are all round bunker type things
about the size of a shot put that can open up into a playset background. They
look good closed, though, and could be used as bunkers. The vehicles are the
same scale as the figures (in all but one pack), usually with one as an air
vehicle and one as an APC or tank. The Ice Planet is the best for total choice
as you get two ground vehicles, the bunker, 8 of the armoured wood tick
figures, and
4 of the half-spider figures. The cost? C$15 (US$11 or UKP7.50). The
Fire planet is the worst choice as the lizard critters don't have weapons
(unless you just want some dumb carnivores to fire at), though it also has the
power armoured humans so it shouldn't be overlooked.

The second type of set is an add-on set to the above. It usually comes
with 5 figures plus a big something else. I'm not exactly sure what these
"something else's" are. They look like they are some form of mech in keeping
with the figures' overall theme. One looked vaguely like an Ork Gargant, while
another looked like a big robot on a tank chassis. I gather that you get two
"mechs" in a pack but that the two
can be mixed-and-matched to form different shapes or one big "mech."
The cost for this? C$9 (US$6.50, UKP4.50)! There was a third big boxed set as
well, but I didn't get a close look at it. I thought it might sell for about
$30 at first, but I'm not so sure; it could be around the $20 mark considering
the cost of the other packs.

Oh, did I mention the CD-Rom in each pack? At least I THINK there is a
CD-ROM in each pack. There's a graphic on the box that suggests this,
but the pack also tells you that you can download a demo of the War Planets PC
game. I haven't heard about this, but the toys are
obviously some sort of tie-in to a computer strategy game.

Anyway, I'm SERIOUSLY looking into getting some of these. Now would be a good
time as they may be gone by Christmas (or not; I don't know if there's a
cartoon that ties in with them; if not, then they may not sell too well). They
look reasonably good (for small plastic toys, anyway) and don't need to be
painted. Some are better than others, but at the very least they would make
some interesting 15mm alien squads. The fact that they come with support
vehicles is a plus. Now if only SG2 had some alien rules...