Some scenarios are driven by subject (Hannibal requires elephants). Some by fantasy (Hannibal needs lots of elephants!). And some by what you've got (Gee I've got some elephants. How can I use them). My Star Wars game fits into the last category. Every year I put together one big convention game to take to GenCon. For the last four years this has involved big sculpted terrain. If possible I like to have a movie tie in - because it helps attract players to the game. Given the hype about the latest Star Wars movie, I thought it was the best subject. Which lead to me asking "What have I got?" Last year (1998) I built a North African city - complete with a hill fort (the Casba), a market place (the souk), a mosque, a men's court yard (a salemlik) and a women's garden (a haremlik). Given that they film Star Wars movies in Tunisia, this city just begged to be used. It is built to be used with 25mm figures so my next stop was my figure collection. Given that I wrote the scenario before seeing the recent movie - the main characters are all from the old movies: Luke, R2, Han, Lea, Chewbaca. The villains had to be the imperial storm troopers. Fortunately at Nashcon 98 I got a deal on a bunch of storm troopers. I had previously bought Star Wars robots (to use in a big robot game) and had figures that could pass for the main guys. Which only left the minor characters. I personally feel that the minor characters of the 1977 movie were one of its charms. They were so weird - and at that time, totally unexplained. They were just there. I wanted the same kind of unexplainedness in my scenario - so I looked at the weirdest figures I have. I tend to name my figures after movie characters and famous people so they immediately suggest ideas to me. So Dianna Rigg comes back to reprise her roll as Emma Peel. Sidney Greenstreet is the Fat Man. Greta Garbo and Josephine Baker play themselves. While other off worlders were supplied by various Call of Cthulhu figures. I discovered two figures of dogs standing up right dressed like 1900 British soldiers, so I painted them up to be the Imperialist British Dogs. I also found some big eyed X-files like aliens who I painted up to be CNN reporters (because they carry what look like microphones). Given that the city was North African I opted to give a twist to the game. I would have the local human inhabitants be Muslims. I have a sultan figure, a man calling people to prayer, some Dracula gypsy men (a Vlach looks like a Turk to most of us) and some 1930's women in head scarfs. So the town was filled. But since it is an alien world there should be weird local aliens (tuskine raiders, ewokes etc) so I pulled out Ral Partha bug miniatures (Yes I own bugs...you never know when you'll need them) and green D+D monsters. Some of the green figures had their arms raised up like man calling the people to prayer so I decided that they should be converted green things. So the stage was set. For pure fun I included a character from Star Trek – Dr. McCoy. I have a few Star Trek figures from the 70's so what the hey? At various times I've also included Dr Who characters as well. I guess at my core I have to say that science fiction is too silly for words. So why not have the cybermen attack? I needed some figures to represent the imperial officers. I remember from the 77 movie that the imperial are just Nazis, so I used a couple of Call of Cthulhu Nazis to stand in. I named them after recent war criminals (Milosovic and Karratich) in the hopes that people would remember the real life people and act accordingly. This will likely offend the Serbian wargamers (if so I'm sorry) but being a Muslim one can not help but see these guys as Darth Vader's buddies. The hook for the story comes right out of the first movie. The Empire has built a new super weapon. The plans are in the fort - surrounded by three defense barriers. The good guys have to steal them. Meanwhile the bad guys have to root the rebels out and maintain control of the city. After seeing the movie and attending a Jar Jar Binks barbeque I make two changes. The local green things became Gungens and the Imperialist Dogs were hunting Gungens rather that "Jambucks". Beyond killing Gungens nothing else from the latest movie looked interesting. Back to Table of Contents -- Matrix Gamer #6 To Matrix Gamer List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1999 by Chris Engle. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com