Strike Witches was the creation of Shimada Fumikane (or is it Humikane?) who is probably the most well known artist associated with the mecha musume genre, and probably the military mo-e genre as well.
In roughly the same time period that Strike Witches came out, Wings of War: The Dawn of World War II was released. This tabletop game re-implemented the rules system popularized by Wings of War: Famous Aces for use with WWII era aircraft.
Combining Strike Witches and Wings of War seemed like such a logical step, that two doujin games were made in response. One being Wings of Witches (KASU ver.), and the other Wings of Witches (CUTE ver.).
I played a bit of Wings of War, and liked the system enough to consider making maneuver decks for use with 1/72 scale fighters and 65mm Strike Witches, but almost immediately gave up on the idea as being too time consuming. It was also a problem that there were no 65mm Strike Witch figures.
The first problem was addressed by Adorable Rocket, who introduced me to a homebrew version of the FlightPath system for use with petites. The D&D version of the original rules are available free from WizK!ds Games.
The second problem has yet to be adequately resolved. In fact, the only figure I own who wears a striker unit is not even an actual Strike Witch, but rather Konata Izumi cosplaying as Yoshika Miyafuji.
Like most Niitengo figures, the head and body are smaller than that of Nendoroid Petits (particularly early ones like Miku).
The only other SD Strike Witch figures that I could find that were close to being 65mm are Mame figures made by Liquid Stone.
The Mame figures stand about 70mm tall, and have proportions similar to early Niitengo figures. The most glaring difference between Mame figures and Nendoroid Petits is the length of their legs.
I purchased the figures individually, and am missing Eila (who seems to be rather difficult to find outside of the set). I believe there is also a secret figure, which is a witch Neuroi (the only figure in the set to be wearing striker units).
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| X-11 Witch-like Neuroi |
In order to make an actual Strike Witch, I swapped Konata's head for Miyafuji's. Unfortunately there is no way to support the figure, since the socket for the stand was in Konata's hair.
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| 完璧 |
Some other figures which I am interested in getting:
SD Sanya & Eila Set (Phat Company) which was a Chara-Ani and Comptiq exclusive. I'm not sure how big these figure are compared to other petites.
Nendoroid Petit (or at least that's what some vendors claim - looks more like Niitengo to me) version of Mio Sakamoto (12 yr ver.) that came with Strike Witches Zero 1937 Fuso Sea Incident Limited Edition (Kadokawa Comics Ace).
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Good Smile (or Toy's Works) needs to make a complete set of petite witches in striker units! |
Nice post! Though you don't need to use 65mm figures.
ReplyDeleteAttack Wing and X-Wing both use figures on 40mm bases, with a few on 80mm bases, but D&D attack wing has all the dragons on 80mm bases.
I planed the movement grids for the striker units assuming 80 mm bases. I assume you'll fly two Witches, maybe three junior ones at most, so the big basing is fine on a 3x3 foot table.
I'm using the Konami trading figures: http://myfigurecollection.net/search.php?overall=strike+witches+konami
Though you might be able to use the Sega prize figures too. They're much easier to find and at 160mm tall they should fit on 80mm bases.
For me, it has to be 65mm. I just like too many things, so if I didn't limit the scope of my collecting, my bank account would implode :P
ReplyDeleteDoes X-Wing have any rules for simulating the attack on the Death Star, which would essentially be equivalent to Strike Witches attacking a Neuroi?
Ha, I understand. Rules are good. But... you already have two scales... 65 and 75! (>_<)
ReplyDeleteX-Wing doesn't have any official Death Star scenario yet (though there is speculation that we'll see that next year in an expansion with ground turrets).
I'm not sure if it'd be a good basis for a Neuroi battle though because the Death Star does have Tie fighters as the primary defense when fighters are that close. So an X-Wing scenario would be one player Imperial, one player Rebel.
I'd focused on Witch vs Witch rules for Strike Wing because it's easier to balance if both players have access to the same capabilities.
I also think for a Neuroi battle it wouldn't be as much fun for the Neuroi player to play a single entity with lots of essentially turrets and not much maneuver choices. Maybe you could do something asymmetrical like Super Dungeon Explore with one Neuroi against a team... I actually did a simple team/solo Witch vs Neuroi run by the game system based of forbidden island.
https://docs.google.com/document/edit?id=1axUiJQdptkzo2JK1Db6yfjunfldD8iys3-R3JisdH3c&hl=en#
WizKids actually has a couple of fre-nemy / coo-petition scenarios for Star Trek Attack Wing that work that way for the Borg. There's a large (1'x1') Borg token in the middle of the board which moves and attacks according to a program and the players are on the same team.
http://wizkidsgames.com/thecollective/
So maybe you could create a solo/team mission for the Strike Wing ruleset that would have a Neuroi drive itself.
Team missions with a self-driven Neuroi sounds like a good idea.
ReplyDeleteA system implementing random action tables similar to the ones found in Tusk could be used to guide Neuroi actions.
Have to mull this over...