Zacaldo I totally agree with you onthe price issue. I stopped buying GW figures after they went to slot bases.
I can remember going to my local independent games shop and buying dwarves for 30p a figure. They came in a little snappy bag with a piece of bent over card stapled to the top. (those were the days) for my £2.50 pocket money I could get myself a unit of figures ready to paint for the following club night.
I canbuy figures now from other companies for far less than GW and still use their rules. Copplestone Casting does a fantastic range of futuristic figures that look like guardmen I have them all and use them all he time. I do admit I can't stand 40k minaiture rules so I still use Spacefarers for all my skirmish games.
Now there's a set of rules to be proud of. Spacefarers the for runner to rogue trader and the 40k universe. A little A5 booklet where you basically used two tables to fight.
the first was a sliding column table to find if you hit and where you hit depending on range and cover and the like and the other table was a cross reference grid that had the weapon type along the top and the armour type down the side. A dice was rolled and you found out whether you did a light, serious wound or an out right kill.
each figure had a number of wounds two light = 1 serious, two serious = kill. also you had morale tests and a simple skill system for leader, medics and techs. you had a hand to hand and a ranged weapon stat. each figure had a simple character sheet and the book provided you a unit sheet containing 10 character sheets on it all at A5 size.
Oh and there was an experience system to for advancing your units.
You could buy a unit with your pocket money and the playing board used to be one of those square felt covered bridge tables. We'd pack it full of plastic buildings and trees and off you went.
GW (or should I say Citadel Miniatures) brought out a range of figures with SPACE MARINES, DARK DISCIPLES and STAR PATROL MEN. they were great and well made.
Ohhhh those were the days.
Here's a link to the Spacefarers range
http://www.solegends.com/citspacef/index.htm
And a link to picutres of the range
http://www.solegends.com/citspacef/citspacefpics.htm
And a link to Boardgame Geeks over view of the game.
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/8137
This message was last edited by the player at 22:11, Sat 31 Jan 2009.