Heavily varnished black bugs, tiny orange visors and a rule book by Andy Fucking Chambers of all people were absolutely everywhere in the gaming scene until I headed off to University. Starship Troopers: The Miniatures Game WAS fucking good, and I hunted it out at every con and played every demo game I could find. It’s pissing it down and I’m waiting for the bus when my trusty 3210 buzzes – a text, something along the lines of STRSHP TRPS GM FKIN GD, from a friend waiting for me at the Chesterfield Open Gaming Society. Today we’ll talk about the history of how Starship Troopers came into being in part 2, we’ll look at what caused its dramatic fall.

Does every game that ends fail? Are there clubs somewhere out there where long-defunct rulesets are frolicking in their well deserved retirements, faithful steeds put out to pasture? Do games ever really go away? Why, and what happens to them when they do? Today, we’re asking that question about Starship Troopers – a game which is increasingly fading into memory, but at one time looked like it might just be the one to steal Warhammer 40k’s crown. When it comes down to it we don’t really know, as a community, how and why games end and we’re not used to analysing them when they do. On a personal level, we’ve all bought in – fallen hard – for a game only to have an unjust, untimely cancellation (and, ok – sometimes a totally justified one) break our hearts and leave us with questions voiced only on mid-00s BBSs.

Warhammer and its spin-offs, De Bellis Antiquitatis, and Battletech (among others) are all pushing towards 40 or beyond, but the history of tabletop gaming is littered with lost, dead and abandoned games. For all the endurance of plastic, resin and metal, the games we play are often fleeting and ephemeral.

First edition starship troopers