The Completist

Sometimes I hate myself for being one.

I recently started going back to my older non-sports tabletop board games, and found myself reading up on the rules for Starfire, 2nd edition.

This was the first boxed version of the game, which I originally picked up in high school.  Before this I owned the 1st edition of the game, which came in a ziplock bag, along with it’s two supplements (Starfire II and Starfire III: Empires).  I sold those off to friend.

Anyways, I picked up the first expansion/supplement for this edition, New Empires, back in the day.

I never played it, since it was more of a strategic-level empire building game that really needed a second player to get the most out of it.

There was a third product in this line, before the third edition of the game came out, but I never bought it. Until now.

I didn’t buy it back in the day because by that time my group had moved on to role-playing games and Warhammer 40K.  So even though I rarely played this with friends, this, and Star Fleet Battles, went into the ‘did not play’ category of games that I owned.

I would occasionally see this product on shelves in the late 1980s, but at the time I wasn’t interested in it and it went out of print.  But because of my recent interest in old games, it popped up on my radar again.

Enter eBay, and sellers who sell factory-sealed editions of out of print games.  I probably spent about 2-3 times the price of this thing was when it first came out, but at least I managed to scratch that itch that is my curse, the game completist.

And regarding that third and later editions: yeah, I bought those, too, but 3rd edition was a bit complicated with it’s own set of supplements.  The game later spun off from Task Force Games, became 3rd revised (bought), and finally 4th edition, which I also own, but never even punched the counters.  1st/2nd edition were the most playable (read: simplest) version IMHO.

And I own the PDF of the 6th edition, Solar Starfire.  They went with electronic products starting with the 5th edition (Ultra Starfire) which I didn’t buy.

Enemy fleet on scanners – ARM WEAPONS!

The 50s

March 9th, 1967: premiere date of Star Trek episode ‘The Devil in the Dark’.

Dispatched to the mining colony on Janus VI, the Enterprise is tasked to investigate rumors of a strange, subterranean creature responsible for destruction of equipment and the deaths of fifty miners. Kirk and Spock discover a silicon-based life form, a Horta, which lives in the surrounding rock. After Kirk and his Vulcan first officer find the strange creature, Spock performs a mind meld, discovering the reason behind the Horta’s attacks.

This episode holds a special place in my memories because it was the first Star Trek fotonovel that I bought, which means it was one of the first books that I ever bought on my own, with my allowance.  I think I got it from Gemco.

It was a great episode, with a really cool monster, the Horta.

I still have an unopened Spock action figure that I picked up last year after that Star Trek concert.  Perhaps I should open it.