MOONBASE CENTRAL

Tuesday, 4 May 2021

STAR FORCE FIGHTER-1 FROM 1979: SEND IN THE CLONES

Here's an interesting knockoff Star Wars X-Wing, the Hong Kong made Star Force Fighter-1 by Kingsford of New York.

Its has an engine roar and laser rockets so all good there.

I say its sort of an X-Wing - here's the Palitoy original ......

but maybe there's a lot of the Battlestar Galactica Viper in there too, you know, the Mattel one like this courtesy of Dallas Vintage Toys.

What do you think readers?

There's much more about Star Force toys on Plaidstallions.

http://www.plaidstallions.com/sf/sf.html

LA CONQUISTA DELLO SPAZIO: AN ITALIAN SPACE GAME

I like the box art on this Mattel board game. There's even a little booster rocket top left!

Do you like it?

Monday, 3 May 2021

Transformers DeLorean

Hi Woodsy,
I have just found this clip on You Tube, from Laura Legends. It is a Transformers robot named Gigawatt that starts out as the DeLorean time machine from the Back to the Future movies.

She briefly mentions a couple of other Transformer/movie tie-up models, the Ecto-1 from Ghostbusters, and a F-14 Tomcat fighter from Top Gun. All look really nice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRYnqyH3spQ

Yours Sincerely,
Paul Adams from New Zealand

Sunday, 2 May 2021

SUPER FAB ONE

I couldn't resist this snap of Junior's new FAB1 and his Superman Car.

A true caravan breakfast of champions.

But what would Lady Penelope and Superman say to each other?

Saturday, 1 May 2021

Every story needs a villain and every force of good needs an opposing force of evil. So it was with Starcom. As the bulk of the US Space Force ships were white and pure, Coleco took a hint from George Lucas mythic background to Star Wars and made the Shadow Force enemy ships and troops black and sinister.

The fanatical leader of the enemy force was Emperor Dark. Dark was only available as a mail-away after collecting various tokens from Starcom packs. The Shadow Force soldiers were suitably dressed in black and purple and supported by a legion of robot drone figures. The dramatic black and purple theme extended to the space ships too.

The Shadow Force logo is two triangles and the shape was cleverly reflected in the shape of the shadow fleet. The Shadow Vampire is a VTOL Assault ship with variable position engines and twinned laser cannons which pump in and out like flak cannons at the touch of a button.

My model is missing one of the paired cannons at centre, but still looks awesome.

The cargo handling element is capitalised with the Shadow Bandit, a medium sized ship capable of swooping into a Starcom base with stealth technology, to magnetically grab cargo pods and opening its wings once more, fly off with the cargo.

Staple unit of the Shadow space force is the Shadow Parasite. A small compact fighter with variable geometry stub wings and pop out laser cannons.

Flagship of the fleet is the Shadow Ba,t a sleek triangular ship which neatly carries twin Parasite fighters in wing bays.

Pressing the circular button near the rear of the craft deploys the cargo bay, lifting the ship up by 40 degrees and allowing vehicles or stolen cargo pods to be rolled in, not unlike the Aliens Marine dropship.

There are a number of ground vehicles and other space vehicles in the line too, check out the Starcom Resource for more info!

"NICE SHIP- I'LL TAKE IT!"

ESCAPE!

Well after 14 months of lockdown in one form or another in England Boris has eased things enough for us to actually escape and have a weekend away in a caravan.

The Missus and me are taking Moonbase Junior to the Pennine countryside, where we get to spend two nights together away from our homes!

He's been through a lot recently so some fresh air, picnics and caravan life is our way of helping him recover his strength. His Mum, Dad and baby Junior get some peace too.

And so the bags are packed with food and Thunderbirds toys, the tuna sandwiches are made and its off we go into the wilds to sleep somewhere else!

Moonbase Mutt Blue is staying at home with our dogsitter. Being 13, he likes his creature comforts and is a bit of a home bird.

Have a great May Day weekend readers.

STARCOM ANYONE?

Starcom is a range I don't know much about. Usually I get to know toys when I find them at boot sales and then look them up. Starcom has been noticably evasive over the last 30 years of rooting in boxes. I know its very collectable. I wonder if you collect it at all readers?

Anyways, here's a brief intro I found on YT. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Fw2ZgNwlIE&list=PL_hl8S6b_Jc0TO6sJA0dUof_VPUrWpMvq&index=54

Do you like Starcom? Why?