I’m not sure if Crossroads was a “thing” outside of the West Midlands ATV region but it formed an unfortunately essential part of late evening viewing in the 60’s 70’s and 80’s. Famed for its wooden acting, frequently forgotten lines and most importantly it’s wobbly sets it is still fondly remembered in some quarters as the only show where Brummies were able to hear themselves on TV. It brought us memorable characters like Benny the woolly hat wearing simpleton and the gorgeous Miss Diane.
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| I’ve just discovered there was even a board game - though I think bored game would be a better term. |
Anywhoo the thing to focus on here is the wobbly sets aspect because a few nights ago I knocked up a few of my own. The Trekhulk test game I conducted recently has been quite a success but I felt a bit restricted by its parent Space Hulks single width corridors and overall lack of a 3D feel.
While getting ready to set up my next VSF game I noticed I had a large amount of foam board in stock, some wide blue masking tape and a lot of unused mdf bases in various shapes and sizes. A little light bulb went on in my head and by 2am in the morning I’d mocked up this load of cobblers - VSF game totally forgotten.
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| Rear of the bridge with turbo lift access. Foam board sticky blue tape and some unused mdf bases. The doors were made out of MS Word shapes and the LCARS terminals were resized off the inter web and printed out. |
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| Front view of the bridge showing helm, navigation and the ships viewscreen. I’d been wondering what to do with that big oval base for ages! |
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| Main engineering with its upturned yoghurt pot and doohickey warp core. The corridors and rooms are all separate and can be repositioned into different layouts. |
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| Transporter room 1. |
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| You can never have enough corridors going nowhere! |
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| Same stuff - different angle |
Now it ain’t pretty and to be honest it’s as rough as a bears arse, but as semi disposable 3D Star Trek terrain it’ll do for test purposes. I took the decision from the off that new rules without hexes or squares would be required, placing my new Tactical Trek in proper skirmish territory.
I’ll let you know how I get on, when I’ve finished the shuttle bay and run a game.
Toodle ooh.
It looks really cool mate - maybe a bit rough in your opinion but pretty good for instant terrain if you ask me! I assume the 2pm in the morning only happens in West Wales....is it 2am everywhere else??
ReplyDeleteLol. Just checking you were paying attention!
DeleteBTW we had Crossroads on Grampian TV but it was 630pm, (in the evening......) not late evening - fortunately my parents were too "educated" to watch any soaps, so we avoided that horror in our youth! The Onedin Line etc was more our sort of thing :)
DeleteThe layout looks really good and with little or no painting.
ReplyDeleteThanks Peter, I deliberately kept the decor minimal since I’m still not sure if the overall things a keeper. Gets the job done I suppose.
DeleteA perfect capture of the subject, a job well done.
ReplyDeleteThanks Norm. Ever a kind word.
DeleteI have to disagree. It is very pretty and looks very smooth! :)
ReplyDeleteVery clever and elegant, no painting required, light and very sci-fi.
Inspiring!
Cheers Ben, there is definitely a point I think where you can put too much clutter into the mix making it nice to look at but hard to position the miniatures. I might still be a bit on the sparse side at the moment.
DeleteAh! Crossroads. The Benny hat and unrequited love for “Miss Diane”, the matriarchal Noelle Gordon, love interest and rugged suave slick catalogue men in suits ... a formative influence on puzzled children, the teatime Neighbours influence of the 70s ...
ReplyDelete*
Spot on Mark. It sort of was te tea time neighbours wasn’t it?! Poor old Benny and his unrequited love for miss Diane. Tragic.
DeleteThat looks so cool. It looks better than any SF terrain I ever use, which is often just made up from stuff I can find around the house. I keep meaning to quickly build some corridors and rooms but never get around to it. You have shown that you can get something perfectly fine in not that long a time!
ReplyDeleteThe thing is Shaun it was also very cheap. Everything I used was already lying about and I suspect would’ve cost no more than £15 in total.
DeleteGreat work there and it looks fine to me as is, with that almost classic '70's white sci-fi interior. Crossroads Motel seems to remind of watching it when I was off school sick. That can be the only reason for watching it as it was awful from what little I can remember!
ReplyDeleteHi Steve, yes it was awful, but maybe so awful it’s almost good, if that’s possible.
DeleteMost impressive, and at little or no cost. How about Crossroads character names for your combatants? Chief Engineer Benny could be fun!
ReplyDeleteHi David, the lack of cost was the driving factor on this one, that and the ability to use up a load of bits ‘n’ pieces.
DeleteWell who could ignore a blog post title like that JBM, straight away I thought 'He's off again' (but in a good way!). I really like it, it works so well and captures that 70's Sci-Fi look perfectly, I know because I recently re watched UFO where they all walk around sets like that in tight fitting outfits smoking huge cigars on Moonbase Alpha ( and the men were no better). Nothing like messing around with foamboard it's so easy to cut and stick. Really like the oval screen and the little seats, great stuff.
ReplyDeleteHi Lee, UFO was one of my all time fave programmes when I was a kid. I seem to remember considering them both as a bit passée during the “sophisticated” 80’s and 90’s but I watched them all again recently and have now mentally rebadged them as “classic”. They are certainly a fantastic example of how far our cultural attitudes to things like women and smoking have changed, even in our own lifetime.
DeleteSplendid looking terrain JBM…
ReplyDeleteFoam board is a wonderful stuff and probably stronger than the sets on Crossroads.
I remember it being revived in the early 2000’s… this time produced and filmed mostly round Nottinghamshire they even closed the end of our road to do some filming…it was just like living in Hollywood… not!
Crossroads did however spawn the wonderful series Acorn Antiques…
I definitely think that Benny and Miss Diane should make an appearance in your next adventure…
All the best. Aly
I’ve got to wonder who the hell had the gall to pitch resurrecting this to the TV execs, and which execs were stupid enough to say yes!
DeleteI’m going to look up this later incarnation on the inter webs and see if I can spot you passing by in the background…lol.
Excellent bit of set building, coat of paint it wouldn't look like a mock up,but it looks ace already, I like the cost too!
ReplyDeleteBest Iain
Cheers Iain, I deliberately kept it simple because I didn’t want to lavish too much time and effort on something that might not get used over much. Cost was also a very important factor - I had to pay for the central heating oil that week - 600 litres…yoiks!
DeleteI like it. If you need more clutter stand alone items can be dropped in. As for Crossroads it was required viewing in Mrs E's halls of residence when we first met. I think it was some sort of masochistic death cult to prepare them for a life of teaching. It didn't work, nothing can prepare a body for that.
ReplyDeleteSorry about the crossroads thing - it was definitely Birmingham’s attempt at payback for all the years of mockery we’d sustained.
DeleteStand alone clutter - yep I’ve acquired some from dear old Mr Crook. It just needs painting up before I can deploy it.