Does anyone remember the War of the Worlds computer game ?

Really. They both work for the GW spin off Warlord Games, are authors of a number of rules, including the popular Black Powder (Priestley) and of coarse Bolt Action, worked by both Rick & Cavatore as well as Hicks and others. In fact, Warlord looks so much like GW because all but Bob Naismith (I think) are former GW folks. They have the same high prices and are rapidly expanding into all periods including futuristic - in fact they're doing much better than GW especially in USA these days. GW never really captured the historical gaming periods, probably due to the lack of talent of their systems designers like Rick and Alessio. I'm really doing 'water under the bridge', one has to wonder if AD would have gone anywhere without their imput - but, also, once they found better pastures with Warlord, the fix was in. In truth I'm a bit bitter about them if only because the format for GW and now Warlord is overpriced, tons of rule books to play, and grabbing up the industry in a pricey grip. But, then I'm mad. Crazy. There does seem to be some connections no? Okay, I'm off the soapbox. Sorry.

Concur with your comments about GW changing codices and models too quickly, probably to generate more sales. Got so annoyed about it I stopped playing 40K for 4 years and only got back into it recently through a gaming league. I'm not enamored of new stuff like psychic phases and 'mysterious terrain' so am selling off the bulk of my 40K stuff to make room for AQotMF.

The point of my observations was that there exists a population of people interested in the Victorian Sci-fi genre. True, the folks into the cosplay part of steampunk may not be interested in a game, but the cosplayers are not the only ones at a convention. And the readership of the Victorian Sci-fi genre appears to be sufficient to keep publishers cranking out product. Perhaps I should not have used "steampunk" as shorthand for Victorian Sci-fi.

It is true that the molds themselves may have been recycled, but the numerical control files to machine them are probably in storage. The actual cutting of new molds is nowhere nearly as long or slow (=expensive) as doing the design, programming, test shots and correcting. Exactly who owns what part of the IP is a contractual matter.

Molds for the metal centrifugal(spin) casting are usually a hard, high temp rubber. They are quite durable and inexpensive compared to injection molds.

The citation of SPACE 1889 is a very interesting example. Game Designers Workshop released it in 1988 with followon products over a few years, GDW went out of business in 1996. Fan support of the design kept the franchise alive since the mid-1990's and in 2014 a new line of SPACE 1889 books were released for the role playing game. In the years since 1996, a couple of manufacturers kept selling miniatures for the SPACE 1889 games, although under new names.

And the eBay psycho will find himself in possession of his overpriced stuff for a very long time. Unless PT Barnum's law applies...

Re: GW -- I too have been burned several times by GW's launch-and-abandon approach to obsoleting game components. I now buy only those GW items that I intend to use just for the model itself, not for the game anymore.

Was i right about lines of pylons strung together to snare tripods?

It's been a long while since I played Human, but there were some defences that the Humans could use. I've attached an image of the build lists from the manual, which show wire walls, mined wire walls and wire fence. You can also see a number of videos on YouTube if you search for War of the Worlds PC Game.

Maybe an admin can advise with this - all I did was use the "add image to post" button?