2300AD News - Progress on Invasion

[MongooseMatt]

Some good news for Travellers in the universe of 2300AD!

The manuscript for Invasion was delivered a little while ago, and it is BIG! It looks like it will end up being circa two 160pp hardbacks, either in a slipcase or as two separate books (background & campaign rules, and all the adventures). Which of these they will be may be dependent on what happens with tariffs (see thread in the General Discussion room).

The manuscript has been edited, and the author has already done the re-writes and additional material requested, and these have been edited too.

Incidentally, this campaign rocks - your Travellers will start off as farmers and end up as heroes of the French Arm, in a long-running campaign that will take them to many worlds. This may be a perfect introduction to 2300AD, if you have been looking for an entry.

The manuscript is now with the author and stat checkers for final tweaks and thoughts. All going well, it will be entering layout first thing next month, with an expected PDF/pre-order release date somewhere around August. It looks like there will be some additional material we could not sensibly fit into these books which is likely to appear as a related PDF - an entire adventure called The Relief of Novy Kyiv.

As for the the main campaign books, their contents look something like this:

Introduction
Prologue
The Campaign
Key Adventure 1: Mission Arcture
Key Adventure 2: Arrayed Against
Key Adventure 3: CAOS Reigns
Key Adventure 4: Jacques and the Beanstalk
Key Adventure 5: The Battle of Beowulf
Interlude: Welcome to Aurore
Interlude: Death of Hochbaden
Interlude: On the Run
Interlude: No Safe Place
Interlude: Wildcats
Interlude Adlerhorst
Interlude: Wellness Check
Interlude: High and Low
Interlude Sans Souci
Interlude: Crater
Interlude: Joi to the World
Interlude: The Beacon
Hidden Places and Secret Bases
Appendix A: Ships of Invasion
Appendix B: Second Directorate Alien Threat Index, November 2303
Appendix C: Equipment and Weapons
Appendix D: Animals, Aliens, and Characters
Appendix E: Station Arcture
Appendix F: Atlas of the French Arm, Abridged Edition 2301

We also have a hardback of semi-related adventures set on Nous Voila, which has had about a third written (and edited!), and is rolling on nicely. More news on that in the near future.

 

[MadBeardMan]

Oh, I'd like to see this boxed rather than slipcased, but in reality I'd love to see this done in the best format.

 

[ottarrus]

I am looking SO forward to seeing this.
The Käfer and Pentapods were two of the most original and creative species to hit sci-fi in a long, LONG time and Invasion was just an outlined skim over what should have been a major publication had GDW been in a better financial position at the time. Seeing it get a the proper treatment is going to be a real treat.

 

[Ewan]

It would be good to get some PDF support for Invsion with four to five page PDFs of the various units involved. You could start off with the French Foreign Legion and give more detail around deployments, uniforms, equipement, squad size etc.
Overall I'm really looking forward to this expansion and hopefully we see a lot more for The French Arm at war.

 

[Sigtrygg]

I'm glad they did Bayern first, even with all its flaws it is a great campaign sourcebook. The 2300AD setting has so much to offer - the pentapods, the AGRA intelligence, the Nyotekundu "psionic" find, the provolutionists.
Shame that GDW chose to ignore it all and go down the boring kafer war dead end... (I thought the moties Ylii were the most interesting thing about the kafer war)

I hope that Mongoose produces provolutionist and pentapod themed stuff sometime soon (the pentapod sourcebook manuscript from GDW days is already available for them to build on).

 

[Grognardia]

I'm glad they did Bayern first, even with all its flaws it is a great campaign sourcebook. The 2300AD setting has so much to offer - the pentapods, the AGRA intelligence, the Nyotekundu "psionic" find, the provolutionists.
Shame that GDW chose to ignore it all and go down the boring kafer war dead end... (I thought the moties Ylii were the most interesting thing about the kafer war)

I hope that Mongoose produces provolutionist and pentapod themed stuff sometime soon (the pentapod sourcebook manuscript from GDW days is already available for them to build on).

Yep - both the Kafer war and the Fifth Frontier war are quite boring to me.

 

[Sigtrygg]

I should clarify that I will definitely be buying this, I just hope it doesn't become the only focus of the game line.

 

[ottarrus]

It would be good to get some PDF support for Invsion with four to five page PDFs of the various units involved. You could start off with the French Foreign Legion and give more detail around deployments, uniforms, equipement, squad size etc.
Overall I'm really looking forward to this expansion and hopefully we see a lot more for The French Arm at war.

Yeah, I could see that.
- Describe the post-Twilight history of the unit
- Describe the unit's current doctrine, TOE, and deployment status
- And then give a company sized example with personalities, including officers, warrants [if any], NCOs and enlisted.

And not just famous units either. There are units in 2300 canon that are referred to but not examined that ought to be mixed in with the famous ones... the Texas Rifles, the Drachenzahtruppen, the Han Shan Corps, etc. I'd suggest mixing a famous unit, then a canon reference unit, then an average unit... Let's face it, most of the fighting is gonna be done by units like 1er Cie Reg't Coloniale Aurore and 3 Coy, Alician Territorial Infantry [two colonial militia units] or D Co. 2/14th Infantry [an average run of the mill infantry company in the American Army]. Yes, cover the elite units [the Legion Etranger, the Royal Marines, the 101st Atmospheric Division], but let's not forget that most wars are fought by average 'Bob'.

 

[Bense]

I ran Kafer Dawn and the other old Kafer War modules for my friends back in the late '90s. I have an entirely different regular group now, so revisiting a favorite could be wonderful.

 

[collins355]

Yeah, I could see that.
- Describe the post-Twilight history of the unit
- Describe the unit's current doctrine, TOE, and deployment status
- And then give a company sized example with personalities, including officers, warrants [if any], NCOs and enlisted.

And not just famous units either. There are units in 2300 canon that are referred to but not examined that ought to be mixed in with the famous ones... the Texas Rifles, the Drachenzahtruppen, the Han Shan Corps, etc. I'd suggest mixing a famous unit, then a canon reference unit, then an average unit... Let's face it, most of the fighting is gonna be done by units like 3 Coy, Alician Territorial Infantry [a colonial militia unit] or D Co. 2/14th Infantry [an average run of the mill infantry company in the American Army]. Yes, cover the elite units [the Legion Etranger, the Royal Marines, the 101st Atmospheric Division], but let's not forget that most wars are fought by average 'Bob'.

Support these suggestions - have done some work myself on 2300AD military units and would love to see a professional job done of it.

 

[ottarrus]

Support these suggestions - have done some work myself on 2300AD military units and would love to see a professional job done of it.

Yeah, it doesn't need to be a complete regimental history since the advent of fire, but a good background of the last 100 years would set the tone for the unit. Did they fight in the Central Asian War, and if so what were the unit's experiences?
When I served in the US Army, I arrived at my first unit in 1982. The unit had served in Vietnam and that war was only 15 years before. There was still a lingering memory in the unit even though the personnel had completely recycled 20 times or more. There's more to a unit's memories than just the experiences of individual veterans and the CAW will have undoubtedly left some 'hangover' in the units involved.

 

[MongooseMatt]

It would be good to get some PDF support for Invsion with four to five page PDFs of the various units involved.

Spooky.

There will, in fact, be a follow-on PDF to Invasion!

Basically, the author added a complete chapter that we could not sensibly fit into the books, and it is a complete adventure that includes (amongst a lot of other thing) a couple of units. Look out for The Relief of Novy Kyiv soon after the launch of Invasion

 

[MongooseMatt]

and the CAW will have undoubtedly left some 'hangover' in the units involved.

The CAW has themes that run all the way through Invasion...

 

[Condottiere]

Regimental amalgamations.

 

[Ewan]

Yeah, I could see that.
- Describe the post-Twilight history of the unit
- Describe the unit's current doctrine, TOE, and deployment status
- And then give a company sized example with personalities, including officers, warrants [if any], NCOs and enlisted.

And not just famous units either. There are units in 2300 canon that are referred to but not examined that ought to be mixed in with the famous ones... the Texas Rifles, the Drachenzahtruppen, the Han Shan Corps, etc. I'd suggest mixing a famous unit, then a canon reference unit, then an average unit... Let's face it, most of the fighting is gonna be done by units like 1er Cie Reg't Coloniale Aurore and 3 Coy, Alician Territorial Infantry [two colonial militia units] or D Co. 2/14th Infantry [an average run of the mill infantry company in the American Army]. Yes, cover the elite units [the Legion Etranger, the Royal Marines, the 101st Atmospheric Division], but let's not forget that most wars are fought by average 'Bob'.

Thats exactly what I was thinking off

 

[ottarrus]

Regimental amalgamations.

You know, I kinda wonder about that.
When we think of amalgamations we most often think of the British Army. This is because of the strength of regimental association with any given British soldier.
In modern real-world times, it's not quite as bad as it was in the Victorian era. By the time a soldier is a Sergeant they've often changed regiment to fill a billet and had to adopt different traditions and identity from the unit they went to after basic training.
300 years into the future, though, is a different thing.
I should think that Her Majesty's Government has had to re-raise regiments to govern her [again] far flung colonies. It might be that the Blues and Royals are no long deployable armored recce troops, but are now some of the last horse-trained cavalry on Earth and mostly for show. And it's just as possible that amalgamated regiments like The Gordons or the County Regiments [Glosters, Hamps, Cheshires, etc.] once again have a separate identity.
It's worth mulling over in any event.

 

[Condottiere]

If it's the cantonment system, (infantry) regiments are likely titled after their planetary recruiting district.

You'd have to define what exactly a mounted regiment does, since I would assume, except for specific environmental specialized units, they'd all have some form of mechanized ground transport.

 

[Bryn the 2300AD guy]

Dan Hebditch, whose Iraq tour prevented him writing the 2300 3rd edition, did a superb job of tracking units in prime canon and the "etrangerverse:"

Etranger: Orders of Battle

 

[ottarrus]

Dan Hebditch, whose Iraq tour prevented him writing the 2300 3rd edition, did a superb job of tracking units in prime canon and the "etrangerverse:"

Etranger: Orders of Battle

I heartily second that recommendation.
Etrangere is basic reading for anyone doing serious thinking on the militaries of 2300. You may not agree with everything [I certainly don't], but it covers most of the really important things, especially for ground military operations... Things like logistics when most supplies are delivered by drop shell and how a heavy division might be transported when most landing craft can only deliver one track at a time. OTU Traveller has a lot of magic answers that are not present in 2300, contra-gravity being the most important. There's a lot more nuts and bolts that need tightening in the 2300 milieu. The fact is, it would take most of the available shipping in the French Arm and damned near every large landing craft to get heavy division [an armored or mechanized infantry div.] to one battlefield all at once.
And full credit where it's due, it also introduces you to military organizations that are quite unfamiliar to many of us warheads. For example, while I am broadly familiar with PRC organization, I'm pretty unaware of Chinese military traditions and how those traditions would effect a non-Communist military. And these will be important if the Imperial China of 2300 deploys troops in the Käfer War.

 

[ottarrus]

If it's the cantonment system, (infantry) regiments are likely titled after their planetary recruiting district.

You'd have to define what exactly a mounted regiment does, since I would assume, except for specific environmental specialized units, they'd all have some form of mechanized ground transport.

1. I was thinking that the Blues and Royals [along with one battalion of Foot Guards] would become the Public Duties Brigade. The horses would never leave Earth. It would become rather like the US 3rd Infantry Regiment... the dedicated performers in the dog and pony shows. These guys would spend a hitch being dedicated to perfection in drill, deportment, and dress. OTOH, that doesn't mean they wouldn't have a completely serious guard function, especially the infantry.
2. As I understand the traditions, the British Regular Army has consisted of the Home Army regiments native to England with the 'colonial' regiments being Reserve or Active Reserve. Some colonies simply don't have the population or economic base to support a locally raised garrison [I'm thinking mostly of Crater] and would have to be protected by deployed units from home. If, for example, the situation on Crater gets much more stupid, I could see Her Majesty's Government deploying a regular army battalion or two to keep the peace.
3. Dan Hebditch's Etrangere postulates that the Royal Marines become an even more elite intervention force inasmuch as they are experts in every type of insertion technique AND are responsible for RN shipboard security for large vessels as well. Green tabs [beret tab badge backing] indicates a RM Cdo. terrestrial specialists [the Mountain Warfare/Arctic/Desert specialists], red tabs indicate the maritime mission sets, and black tabs are the spaceborne units]. Those lads are few and far between, so they're not likely to be deployed on a long-term peacekeeping civil assistance mission.