Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Squirrel - Vargr distraction.
Fox - What does he say?
Fox - What does he say?
A Traveller Miniatures Game?!!
- Thread starter TrippyHippy
- Start date
steve98052
Mongoose
I can see two general categories of miniatures for Traveller -- and gaming in general, but this is Traveller territory.
One is for wargame style conflicts -- maybe a mercenary campaign going into battle, maybe just a straight out wargame.
The other is for situations where regular campaign characters get into a situation that gets rough -- maybe a fistfight in a tavern, maybe a quick fight like showing muggers that they picked the wrong people to mess with, maybe a weird predatory (or non-predatory but aggressively territorial) alien animal, and maybe a big time shootout.
In the first case, you want lots of soldiers of just a few types -- kind of like Warhammer 40k, but with gauss rifles or ACRs or primitive weapons, instead of stick bombs and combat chainsaws and grenade launchers the size of motorcycles. The variety of units comes from different tech levels that might come into a conflict, and from the alien races, not from much individuality in the units. A light, higher technology human army would be a bunch of men with gauss rifles, a bunch of women with gauss rifles a few people with support weapons, some specialists, and some officers with sidearms or maybe a cutlass. They might face off against a low technology army of pikemen and some mechanical artillery. Or Droyne warriors armed with little more than hand grenades and the ability to cloud humans' minds with psionics.
By contrast, player characters want to be individuals. You might have a man with a broadsword, a woman with a shotgun, a Vargr with a flamethrower, an Aslan female with some fancy sensors, an Aslan male armed with nothing but his dewclaws, and an undercover Zhodani in a business suit. And in a fight, they might end up against an equally varied crowd of thugs -- or police, if the player characters are on the wrong side of the law.
One is for wargame style conflicts -- maybe a mercenary campaign going into battle, maybe just a straight out wargame.
The other is for situations where regular campaign characters get into a situation that gets rough -- maybe a fistfight in a tavern, maybe a quick fight like showing muggers that they picked the wrong people to mess with, maybe a weird predatory (or non-predatory but aggressively territorial) alien animal, and maybe a big time shootout.
In the first case, you want lots of soldiers of just a few types -- kind of like Warhammer 40k, but with gauss rifles or ACRs or primitive weapons, instead of stick bombs and combat chainsaws and grenade launchers the size of motorcycles. The variety of units comes from different tech levels that might come into a conflict, and from the alien races, not from much individuality in the units. A light, higher technology human army would be a bunch of men with gauss rifles, a bunch of women with gauss rifles a few people with support weapons, some specialists, and some officers with sidearms or maybe a cutlass. They might face off against a low technology army of pikemen and some mechanical artillery. Or Droyne warriors armed with little more than hand grenades and the ability to cloud humans' minds with psionics.
By contrast, player characters want to be individuals. You might have a man with a broadsword, a woman with a shotgun, a Vargr with a flamethrower, an Aslan female with some fancy sensors, an Aslan male armed with nothing but his dewclaws, and an undercover Zhodani in a business suit. And in a fight, they might end up against an equally varied crowd of thugs -- or police, if the player characters are on the wrong side of the law.
G. K. Zhukov
Banded Mongoose
Anyway, Matt should have mentioned some news by now... Any developments worth anticipating, Mr, Sprange?
G. K. Zhukov
Banded Mongoose
And here it is:
State of the Mongoose Jan 12, 2018
Traveller Miniatures Game: This idea has been pushed around for a few years, and we now know where we are going with it. The ‘strategic’ idea is to produce a handful of self-contained Traveller miniatures games over the next few years, rather than try to dive straight in with a 40k-kicking open table game (that would not work anyway).
The first of these will be a game that focusses on boarding actions, whereby two forces (Imperium and Aslan in the main box set) attack and defend a ship. The hook here is that you do not just play through a list of set scenarios but instead engage in a complete mini-campaign where each player allocates resources to attack or defend vital areas of the ship such as the bridge or engineering. These decisions then affect the battles fought through the ship’s corridors as the boarding action succeeds or is defeated.
All the miniatures will be done in plastic, drawing upon our experience with Starship Troopers, and the range will be intentionally limited – at this time we are planning on the main box set (which really will contain everything you need to play, including the corridor sections of the ship and campaign rules) with additional single sets adding a fixed number of new forces, such as Vargr and Zhodani. It will be fast, frantic and, hopefully, a lot of fun!
As for when? Well, we kind of have this pencilled in for development at the end of the year, so it will be 2019 before it appears in stores. However, we also have a lot of big projects this year and, as always, we won’t release this until we are sure it is ready. We just want you all to know that your cries for a Traveller miniatures game have been heard and we are on the case.
We will get to it all, I promise. What I hope is clear is that Traveller has a very, very bright future, and we hope you will all join us as we continue to push back the boundaries of Charted Space.
State of the Mongoose Jan 12, 2018
Traveller Miniatures Game: This idea has been pushed around for a few years, and we now know where we are going with it. The ‘strategic’ idea is to produce a handful of self-contained Traveller miniatures games over the next few years, rather than try to dive straight in with a 40k-kicking open table game (that would not work anyway).
The first of these will be a game that focusses on boarding actions, whereby two forces (Imperium and Aslan in the main box set) attack and defend a ship. The hook here is that you do not just play through a list of set scenarios but instead engage in a complete mini-campaign where each player allocates resources to attack or defend vital areas of the ship such as the bridge or engineering. These decisions then affect the battles fought through the ship’s corridors as the boarding action succeeds or is defeated.
All the miniatures will be done in plastic, drawing upon our experience with Starship Troopers, and the range will be intentionally limited – at this time we are planning on the main box set (which really will contain everything you need to play, including the corridor sections of the ship and campaign rules) with additional single sets adding a fixed number of new forces, such as Vargr and Zhodani. It will be fast, frantic and, hopefully, a lot of fun!
As for when? Well, we kind of have this pencilled in for development at the end of the year, so it will be 2019 before it appears in stores. However, we also have a lot of big projects this year and, as always, we won’t release this until we are sure it is ready. We just want you all to know that your cries for a Traveller miniatures game have been heard and we are on the case.
We will get to it all, I promise. What I hope is clear is that Traveller has a very, very bright future, and we hope you will all join us as we continue to push back the boundaries of Charted Space.
TrippyHippy
Emperor Mongoose
What scale was Starship Troopers? Or Judge Dredd for that matter? Probably gives a bit of a hint anyway.
G. K. Zhukov
Banded Mongoose
TrippyHippy said:
Those were 28mm ("heroic 25mm").
If the new Traveller boarding action game uses that same scale, we could have the very first Aslan minis that size (you can find Vargr proxies, but finding Aslan is another matter entirely)..
But let's not forget that Traveller has almost always been a 15mm issue (with the exception of RAFM series of TNE "true 25mm" figures), so who knows what the scale of the new Mongoose minis will be?
G. K. Zhukov said:
I have plenty in 15mm... What I could use are some Aslan and Vargr in full environment suits.
G. K. Zhukov said:
15mm works well with the 1/2 inch grid of the large scale deckplans from Azhanti High Lightning, Snapshot and the FASA deckplans.
Note you are confusing licensee's Grenadier did the set in "true" 25mm, RAFM did the 28mm figures for TNE.
G. K. Zhukov
Banded Mongoose
Infojunky said:
Well, I have quite a bunch of those RAFM (and Grenadier) minis, and I can assure you they are not compatible in size with the newer "heroic" 28mm castings that have become the standard of this industry since then. I'll try to post some pics later.
Denizen sci-fi range (the source for those magnificent zhodani proxies) are in the same bag that RAFM and Grenadier.
G. K. Zhukov said:
Yah, I know, but 28mm when they came out and 28mm now are two different critters.
G. K. Zhukov said:
I found the RAFM figures to be rather hit and miss in that respect, but it has been so long since I owned any. I switched to 15mm solely years ago. Funny thing is I still can get new figures to match the Traveller License figs with no problems. Note the Denizen Venturians are available in 15mm from Darkest Star Games, as well as some nice Vargr. Aslan and Droyne one still needs to go to RAFM.
G. K. Zhukov
Banded Mongoose
Infojunky said:
You can also find some 15mm Ventaurans/Venturians from Eureka Miniatures (Australia), They sort of kickstarted them some years ago:
http://eurekamin.com.au/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=ventauran&x=0&y=0
G. K. Zhukov
Banded Mongoose
Here is a quick scale comparison. Left to right: 1. Reaper Minis Nova Corp soldier, 2. Mongoose Street Judge (both "heroic 28mm"), 3. RAFM TNE RC Marine in light battledress and 4. Denizen Ventauran (the latter two in "True 25mm" scale, same size as Grenadier original 25mm castings). Note the difference in size, easily appreciated between the two middle figures.
G. K. Zhukov said:Here is a quick scale comparison. Left to right: 1. Reaper Minis Nova Corp soldier, 2. Mongoose Street Judge (both "heroic 28mm"), 3. RAFM TNE RC Marine in light battledress and 4. Denizen Ventauran (the latter two in "True 25mm" scale, same size as Grenadier original 25mm castings). Note the difference in size, easily appreciated between the two middle figures.
The image isn't showing up. Right-clicking and choosing "View Image" takes me login.live.com and prompts me to log in to Microsoft Live.
G. K. Zhukov
Banded Mongoose
Hakkonen said:
I modified the image hosting to imgur. Please let me know if it is visible for you now. Thanks!
