Miniatures

B

Brianw

Banded Mongoose
I would like to make a suggestion to Mongoose. How about commissioning a quality miniature sculpting outfit like Crippled God Foundry, for example, to sculpt ‘official’ Traveller minis. You could then either sell them as STL files or hire a company to print or cast them for you. Siocast is the hot new thing these days…

I’d kill for some proper Traveller alien species minis, especially Vargr!
 
The folks who did the big printable scout ship also have a bunch of minis available. The forum is rejecting the link as too spam-like but you can search for 2nd Dynasty on MyMiniFactory.

I’ve found a few others (like some fairly simplistic but usable Droyne) by searching Yeggi.com, and there are a number of SF-themed Patreon accounts where you can sometimes find stuff that’s not too out of place in a Traveller setting. (I have a page on gaming.drl2.com for STL resources for superhero games, which I also can’t link to, but it’s in the menu and has a lot of SF themed material mixed in.)
 
Yes, but there aren’t a ton of minis from them and the quality doesn’t match the work they do (did?) on the ships. I think they may have outsourced the minis. Also, all the Vargr are in combat poses and there are only about four Aslan if I recall.
my dream situation would be multi-part plastic sprue figures using North Star or at least just like their system. However, the initial steel molds are hella expensive. Siocast could be a better option, perhaps. 🤷‍♂️
 
Mongoose was going to have a minis line.

It would have tied into the boardgame for naval boarding actions.

It was called Vanguard. It was kickstartered and I backed it immediately. Sadly almost nobody else did (well, 179) so the campaign was pulled (after five days) and all those lovely Imperial Star Marines, Zhodani, and potentially Aslan, Vargr, Solomani, Ship's Crew, Droyne, Exotics, Pets , Ithklur, Hivers etc. sets of minis are but a dream.


Hopefully it can be resurrected to tie in with FFW :)
 
After spending hours doing research on Google, the Traveller SF RPG (Mongoose Publishing editions) Facebook page, and these forums, I have acquired about a dozen good suggestions for Traveller minatures (people and starships) in 15mm and 25/28mm scale (phsyical unpainted/pre-painted and STLs versions). I will be writing them up into a new post, and sharing as soon as I can. :)
 
Sigtrygg said:
Mongoose was going to have a minis line.

It would have tied into the boardgame for naval boarding actions.

It was called Vanguard. It was kickstartered and I backed it immediately. Sadly almost nobody else did (well, 179) so the campaign was pulled (after five days) and all those lovely Imperial Star Marines, Zhodani, and potentially Aslan, Vargr, Solomani, Ship's Crew, Droyne, Exotics, Pets , Ithklur, Hivers etc. sets of minis are but a dream.


Hopefully it can be resurrected to tie in with FFW :)
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I wish I had known about it, or given it’s fate, maybe it’s best that I didn’t… 😏
I agree, it would be awesome if they could resurrect it with the FFW line! I could be wrong, but Traveller seems more popular again, unless that’s just my perception because I’m paying attention to it again. 🤷‍♂️
 
Giorgio3025 said:
After spending hours doing research on Google, the Traveller SF RPG (Mongoose Publishing editions) Facebook page, and these forums, I have acquired about a dozen good suggestions for Traveller minatures (people and starships) in 15mm and 25/28mm scale (phsyical unpainted/pre-painted and STLs versions). I will be writing them up into a new post, and sharing as soon as I can. :)
Click to expand...
Please do, I look forward to it!
 
Giorgio3025 said:
After spending hours doing research on Google, the Traveller SF RPG (Mongoose Publishing editions) Facebook page, and these forums, I have acquired about a dozen good suggestions for Traveller minatures (people and starships) in 15mm and 25/28mm scale (phsyical unpainted/pre-painted and STLs versions). I will be writing them up into a new post, and sharing as soon as I can. :)
Click to expand...
Did you ever post anything on this?
I searched your username, but didn't find any.
 
2nd Dynasty still have some level of Traveller license; they did a Fifth Frontier War kickstarter in 2024, and have a variety of authorised Traveller digital miniatures available, as well as a large amount of 100% compatible ship fittings and miniatures. Those are the ones that have the 28mm Type S and Type A, and the tactical scale adventure class ships.

I would reccommend Anvil Industries for general science fiction. They do a range from moderns through cyberpunk to nearish-copies of franchise SF to a bit of 40K, but they are multipart (generally separate legs, torso, head and arms) and their digital minis have multi-shell available (so you can play around with components in something like Blender and digitally kitbash to get what you're after). Probably 60% of their kits are outright usable in Traveller, but all of them have useful parts.

Velrock Arts is also worth a look. He tends to hop around various media properties but is also multishell, so mixing and matching is easy. You like the look of the uniform for that soldier armed with a 40K BFG? Just edit out the gun and swap in something that looks like what you want. He has a fantasy stream as well that's still a solid resource. Many fantasy races are just aliens without automatic weapons. A hairdo that he did for an elf will work on a human. A werewolf is basically a Vargr. A humanoid lizard is a humanoid lizard.

The hero creator programs are also useful. HeroCraft, TitanCraft and so forth.

Also the entire Stargrave range.
 
rinku said:
Also the entire Stargrave range.
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Second this especially. There are people that split packs and you can buy the single sprues at close to the same cost as the cost per sprue of the main pack. That means you can mix and match. These are great for the majority of humans and some generic aliens. I am not sure if there specific Traveller aliens species analogues, but you can also combine Stargrave components with Frostgrave components and get some interesting hybrids.

A quicker route to market might be for Mongoose to approach the company and just collaborate on some sprues for the Traveller specific aliens and leveraging the existing range for the rest. Those Traveller Sprues could also include some Traveller specific weapons and equipment.
 
The issue with specific Traveller alien miniatures usually comes down to bodies, not heads. Especially if they're digitigrade, like Vargr and Aslan. And Hivers? forget it!

Number of digits can also be a sore point, although plastic (or resin) surgery can be performed.

It's... unlikely that North Star/Osprey would bother with what needs to happen to get a Traveller Alien licence going. They have their own quite successful generic SF range.

There IS a chance that they might do a sprue of aliens, with more varied torsos and legs.
 
rinku said:
The issue with specific Traveller alien miniatures usually comes down to bodies, not heads. Especially if they're digitigrade, like Vargr and Aslan. And Hivers? forget it!

Number of digits can also be a sore point, although plastic (or resin) surgery can be performed.

It's... unlikely that North Star/Osprey would bother with what needs to happen to get a Traveller Alien licence going. They have their own quite successful generic SF range.

There IS a chance that they might do a sprue of aliens, with more varied torsos and legs.
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K'kree rival the Hivers for unavailability or easy replication. Seems a long time since the Martian Metals 15mm K'kree packets were on FLGS shelves.
 
Eeh. Find some badly sculpted horses and hack the rest with lumpy clay.

I've still got a few old Wargames Factory ones that would do:

1772684961231.png
 
collins355 said:
K'kree rival the Hivers for unavailability or easy replication. Seems a long time since the Martian Metals 15mm K'kree packets were on FLGS shelves.
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There are plenty of centaur figurines around if you are prepared to kitbash to swap the weapons, however. There are even very occasional sci-fi centaurs:

1772701073885.png

Or kitbash to swap the head on something like these, for mid-tech centaurs! https://couatlshoard.com/products/c...-dragon-trappers-lodge?variant=45483836571926

Overall the options kinda suck, I admit. But way better than hivers.
 
rinku said:
The issue with specific Traveller alien miniatures usually comes down to bodies, not heads. Especially if they're digitigrade, like Vargr and Aslan. And Hivers? forget it!

Number of digits can also be a sore point, although plastic (or resin) surgery can be performed.

It's... unlikely that North Star/Osprey would bother with what needs to happen to get a Traveller Alien licence going. They have their own quite successful generic SF range.

There IS a chance that they might do a sprue of aliens, with more varied torsos and legs.
Click to expand...
Yes there would need to be torso, but that is standard orbit for the sprues. Once they are wearing armour then the difference between Aslan and Vargr would mostly be the head, so if you squint a bit then the torsos could do double duty (and be combined with the other ailen heads in the other sets to add even more variety for non-Traveller aliens.

I would think you are more likely to get someone to supplement an existing line for a box of Traveller badged sprues (that would still serve as generic aliens in other games) and a couple of moulds than to start your own line where you had to produce every sprue with the commensurate investment in moulds. With the former you can leverage the wider game, with the latter you are relying on what appears to be a limited demand signal (and those who want "real" Traveller figures are likely to have a specific (and likely widely divergent) art style in mind and whatever you choose will disaffect a lot of them)

At a pinch Frostgrave Gnolls could sub for Vargr and with a some green/put-fu Aslan.

Wargames Atlantic figures apparently are broadly compatible with X-grave minis (and they have a more diverse range as they are not catering to the specifics of a game). Sadly a lot of multipart kits that might make good donors tend to be fantasy e.g. Wargames Altlantic Satyrs, Werewolves and Lizardmen are nude and by the time you sculped on clothes/armour you could probably have sculpt the body from an armature instead. As Newts are generally seen in moisture retaining robes, you might get away with an an alternate fantasy body and a replacement head, and justa head in hood might be easier to scuplt.

K'Kree and Hiver are rather too niche and you are probably better sticking to resin (or kit bash) for those.

Of course if Traveller can be 5th edition, it could equally be Traveller-grave (or one of the other Osprey SF wargames).
Never say never.
 
Yep. And while I HAVE attempted a Hiver in TitanCraft with some success... I just gave up and bought the 2nd Dynasty ones in the end.

No 2nd Dynasty K'Kree though. But on the other hand... I have zero interest in doing anything with them anyway.

I should tackle a TitanCraft Virushi, though. Always liked those guys.

I cannot stress enough that if you want to be doing Traveller miniatures, and especially if you're doing aliens, digital is the way to go.
 
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