The NEXT STEP: Maps & Minis

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Imperator58

Mongoose
SO:
We have fantastic books. A lot of 'em.
What plans might there be for some miniatures spiff to go with them?
I don't really want metal ones... to pricy these days. But both GW and Mongoose have had good success producing high-quality, affordable plastic sets. So how about it? A pack of ten/twelve Imperial Gyrenes... ten Zhodani, or Vargr, or Aslan... frankly we don't even NEED PC miniatures, as any ol' product line will do. It's those specific types that have no real visual replacement; nothing else looks like a Zho in combat armor.
Then, there's maps & deckplans. A poster of the Marches is kinda a must-have, and I'm wondering where it's at. 25mm (28mm) deckplans of some small ships would be nice, too. Of course, I've got 'em having collected since like 1982; but new players don't. And they're a Must for boarding actions.
 
But perhaps with MTrav doing so well it would be worth fireing it back up. There are some good lines out there. I like both Stargrunts and Old Crow, but they dont have the proper specific minis.

So if the Goose would pop out a few, I for one will be all over them.
 
Some of the GZG minis are very Travelleresque. There is a Stargrunt that looks similar to an Imperial Marine and some of the vehicles are very nice. There is a line of future Arabic soldiers that could pass for Zho.

But, aliens are lacking.

I too would love to see a line of Traveller minis done in plastic like WotC. I hate the randomn packs, but if that was a way to get Mongoose to make a profit off them, so be it. I would love to open such a pack to find such things as a Free Trader Captain, Aslan Warrior, Vargr Scout, and an Air/Raft.
 
Traveller minis. . . maybe. We are certainly looking at them.

As for deckplans, stayed tuned for an announcement _very_ soon (they will be pretty funky!).
 
I think the old "official" Traveller minis where 15mm (please correct me if I am wrong). I still have a few floating around......some where. :)

TT.
 
Terrible Tim said:
I think the old "official" Traveller minis where 15mm (please correct me if I am wrong). I still have a few floating around......some where. :)
Click to expand...

Yup. I have a 35L crate half full of painted and unpainted beaten up Traveller minis. Martian Metals, Rafm, Grenadier ... all 15mm. I think TNE flirted with 25mm so there may be some of those around (I ain't got any as I stuck with 15s). The biggest problem was finding 15mm vehicles (I had an air/raft but that was about it). Try running a shoot out in an underground parking garage with no vehicle minis. With GZG that may have changed, I've not checked recently.

One thing to note: 15mm scale uses 1/2 inch squares (not 15mm squares) and 25mm scale uses 1 inch squares. :shock: This can confuse non-Americans, including Games Workshop. Someone explained the reasoning once but it's still whacked whichever way you look at it.

And talking of minis, there were some ship minis by GDW ... Type A2, Type-T, etc ... back in the day. And currently don't forget the ship minis by Ad Astra.
 
Terrible Tim said:
I think the old "official" Traveller minis where 15mm (please correct me if I am wrong). I still have a few floating around......some where. :)

TT.
Click to expand...
There have been official Traveller figures done in both 15mm and "real" 25mm in the past. Both scales show up on ebay every once in a while.

Daniel
 
Nice stuff, thanks for the links... I may just buy some things from MegaMinis... Their bots would be great for a Paranoia game..

Oh, MegaMinis is now just an eBay store... http://stores.ebay.com/MegaMiniatures
 
msprange said:
Traveller minis. . . maybe. We are certainly looking at them.

As for deckplans, stayed tuned for an announcement _very_ soon (they will be pretty funky!).
Click to expand...


SHIPS SHIPS SHIPS !

No harsh to ad astra, but we need adventure class ships in 1/1300-1/1500 scale !!!!!!!!!
 
I am going to be making some modular deck stuff for my Traveller campaign using Hirst Arts molds. He has a nice line of sci-fi molds for walls and decks. I will post some pic's of the stuff I come up with in a few weeks at the earliest, I am ordering the molds at the start of next week.
 
captainjack23 said:
No harsh to ad astra, but we need adventure class ships in 1/1300-1/1500 scale !!!!!!!!!
Click to expand...

2mm figs, eh?

Try between 1:125 and 1:60 are normative for minis.

(1:120 is about 15mm, 1:62 is roughly 30mm.)

1/1500 puts a 60m ship at 40mm (1.6")
 
Hemdian said:
One thing to note: 15mm scale uses 1/2 inch squares (not 15mm squares)
Click to expand...

Though 15mm squares are a better fit than 1/2 inch, IMHO.

I draw all my miniature scale plans and layouts in 1/100 scale.
 
-Daniel- said:
Terrible Tim said:
I think the old "official" Traveller minis where 15mm (please correct me if I am wrong). I still have a few floating around......some where. :)

TT.
Click to expand...
There have been official Traveller figures done in both 15mm and "real" 25mm in the past. Both scales show up on ebay every once in a while.

Daniel
Click to expand...

And only two Hivers where ever done..... It just ain't right.
 
msprange said:
Traveller minis. . . maybe. We are certainly looking at them.

As for deckplans, stayed tuned for an announcement _very_ soon (they will be pretty funky!).
Click to expand...

Why this hasn't attracted any attention on the thread is beyond me; I'm waiting with bated breath! Cool!!

Now then, I know a cooouple things about minis...
The original Traveller standard was 15mm. Made good sense, really, as Traveller was about scale; you trying to board and take over a 900-ton Chameleon-class commerce raider? In 25mm you'd need a dedicated ping-pong table. But in 15mm, a regular dining-room table is fine. Martian Metals was the first licencee I know about, and there were adventurers, Vargr, Aslan, marines, vehicles and - yes - Zhodani. 15mm also gives a lot for the money, so the boxes had like twenty minis in each, but were cheap. Then, Citadel started making them and they were a lil' chunkier but still actually looked better.
Deckplans were also made, and FASA was probably the most prolific. Adventure Class Ships 1 & 2 had ten each on five double-sided sheets, all less than 1000 tons. Aslan Mercenary Ships and Merchant Ships were bigger vessels for the most part, so took multiple sheets. The latter two are a lot rarer but, happily, not as cool. These all came with chits to use in lieu of minis, if needed.
BUT, folks just like 25mm. So Grenadier got the license for these and produced four exquisite boxed sets: Imperial Marines, Adventurers, Alien Mercenaries and Alien Animals. With TNE, FASA produced a few blisterpacks, including a trio of Aslan. No Zhos, though, that I know of - thought there was a pack of Zho combat robots. with the minis, Seeker produced a number of deckplan folios, most of which came with 25mm "cardboard heroes." Currently, MegaMiniatures a has a small line, the only ones currently in production. They're good folks. Just bought a trio of K'kree.
Throughout, of course, there were other producers. Judge's Guild, f'rinstance, has made a MASSIVE amount of traveller stuff of all descriptions.
And finally: Ships. Yep, they were done, but not all; the Fighter, my Safari Ship and the (seemingly critical) Corsair were among those never produced. The lines never seemed to quite get off the ground, which is too bad as what was made was really nice. I think I have all of them - a couple examples in some cases. I believe the newest incarnation has just three offerings: a Scout, a Free Trader, and a Pinnace.
 
I'm a 25mm fan when it comes to painting minis, they look much better. But, I don't have time to paint much like I did in my youth (i'm 40). So, I also would like any future Traveller pre-painted plastic minis to be in 15mm. As Imperator said, this allows for more bang for your buck, less space on the gaming table, and vehicles to be more feasible.

There may be non-Traveller players who would be interested also in these, since Wizards already has the market covered in 25mm plastics. If some of the minis are generic enough, I think there is a market for smaller cheap plastic 15mm minis for the generic tabletop miniature battle market out there. I'm not talking Warhammer, etc that have their own minis, I mean the many generic sci-fi/modern miniature rulebooks out there.

Put them in randomn packs like Wizards backed by a "Striker" rules set for purely non-RPG battles, and I think they will be gobbled up by Traveller RPGers and miniature battlefield commanders.

I have and prefer my Traveller 25mm metal collection, but I don't think it would be as economically feasible for Mongoose to go along these lines. 15mm is a niche that hasn't been filled lately, has many potential customers, and the collectible/randomn nature of the Wizards-style box sets would lead to a higher profit in my opinion.
 
15mm is supposed to be 1/100, so plans drawn to that should work just fine. Axis and Allies recently changed thier minis to 15mm from 1/144. They seem to be moveing better now, but of course that is just my local observation.

And yes pre-painted plastics would be outstanding. My experience with DDM is that random doesnt matter all that much when you buy in goodly numbers of packs. I didnt buy packs, I bought cases. And travminis would certainly be the same all over again.
 
Actually, 15mm is roughly 180cm:1.5cm, or 170:1.5 depending on measure being top of head or eyes, and it is in either case to bottom of feet.

1/100 is actually a bit large for 15mm. (tho 1.5m:12.6mm was ground scale for GDW maps... 1/2inch=1.5m... that's also about 1/120)

See also
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miniature_figure_%28gaming%29#Scales
 
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