Friday, August 31, 2012

Empress Marava Class Far Trader 15mm Deck plans

In the tradition of 15mm Traveller miniature gaming, many of the original supplements surrounded actions aboard starships where, presumably, there was an awful lot actions aboard star ships.  Surprise inspections by PDF (Planetary Defense Forces), raids by mercenaries with letters or Marque or simply pirates looking to take what there was to be had were the "normal" actions and in some cases the PC's were the pirates!

Empress Catherine Deckplan imageOne of the ships which we had attacked was a Marava class far trader.  At the time we had had to create our own deck plans for this class of ship based on the drawing that was available in the later Traveller Book.

Thankfully, there are a number of new applications available that have allowed this great ship's deckplans and her variants to become available for use with the usual deckplans already available in Snapshot or Azhanti High Lightning.



Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Dedication and mission statement

This blog is a thank you and a tribute to Marc Miller, Frank Chadwick, John Harshman and Loren Wiseman for all that they had created in the Traveller game and background.  This is intended to become an inspiration, source for deckplans, 15mm and Traveller news and all things 15mm Sci F gaming for everyone who wants to embrace the new T5 project and/or continue the original 15mm sci-fi traditions in true Traveller style!
 
Like many my age, we had begun playing Traveller back in the days when it was first released in 1977.  I had played my first game using 15mm miniatures (Martian Metals) at the Golden Dragon game store; the same store where I had been introduced to Traveller.

That game store was run by a husband/wife team, named Steve and Sue, and I am eternally grateful for the experiences that they had steered me towards.  I am sure that many of you recall the excellent games produced by GDW: Asteroid (although not specifically Traveller), Snapshot, Azhanti High Lightning and of course Striker!

There are many great works contained within the original 'cannon' Traveller series and many addon works produced by other companies as well.  Many of the works produced for the MegaTraveller time frame were also well written and contained many imaginative illustrations for people, places, vehicles and creative alien species to help spark the occasional stumped GM as well as the player's imagination.









With all of the work put into producing the many supplements for playing Taveller in 15mm,   Supplements such as Snapshot, Adventure Class Ships Volume 1, Adventure Class Ships Volume 2, Aslan Mercenary Ships, ISCV: King Richard, ISCV: Leander, ISPMV: Fenris, ISPMV: Tethys, Merchant Class Ships and Start Port Module 1: Hotel Complex, it is somewhat surprising that it had taken till the first part of the 21 century for the 15mm sci-fi scale to finally catch on as a d-facto standard.

Thankfully, today we have many talented sculptors, far better technology (such as 3D printing) for rapid prototyping and much better techniques for producing fantastic miniatures for use in our RPG or miniature games set in the Traveller universe!

Cheers
Scott