Traveller miniatures

[JimMarn]

The problem I have had with minis is the lack of variety. I realize most companies don't want to make minis of a wide range, most of them may not sell.

Generic minis would work for me. Characters in space suits, characters not in space suits. Characters carrying different weapons, clipboards, electronic gadgets.

I haven't talked myself into buying a 3D printer yet, the ones I've liked turn out to be way beyond my budget.

I may just go with Campaign Cartographer 3's Character Artist 3. For the time being, Profantasy has gone with fantasy characters and fantasy/Middle Ages type clothes and weapons. We have requested sf and modern clothes and weapons. No idea when, if, that will come about.

CA3 does have the ability to export pong circles, heads, of characters and standees on card stock. I may go with that instead of buying a 3D printer.

My problem with buying minis online is the shipping chargers if it turns out I find the metal ones to better fit what I want.

 

[esampson]

Rather than purchasing a 3D printer there are companies that are forming that will do the printing for you. You simply upload a model to them, select the material, and they print it and ship it to you. Shapeways is the one that I am currently using with very good results.

 

[esampson]

The problem I have had with minis is the lack of variety. I realize most companies don't want to make minis of a wide range, most of them may not sell.

Generic minis would work for me. Characters in space suits, characters not in space suits. Characters carrying different weapons, clipboards, electronic gadgets. . .

Hero Forge Minis might bear watching. They are saying that they will be going into beta in the late summer and for their Kickstarter campaign they reached stretch goals for modern, sci-fi, and cyberpunk genres (among others).

 

[JimMarn]

Rather than purchasing a 3D printer there are companies that are forming that will do the printing for you. You simply upload a model to them, select the material, and they print it and ship it to you. Shapeways is the one that I am currently using with very good results.

I worry about shipping charges as I am going into retirement.

 

[Hanson's Roughriders]

Wow have a few days off and come back to a tome - it's why I love this place.

I know Eureka miniatures here in Australia does the ground zero chaps (which are true 25mm). Yet Nic the owner of Eureka has something akin to a constant kick starter. Give him reference etc and cover the cost of the first 300 and bam you got the start of a miniature line. If the line is popular (a lot of 28s are) I imagine Nic would add to the range. I say this not as a owner but as a customer of Eureka and can attest to their quality. All this aside, the sculptor Nic predominately uses Costa a gifted sculptor easily the equivalent of the famous Perry Twins.

 

[David Johansen]

I've got long term plans to do a line of science fiction figures where you get about a dozen figures of each race spread across two packs. A civilian / adventurer pack and a military pack. Heads and weapons with hands on them would be separate so you can mix and match the variety a bit. I actually prefer single piece metal figures but in order to do a wide range of races I think the minimal number of separate parts would be okay.

I sculpt moderately well but I'm no Tom Meir, nor am I Michael or Allan Perry, Marc Copplestone, Bob Olley, Julie Guthrie, or any of those folks.

More along the lines of older Bob Murch and Bob Ridolfi stuff.

Even so, it's something I'd like to do. I lean towards 1/64 = 25mm because it makes the vehicles a little smaller and sf should have lots of nice vehicles.

 

[GypsyComet]

sf should have lots of nice vehicles.

Indeed, which is why the explosion of 15mm SF in the last four years or so has been so wonderful. You get squarish military surplus from GZG, Brigade, and Combat Wombat, more rounded stuff from Critical Mass, Ravenstar, and Khurasan, smooth grav from Top Gun, and all sorts of in-betweens from Micropanzer, Ion Age (and their other lines at 15mm.co.uk), Rebel, RAFM, West Wind, and others.

 

[David Johansen]

I compiled a list once, it was huge. 15mm sf is certainly a big thing these days. But for roleplaying I'd like to see a line that supported sf the way fantasy gets supported. Six to ten races with multiple packs of figures and assorted smaller races with less support. Vehicles would be good too but I think a modular system would be better than fixed kits.

 

[Hovtej]

Larger Scale SF Miniatures

A source for larger scale pre-painted plastic SF miniatures is the Mega Bloks range of Halo figures. They are on the order of two inches (50 mm) tall in a wide range of colored armor and weapon types with several alien species. Examples are shown here:
http://www.megabloks.com/en-us/shop/construction-toys/halo/
http://www.TravellerRPG.com/CotI/Gallery/index.php?n=1694
They can be posed but that results in gaps in some of the joints. The range includes individual figures to a variety of sets and somewhat blocky (pun intended) vehicles and walkers. Toys'RUs frequently has them on discount. (There is also a series of smaller diecast metal figures 20mm / 0.8inches tall.)

 

[JimMarn]

I compiled a list once, it was huge. 15mm sf is certainly a big thing these days. But for roleplaying I'd like to see a line that supported sf the way fantasy gets supported. Six to ten races with multiple packs of figures and assorted smaller races with less support. Vehicles would be good too but I think a modular system would be better than fixed kits.

A modular kit of vehicles would definately interest me. So would a wide assortment of character/NPC races.

Those two things is one of my big gripes about minis. I realize its tough for the companies to decide what to make.

 

[jericson]

If it's the Attack Vector guys, I expect it's only a matter of time. They've been dead in the water for a couple years now. Still, I wonder if they do their own casting? If enough fans drove a big enough truckload of money up to their house and demanded they produce some Traveller minis I wonder if they would./QUOTE]

Probably, but you over estimate the market and it's demand. Heck, they couldn't get a measly 60 pre-orders for the fleet boxes. (Each)

 

[David Johansen]

I always wanted those fleets but money's been very tight for a long while now.

I suspect there's not very many Traveller fans who are even aware of them. Reaching the audience is always the hard part. Strangely enough Kickstarter for all its flaws seems to achieve this very well. Because if someone wants something enough to pony up a hundred bucks in advance, and it has to hit ten thousand to go forward they generally get motivated to put the word out to their friends.

Traveller has several serious issues when it comes to the fan base. But I suspect that the green list ships at around an inch and a half in length would do better than the big ones Mega Minis produced and the core green list ships would do better than the fleets because Traveller is primarily an rpg.

 

[esampson]

If it's the Attack Vector guys, I expect it's only a matter of time. They've been dead in the water for a couple years now. Still, I wonder if they do their own casting? If enough fans drove a big enough truckload of money up to their house and demanded they produce some Traveller minis I wonder if they would.

Probably, but you over estimate the market and it's demand. Heck, they couldn't get a measly 60 pre-orders for the fleet boxes. (Each)

That's one of the reasons that I really would like to see 3D printed models (and this isn't because I want to sell them. To be completely honest I would probably be happier if someone else was making them since I would only need to order them). No worry about pre-orders or production runs. The only reason a model would ever go out of production would be a rights issue, but if FFE owned the rights to the model that would never happen.

I would also love it if print on demand for books were to take off more (I go back and forth between electronic versions and hard copy. I suspect what I want is both, an electronic version to carry around when I want to look something up and a hard copy for when I'm actually playing). Being able to order a nice new copy of FF&S for my bookcase would totally rock.

 

[infojunky]

If it's the Attack Vector guys, I expect it's only a matter of time. They've been dead in the water for a couple years now. Still, I wonder if they do their own casting? If enough fans drove a big enough truckload of money up to their house and demanded they produce some Traveller minis I wonder if they would./QUOTE]

Probably, but you over estimate the market and it's demand. Heck, they couldn't get a measly 60 pre-orders for the fleet boxes. (Each)

Well it would help if the was a playable game to use said miniatures with. Which is AdAstra's biggest problem.

If Ship figures where available what rules would you use? Heck which set of ships would you like to see?

 

[David Johansen]

I thought they had that Full Thrust Variant available.

But personally:

For rules I'd like a toned down hybrid of Book II, Brilliant Lances, and Battle Rider.

At the core I'd go with a simple 60 degree written thrust system similar to Brilliant Lances. It keeps you guessing and gets rid of much of the nitpicky sequencing and phased movement that bogs down SFB.

I like the squadron per counter set up from Battle Rider and for fleet battles reducing the damage tracking to criticals feels right though I think drawing the damage from a cup with the no effect and ship destroyed counters going back in is a bit mean spirited.

Actual combat would probably need to map directly to T5. I'm partial to Book II but I think using hexes like Mayday would be best for most people. I like that T5 finally made big drives wear down slower than small ones, a common fault in space battle games. I would like a 3d option but honestly, the best way to do that is with a computer. Though Attack Vector's trig tables would be okay as an optional rule.

For Miniatures I think each race needs a light infantry pack, heavy infantry pack, ship's crew pack and civilian pack. Each of these should be five or six figures with separate hands and heads to allow easy customization of weapons and maximize variety while minimizing mould space. I'd suggest doing them in this order: Aslan, Vargr, Droyne, K'kree. Ideally there'd be a couple vehicle kits for each race as well.

For ships I'd want to see the free trader, far trader, patrol cruiser, yacht, scout courier, subsidized merchant, subsidized liner, corsair, safari ship, and mercenary cruiser. Ideally they'd be set up on a sliding scale where a fighter's about half an inch, a scout courier's just under an inch but a lightning class cruiser's only two inches long. It's that or needing a magnifying glass for fighters and a full table for a single battle ship. I guess you could do adventure class at 1:1200 and battle scale at 1:6000. I liked the RAFM ships but they often seemed a bit too bulky or out of scale with each other.

 

[shadowcat20]

Got ad astras Honor Harrington box and all the sups. Still trying to wrap my mind around movement years later.

If someone could come up with a more user friendly set of rules the mins would sell. Even a SFB SSD type combat system would work with some mods.

Saw an add for some decent 28Mm sci Fi station and space suite figs in a wargaming mag this month. I think the line was 7TV?

Still got as bunch of packs of Martin metal 15MMs and prefer them for the old FASA maps and AHL. (being that was the scale they were drawn to) They WERE very clunkey though. If FFE could get out Striker again with min support it could help gen min lines in 15 mm. Even if released as army books with pre made units and vehicles (kids and math today do not always mix well). Sell pre made army boxes with support unit blisters.

Sigh..got me thinking Striker again..need to break it out and make yet another stab at generating a Ogre Mk VI in striker terms.

 

[GypsyComet]

If FFE could get out Striker again with min support it could help gen min lines in 15 mm.

The RAFM line is still around (or around again), and there is now so much 15mm SF that it is hard to keep track of it all. What we are missing is a handful of Traveller specific models such as K'kree, Hivers, Ithklur, obviously military Aslan, and a vehicle or two. The rest can come out of the horde of new 15mm SF.

 

[jec10]

Khurasan Miniatures have a fantastic array of 15mm SF figures, some of which are very plausible as Traveller factions - even Aslan.

http://khurasanminiatures.tripod.com/15mmscifi-infantry.html

There is one sculpt in one of their alien mercenary bands that would be great as a K'kree, but they've never released it as a unit, just a single figure.

 

[David Johansen]

Khurasin are brilliant, best figures in the 15mm game by a long shot. But I'm bitter towards them because they don't do trade sales to retailers. Man, I could sell a tonne of Khurasin if I could get it.

 

[infojunky]

But I'm bitter towards them because they don't do trade sales to retailers.

No they there, just a He.... Khurasan is a one man, hobby operation. When he gets swamped he has to shut down sales to catch up.

Man, I could sell a tonne of Khurasin if I could get it.

Mail order, what is the problem with that?