In case anyone missed this ...

... there's currently a Kickstarter project for a Robotech miniatures game.  Robotech, of  course, is a franchise based on several anime (including Macross) that helped launch the giant stompy robot craze in the United States and was one of the inspirations for the Battletech franchise.

Palladium Books is doing the Robotech RPG Tactics game--a set of miniatures rules that comes with a whole bunch of 1/285 scale plastic mecha models.  That's the same scale (and some of the same designs) used for the Battletech game! 

While the Robotech RPG Tactics game looks interesting, I'm also thinking about all the other rules you could use these models for.  In addition to Battletech, there's Dirtside, Future War Commander, and 5150: Star Army (especially if I ever get around to writing some company-level armor rules for that game).

Go check out the various pledge levels--the game's a little costly, but you get a whole lotta minis for your money.  And if the price is too steep, you can always get some friends to chip in and then split up the goodies.  Better hurry though, the funding campaign ends on May 20--just one week left!

Hammer's Slammers

I recently reread all the Hammer's Slammers stories by fantasy and SF author David Drake.  Although he's known mainly for his military science fiction and space opera output, the author has produced quite the catalog of fantasy--both (quasi-)historical and otherwise.  However, the gritty future universe of the Slammers series has always been my favorite of his works.

I've learned a couple of things from reading these books:  The first is that war is hell.  You put armed men and deadly machines in a high-pressure situation, and someone's gonna get hurt.  Or killed.  Drake doesn't flinch from depicting what can happen to a human body in wartime.  He also doesn't hesitate to show the reader what war does to a human mind.  I've never seen combat, and thanks to this author, I hope I never do.

On a lighter note, another thing I learned from reading David Drake is that it's OK to borrow from history.  He does this all the time in his works: filing the serial numbers off the Byzantine Empire in one SF setting, or using a time of strife among Greek city states as background for another future war novel.  This is something that gamers can do when designing scenarios, and it's something I tried with my own short-lived Chancellor starship campaign.

Since the Slammers books are all about future armored combat, they make a great resource for scenarios in your sci-fi tank games.  And while there is a Hammers Slammers wargame, the encounters Drake describes would not be out of place in Dirtside, Future War Commander, or OGRE.  I'm curious; has anyone used a Slammers story as the basis for a wargame scenario?  Please share in the comments.

New MAATAC designs

Monday Knight Productions is offering some new models to accompany its range of MAATAC* minitures for the eponymous science fiction ground combat game.

According to the company's announcement on The Miniatures Page today, these are designs that were announced when the game was first published, but remained unreleased until now.  Check out the reactions in the announcement discussion thread on TMP.

These 6mm sci-fi tanks would make good proxies for some of the smaller cybertanks in OGRE/GEV.  I can also picture them in games of Battletech, Dirtside, or Future War Commander. 

Bonus MAATAC content: Miniature Review's comparision shots of MKP tanks with Progenitor and Dirtside vehicles.

*Multi-functional Armed & Armored Tactical Attack Computer