More Avarians from Gonsalvo

I'm always happy to link to photos of other peoples Starfleet Wars/Galactic Knights miniatures, so without further ado, I present more of Gonsalvo's Avarian fleet.  Of particular interest to me is this Vulture-class galactic attack carrier, a model I don't own.  Go on over to Gonsalvo's blog and check out the rest of the photos.

Photo from Blunders on the Danube blog.

I should also mention that Gonsalvo is one of the players in my Chancellor campaign, and his stellar cruiser wing is about to take part in the Battle of Vertex, which we plan on gaming this week because we actually have enough players lined up.  I'm looking forward to moderating this battle, the largest yet under the SfW rules, and it should be a good time.

My minis--not as pretty as Gonsalvo's.

Meanwhile, as you can see, I need to get my remaining Avarians painted up.  I won't need them all for this battle, but I might need more of them in the future.  These ship models are all based, but it was raining after work on Monday and I wasn't able to primer these bad boys like I'd hoped.  I need to get a move on; I don't want the players getting wet paint on their fingers if they pick up one of my starship minis.

A small adventuring party

We finally returned to the Hill Cantons this weekend, our first tabletop campaign session since before Thanksgiving.  There were five player characters: a thief, magic-user, druid, amazon fighter and a "fighter" with some thiefly abilities.  We also had two secondary characters (fighter and cleric), an animal companion (wolf as played by the leopard mini) for the druid, our longtime henchman, a newly hired man-at-arms, a new porter, a new and very nervous torchbearer, and our usual twin brother teamster team, along with seven horses and two mules (we had to leave the wagon when the trail got too rough).  Seemed like we had a half-mile-long train when we had to go single file.

  We had so many people, we actually ended up using one of the corridor dungeon tiles as a movement tray as we explored the cave complex we were searching for.  We didn't know what to expect, so we brought lots of help.

Turns out we didn't need it.  When we finally located the demon-guarded treasure we sought, only three of our party went to take on the infernal creature.  We dispatched it relatively easily thanks to a Chime of Banishment, but the cold spirit that appeared when we tried to take the treasure literally froze one of our party members in his tracks.  We still managed to get away with the loot and all our characters, so it was a successful, if crowded, run.

Sunday Starships: The Battle of Vertex

The Chancellor campaign will soon see its first battle!  In a sequence of events that couldn't have worked out better if I'd planned it, the eponymous Terran SGDN and part of the Avarian Homeworld Fleet both wandered into hex 0506, just as an Avarian supply convoy entered that same hex on its way to the safety of the nearby Vertex system in hex 0505.

Since I was unable to procure any captains to game out the battle on the tabletop this weekend, we'll try to play the scenario sometime this week.  Meanwhile, I will share the order of battle.  Kudos to Avarian admirals dathbain and Gonsalvo for some great spaceship names!  

AVARIANS
Homeworld Flight Leader (Gonsalvo)
Condor-class Galactic Dreadnought Phoenix 

Homeworld Cruiser Wing (Gonsalvo)
Falcon-class Stellar Cruiser Millennium Falcon
Falcon-class Stellar Cruiser Maltese Falcon
Falcon-class Stellar Cruiser Falcon Crest
Falcon-class Stellar Cruiser Atlanta Falcon
Falcon-class Stellar Cruiser The Falcon
Falcon-class Stellar Cruiser Peregrine Falcon


Gatherer Flight Escort Wing (dathbain)
Hawk-class Stellar Destroyer Tigermoth
Hawk-class Stellar Destroyer Warhawk
Hawk-class Stellar Destroyer Stormcrow
Hawk-class Stellar Destroyer Silverwing

Gatherer Flight Transport Wing (dathbain)
Ostrich-class Galactic Transport Lightclaw
Ostrich-class Galactic Transport Fleeting Star
Emu-class Galactic Transport EMU9712 (new from factory; no official name)
Emu-class Galactic Transport Red Gizzard
Emu-class Galactic Transport Broken Wing
Emu-class Galactic Transport Arrow IV
Turkey-class Galactic Transport Proud Strut
Turkey-class Galactic Transport Silent Runner
Turkey-class Galactic Transport Foul Haul
Turkey-class Galactic Transport Wiggly Waddle
Turkey-class Galactic Transport Star Gazer II
Turkey-class Galactic Transport Quiet Matron
Turkey-class Galactic Transport Payday
Turkey-class Galactic Transport Queen's Stash
Turkey-class Galactic Transport Quill
Turkey-class Galactic Transport Down Transit 

TERRANS (Matcg)
Victory-class Super Galactic Dreadnought Chancellor

Traveller on your phone

I don't usually post about electronic games, but because of the local connection and the game involved, I thought this was worth sharing.  The Austin American-Statesman reports a pair of brothers has ported the Traveller role-playing game to the iPhone and iPad.  From the article:

From Austin American-Statesman

When they were children, brothers Tony and Kieran Howlett were big fans of Traveller, a pen-and-paper game similar to Dungeons & Dragons that was released in the 1970s.

Thirty-five years and two attempts later, they've released their own version of the space-themed game for decidedly modern devices — the iPad and iPhone.

"Traveller AR" is a massively multiplayer online game, in which players can battle one another in flight combat. And like its old-school predecessor, there's a heavy choose-your-own-adventure element, with players able to explore, battle or trade virtual goods.

In an interesting take on crowdsourcing, the article states, the developers will allow players to create their own missions as a reward for exploring distant parts of the setting.  I'm glad I don't have an iPhone--I'm already distracted enough with all my other toys--because I'm sure this game would become a huge time sink.

Old Starfleet Wars demographics & distributor info

Between the eras of Superior Models and Monday Knight Productions, a business called Game Masters was selling the Starfleet Wars and MAATAC lines of models and rules.  While that company's website is dead, the Internet Wayback Machine allows us to conjure up its ghost to tell us secrets of the past.

Here's the Game Masters web page aimed at retailers that this distributor had back in the day.  I find the info on gamer demographics interesting:

The typical Starfleet Wars customer is a white male between ages 35 and 45, works in a technical field, earns an above-average income, and owns a computer.  The customer will first acquire all ships within one of the five Starfleet Wars empires, then acquire a second or third empire's fleet.  The median first-time Starfleet Wars order has been $133.  Over 79% of these orders included one galactic dreadnought-2 (GD2) or super galactic dreadnought (SGD).  Follow-on orders are common.  The Terran ships sell best, followed by the Carnivorans and Entomalians.

It's also notable that Game Masters sold the models in what it called "kitted" and "finished" form.  Kitted means it's your typical wargaming mini that needs basing and painting.  "Finished miniatures are polished and mounted on heavy sculptured bases ..."  For those of you wondering, there are still some of these "finished" Starfleet Wars models for sale by another company (along with 100mm figures of the five SfW species).

Also of interest on the old Game Masters website:

• Starfleet Wars introduction: includes rulebook excerpt on the Five Powers
• MAATAC introduction: includes rulebook excerpt on the Five Powers' land war tactics

Both those release schedules mention release dates that never happened.  Still, I'm playing one of those games at present, and the other is still for sale, so I'm happy.

The Admiral's Avarians

Photo from Blunders on the Danube blog.

These fine-looking starships don't belong to me--they're the property of Gonsalvo, author of the Napoleonics blog Blunders on the Danube, who's now one of the admirals in my Chancellor campaign.  Turns out Gonsalvo already has the Starfleet Wars rules and, as shown in his post on Avarian starships, a working knowledge of the game and its setting.  Check out his photos, he paints his Avarian starships in a colorful manner, and I really like the grid pattern he uses on some of the ships.

I encourage y'all to check out his blog--he promises to post more pictures of starship minis, and there's plenty of coverage of historicals/ancients gaming as well.  I can't wait to see the remaining capital ships in his fleet, and I'm looking forward to more SfW posts from someone besides myself.

Heeeeeeere's Johnny!

A Paladin in Citadel was getting rid of some of his prepainted Pathfinder figures, and I was able to procure the dozen goblin minis he didn't want.  I have no idea what I'm gonna use them for--maybe Song of Blades and Heroes--but I thought they looked really cool, so I snagged them.

I'm not the only one who likes the Pathfinder goblins; my wife thinks they're cute, too.  She said they look like the tooth fairy creatures from the second Hellboy movie.  Does anyone else have any of the new Pathfinder prepainted miniatures?  If so, what do you think?