Traveller Boardgames

[ReaverKing]

I've never tried any of the Traveller boardgames. Anyone recommend one? I think I have all of them on the FFE CDs. I think I might also have purchased Power Projection, which I don't think is strictly Traveller, as it looked pretty good.

I've played a lot of Axis & Allies over the years so a similar level of complexity and abstraction would be good. I don't have any minis as that looks to be an expensive hobby. My A&A games all have plastic pieces does anyone know of plastic sifi minis?

Cheers,

Brett.

 

[aramis]

I've never tried any of the Traveller boardgames. Anyone recommend one? I think I have all of them on the FFE CDs. I think I might also have purchased Power Projection, which I don't think is strictly Traveller, as it looked pretty good.

I've played a lot of Axis & Allies over the years so a similar level of complexity and abstraction would be good. I don't have any minis as that looks to be an expensive hobby. My A&A games all have plastic pieces does anyone know of plastic sifi minis?

Cheers,

Brett.

Snapshot and Mayday are the two easiest to manually assemble.

And are my favorite two.

AHL is third, Imperium 4th. Note that Imperium was designed with oversized counters hexes.

I've never gotten to play 5FW, and have only played a partial of Dark Nebula.

 

[McPerth]

Anyone recommend one?

Most of them are quiete nice and entertaiing, but I wouldn't dare to recommend you anyone without knwoing a Little more about what are you loking for (startegic/operational/tactic game, space combat/"ground" combat (undersatning ground as non-space, so tropos instead ofs starship), duration, etc...).

If you're looking for a ship-to-ship combat, quite close to CT:LBB2 taht can be played in an afternoon (even several games in a single afternoon) I'd recommend you Mayday.

If you're looking for a man-to-man tactical combat game, you can choose among Snapshoot or AHL. Snapshoot is more RPG oriented, using practically the same rules as LBB1 on a small ship, while AHL is more wargame oriented, using a different system and thought for more men in a larger ship. It requires more time and larger table to play. Personally, I like it more tan Snapshoot, but that's purely a matter of taste (you'll also need to print quite more mapboards and counters than Snapshoot).

If you like more strategical games, if ground based you have only Invasion Earth. It's quite a good game, but you'll need some time to play it (don't expect to finish it in an afternoon).

For strategic fleet game, there are FFW or Imperium (I've never played Dark Nebula, but for what I've read it's the same system than Imperium with a different setting).

As for FFW, I would not call it purely strategical, more as operational, as, while the troop scale may be so, the time scale (1 week) and the fact it portrays only the military part (no production, no control over reinforcements, etc.) precludes me to see it as fully strategical. Likewise, don't expect it to recreate the FFW too close (no long time consuming sieges or planetary invasions, that used to be resolved quite quickly when compared with OTU history). It is quite good a game, nonetheless, but, again, don't expect to finish it in an afternoon or two.

Imperium (and I guess Dark Nebula, if it is so close to it as I've read here) are more fully strategic, as your focus there is the control of the territory to have better production and, not only wining the current war, but also to prepare for the next one. You can probably play a single war in an afternoon, while the full campaign can tak quite longer.

I have not played any other Traveller Wargame, but I hope that will help you.

 

[warwizard]

There is also the Blood tree rebellion which is an asymmetric ground combat game with the professional units able to break down into smaller echelons so they can attempt to do more missions, which of course invites the rebel player to pick off small units... the old problem of send 100 men and they see nothing, send 10 men and they do not come back.

Have to actually have two players for this one.

The best of the strategic level space ship games as far as ease of play is the Imperium it is a game that is meant to be played as a series of wars, with each war lasting no more than 11 turns (22 years) the ending state of the war and the length of the peace determine the starting forces for the next war, one generally can see the writing on the wall so to speak after 3-4 wars.
If Bernard's star is held by the Imperials and the Humans* have only the two worlds plus a few outposts then things look bleak for the Humans. On the other hand if the Humans manage to have 4 worlds with a good number of outposts then it becomes quite hard for the Imperial player to prevail.

* see my signature