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Once again I’m starting a topic with no photos, yet. But I came upon this one in my old-time fun box. It’s the miniatures game for the Traveller RPG, and is one I’ve always wanted to play but never have, a vestige of the tail end of the times when people were willing to spend three hours on a tactical tabletop game, which few are these days.
I think I’ve mentioned the original Striker rules elsewhere, which were fascinating to read, although I’ve never actually been able to get my brain into the implementation phase. Striker II is based on Chain of Command, and seems a lot easier to grasp so far. It also sits at the often-neglected creamy middle of gameplay, where infantry is still the focus, but runs in squads and fireteams instead of individuals, and tanks are powerful but much fewer in number. What scale do you call this, squad-level? Platoon-level? Whatever the nomenclature I have little doubt that it’ll never see the light of day at the club, but I have a hankering to try it out solo. The focus on Grav armor and granularity in equipment, orders and tactics appeals to me. Being an old-school Traveller fan helps, too.
I already have a unit ready for the game, as the last units of my first strike team from the Earthlight Division are finally rolling off the line with heavy armor and infantry Battledress. I’m scoping out some LODAV units from Darkest Star as well.
So. To finally get to my question, has anyone else tried to play this game at all? Ever? Is my obsession with these archaic systems like this and Dirtside just hopelessly dating me in the game business?
Yeah, it’s something I’ll probably end up just mining for ideas, but it does have a lot of “feel” to it. Back in the 1990s, games tended to be far more flavorful and less generic. With games like Dropzone Commander and the upcoming Horizon Wars, it seems to be coming back around, but there have been far too many generic games that, to my mind, try to do too much. Only a handful really do so successfully, and have to make a lot of sacrifices to get there.
I always come around to Dirtside II, somehow. I don’t know why the chit-pull thing gets so many people riled up, but I like it. And things in Traveller definitely informed the Dirtside system, no question.
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