Conventions Calendar re-enabled
You can find this information here:
TravCon 08 - Final Report & Pictures
Neil has sent his final TravCon 08 report:
Saturday night ended with pretty much all the con attendees having a drink in the bar. Did we mention that the bar was open 24-hour? A couple of attendees checked the claim and found that yes the staff would serve until the early hours of the morning.
The TAS 24 hour bar.
Sunday started a little later than planed with two RPG games being ran. One by Max Kettley who was running his first con game for BITS.
Another group gave the combat system for the new Mongoose Traveller rule system a test run.
The afternoon session saw the end of one of the morning games and a short run out for the BITS classic scenario Family Business.
The Awards!
The con was wrapped up with a closing ceremony (posh term for getting everyone in the same room) hosted by our own Andy Lilly. A couple of
awards were handed out including the Ping, F*** It award. I'll leave the details so as not to get them wrong. With the closing ceremony ending with very long list of thank yous we all then started to thin out and make our weary way home.
Well that was the first of the resurrected TravCons. With a little bit of luck there will be a TravCon 2009, a bit bigger and obviously better.
--
All the best,
Neil
All pictures from TravCon 08 can be found here.
If you want copies of the higher resolution images and you attended TravCon 08, please drop us an email.
TravCon 08 - Survived! UPDATE 3
As TravCon 08 draws to a close, an update from Andy:
Bloody 'ell, we did it!
I'm going to have a quiet meal (non-Indian) and drink (non-Carling), relax (non-gaming) and tomorrow hopefully I'll pull together the pictures I took
and post them up.
Should be plenty of material for the next newsletter.
Thanks to those who made it a success. Missed those of you who couldn't make it.
Andy
Andy Lilly
BITS UK Limited (British Isles Traveller Support)
TravCon 08 - Traveller and Curry! UPDATE 2
Once again, our fearless
Hello again,
We've just got back from another fine curry. The afternoon slot saw another three games of Traveller. The evening slot is just about to kick in with a couple of games being played. We'll have to see what the morrow brings.
Highlights of this afternoons session were Cold Dark Grave get another run out and the fine George Wright's beer brought along by Derrick. Yes, Neil was able to find six players who'd never played Cold Dark Grave!
The prediction for Man of the Con goes to Simon who looks to be trying to run the whole of the Angel's Share saga at the con. All the best, Neil
Hopefully pictures tomorrow!
(Angel's Share is the new mini-campaign being prepared for publication by BITS.)
TravCon 08 is underway! UPDATE 1
TravCon08 is underway! BITS' very own Neil McGurk reports:
Hello from TravCon 08 to all who aren't just outside Sawtry.
We're well into the Saturday morning session now. Three games of Traveller played last night. The evening ended with a large game Chez Geek in the 24-hour bar! Won by Derrick, who then continued to drink until 4am.
We've now got three games of Traveller being played, with a couple more planned for this afternoon. Hope to get a couple of updates out during the rest of the weekend. The WiFi isn't free but it is cheap.
All the best, Neil
Hopefully we'll have more news and pictures this weekend.
Dom
LAST CHANCE for TravCon08
This is your LAST CHANCE to register for TravCon08!
There is less than a week to go until the Con opens this coming weekend...
Demand for places has been good, however...
...we have ONE room left (as work/illness have cut the BITS team attendance) and we also have a number of day tickets available, and would welcome more people who want to play or referee Traveller (of any flavour). Come and take part in the UK's premier Traveller RPG convention, and even try out the new Mongoose Traveller playtest rules!
IMPORTANT: You must pre-register for day tickets, as they are not available on the day. Day tickets are £15 Saturday, £10 Sunday.
Register HERE!
Conpulsion 2008, Edinburgh, 22-23 March 2008
BITS will be demoing 4 linked adventures (1 per slot) at Conpulsion 2008 at Edinburgh University, 22nd-23rd March 2008 for those of you living in that part of the world.
We'll be using the Mongoose Traveller 3.2 Playtest document as the rules unless MGP get the main rulebook out by then.
We'll be running In Search of Angels, The Rock, Ice Work and Ghosts from the Past in sequence detailing the travels of the crew of the Angel's Share in the Spinward Marches just after the Fifth Frontier War.
Conpulsion is an excellent con so if you live in that part of the world come along as there seems to be plenty on:
http://www.geas.org.uk/conpulsion/index.shtml
TravCon08 Registration now Open to All
BITS is proud to announce TravCon08 UK is now open to registration for everyone after two months as a BITS member exclusive. There are limited numbers of places left, so book soon!
This is the rebirth of the convention we used to run at Hebden Bridge, but this time down south near Sawtry.
Register HERE!
TravCon08 Registration open to BITS Members
BITS is proud to announce TravCon08 UK is now open to registration from BITS members. This is the rebirth of the convention we used to run at Hebden Bridge, but this time down south near Sawtry. Details can be found in the BITS members area of the website.
We will open the registration to everyone shortly.
UPDATE (3/12/07): The minor glitch on the electronic registration page is now corrected.
Dragonmeet 2007 is Today!
We are pleased to remind
you that we are attending Dragonmeet 2007 at
Kensington Town Hall today (1st December) from
10.00am.
We have the usual trade stand full of new and second
hand Traveller merchandise, dice,
figures and other fine products manned by
BITS Director Andy Lilly. Usual
BITS member discounts apply at the
show.
The BITS Demo Crew are also be
present running a series of new adventures including
the Angels Share scenarios (In Search of
Angels, The Rock and Ice Work)
in both morning and afternoon slots. Throughout the
day we will have exclusive previews of the new
Traveller Starship miniatures by
Ad Astra and will be running demo
games of our Power Projection: Fleet
starship combat game.
Dragonmeet 2007 - Yes, we'll be there!
We are pleased to
announce we will be attending Dragonmeet 2007 at
Kensington Town Hall on 1st December from 10.00am.
We will have the usual trade stand full of new and
second hand Traveller merchandise,
dice, figures and other fine products manned by
BITS Director Andy Lilly. Usual
BITS member discounts apply at the
show.
The BITS Demo Crew will also be
present running a series of new adventures including
the Angels Share scenarios (In Search of
Angels, The Rock and Ice Work)
in both morning and afternoon slots. Throughout the
day we will have exclusive previews of the new
Traveller Starship miniatures by
Ad Astra and will be running demo
games of our Power Projection: Fleet
starship combat game.
GenCon UK is nearly here!
BITS
will be attending GenCon
UK 2007 between August 30th and
September 2nd at Reading University (http://www.genconuk.com/).
BITS Director Andy Lilly will be
bravely manning the trade stand with a wide range of
Traveller merchandise including our
own range of Little White Books, with our most recent
release Cold Dark Grave by Dom Mooney and
Universe software and a good selection of
new and second hand gaming products.
On the gaming front Richard Talbot, Neil McGurk and
Peter Trevor will be running a range of 3 new
Traveller RPG adventures during the
3 timed slots at 9am, 2pm and 8pm.
We will also have a demo table of Traveller:
Power Projection Fleet and
Escort with games timed during the
day at 9.00am and 2.00pm.
All our slots are now bookable via the GenCon website
and cost two gaming tickets per game.
BITS are also looking for a brave
volunteer to help run some of the sessions so if you
are attending GenCon or just even
thinking about it, drop an email to richardtalbotuk
at yahoo.co.uk or bits at bits.org.uk (or use the
contact form on the site here) and let us know!
GenCon do provide some benefits for
GM's depending on how many slots they run so check
out their website for more information.
TravCon 08 is coming...
The hotel is comfortable, with en-suite facilities in all rooms, has ground floor rooms for a limited number of disabled attendees and a couple of conference rooms for gaming. The hotel provides breakfast; lunch and dinner venues include an adjacent Indian restaurant, small snack shop, or take-away from nearby Sawtry.
To help people plan their days and to give everyone a chance to play in several games, we will be organizing the weekend into a morning, afternoon and evening gaming sessions, with the opportunity to play BITS scenarios or to bring your own adventures to run (preferably having notified us so that we can advertise games to the attendees well in advance of the con). We also intend to run fun competitions of both Power Projection starship battles, and At Close Quarters miniatures skirmishes, there will be the BITS trade stand and a Bring & Buy (for any roleplaying stuff you want to try to sell to other attendees) and more fun stuff as we get it organised.
We’ve organised a deal with the hotel which gets attendees an ensuite room, Friday night to Sunday afternoon, B&B, including full con entry, for just £99 for BITS members.
Watch out for further details as they appear here on the web site.
Power Projection Events, Maryland, USA
More details on the PowerProjection.net website.
BITS at Salute this weekend - 21st April 2007
One of the biggest wargaming conventions, doors open at ExCel 10am to 5pm. The show promises to be bigger and better than last year, with entry for £9 on the day.The first 4000 entrants get a couple of free LOTR miniatures, there's an absolute pile of gaming and miniatures demonstrations, participation games and traders, ranging from Ancients to Science Fiction.
BITS will be hosting participation games of Power Projection and At Close Quarters at our trade stand (TD041 against the West wall). We'll have copies of all our products (including Cold Dark Grave) as well as a huge pile of other second-hand and new Traveller books.
We will also be taking advance orders for the new Ad Astra Traveller starship miniatures which have been specially designed for Power Projection!
BITS members will get a special discount on our products (in addition to the usual 10%) for finding our stand at the show.
Details here.
Power Projection Demo (6th Jan 2007, Maryland, USA)
____
A summary of the event:
On 6 January 2007 Mystic Station Designs, LLC will be hosting a Traveller Power Projection Event at Brunswick Games Day in Brunswick
Maryland. For directions to Brunswick Games Day see their site at: http://www.fantasymaps.com/gaming/brunswick.html
The event will begin at 2.00p.m. with an overview of the rules for Escort and depending on the attendance will conclude with the event entitled: Long Shot. If you have any questions please feel free to contact me.
There will be a second Power Projection event hosted by MSD in January 2007. I will let everyone know asap.
Kory
Managing Member
Mystic Station Designs, LLC
Photos of Dragonmeet
Wishing you all a Happy Christmas and a Merry New Year from all here at BITS!
Dom (BITS Webmaster)
Scenario Playtest (16th Dec 2006, Edinburgh) CANCELLED
"You've been loyal, hard working, god fearing farming folk all your years. But something just ain't right. Maybe it's this war, all that violence. Your dreams haven't been good these past few weeks, nope, something just ain't right"
"Masks", as previewed at Dragonmeet, sets the players in the middle of the Fifth Frontier War as the Zhodani (psionic humans) prepare to invade your planet. But the dreams have been bad, very bad... (6 slots free, 4 hr adventure)
Richard Talbot will be playtesting this new scenario at ORC Edinburgh at 13.00 hrs on 16th December 2006. 6 players required. If you fancy coming along drop Richard an email.
Power Projection Demo (16th Dec 2006, Virginia, USA) UPDATED TIME
____
A summary of the event:
On 16 December 2006 Mystic Station Designs, LLC will be hosting a Traveller Power Projection at Game Parlor Woodbridge, Virginia. For directions to Game Parlor Woodbridge please see their site at: http://www.gameparlor.com/
The event will begin at 5.00p.m. with an overview of the rules for Escort and depending on the attendance will conclude with the event entitled: Standoff. If you have any questions please feel free to contact me.
Kory
Managing Member
Mystic Station Designs, LLC
Dragonmeet 2006 (2nd December 2006, London)
* Come and see if we've managed to complete the layout of the new book in time!
* Come and tell us what you think of the Interstellar Wars and 1248 books!
* Come and chew over the likelihood of T5 being released in 2007!
* Come and buy stuff off the BITS stand!
You could even....
* Come and play Traveller!
Full details at http://www.dragonmeet.com/
Dom (BITS webmaster)
Power Projection Demo (Virginia USA)
____
A summary of the event:
On 11th November 2006 Mystic Station Designs, LLC will be hosting a Traveller Power Projection game at Game Parlor, Woodbridge, Virginia. For directions to Game Parlor, Woodbridge please see their site at: http://www.gameparlor.com/ The event will begin at 5.00pm with an overview of the rules for Escort and depending on the attendance will conclude with the event entitled: Blockade Runner. If you have any questions please feel free to contact me.
Kory
Managing Member
Mystic Station Designs, LLC
Traveller demo in Edinburgh 4th Nov
Furnace & Game Parlor this weekend
If you're in the USA, Mystic Station are running a Power Projection demo at Game Parlor Woodbridge, Virginia. Details can be found in the blog entry on 7th October 2006.
Dom,
BITS Webmaster
Power Projection Demo (Virginia USA)
____
A summary of the event:
On 29 October 2006 Mystic Station Designs, LLC will be hosting a Traveller Power Projection at Game Parlor Woodbridge, Virginia. For directions to Game Parlor Woodbridge please see their site at:
http://www.gameparlor.com/
The event will begin at 11:00 a.m. with an overview of the rules for Escort and depending on the attendance will conclude with the event entitled: Engagement at Start's End.
If you have any questions please feel free to contact me.
Kory
Managing Member
Mystic Station Designs, LLC
Continuum - this weekend
Salute 2006 Report
__
BITS was represented at Salute! 2006, although with Dom suddenly taken ill, only Andy and I were there. I arrived later than I meant to and had to take off early, so Andy had to do all the hard work of setting up and taking down, as well as relieving Keith on the trade stand, while I just ran some demo games.
Salute being a wargames convention, we were only running Power Projection, rather than our usual RPG sessions. We stuck to the tried and tested format of running small quick games and trying to persuade anybody who stood still near the table to grab a ship and have a go. A lack of wine gums prevented us from
running the Mooney Asteroid Belt (AKA 'Battle of the Maynard Belt') introductory scenario, but luckily it turns out that free sweets aren’t the only reason people play the game.
For the most part, we stuck to the lightweight ships from Power Projection:Escort, most of the games being straight-up small ship engagements between familiar Imperial and Zhodani forces. There was a sneak preview of some of the material from the upcoming Power Projection:Reinforcements book, with some Sword Worlds ships making an appearance, as well as the Convoy Raid scenario and a couple of optional rules.
For such a small BITS presence we had quite a lot of interest, with demo games running almost constantly and often two at once. Two or three people asked me if this was the same Traveller they’d played twenty years ago, and we had a couple of very enthusiastic kids at the end who played three demos back to back and were getting pretty mean at the whole starship command thing by the time I had to head off.
I just wish we had miniatures as cool as the Cloudships of Mars ones.
Nick
Sadly, we can't be at Cannoncade.
I'm sure you'll all join me in wishing Richard a swift recovery back to full fighting fitness.
Dom (BITS Webmaster)
We're at Cannoncade 2006 on Saturday 13th May.
"BITS are happy to announce we will be attending the inaugural show of Cannonade 2006 run by our friends at Falkirk District Wargames Club on 13th May 2006 in Falkirk at Forth Valley College Main Hall from 10.00am onwards.
We will be running demos of our Full Thrust based Starship Combat Game: Power Projection throughout the day using figures from the acclaimed Ground Zero Games range. Come along and play in a Power Projection starship battle with that real "Traveller" feel."
Huge spinal weapons, missiles, fusion guns and sandcasters abound! Can you stop the fleeing enemy cruiser from making it to safety in 4 rounds...?
2 Days until Salute 2006
We will have our trade stand there (stand T406) and will be running games of Power Projection (stand G402) throughout the day, with a prize for the most successful starship commander.
Hope to see you there - also, keep watching the site here for future events (or let us know if there's an event in your area that you would like us to attend).
Andy, Dom & Nick (the BITS team who'll be there!)
12 Days to Go!
Salute is only 12 days
away now, and we're getting ready for some games
of Power Projection, and
meeting up with the Traveller
Wargaming fans. Sadly, Power Projection:
Reinforcements isn't ready, but please come
and say 'hello' and enjoy a game with us! Details
of this London based convention can be found by
clicking on the links.
