Dragonmeet Post-Con Report
Andy meets a
Cyberman
Dragonmeet
2009 happened, in its original London
configuration, over the last weekend of November. As
usual, it was held in Kensington Town Hall, which has
good facilities. BITS were there, as
we have been since the convention was re-launched,
with the trade stand, a demo of At Close
Quarters, and a number a scenarios for
Traveller including the latest
instalment of the Angel’s Share
campaign which has nearly reached a conclusion.
The Ad Astra in all
her Glory
The trade hall was busy,
but noticeably emptied when the seminars were on, and
the At Close Quarters game grabbed a lot of
attention thanks to Nick Bradbeer’s latest
masterpiece model, an Ad Astra liner. This
was built from foam board, and looked excellent.
Scaled for 15mm, it was perfect for an exciting
skirmish game.
Battle
commences!
We had a number of
worried people looking at the notices of reduced
prices and ‘last ever’ for some of the
101 Books and other products, but they went
away reassured when we explained that this was tied
to a planned PDF release of our back catalogue in
2010. We’ll also hopefully have the first
volume of Angel’s Share ready for a
full release in the New Year, possibly followed by
some smaller adventures, and – if the
playtesting works out – something for Power
Projection.
The adventures we ran went well, and seemed to be
popular, with both Simon Bell and Dave Elrick GMing.
Andy and myself manned the trade stall, which was
constantly in demand, even in the quiet times.
From a personal perspective, this was my first return
to Dragonmeet after a 3 year break
for a variety of reasons, and I was really glad to be
back. It’s one of my favourite cons, and has
quite a frenetic pace, which is unsurprising as it
starts at 10:00 and ends around 19:00! The trade hall
was buzzing, and there were lots of new and shiny
things to look at such as pre-release copies of the
Doctor Who Roleplaying Game on the
Cubicle 7 stand, the proof copies of Triple
Ace Games’ core Hellfrost books for
Savage Worlds and the Collective
Endeavour’s latest game, Umlaut, in
which get to be a rock band.
I was also quite pleased to finally see the Power
Projection miniatures by Ad Astra
Games and a real (non-PDF) copy of the
Power Projection: Fleet book in its US
guise. Mongoose Publishing also had a huge
stand with lots of Traveller front
and centre, both for our much loved setting and for
the 2000AD settings such as Judge
Dredd and Strontium Dogs.
Finally, it was great just to catch up with the rest
of the BITS team, including the
people like Simon and Robin who I’ve only met
by email. The fires of my enthusiasm for
Traveller are well and truly relit,
and now I must properly finish my adventure for
release in 2010! And I'm happy to report that Andy
escaped from the clutches of the Cybermen by the end
of the convention.
Dom, BITS Webmaster
All friends
now!
Dragonmeet 2008 Report
A belated (thanks to the death of the computer with the website on) report on Dragonmeet by Richard Talbot:
BITS attended the excellent one day con, Dragonmeet 08 in Kensington, London, with a variety of Traveller related games and and our well stocked trade stand.
Andy Lilly at the stand as the show opened.
Stalwart GM's Dave Elrick and Simon Bell ran the latest instalments of our long running scenario series Project 1112 involving the crew of the Angel's Share. The plot is thickening as we rolled out the 5th and 6th parts of Dave Elrick's saga – Misjump! and Storm Warning! – to entertain the players. Both games went well with good feedback received from the players back at the trade stand. If you haven't played one of the new adventures come along to one of the cons we are attending. Conception 09 is up next in January!
One of the games.
New to the BITS schedule was an At Close Quarters demo scenario written by Richard Talbot. Set in the docking bay of a local starport, the crew of the mining seeker, Dragon's Luck, come back to their ship after a few well earned drinks to find corporate saboteurs lurking in the shadows. The scenario is only one part of the demo as real-life Naval Architect and BITS member Nick Bradbeer created a 25mm scale model of a Type J 100t Seeker and docking bay. We have plenty of pictures to drool over but the results of Nick's late nights constructing the model were amazing!
The Seeker (Perspective)
We used Ground Zero Games Neu Swabian League Troopers for the corporate squad, original Grenadier Traveller figs for the crew and Tablescape industrial scenery for the game aw well as Nick’s scratch built model.
Rear detail of the Seeker.
We played through three games with one team just managing to disarm explosive charges with 1 round to go and in the second game clearing the ship of saboteurs in under 6 rounds. Never will penguins be looked on again as passive creatures!
Top view of the Seeker.
We'll be using the model for future cons so look out for updates on the website.
Dragonmeet 2008
Dragonmeet 2008 is nearly upon us again, which means two things: it's getting close to Christmas, and you're only a few weeks away from one of the best one day conventions in the UK. Once again, BITS will be there promoting Traveller. As well as the usual trade stand and demo games, we've planned a special game of At Close Quarters, Doug Berry's excellent Traveller skirmish rules published by BITS where you can battle for control of a starship.
Link to Dragonmeet Website
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.
Photos of Dragonmeet
Wishing you all a Happy Christmas and a Merry New Year from all here at BITS!
Dom (BITS Webmaster)
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)