TravCon 2026 Part 3

 

After a full fry-up for breakfast, Saturday morning's game was The Extraction run by Alex Treacher,  using Mongoose 2nd Edition rules.

We were agents of Imperial Naval Intelligence, posted to Yres, a planetary system on the Imperial frontier close to the Vargr extents. Our day-to-day business of keeping tabs on the local inter-factional strife is interrupted by an urgent mission. Someone needs rescuing, whether they like it or not. The clock is ticking.

I played a grizzled Army veteran I named, Iwork Donask (yes, it's a play on, 'Don't salute me, I work for a living' – it was the best I could come up when my brain went blank after picking a pregenerated character sheet with no name).

Alex gave a briefing, hinted the tone was real world MI5.

I took away from that a different interpretation than my three team mates. They seemed to be channeling a John le Carré, whereas I was channeling River Cartwright from Slow Horses.

Anyway, arranged an appointment with our target, told her she was about to be arrested, or killed, and said, '"Come with me if you want to live." That threw Alex a curveball he wasn't expecting, and the rest of the team had a tizzy as they were  faffing around with some intricate plan to wait and see, despite the briefing telling us we were on the clock.

At that point, everything went tits up. 

Two of my team mates arrived in a car to pick us both up, but due to some civilians snitching to the police that a women was being kidnapped, a furious car chase ensued. Our driver failed one of his driving rolls causing us to crash into a building.

The local police got us out of the wreck and on the ground cuffed as my team mates whinged about what happened I said, " This is just another Tuesday." Justifying it with what it said about my past of ending up surrounded and outnumbered by the enemy.

But, sat in the back of the Paddy wagon, I persuaded the police sergeant, negotiated (bribed) as a fellow NCO, to book our asset as Jane Doe, and keep her name out of the news. She was extracted a short while later by our one remaining free operative (the admin bunny).

The team spent a few hours in jail as a diplomatic row ensued. Success!

 

TravCon 2026 Part 2

 

After Saturday morning's full fry-up breakfast, my first game of the day was  run by Tom Mouat, who presented The Tagachi March, using Mongoose Traveller 1st Edition (with Home-Brew Combat Resolution), which were super.

I want a copy for using in my games when there's lots of shooting to be resolved.

Our backstory was after our ship Bright Star went bankrupt, we all ended up as dockyard workers at the Leading Trojan Yard in Nakmoye System. We have finally cleared our debts after 4 years of solid slog to work off the fines and missed payments.

It wasn't quite slave labour, but it wasn't far from it.

The 5,000 ton Takagi March, is a medium transport ship. It was the first ship to come through that was prepared to offer us all a job – and we really, really, wanted to get away from the dockyards.

The Takagi March is off on a routine drop to the Belter colony near Jak, before dropping some stuff off at the Naval Yard so, it might be boring, but it is has got to be better than indentured servitude of the Yard.

 

Above is one page of the Takagi March deck plans; the rear engine and power plant decks where we would be working on the ship, while being appraised whether or not we were suitable to become full time crew.

The command crew were at the front of the ship, where we weren't welcome.

Anyway, the ship got hijacked, but as we were new, the hijackers didn't know we were onboard. Technically, outside doing routing maintenance scut work; the joy of being probbies. Needless to say, we came up with a plan, and then went through the ship dealing with what turned out to be a handful of inept hijackers.

Having dealt with them, released the crew, it was time for tea and medals. 

TravCon 2026 Part 1

TravCon is a three day Traveller RPG convention run by BITS – the British Isles Traveller Support. On our way up to TravCon, traveling on the M1, our friends Alex & Kezia caught sight of us in my Chevy, and took this pic for posterity.

We arrived just before 17.00, got ourselves booked in, met up with Kez & Alex, and settled in. Both of us were total newbies to Travcon, but we were made welcome by Richard and Andy. Richard is giving the briefing.

Name badges on landyards made it easy for people to know who was who. 

Susan went off to play in Alex's Extraction scenario, while my first session was Gee Cows to the Rescue! run by Tim Collinson, seen below, using Mongoose 2nd Edition rules (not that I noticed any real difference to what I remembered from Classic Blue book Traveller).

 

We were playing the parts of a Gishdag Khuulam Aid Organisation (GKAO) team, providing rescue and medical aid. The blurb said, "From fund raising to frantic races against time –– you're the ones that wear the patch respected throughout the Spinward Marches."

Here we are all set up and ready to go save the day. G-Cows are Go!

 

I played the Chief Medical Officer, Sion Alman of a modified and refitted 600dton liner modified for rescue missions. The session was split into two parts. The first, a fund raising dinner to schmooze with patron to raise the final 2.7 million credits to launch our ship, which was interrupted by an emergency call to action (the second part of the session).

It took us 24 minutes to get from the dinner to the launch bay, traffic was a bitch.

There we found our ship being hastily prepped for launch, stevedore's busy loading emergency supplies. Inside the ship, maintenance panels were open, cable runs spilling out, and sundry systems not fully signed off as checked. But, we were good to go!

Take-off revealed the ship flew like a barge.

The center of mass being changed down to the upgraded power plant and manoeuvre 6 engines. But, our pilot made the rolls to get us into orbit, and then it was pedal to the metal to blast out to the 100 diameter line to the accident site.

A scout, and a small liner had collided.

The scout was unresponsive and drifting outward. The liner was squawking, and drifting inwards.

We made it there in just over two hours to find debris drifting, escape balls launched, and the liner tumbling out of control During the difficult dock, our pilot took 40 minutes to match the tumble of the stricken ship, we saw that the rear end was ripped off, and the ships pinnace (yes, there were jokes) had been ripped open.

After some necessary medical interventions, much confusion, we saved the day, and got the money we needed.

The game ran for four hours, was pretty intense, and it was time for bed. I'd like to say I slept like a log, but I was totally buzzed, and it took a while to fall asleep.

I had an exciting first day. 

Final Stretch

Now that the body is symmetrical, see the post here, it was obvious where work was needed. The old joke about asking for directions to somewhere, and the reply being if I was going there, I wouldn't start from here, applies to this project.

Side-by-side comparison showing the missile casings to the rear that Keith graciously sent.

 

I still need to add the sloping casements for the the main guns, then add the secondary batteries, and the anti-personnel guns. Finally, to finish, I need to add the twin circular tanks/gubbins, and the two exhaust vents on the rear deck too.

Nose-to-nose shot of my original Grenadier Ogre and my Ral-Partha converted to represent the Martian Metals original Mark 5.

I estimate I've spent 60 hours the hours working on this conversion. Some of that time is down to not getting it right on the first attempt, and having to correct my mistakes.

Finishing Combine GEVs

 

Since I've been working on my Ogre Mark 5 conversion, these unfinished Combine GEVs sitting around getting dusty, finally come to my attention.

I had mostly finished painting them, but the silver enamel paint on the canopies ran when they were gloss varnished.

So, they need that tidied up. 

 

Given it has been nearly ten years since I put these aside, I'm pretty confident I can clean up the silver canopies, without the paint running gain, when I apply the final coat of mat varnish.

I've also got a whole bunch of Combine infantry that need there helmet visors painted silver to do too. So this year looks like I'm doing a bunch of Ogre/GEV miniatures, which makes for a nice change.

That's all for now, catch you on the bounce. 

War Machine

 

Probably a bit late, but we watched this, and it had an alien mech chewing up a bunch of Ranger candidates on their last training day.

It has been around a while, but caveat, I'm mad about mecha, and there are not enough films with mecha, so I'm biased. 

Total gonzo fun. Hope there's a sequel showing the bigger picture of the invasion.

Back in the Chop Shop

Not forgotten, just place aside, just a much needed change of pace. I needed a break from mixing epoxy putty, and filling it smooth, as yet another problem came to light.I started on refurbishing the missile pods, but this isn't working out as I wanted.

I'm going to have to fabricate parts instead. 

While you all wait, Keith Falk sent me a package of spare parts I need to complete my Vulcan, but also some Ogre 1 parts he had to spare too. 

What is really going to help bring the project to a successful conclusion is the Ogre 1 tower, which is substantially larger than the spare I had.

So, here's where I'm at.

That's all for now. May the fourth be with you.

Fixing Blog and Mechs

I started these RAFM Heavy Gear conversions 10 months ago, back when the after effects from getting shingles was still bothering me. But, as life would have it, I forgot about them. After, I started painting the Mk4 Ogre I decided to slap some paint on these too. 

Then, after reaching this point, I realized I'd not actually finished adding all the details to them, which meant stopping working on them to fix the omissions.

Doh! Don't you hate it when that happens? 

And, to add insult to injury, I discovered that blogger no longer seems to support hashtags. So, I had to go through all my tags and remove them, so as to allow my blog to sort posts again, which still seems buggy.

In this case, no longer sorting by date.

And yes, I've logged out. Logged back in again, with a verification code, and my directory of posts is still not sorting by date.

It is what it is.

Ogre Mk4 Reborn

Between working on my Ogre conversion, I've had an ultra rare prototype Ogre Mark 4, rejected by Steve Jackson Games that has been sitting, waiting to be finished. I began working on in April 2016, and thought I can do better than that.

So, I stripped it.Yes, this is me being distracted!

Reassembled, primed, and given a wash to bring out the panel lines.

I painted for about an hour a day during the week before and after Easter, which makes this a labour of love. So, here is the repaint.

 

The eagle eyed will notice the camo pattern is not exactly the same as the first version. 

The eagle eyed will notice the camo pattern is not exactly the same as the first version, but I think everyone will agree this looks sharp?

Or, at least I hope so. 

Currently, I'm in the groove painting so, finishing the MK5 conversion will happen when I've cleared my painting table.

Anyway, that's all for now, catch you on the bounce.

Salute 53

We went to Salute and had a great day. Susan and I played in a game of What a Tanker, run by Joe Bilton, which won the Silver Gold trophy for best participation game. I got to drive a damaged Char B1, with two Panzer IIIs gunning for me, I ended up ramming one of them in desperation, as I only rolled move dice. 

We toured the hall afterwards, and I introduced myself to the CGL demo agents running BattleTech.

As the kids say, I farmed some aura. I told them I was the former FASA freelancer who wrote the all but one of the Clan 2C mechs for the 3055 TRO, back in the day.

We stumbled across the Gundam Assemble game being demoed, and I think the minis are going to be a big hit with mecha fans everywhere.

This Konflict 47 board caught my eye too. The Axis mecha looking alien like was cool.

At 14.00  we went and listened to the Professional Wargaming panel. I know Dave Manley, and he and the other panelists did a good job of describing the wargames they've run for the MoD and Civil Service, and my takeaway was the importance of immersion where story is everything.

And no show report would be complete without a picture of haul. The Battle Group book I picked up for Paul, who now needs to let me know where he wants me to post it (he's gallivanting around the world for work).

The MDF paint rack, Susan bought for me, because she wants my paints organized better.

I picked up my Maschinen Krieger from Drew Edney of Slave2Gaming himself. It was super nice to meet, put a face to the name, and jaw on about SF wargaming, which we surprisingly shared similar views about about.

I bought a copy of O Group, not because I'm getting into WW2 (I can barely keep up with Ogre and my mecha ambitions), but because I want to read the rules for phase lines, which is something I'd like to include in any set of rules I might write.

I picked up end of line sale six pack of 0 to 5 of nice sable brushes from ABC Brushes.

The final  splurge, and boy did I splurge this year, was some packs of Crow Industries Clan Elementals, which I plan to convert into FATS-Cs; Chinese fatties from Bad Dog.

That's it for now, catch you on the bounce.