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The Trojan Reach
by Mark S. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 10/21/2024 21:52:21

the subsector maps are black and white and not up to the current standards, which really bummed me out. I guess it's my fault for not checking the publishing date.



Rating:
[2 of 5 Stars!]
The Trojan Reach
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Traveller Career Events Complete Set
by G. L. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 10/15/2024 09:16:26

This supplement really helps freshen up character creation in a Traveller campaign. Using these tables increases the number of possible events for a character's backstory almost tenfold. The new events presented here are well written and well scaled, and work just as well as the events from the core rules.

If you've played Traveller a lot, or have a campaign with a half-dozen players, you've probably seen the same event come up over and over in different characters' backstories. This supplement adds variety, and is well worth the price.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Traveller Career Events Complete Set
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Traveller's Tales Vol. 1
by Bob [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 10/09/2024 11:50:00

I'm a long time Traveller player and GM. I've been reading Neil's Vignettes for years on Social Media and I've used many of his vignettes for background and story "hooks" in my campaigns. I'm glad he finally published them as a collection with updates so I can have them all together in one place. The vignettes are not dependent on the Traveller rules and they make Great reading in themselves for those of us looking to create back stories for our own Traveller Universe. The stories cover everything from simple 'slice of life' to full blown adventure seeds. A real MUST have for any Traveller player or Game Master! Thanks Neil!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Traveller's Tales Vol. 1
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Journal of Comparative Xenobiology: Issue 1
by Steve [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 09/29/2024 22:22:06

Color covers and color illustrations, one page (with scaled map and an illustration) giving background to their sci-fi setting - which has a much longer history of multi-generation sub-light interstellar travel than regular Charted Space Traveller, although some of the same non-human Sophants are used. The main content are the 10 Animals to encounter, some rate a full page, some share a page - 9 are adapted from well known fantasy RPG's (not really a concept I love). Completely solid work, some variety among the choices but most are what I would identify as Ambush Predators. I believe the Assassin Vine shouldn't rightly have Movement, the Centipede is too armored, the Dog lacks the Behavior descriptor the others properly have, the Ooze moves too fast and if one were keeping to the fantasy source material a Violet Fungus ought to have some movement, Wyverns definitely need to be faster (flying). There are a few typos, none are show stoppers.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
Journal of Comparative Xenobiology: Issue 1
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Aliens of Charted Space Vol. 3
by Jeff [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 09/28/2024 15:24:07

In an earlier review I suggested a fix for Dolphin character creation. Within 24 hours Mongoose editors had updated the PDF. That was epic! Mongoose is alive and cares about its consumer. Thanks so much for fixing it so quickly!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Aliens of Charted Space Vol. 3
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War Fleets of the Fifth Frontier War
by Timothy [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 09/14/2024 13:30:02

War Fleets details about two dozen ships in the Imperial and Zhodani fleets, ranging from patrol vessels to battleships. Unlike most such products, it gives several pages of information on the ships, not just the deck plans and summary sheet.

Also, unlike most such books, the deck plans for the large ships are actually usable, not just "this stuff is in this general area". This allows using these ships in Azhanti High Lightning style scenarios. If you want your characters to fight alien monsters in the wreckage of Zho battleship, the deckplans allow for that.

There's a bit of information on fleet organizations and system defenses as well.

War Fleets is exactly what it says it is. There are several ships small enough to be useful in a non military campaign, but the bulk of the book is about warships. That makes it a niche product, but it is a good product for that niche.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
War Fleets of the Fifth Frontier War
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The Fifth Frontier War
by Michael J. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 09/07/2024 22:17:19

Dissapointing. MANY errors. I should have waited till the reviews on COI.



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[1 of 5 Stars!]
The Fifth Frontier War
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The Fifth Frontier War
by Bleddyn [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 09/07/2024 04:26:03

I was eager to look at this not because of the mongoose brand but the nostalgia of the old board game. 192 pages of good fleet and map graphics, cliche art work that border on the cartoon channel and Warhammer game had an illegitimate child. Seriously when do we move away from the Zhodani are Arabs in space cliche? It was written poorly and in one part clearly plagiarized. I think mongoose while I applauded the rival of Traveller needs to ditch is writers and come up a writer that will challenge its target audience to use a dictionary and explore concepts.



Rating:
[2 of 5 Stars!]
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War Fleets of the Fifth Frontier War
by Bleddyn [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 09/07/2024 04:18:15

Basically written with a crayon and splashed with good graphics. The product is written for a simplistic ignorant child. The deck plans are irrelevant and really unnecessary for capital ships. The book is basically a rehash of old and new poorly convinced window dressing. Colorful but a very drab read.



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[2 of 5 Stars!]
War Fleets of the Fifth Frontier War
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Vargr Rrazaghzz Class Corsair
by Chris [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 08/27/2024 10:32:10

Highly recommended. This range of ship books is always very well done, and this one is excellent.

It is very much a Vargr ship, not a standard design/layout with fins and spikes. I particularly liked the accommodations - just as I picture Vargr ships, with varying sized, comfortable spaces for social groups of Vargr to share instead of blocks of individual staterooms.

The descriptions bring the "Vargr-ness" of the ship to life, as do the examples of some ships, their crews, and the adventure seeds suggested for them.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Vargr Rrazaghzz Class Corsair
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This is Free Trader Beowulf
by Robert [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 08/13/2024 08:19:47

An amazing source for the twists and turns of this much loved SF rpg, reading it gives alot of insight into the events and progression of Traveller. One thing I found particular useful was all the maps of events, sectors and adventures, highly recommended!!!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
This is Free Trader Beowulf
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Traveller's Tales Vol. 1
by Richard [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 08/07/2024 08:03:56

I read many of these vignettes on social media, but to have them all in one place, with updated author notes is great! What is really great is they are very rules independent. This is NOT a Traveller book. It is a set of stories that were inspired by the Traveller rules and setting without being dependent on either.

These stories inspire me in so many ways. They cover everything from simple 'slice of life' to full blown adventure seeds.

I STRONGLY recommend this product to anyone who likes Sci Fi and Traveller in particular.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Traveller's Tales Vol. 1
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Secrets of the Ancients
by Randall [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 07/19/2024 12:55:54

This was not as well written as the first in the Ancient series, unfortunately, and was not nearly as engaging as a result. Read on for group play; not suitable for solo play. TL:DR at the end ;)

What I found good:

1) Interesting first chapters with fleshed-out NPCs, largely on par with those in the first Ancients module.

2) An interesting look at the details of the Ancient's civil war. Some fun ideas about what might have happened to result in the current world.

3) Early scenarios play out logically and contribute to the plot.

4) Early pacing is fast, but reasonable for the scenario.

5) There are several contacts to be made that could tie in well in a later adventure.

What I found not so good:

1) Several heavy-handed deus ex machina moments could have been improved significantly with better design and editing. These sorts of events break the momentum of the game and make it seem scripted. It takes a lot of effort, but for the cost of this module, I expect someone to have put in that effort.

2) Several times NPCs act ~completely~ out of character, which is impactfully illogical. A person does not just let someone else kill them, for example, but changing this behavior alters the entire experience, so fixing the error requires a major rewrite. At times the NPCs also act like simpletons rather than the powerful people they are. Again, changing this behavior requires significant effort. An outline of their motivations and goals, and a brief personality should be sufficient to allow the Referee to play them more logically than is suggested in the module.

3) Multiple TPK (total party kill) encounters are based on a random roll - this should not happen in a non-fan-generated module like this. Design encounters so the party must make a clearly illogical move to wipe the game. This is the middle of a very long campaign - don't wipe the party on random chance. I re-wrote these more natural events, giving the party the chance to succeed through effort rather than random chance.

4) Continuity with the rest of the mega-campaign is non-existent in several places, most notably at the introduction. The author made no effort to tie in the previous module when writing Vlan, and the Referee must re-write large portions of content to compensate through the entire module.

5) Continuity within the module is broken as well giving the impression that the author came back to that section after a long break and began from scratch rather than re-reading their work to get smoothly back into the moment. Simple enough to compensate for, but distracting just the same.

6) The whole precursor section is just an info dump and at least in this campaign, it fell flat. This is interesting information, but it could have been delivered more meaningfully without breaking the momentum.

7) The team regularly had no agency in their choices as all alternatives funneled them to the same point the 'logical outcome' suggested. This plays out more engagingly if the team has an opportunity to end up at the keystone moments via several paths rather than being forced into either a wipe or accidentally finding the correct choice.

8) Not all of the ideas were particularly original, to put it lightly. You will see a good number of tropes from other science fiction shows and movies, but they don't always work as well as the original. These could be solid elements if they had been better designed.

9) The pacing was too fast, even for the conditions. Yes, anxiety is good and when things are moving fast, the Travelers need to feel that intensity, but this got out of control at several points. I toned this down to what seemed appropriate to keep them moving quickly without going LeRoy Jenkins(!!!) The mix of intense pace and TPK potential was not a positive blend for us.

Conclusion:

There is no argument that the Referee ~always~ adapts as necessary, even when running their own work, but some sections of this module require a ground-up rewrite to play smoothly, and in some cases, this represents a week or more to craft smooth transitions and repair jagged plot holes. In the end, this felt like a stand-alone module rather than the middle of an epic adventure and it broke the momentum we had from the first module.

TL:DR

For a TAS module, this would have been a solid purchase (at a lower price.) For an official module, it felt poorly edited and incomplete. At the end of the first Ancient's module, I bought this without hesitation, but at the end of this module, I'm not sure if I will buy the third or roll back the team to where they were at the start of this module and then go in a different direction. Hopefully, your experience will be different, but for me, this was the first disappointing module I've seen in Traveler...



Rating:
[2 of 5 Stars!]
Secrets of the Ancients
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Mysteries of the Ancients
by Randall [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 07/17/2024 15:27:05

Fantastic! Why? Oh, of course...

First, be advised that I played this solo and that it is well suited for that, although it is designed for a group. Overall, the campaign is well thought out; there is plenty of detail in every aspect, clear progression while still offering wiggle room, and solid pacing. The start is very open, and you can move as quickly or slowly as you want - take a side trip here, do a little trade, etc. At a certain point, though, the action begins to pick up and become time-sensitive. You will still have choices, but you will need to act quickly.

All the NPCs you meet are fleshed out nicely and feel 'real'. There are several opportunities to develop contacts that could re-appear and several planets you will visit have fantastic details and could be used later. Several loose threads tie in historical references that you may need to look up in the wiki (or at least I did) which added to my enjoyment of the game.

There is a LOT of information about the Ancients, so if that's your thing, this is a great campaign. Given the title, this should come as no surprise, but it does not disappoint! I enjoyed how things unfolded - it pulled me along and was difficult to put down. Solo play time would be difficult to describe, but I got a solid 20 hours or more in 2-3 hour chunks and two campaigns follow this one, so you're looking at a huge amount of game time.

Towards the end, in the final encounter, quite a lot if going on and things get very exciting very quickly. Inexperienced players may require a little referee ex machina to keep them from making poor life choices, but there is no eminent risk of total party wipe unless people are trying to.

Solo players and Referees: Each person the party interacts with has a clear personality provided, so you will have no problem determining how they should be played. Motivations and goals are clearly laid out, which makes understanding how they would act in the situations at hand simple to determine.

Solo players: consider playing a main and a few companions so you have a wider range of skills. There may be times when it is helpful to have two, three, or four pairs of hands. I ran my Traveller games with a main and three 'companions'.

For players: As you do, pay attention to how the NPCs act, don't just try to smash through all barriers. Use your head and you'll be very pleased at the end of this part of the epic campaign. The resources you need to win through at the end are there, with some to spare, if you keep your eyes (and your mind!) open.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Mysteries of the Ancients
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Heavy Metal: Mechs for Traveller
by neal [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 07/13/2024 23:06:05

If you are into mechs, then this is the resource for you. It is quite comprehensive. It has everything, and I mean EVERYTHING that you need to create or modify a mech. The only thing that will make it cooler is when it finally includes art!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Heavy Metal: Mechs for Traveller
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