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Zhodani Base Awards 2014

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trophy-2014Welcome to the Zhodani Base Awards 2014! 2014 has been a very good year for Traveller. There have been lots of new publications.

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The first category is “Best Cover“. The nominees are:

The winner of the “Best Cover” category of the Zhodani Base Awards 2014 is: Power Projection Fleet : From BITS

There were lots of Traveller products with nice covers this year. Lots of love for all nice covers.

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Next category is “Best Fanzine or Online Magazine“. The nominees are:

The winner of the “Best Fanzine/Online Magazine” category of the Zhodani Base Awards 2014 is: Freelance Traveller

Freelance Traveller has once again proved that they are the best fanzine by publishing monthly issues with lots of good contents for free.

I really like the new Imperiallines. Looking forward to the next issues of this one.

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Next category is “Best Adventure“. The nominees are:

The winner of the “Best Adventure” category of the Zhodani Base Awards 2014 is: Cirque from From Greylock Publishing

There were lots of fine Traveller Adventures for different settings published. Cirque is a fantastic but unorthodox adventure in classic style.

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Next category is “Best Ship or Deckplan“. The nominees are:

The winner of the “Best Ship or Deckplan” category of the Zhodani Base Awards 2014 is: 2300AD: Ships of the French Arm : From Mongoose 

There was lots of fine ships for Traveller published this year. Lots of great new designs with good art from the small publishers. But this year, my favorite was from Mongoose.

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Next category is “Best ATU Product“. The nominees are:

The winner of the “Best ATU Product” category of the Zhodani Base Awards 2014 is: Grand Safari : From Gypsy Knights Games

GKG wins with some nice adventures. But next year I would really like to see more interesting ATU products from other small publishers.

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Next category is “Best OTU Product“. The nominees are:

The winner of the “Best OTU Product” category of the Zhodani Base Awards 2014 is: The Traveller Adventure : From GDW

The Traveller Adventure is one of my favorite adventures (except the beginning that is problematic). When it was re-released the other OTU products couldn’t beat it.

Better luck next year 13Mann. I really like your products.

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A final bonus category this year is “Best Free Traveller Product“. The nominees are:

The winner of the “Best Free Traveller Product” category of the Zhodani Base Awards 2014 is: Three Blind Mice : From 13Mann Verlag

Now, go and download all of the free Traveller Products. Why? They are free!

Adventures, Starships, The Base, Traveller

Zhodani Base Awards 2013

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Welcome to the Zhodani Base Awards 2013! 2013 has been a very good year for Traveller. There have been lots of new publications including the Traveller5 book we had been waiting for.

The first category is “Best Cover“. The nominees are:

The winner of the “Best Cover” category of the Zhodani Base Awards 2013 is: Freelance Traveller Issue 037

There were lots of Traveller products with nice covers this year. Lots of love for all nice covers. The cover for Freelance Traveller Issue 037 by Shawn Driscoll is one of the best covers for Traveller I’ve seen. I’ve been wondering for almost a year now if another cover was going to beat it. No, I still think it is the best one.

(Freelance Traveller also had one of the worst covers I’ve seen this year. It was the infamous camel-toe issue.)

Next category is “Best Fanzine or Online Magazine“. The nominees are:

The winner of the “Best Fanzine/Online Magazine” category of the Zhodani Base Awards 2013 is: Freelance Traveller

Freelance Traveller has once again proved that they are the best fanzine by publishing monthly issues with lots of good contents for free.

I am also impressed by the new fanzine for 2300 AD, Colonial Times.

Next category is “Best Adventure“. The nominees are:

The winner of the “Best Adventure” category of the Zhodani Base Awards 2013 is: 2300AD: Salvage Rights From Mongoose

There were lots of fine Traveller Adventures for different settings published. The one I liked best was an interesting adventure for 2300 AD. This is a good adventure for an interesting setting. This winner makes me want to play 2300 AD again.

Next category is “Best Ship or Deckplan“. The nominees are:

The winner of the “Best Ship or Deckplan” category of the Zhodani Base Awards 2013 is: Ships of Clement Sector 2: Vulkan From Gypsy Knights Games

There was lots of fine ships for Traveller published this year. Vulkan was the most impressive ship module with adventures as well. It made me think of Space: Above and Beyond.

Next category is “Best ATU Product“. The nominees are:

The winner of the “Best ATU Product” category of the Zhodani Base Awards 2013 is: Clement Sector From Gypsy Knights Games

There was lots of interesting stuff for ATU published this year. Clement Sector won because it is really cool. The other nominees are also very good.

If I didn’t already owned the Judge Dredd RPG rules from Games Workshop I would be more interested in buying the Judge Dredd modules from Mongoose.

Next category is “Best OTU Product“. The nominees are:

The winner of the “Best OTU Product” category of the Zhodani Base Awards 2013 is: Traveller 5 From Far Future Enterprises

T5 is the best OTU product. It is a complete new rule-set with lots of new interesting ideas added to the existing OTU.

I am well aware that some think that a new rule-set isn’t needed and that these new rules are badly organized. I think that these rules are good enough to start playing Traveller, either if you are new to RPGs or have played for years. If you already (like me) have seven other sets of Traveller rules, then maybe it is not needed. But I bought it anyway, since I wanted to support the Kickstarter project and I wanted to see the finished product. I am happy with the way it turned out (but some things could have been made even better) and I like the new ideas in the book. I am looking forward to seeing new T5 products.

A final bonus category this year is “Best Free Traveller Product“. The nominees are:

The winner of the “Best Free Traveller Product” category of the Zhodani Base Awards 2013 is:  Starships Book II0I0 : Cargo Barque From Christian Hollnbuchner

The Farragut-class Wallpaper is pretty and the Through the Veil Part adventure is interesting, but for me the Cargo Barque was the most useful free Traveller product in 2013.

Now, go and download all of the free Traveller Products. Why? They are free!

IMTU, Starships, Traveller

Spherical Space Ships

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In science fiction we have seen lots of spherical space ships. We remember the ships used by the Space Vikings by H. Beam Piper and the Death Star from Star Wars and the Heart of Gold from the The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and the ship from E.T. and the Borg Sphere from Star Trek: First Contact and lots of more.

Space Viking - Mercenary Cruiser
Image from Project Gutenberg. Copyright expired.

In Traveller we have the Mercenary Cruiser and the Tigress class. We all know that the Mercenary Cruiser is supposed to be able to land. But in Traveller it cannot do that since it is only partially streamlined and the rules say that it then cannot land. I think it should be able to land under certain conditions. These conditions might be a slow decent and no flying in the atmosphere. For a quick assault, the cutters would still be needed.

Some pretty pictures of the Mercenary Cruiser:

Some pretty pictures of the Tigress:

Peter Elson, who has painted a lot of the images for TTA (that we love) has also made a spherical ship. This ship is also able to land in an atmosphere.

The Long Result by Peter Elson.
The Long Result by Peter Elson.
Posted by permission of the estate of Peter Elson.
© Peter Elson.