GDW
(10 items)

"A civilization is ready to re-awaken. But it cannot do so by itself. Two generations ago, a star-spanning society annihilated itself in a furious war. The final weapon in this war was a new form of life -- a malevolent electronic race that hates life itself. But among the ruins, life is stirring -- a civilization is waiting to be rebuilt."

"In what was once a neglected backwater of the Third Imperium [Old Expanses and Diaspora Sectors], a dozen small worlds have banded together to make a new beginning. With a motley collection of patched up antique ships and a handful of Marines and commandos, they have set out to reconquer an empire and rebuild an interstellar civilization. Their struggle will pit them repeatedly against seemingly hopeless odds, and every step forward along the road to their final goal will be purchased with their blood..."

"- The Vilani: founders of the oldest human empire in charted space... - The Vargr: plucked from Earth millennia ago and manipulated into intelligence by the mysterious Ancients... - Immerse yourself in the rich details presented within these pages... - Experience these aliens as you never have before! Contents include for each alien race * Physiology: See technically accurate details of the race's body structure. * Psychology: Get inside the race's mind and find out how they think. * Detailed Starmaps; Study starmaps of the race's home region, with all star system positions accurately shown. * Society and Culture: Find out how the alien race lives, and what makes their culture unique. * History: Learn never-before-revealed details about the race's history, and how they got where they are today. * New Game Rules: Discover how you can confidently integrate the race into your MegaTraveller campaigns. * Sample Technology; See actual examples of the alien race's robots, vehicles, and starships. * Roleplaying Examples: Gain new insights into roleplaying the race by studying the detailed play examples, hints, and tips presented inside."

"...Starships, aircraft, and vehicles, in almost infinite variation, are at your command, from fusion-power grav tanks to advanced technology lighter-than-air ships, from gigantic armored star cruisers to delicate ornithopters. Pick your power plants from a selection that ranges from primitive steam engines to matter-antimatter annihilation, with side excursions to solar power, batteries, explosive power generation, or even cold fusion. Tired of just playing with jump drives? Tailor your campaign around a wide selection of FTL options, from natural wormholes to stargates, stutterwarp, or hyperspace drives. Or if FTL is too advanced for you, conquer space the hard way, with Bussard hydrogen ram jets or Daedalus thermonuclear pulse drives. The cybernetics chapter alone has dozens of entries and provides a rich basis for adding cybernetic enhancement to any science fiction game. Weaponry isn't slighted either. Rules and supporting data enable you to design small arms, conventional cannons, gauss weapons, plasma and fusion weapons, lasers, particle accelerators, meson guns, missiles, and more. Or counter them with reactive armor, electrostatic armor, meson screens, or nuclear dampers..."

"The alien needs help... wounded, frightened, reluctant, the little birdlike creature can only slowly be coaxed into telling its story. Out there, in a research station in the middle of the sea, its sister and brother are being held for terrible experiments, vivisection, ultimately death! The alien makes its plea; please, can't someone help? Can you?"

"Throughout the bleak nightmare of the Collapse, the long dark shapes of warships, scoured clean of organic life, still prowled the now-lonely space lanes and cast their deadly shadows over half a thoudand worlds. Imbued with a malignant intelligence, and a taste for apocalyptic violence, the vampire fleets methodically finished the work that the first wave of Virus infection had haphazardly begun. After seventy-five years, humankind finally stood backed against the edge of the abyss, only one more short step seperating them from oblivion. Passive defense is no longer enough. If humankind is to reclaim the stars, it will have to be past the ruptured hulls and shattered computer brains of the vampires. Defeating the vampire fleets is a task of nearly impossible scope and difficulty, but the journey of a thousand miles by an entire species begins with a single step by a small band of people. Three sections: Vampire Fleets: What motivates them, where they are encountered, their capabilities, behaviors, strengths and weaknesses. The Planet Promise: A world completely controlled by Virus-infected machines, its working starport a vital link in the chain of the vampire highway. Robot Design: Complete rules on their construction as well as motivation and behavior of Virus-infected robots. Plus a complete three-adventure campaign. Each adventure illustrates and draws on the material in one part of the sourcebook. Together they put the players at the center of the struggle which can break the power of the Vampire Fleets forever and change the course of human history."

CONTENTS: 32-page "Rules of Play" 48-page Technical Booklet 3 play maps 2 Player Aids Cards Pad: Missile and Drone Log 2 sheets of counters, 1 large sheet, 1 small; 183 counters total ~ "In space combat, you never see your opponent until it's all over, if even then. With acquisition and tracking ranges measured in tens of thousands of kilometers, to human eyes the people that are trying to kill you are not even a speck. But they can hurt you, even though you can't see them. Precise laser arrays and big particle accelerators, honed by centuries of engineering, can reach out without warning to slit your hull like the belly of a fish, spilling life -- oxygen, heat, and fuel -- into the hard vacuum. That's why space combat is a game of cat-and-mouse. Keep yourself wrapped in the mantle of space-cold, dark, silent. Keep your thrust burns to minimum-they blaze like miniature suns for all to detect. Rig your passive sensors to greedily absorb data, but remain quiet yourself-give nothing away. Keep your weapons ready, in case... There! A faint trace of mid-wavelength infrared betrays a maneuver drive. Bring up the ladar dishes while the big passive array builds up a targeting solution. The moments seam endless while every crewmember shares the same thought: 'Have they seen us?' Is the unseen enemy at this moment doing the same thing you are? You might never know the answer. If you beat him, maybe you'll find out. But what if you hadn't seen him first? Some questions must remain unanswered when death, unbidden, comes scorching toward you as silent, brilliant lances."

SPACECRAFT Assault lander ... "Wildbat" fighter ... 50-ton modular cutter (with new modules) ... Aurora and Maggart-class clippers ... Three Hiver ships ... Victrix-class multipurpose starships. WEAPONS 5mm "pen pistol" ... Coalition 2.5cm grenade launcher ... 4cm RAM rifle grenades ... Lyrebird support missiles ... 9m-tall planetary defense missiles ... Nail tac missile ... TL-6 "Panda" recon tank ... TL-8 "Prarie Fire" tank ... TL-15 "Intrepid" grav tank. TRANSPORTATION Assault lander ... drop capsule ... personal reentry kit ... Charina wheeled APC ... grav belt.

"Inevitably, aftermaths are longer than the wars that cause them. And the War of the Rebellion is no exception. Hard Times provides both referees and players with a detailed look at the post-Rebellion Imperium and the new challenges that they can expect to face in it. However, Hard Times is more than a sourcebook. It integrates adventures with resource materials in order to provide complete support for roleplaying in the postwar Imperium. * Practical and easy-to-use guidelines for creating new adventures within the environments of the post-Rebellion Imperium. * 10 well-detailed sample adventures for use in these new environments, plus several brief adventure outlines -- all of which serve as examples of these new environments and how to create them. * A flexible adventure interface design which allows you to use each of the adventures as part of a complete campaign or by itself. * Additions to the UCP design sequence, special postwar industries, a unique collection of implements and opponents, and more."