Wargaming in Traveller: Ground Zero Games' New Swabian League

    I've posted before about wargaming in The Third Imperium, those posts with the W3I label. 

    But in this and subsequent posts I intend to look at particular ranges of miniatures, and how they might fit into a Traveller setting. The focus will be on my traveller universe, but any suggestions made should be applicable to any OTU or other Traveller campaign with little effort on your part.

    While I generally only use Books 1-3, Book 4: Mercenary provides some good guidelines for determining the tech level of forces given the equipment they use.

    I'll start with Ground Zero Games' New Swabian League (NSL) range of figures; mainly because they comprise my first and largest 15mm force. I have already posted about using these as Sword Worlders.

    Let's look at their equipment below: The armour worn by the Panzergrenadiere, the PanzerKampfAnzüge and the Jägers, represents Combat Armour, Battle Dress, and Flak Jacket (at best), respectively. With minimum tech levels of 11, 13 and 7 (or lower if considered a normal unarmoured uniform). The armour therefore gives us an upper TL limit of 13. Jägers do not wear breathing apparatus and some Panzergrenadier figures have their visors up, so we can assume a breathable atmosphere.

    A variety of weapons are used within the range but the highest tech are the HAMR railgun and the man portable plasma cannon (MPPC) which are probably best represented by the Gauss Rifle and PGMP-12, giving an upper weapons TL limit of 12.

The infantry range includes Fan Bikes a type of Hover Bike with huge fans mounted either side, hinting at the use of Hovercraft as the standard vehicle. Furthermore GZG's vehicle range includes several vehicles with German names, such as the Wittmann and Rommel hover tanks, which tends to reinforce the idea that hover vehicles are more common. Traveller Book 3 states that hovercraft need a world with atmosphere 4+ to operate in.

    So far we have determined a minimum atmosphere (4) and a maximum tech level (13, although it is more likely to be predominantly TL-12), we've also determined that a breathable atmosphere is present, so that means atmosphere 5, 6, or 8.

    The figures are not exceptionally tall or thin for 15mm, nor are they especially short, so we can assume an average gravity so a world size of 7, 8, or 9 is probable. 

    Jäger officers wear a long greatcoat, and the Jäger uniform appears to be relatively thick, so the climate would seem to be cool temperate. So that probably rules out a desert world, and probably indicates at least a 6 or 7 for hydrographics. Although a desert world in the farthest edge of the habitable zone would probably provide a cool temperate climate as well; so maybe we can't  be certain about hydrographics.

    There are three different types of troops which implies at least three different units. So we need a world with the capability (according to the article "Troops in the Fifth Frontier World", JTAS 10, pages 24-26) to support at least three battalions. The relevant tables have been reproduced at Beowulf Down. We know our world is TL-13 and that gives us a population of at least 6 on the table. Which provides 10 battalions. The mobile battalions table tells us one of those is a mobile battalion, which gives us a total of nine battalions of ground forces and one mobile battalion consisting of Panzergrenadiere and PanzerKampfAnzüge, (Panzergrenadier platoons include one squad of PanzerKampfAnzüge according to the write up in the Stargrunt II rule book).

    The NSL faction includes a range of ships available from GZG as well, indicating that the NSL homeworld has a fleet. Since available ship data from Star Ranger shows ships equipped with FTL drives we can assume that the NSL homeworld has an A class Starport and a Naval base in order to build interstellar naval vessels. 

    After all this we have a rough idea of the type of world we are looking for. It should have an A class starport, a size of 7-9, atmosphere of 5, 6, or 8, unknown hydrographics, population of 6+, unknown government and law level, and a tech level of 13.

There is no such world in The Void subsector, but perhaps I'll find it in another subsector in Auzhan Sector, after I create them.

For those using the OTU you can use these search parameters uwp:A[7-9][568]?[6-F]??-[C-D] on the Traveller Map. 

For those using the OTU that gives you five worlds in the Spinward Marches, three in Reft Sector, eight in Reaver's Deep, three in Core Sector and a whopping seventeen in the Solomani Rim, with others scattered around throughout known space.

Regarding the NSL ships. In my universe starport A and naval base is required for an interstellar squadron(s), starport B and naval base is required for a system squadron(s). No naval base means no large ships, but maybe fighter squadron(s) are possible for such a world. In the OTU these squadrons would be Colonial, System and none respectively.


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