Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Greetings, all.

Rather than scatter news about my upcoming game Saucer War One all over the place, I thought I'd concentrate it all here. Let me know if you'd prefer separate threads, though.

New article on the Miniature Martin blog reveals the Weapon Disc. Scroll down to see the latest update, or just follow this link:

https://miniaturemartin.com/2021/02/28/hostile-saucers-weapon-disc-preview-for-saucer-war-one/

Scroll down for the latest update, which reveals the new Triga type Saucer!



Or more accurately, I am working on Saucer War One — a game about descending upon the unsuspecting Earth in flying saucers! It's got a long way to go, (in fact the rules aren't even at the Alpha stage yet), but I thought I should share some progress here, and see what people think. Here's the 'elevator pitch' so you can know where I'm coming from:



Saucer War One: Invasion ’52 is a tabletop miniatures game of flying saucer combat, set in the 1950s. Against a background of B-grade Sci-Fi films, Cold War paranoia, Bebop Jazz and Rock n’ Roll, Saucer War One takes you through an alternate history in which alien civilisations challenged Humanity for dominance of the Earth.

Players field squadrons of beautifully detailed, 1/200 scale miniature saucers, maneuvering to bring machine-cannons, missiles, and exotic super-science weapons to bear. But victory is not decided by combat alone; Saucer War One is a fight for the hearts and minds of Earthlings. Can you gain the most believers for your cause, and ultimately triumph?

Right then, that's the commercial out of the way. So, what's this all about?

Well, ages ago I went through a bout with cancer (happily emerging the winner), and while recuperating I enjoyed a chuckle at old UFO documentaries I'd seen in my 70's childhood. It's the comfort of nostalgia, I suppose. But, then my gamer-brain started to take over, and up bubbled those fatal words that so many of us know so well:

"There's a game in that!"

A couple of years of falling down the rabbit hole that is Ufology, and I have penned a storyline of classic flying saucers fighting in the skies of Earth, complete with Venusians, Moon Nazis, and an Anderson-esque super-secret air force to fight them.

The (evil) plan is to create a line of 1/200 scale model saucers and a ruleset to fight with. With a bit of finger-out-pulling, I should have some free rules, cards, and counters for print 'n play come June-July this year.

But in the meantime, please let me invite you to take a look at my new Miniature Martin blog here:

https://miniaturemartin.com/

I will post updates in this thread regularly, and I hope you will find some stuff of interest as I record my progress. In the meantime, here's a 3-view of a Noordican Biga class saucer that I just finished, so you can get an idea of what the miniatures may look like. (Any resemblance to a Sears Gas Lantern top is purely coincidental.)

Cool idea. Good luck.

I look forward to seeing the OP Bob Lazar character mini in action.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I look forward to seeing the OP Bob Lazar character mini in action.

Oh heck, I just have to do that as a stretch goal!

I am far too excited for your project....





I don't usually make 3d models of someone elses design, but I saw your artwork and was compelled to do so.

chaos0xomega wrote:
I am far too excited for your project....

I don't usually make 3d models of someone elses design, but I saw your artwork and was compelled to do so.

Chaos', I have PM'ed you.

Greetings, Dakkanauts! I hope everyone is safe and well today, and getting a bunch of hobby stuff done.

I have a couple of new articles on the Miniature Martin Blog for you, including a breakdown of the Data Disc which is the 'stat card' of Saucer War One. Of course, if you're on this thread you'll have already seen something I'm a bit excited about... the picture might be a hint... come over to the blog and see what's happening!

https://miniaturemartin.com/blog/

Nice design..... way better than the classic '50's look with almost no detail.

 Easy E wrote:
Nice design..... way better than the classic '50's look with almost no detail.

Thanks, Easy E. I wanted the Biga to be more visually exciting than Adamski's original fake, and easy to paint as a miniature; A couple of good metallics and a wash, and it should be good for the table. Chaos0xomega surprised the heck out of me with his amazing, unprompted sculpt, so now he's going to do a couple more for the Noordican range and they will be released as free .STL files for home printing before we get down to the higher-detailed resin miniatures for the Kickstarter.

More previews of saucers to come!

I like the alien runes on the edge, give the saucers a bit more detail and adds to their exoticness.

I mean they might say Saucer 342, 39th Martian Air Wing, but they look cool.

Thanks for sharing this project, as someone who similarly (mis?)spent their youth watching many UFO (and Bigfoot, and Chupacabra, and Mokele mbembe, and the Mongolian Death Worm) documentaries, this is tickling a lot of my fancies.

I read a bit of your blog and I really like the creative challenge of the flight stand tripod pivoting into affecting gameplay with the maneuver discs. One of the wonderful things about the materiality of miniatures games. Definitely going to be following your progress and excited for your eventual kickstarter!

 Don Qui Hotep wrote:
Thanks for sharing this project, as someone who similarly (mis?)spent their youth watching many UFO (and Bigfoot, and Chupacabra, and Mokele mbembe, and the Mongolian Death Worm) documentaries, this is tickling a lot of my fancies.

I read a bit of your blog and I really like the creative challenge of the flight stand tripod pivoting into affecting gameplay with the maneuver discs. One of the wonderful things about the materiality of miniatures games. Definitely going to be following your progress and excited for your eventual kickstarter!

One of us! One of us!

Thanks, Don, I appreciate your interest. Yes, the old documentaries and shows like In Search Of and Arthur C Clarke's Mysterious World fascinated me, inspired me, and occasionally frightened the heebie-geebies out of me. (Hey, I was all of six...)

I was very happy with the maneuver disc solution, although it evaded me for ages. It was one of those 'popped out of nowhere' things. Rather like a UFO sighting!

Update to the blog this weekend!

This is a really cool idea for a game and I am pretty excited about the model line!

Will there be room for a Mothman or some Kentucky Goblins?

1/200 is pretty small for human-ish sized figures.

Right. I forgot the scale for some reason.

Manchu wrote:This is a really cool idea for a game and I am pretty excited about the model line!

Thank you, Manchu! So am I!

BobtheInquisitor wrote:Will there be room for a Mothman or some Kentucky Goblins?

Mothman appeared in 1966 (I believe), so it falls outside the Saucer War One timeline. Might make an appearance in Saucer War Two. (Yes, I am already planning a sequel.)

As for the scale of 'infantry' figures... A little insight into how Saucer War One works might be handy before we discuss that:

'Boots on the ground' are essential to win in SW1. Men In Black, Contactees, and Recovery Teams (known collectively as Assets), need to be delivered to Objectives such as a Downed Saucer to retrieve its Icebox (its cryotronic computer core), or to steal Irrefutable Evidence from the local chapter of NICAP (the biggest ufology society of the era). Fulfilling these tasks wins you Believers. In campaign play, victory goes to the side with the most Believers; you've won the hearts and minds of the masses, and your version of the truth about UFOs is accepted as reality.

Assets are represented as card discs that 'attach' to the Data Disc https://miniaturemartin.com/2020/05/15/all-the-data-disc-data/ of the saucer that is carrying them until they disembark onto the playing surface. The Asset Disc can then move around the surface, carrying out its mission before being recovered by their saucer, and vanishing into the night sky. (Think a spec ops team being inserted / extracted by helicopter.) Assets will usually represent only 2-4 people (or things from another world).

Miniatures of such small teams would be a bit underwhelming in 1/200! And a little tricky to make distinguishable on the tabletop. (I fear there'd be much squinting involved.) Therefore, I'm not currently planning on doing Assets as miniatures.

Having said that, what would people think of (say) a stretch goal for the Kickstarter to offer such minis but in a different scale? Say, 15mm? Or another scale? (Reluctant to go much larger than 15mm, but its not impossible.) Thoughts on the back of a Venusian postcard, please!

Interesting and fun looking project! Can always do with more Vree...

Not sure if 1/200 is too small for human sized miniatures, its about 9-10mm (people play games in 6mm quite regularly) and its widely used already in architectural modeling with people models, would be a good source for random civies.

 ingtaer wrote:
Interesting and fun looking project! Can always do with more Vree...

Not sure if 1/200 is too small for human sized miniatures, its about 9-10mm (people play games in 6mm quite regularly)...

Indeed they do; I'm one of them!

But 6mm to 10mm scale is usually given to battles with hundreds of miniatures, or for the better sense of scale range it provides for armour battles. Given that an average game of SW1 would only have 4-10 figures on the tabletop (plus Saucers), and no tanks, I think such a handful of 10mm figures would be a bit underwhelming. There might be ways to work around that, but I'm presently unsure what those might be. Hence I wonder if going with a larger scale (just for such figures) might be a solution.

An Asset miniature would be just a marker / token in any case. Scenery in SW1 is represented by flat, card shapes with bird's-eye images of farms, towns, missile silos, etc. I kind of like the idea of encouraging players to model scenery, but in (say) 1/600 scale to give a sense of false perspective as the 1/200 saucers fly above. That smaller table-scale also gives a better sense of speed, as saucers zoom across whole, tiny cities and counties as they battle it out. Of course, if players go for modelling their SW1 tables in 1/200, I won't stop them! Certainly could look spectacular!

Could be cool to have a small 20mm round base with a handful of 6mm-10mm models for objective markers instead of the discs you mention.

For some reason, a small base of 6-10mm cows seems really cool to me as an objective!

Impressive art

I like the idea of keeping the stand-ins to scale, not sure why but I think something something immersion. I appreciate the use of printed terrain to help us feel like we're taking the bird's eye view.

Thanks for the thoughts about the scale of miniatures for Assets, everyone. Some food for thought there. I really appreciate the feedback!

Meantime though, Saucer War One continues to take shape, with a new design article on the Miniature Martin blog.

https://miniaturemartin.com/2020/05/22/they-rode-the-flying-saucers/

This time, it's about how Saucer Crews survive the incredible G-Forces of hyper-speed combat, and how we record their fates on Crew Discs. Come and take a look!

Mixing scales in a minis game produces a board game feeling, not always entirely welcome.

You will need to turn the wheels into cogwheels. I like the idea but the wheels can easily be nudged away from each other in play making it difficult to determine exact position. Cog wheels fix this.

 Orlanth wrote:
You will need to turn the wheels into cogwheels. I like the idea but the wheels can easily be nudged away from each other in play making it difficult to determine exact position. Cog wheels fix this.

I am giving this some thought, Orlanth. Some card-gaming friends have suggested the small, neoprene mats commonly used to prevent cards from slipping around. I quite like that idea, because it could be themed to the subject (an instrument panel, for example.)

I had thought cogs would be the go, but the effect was thoroughly steampunk.

The thickness of the cards makes a big difference. These discs will likely be 1mm artboard, or thicker. It certainly helps stop them sliding.

Thanks for the feedback! Very much appreciated!

Hello all!

There's another new article on the Miniature Martin Blog: This time, we're looking at the Trigger Cards, which provide the means to randomise results in Saucer War One.

https://miniaturemartin.com/2020/05/30/triggered-random-events-in-sw1/

"Why not just use dice?!?" I hear you exclaim. Well, come take a read, and see what you think of my reasoning.



Also — why are there no retro sci-fi images of hot guys in goldfish bowl helmets?

A new saucer revealed? Boris and Natasha have done well! Here's an exclusive look at the first ANTIC saucer to be made public. (Project Blue Book will insist it is just swamp gas.)



https://miniaturemartin.com/2020/06/05/know-your-flying-saucers-the-silvercat/

Come over to the Miniature Martin Blog to read the article to discover the real-life inspiration of the Silvercat, and download a bigger version of the blueprints.

A recently revealed table of organisation showing ANTIC's order of battle on the eve of war! (Don't tell them I showed you this!)



I have to admit, I love doing this sort of stuff; it adds a sense of reality for me (or at least, the suspension of disbelief), it sparked a few questions that needed answers, (like "Who's running this joint?"), and helps me imagine the forces at my disposal as a wargamer. I'm already working on special rules for the all-black painted Joker Squadron!

Also, creating the table was a lot of fun, especially researching the personalities at the top of the ANTIC tree. Who else knew that Dowding attended several lectures by Ufologists and contactees in the early 1950's? As did Lord Mountbatten, and other notables of British society? Could it be they knew things the rest of us were not privy to? The plot thickens...

Chinese-American WW2 WASP pilot and nuclear scientist Maggie Gee was always on my recruiter's list as the head of ANTIC's R&D department, but I stumbled upon the amazing Virginia Hall. This peerless spy was the bane of the Nazis in occupied France, and she did amazing things to thwart them, in spite of having only one leg! She was neglected by the CIA after the war, and assigned to a mundane desk job. I could not resist imagining that job being merely a cover for her real, world-saving role...

And I had to have Keith Park there as Dowding's tactical genius, because who else would you want leading your air defence against a deadly enemy from afar?

The hidden CAPER bases from which the saucers fly are all areas that had unusual UFO activity at some time. (Although I suspect Coffin Bay here in South Australia was chosen because of the oysters...)

More in the article on the Miniature Martin blog!

https://miniaturemartin.com/2020/06/13/saucer-war-one-faction-sketch-1-antic/

Hello everyone!

Please pardon all these flights of fancy of mine, but I am getting a little excited about the miniatures being sculpted for Saucer War One. In part, this is because I just took delivery of two Elegoo Mars 2 Pro 3D printers, so soon I'll be able to show off actual, real, physical miniatures, rather than mere renders. It's a great feeling to know that something you're crafting is finally coming together.



Now, on to today's UFO disclosure! Flying down from Venusian motherships, this is the Noordican's Triga beta-type saucer. An ancient design of the alien Annunaki pressed into service by the desperate denizens of Venus.

Beta type saucers are heavy fighters — the Saucer War One equivalents of Me110's, DeHavilland Mosquitos, and P-61 Black Widows. These are the beasts you release where you're done talking and its time to smash some saucers.



As a 1/200th scale miniature, the Triga is 73mm across. Bigger than the humble Biga which makes the bulk of the Noordican fleet, but more nimble than the mighty Quadriga alpha-type that does the heavy lifting (literally), for the 'Enlightenment' of Earth. (Alphas will be revealed... well, as soon as we get them sculpted! )

You can find out more about Saucer War One here on the Miniature Martin blog. Do come take a look, if you like this sort of thing.

https://miniaturemartin.com

Thank you for taking a look, and — Watch the Skies!