Belter, Double Star, Bloodtree Rebellion

[mike wightman]

I have recently managed to get Double Star in its original boxed set, I have Belter as pdf, and stupidly sold Bloodtree Rebellion in my youth.

Many of the elements in these games were 'borrowed' for Traveller and the OTU, I just wonder why they were never retconned into the OTU the way Imperium was?

Double Star could easily be hacked into the operational/system level game missing from Traveller, Belter is a cracking game of resource exploitation, and could likewise be mined for a full on trade game.

Bloodtree Rebellion is a game I wish I had held onto for the invasions of the MT era.

Does Marc own the rights to these games?

Why is only Belter available as a pdf download?

 

[robject]

YES: he 'owns' Double Star and Belter. I don't know about Bloodtree.

Anyway: yes, Double Star has some good ideas worth mining, and Belter is interesting (did it influence Beltstrike?). Don once mentioned:

Double Star appears to be a predecessor ruleset, with some interesting connections to High Guard.

For example, ever add Double Star's formations to CT's High Guard if the commander has Fleet Tactics skill? There's some interesting materials to mine in Double Star.

And a bit later, Marc said:

Double Star envisioned "formations" derived from Lensman: Line, Wall, Globe.

So imagine what sort of formations Battleships would take.


Independent. Each ship operates independently.


Echelon. Like aircraft. A leader and WingMen.


Column. One leader, and many followers. The leader takes all hits, and screens its followers. When/If the leader is eliminated, the next up starts taking hits. It seems like here, that the followers can still launch missiles, which presents a strategy.


Line. Many ships side by side.


Wall.
Cone
Globe.

 

[Otto Harkaman]

I had bought Belter and Double Star awhile back on WargameVault or one of the other affiliated websites. I had started on making a Belter Vassal module but for some reason never finished it and now I don't even know where the files are. Anyways I think they are both interesting games in connection with Traveller.

 

[kilemall]

Of the three, I would think Belter would be best suited to be adapted to a computer game.

 

[jec10]

Many say Bloodtree Rebellion was the best "Vietnam" wargame ever produced.

I remember looking at it in my FLGS back in the day and ultimately deciding to buy 5FW because of the cover art. I don't regret it, but wish I'd come back and got Bloodtree Rebellion.

 

[Otto Harkaman]

Checking out the Board Game Geek forum on the Bloodtree game, there is a thread about the rights to the game.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/6921/bloodtree-rebellion

Forum thread about ownership
https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1583915/who-owns-rights

 

[Whipsnade]

While I've never seen Double Star sadly, Don's comment about it being a predecessor of sorts rings true for me. Along with the connections to HG2, a variant article for the game in JTAS #3 gives the Islamic player a Solar Flare Trigger.

I've only seen Bloodtree played once. It was at a 'con in the early 90s and I was lucky enough to spot the game being set up. The players graciously allowed me to watch for a few hours. The game-within-a-game handling faction fights within the cities was fascinating.

Until GMT released Fire in the Lake as part of their ground breaking COIN series, Bloodtree was well known among grogs as the one of the best "Vietnam" games around.

 

[Otto Harkaman]

Thanks for the information about the JTAS variant article.