If you should happen to be at Dragonmeet, you could get the opportunity to play the BITS Traveller skirmish game, At Close Quarters using this gorgeous model of a Type J Seeker. You know you want to!

We're really pleased to announce the return of TravCon in 2009. TravCon09 will, once again, be held in Sawtry at Redwing Lodge on the weekend of the 13-15th March 2009. You can download details of the con and information on how to book here on the website.

This is the UK's only Traveller focused convention. You can see pictures of TravCon08 here.

Important information: if you book before 6th December 2008 you can save money! Prices rise after that date; you can find full details on the booking form.

Tags: TravCon

Dragonmeet 2008 is nearly upon us again, which means two things: it's getting close to Christmas, and you're only a few weeks away from one of the best one day conventions in the UK. Once again, BITS will be there promoting Traveller. As well as the usual trade stand and demo games, we've planned a special game of At Close Quarters, Doug Berry's excellent Traveller skirmish rules published by BITS where you can battle for control of a starship.

Link to Dragonmeet Website

Tags: Dragonmeet

Unfortunately, due to the recent significant increases in eBay fees for webshops, we have have been forced to close down with BITS Webshop at Ancient Tomes. This is as we could no longer sell products without making a loss (we have never priced highly compared to other publishers as a deliberate policy) via eBay Shops. We are working on a fix, and should have a new facility up soon.

Thank you for your patience.

The BITS Team.

Tags: Webshop

Just a quick apology for the glitches that crept in this week to the website formatting. They should be fixed now, and were a consequence of some work to the site which will be revealed soon, once it's stable.

As a quick update, the team had a successful GenCon UK, and hope to have a short report and pictures up to share soon. Continuum also went well, with a one off playtest for This Fear of Gods, the other scenario being worked up as well as the Angel's Share Campaign.

Dom

Tags: Website

We are pleased to announce we will be attending Gencon UK 2008 from 28th to 31st August 2008 at Reading University, Reading, England.

As with previous years, we will be running a series of RPG tables using the new Mongoose Traveller ruleset. Our new RPG adventures will be based around the continuing saga of the trader ship Angel's Share in a linked series of adventures set in the Spinward Marches. Parts 1-3 were run at Gencon UK 2007 and Parts 4-6 will be the main feature this year.

As part of the convention, BITS Director Andy Lilly will also be running a special Charity Auction game with Loren Wiseman guest playing and the other 5 places going to the highest bidders.

We will also be running demos of Power Projection: Fleet, our Traveller starship combat game.

More details of scenario times and general convention details can be found at http://www.genconuk.com/

As always find us at http://www.bitsuk.net/ and http://www.powerprojection.net/ for more info on BITS and Power Projection

Thanks

The BITS Team
Supporting Traveller in all forms since 1996...Donations of anagathics always welcome

Mongoose have released two more Traveller books; The Spinward Marches, and 760 Patrons. They have also made the core rulebook available as a PDF via sites such as RPGNow. It's worth noting that the PDF has some of the small numbers of errata corrected.

Mercenary, High Guard and the first adventure supplement Beltstrike have all be announced for this month and Leisure Games are accepting pre-orders.

As a sneak preview of the next Member's newsletter, over the next week or so we'll be posting a review of Mongoose Traveller in the Member's section.

Enjoy!

[This review is now completed.]

Tags: Mongoose

RPG.Net have just posted a review of Mongoose Traveller. You can find it here:

http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/13/13769.phtml

BITS is also looking for reviews of Mongoose Traveller, Traveller Hero, and the new Traveller 1248 Book 3 - The Spinward States. If you're a member, we'll probably add them to the newsletter, but if you like we can add them here to the site too. Alternatively, please send them to RPG.net and get Traveller some publicity!

Tags: Mongoose

My copy of Mongoose Traveller arrived this week, and it gives off really strong Classic Traveller vibes. Here are some pics as a taster...


Just like the Traveller Book - ignore my cable mess in the background!

We'd welcome your reviews and comments to go in the BITS Newsletter!


Interior peek - A Type S...

Tags: Mongoose

Thanks to Richard Talbot, we've moved the BITS calendar for conventions to Google Calendar, and have re-enabled the page on the site so you can see where we will be over the next few months.

You can find this information here:

Tags: Website

Neil has sent his final TravCon 08 report:

Saturday night ended with pretty much all the con attendees having a drink in the bar. Did we mention that the bar was open 24-hour? A couple of attendees checked the claim and found that yes the staff would serve until the early hours of the morning.

The TAS 24 hour bar.

Sunday started a little later than planed with two RPG games being ran. One by Max Kettley who was running his first con game for BITS.
Another group gave the combat system for the new Mongoose Traveller rule system a test run.

The afternoon session saw the end of one of the morning games and a short run out for the BITS classic scenario Family Business.


The Awards!

The con was wrapped up with a closing ceremony (posh term for getting everyone in the same room) hosted by our own Andy Lilly. A couple of
awards were handed out including the Ping, F*** It award. I'll leave the details so as not to get them wrong. With the closing ceremony ending with very long list of thank yous we all then started to thin out and make our weary way home.

Well that was the first of the resurrected TravCons. With a little bit of luck there will be a TravCon 2009, a bit bigger and obviously better.

--
All the best,
Neil

All pictures from TravCon 08 can be found here.
If you want copies of the higher resolution images and you attended TravCon 08, please drop us an email.

Tags: TravCon08

As TravCon 08 draws to a close, an update from Andy:

Bloody 'ell, we did it!

I'm going to have a quiet meal (non-Indian) and drink (non-Carling), relax (non-gaming) and tomorrow hopefully I'll pull together the pictures I took
and post them up.

Should be plenty of material for the next newsletter.

Thanks to those who made it a success. Missed those of you who couldn't make it.

Andy

Andy Lilly
BITS UK Limited (British Isles Traveller Support)

Tags: TravCon08

Once again, our fearless drinker stringer reports to TAS on TravCon 08:

Hello again,

We've just got back from another fine curry. The afternoon slot saw another three games of Traveller. The evening slot is just about to kick in with a couple of games being played. We'll have to see what the morrow brings.

Highlights of this afternoons session were Cold Dark Grave get another run out and the fine George Wright's beer brought along by Derrick. Yes, Neil was able to find six players who'd never played Cold Dark Grave!

The prediction for Man of the Con goes to Simon who looks to be trying to run the whole of the Angel's Share saga at the con. All the best, Neil


Hopefully pictures tomorrow!

(Angel's Share is the new mini-campaign being prepared for publication by BITS.)

Tags: TravCon08

TravCon08 is underway! BITS' very own Neil McGurk reports:

Hello from TravCon 08 to all who aren't just outside Sawtry.
We're well into the Saturday morning session now. Three games of Traveller played last night. The evening ended with a large game Chez Geek in the 24-hour bar! Won by Derrick, who then continued to drink until 4am.

We've now got three games of Traveller being played, with a couple more planned for this afternoon. Hope to get a couple of updates out during the rest of the weekend. The WiFi isn't free but it is cheap.

All the best, Neil

Hopefully we'll have more news and pictures this weekend.

Dom

Tags: TravCon08

Mongoose have just announced that they have sent Traveller to the printers for publication. As this isn't using the in house printing that flawed the production quality of some of their recent books, we'll have to wait for nearly a month!

More can be found at their blog page: http://blog.mongoosepublishing.co.uk/

Thanks to Richard Talbot for spotting this!

Tags: Mongoose, Traveller 5

This is your LAST CHANCE to register for TravCon08!

There is less than a week to go until the Con opens this coming weekend...

Demand for places has been good, however...

...we have ONE room left (as work/illness have cut the BITS team attendance) and we also have a number of day tickets available, and would welcome more people who want to play or referee Traveller (of any flavour). Come and take part in the UK's premier Traveller RPG convention, and even try out the new Mongoose Traveller playtest rules!

IMPORTANT: You must pre-register for day tickets, as they are not available on the day. Day tickets are £15 Saturday, £10 Sunday.

Register HERE!

Tags: TravCon08

BITS will be demoing 4 linked adventures (1 per slot) at Conpulsion 2008 at Edinburgh University, 22nd-23rd March 2008 for those of you living in that part of the world.

We'll be using the Mongoose Traveller 3.2 Playtest document as the rules unless MGP get the main rulebook out by then.

We'll be running In Search of Angels, The Rock, Ice Work and Ghosts from the Past in sequence detailing the travels of the crew of the Angel's Share in the Spinward Marches just after the Fifth Frontier War.

Conpulsion is an excellent con so if you live in that part of the world come along as there seems to be plenty on:

http://www.geas.org.uk/conpulsion/index.shtml

BITS is proud to announce TravCon08 UK is now open to registration for everyone after two months as a BITS member exclusive. There are limited numbers of places left, so book soon!

This is the rebirth of the convention we used to run at Hebden Bridge, but this time down south near Sawtry.

Register HERE!

Tags: TravCon08

Happy New Year to you all from BITS!

And what a New Year it promises to be, with Mongoose Traveller and Traveller 5 due out, not to forget the forthcoming TravCon 08!

Speaking of Traveller 5, the bundle of pre-order stuff arrived here so we'll hopefully have some thoughts on it for you soon.

Wishing you all well,

The BITS crew.

Update: 20 Jan 2007
Sorry this is so late going up, but we've been suffering broadband issues.