"Silent Death is BACK!" Topic

And the online store is LIVE:

metal-express.net

Many thanks to everyone who has been so patient and supportive during the unwelcome hiatus and our battle to bring this classic space fighter game back to its loyal fans!

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express Creative Content Team
metal-express.net

Yes!

Way to go Leland!

Hey, 'BlackWidowPilot' this is good news.
As someone completely new to Silent Death, where do I begin?

Oh man! That is GREAT news!
And timely too… just last week I was trying to interest my friend in a game of SD and realized I'd misplaced my main rulebook… so nothing to loan out as recruiting material.
This of course started me on an obsessive dig through all my SD stuff and man! I've missed playing that game.

Congrats on getting it back up and chugging.
(and please don't tell me all the minis are going to be re-done in resin or I'll cry).

Does the new Silent Death have anything to do with Iron Crown Enterprises, or has it been sold?

Great news, Leland! Just as a whole lot of minis are up on eBay too – though that might not be a good thing :)

Every success to you!

Excellent news!

Congrats on your return.

I'm looking forward to the release of more small vessels, that would be useful with your minis, and those from Traveller, as well, e.g. ship's boats, shuttles, etc.

Of course, some larger merchants, and defense vessels would be nice as well, either in metal, or resin.

Fantastic! And congratulations!

Caesar,

I'd start here.

link

so how long until I can get more of those larger resin ships again?

Yay, now I just need money . . .

Great to see them back, long overdue.

Cool.

Doug

This website needs the 'Dancing Calvin' emoticon…

Party at BWP's place! What do I need to bring (aside from cash for a new copy of the game)?

Oh, one suggestion for the webstore: can you make the big ships a separate category from the little ones?

Caesar,

you could follow Delthos's suggestion if you want to dive in whole hog, or you could wait for the free PDF download of the Rookie Rules, take the system for a test drive so to speak, then go from there.

Hope this helps!

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express Creative Content Team

Does the new Silent Death have anything to do with Iron Crown Enterprises, or has it been sold?

Bill,

Metal Express is essentially Dr. Greaves and I being given a free hand to bring Silent Death back to the loyal fans, and develop the game system further, in more interesting directions. The Metal Express game mechanics which is the core of the Silent Death game system as well as the Bladestorm fantasy skirmish system from which it sprang are the exclusive IP of ICE. The Silent Death universe remains under an open-ended license agreement between the IP holder and ICE, and we are moving forward using it accordingly.

Quite simply, as far as the creative process is concerned, there's no more middle men getting between us and our diabolical machinations to rule the universe….

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express Creative Content Team

so how long until I can get more of those larger resin ships again?

LordNth,

working on that ASAP. In fact, I have in my possession about a dozen or more 3 to 1 resin prototypes of the Night Brood ships plus a whole bunch of other ships that were never released in their 3 to 1 scale format.

I'll be contacting the resin maker presently with an eye towards bringing the 3 to 1 resin models back into production, plus expanding on that series considerably over the previous offering while we're at it. A 3 to 1 scale Seraph, anyone?

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express Creative Content Team

Oh, one suggestion for the webstore: can you make the big ships a separate category from the little ones?

Thanks for catching that! I'll see what can be done to smooth that bump out…

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express Creative Content Team

AWESOME !!!11!!!!!11!!!

Now if only I had money, that would be awesomer.

When are the rookie rules going to be released? I've loved Silent Death from when it was first released but all my rules are in storage and hard to get to….

Mick

Leland,

Do you have metal miniatures in hand? I would like to up my fleet of bulldogs but last time was a very frustrating experience. I am willing to give it another shot but I want to have realistic expectations from the outset. Thanks for working to bring this back, my 12 yr old opponent and I were bummed when everything went into limbo.

Rich

this is great news.

Hi Leland,

great to see silent death back. I may have to dust off the thunderbirds…

Best of luck with the "new" venture !

Phil.

This is way cool. I have the plastic versions of the fighters that are in the 12-pack, I take it everything on the site is in the same scale? Roughly the "1-inch fighter" scale.

One other thing that would be cool to have is ship template creation software or macro for Excel. Not so much a shipbuilder, just something to make templates for printing after we build our own.

Top man, Leland: top man.

Massive thumbs all the way up!

John T

I pretty much have everything ever made for SD. Good luck and I could probably be tempted to buy an updated rulebook.

Do you have metal miniatures in hand? I would like to up my fleet of bulldogs but last time was a very frustrating experience. I am willing to give it another shot but I want to have realistic expectations from the outset. Thanks for working to bring this back, my 12 yr old opponent and I were bummed when everything went into limbo.

Rich,

all the metal ship minis will be produced to order by RAFM Miniatures, and shipped directly to the purchaser from RAFM.

Order away.

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express Creative Content Team

When are the rookie rules going to be released? I've loved Silent Death from when it was first released but all my rules are in storage and hard to get to….

I've got Dr. Greaves on the TBD… very soon… very, very soon I've just been told…

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express Creative Content Team

I take it everything on the site is in the same scale? Roughly the "1-inch fighter" scale.

Yup. Pretty much the 1-inch "scale" across the board.

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express Creative Content Team

Thanks Leland, that's a lotta ships, this is great news all round. I've statted up Star Wars (my own take on the magazine version of SW-SD) and Battlestar Galactica, but needed ships for my own setting.

Great news!

That's good news. Congrats on efforts finally paying off.

Cheers

James

Metal Express is essentially Dr. Greaves and I being given a free hand to bring Silent Death back to the loyal fans, and develop the game system further, in more interesting directions. The Metal Express game mechanics which is the core of the Silent Death game system as well as the Bladestorm fantasy skirmish system from which it sprang are the exclusive IP of ICE. The Silent Death universe remains under an open-ended license agreement between the IP holder and ICE, and we are moving forward using it accordingly.

In other words, it's still owned by Iron Crown Enterprises… those dirty skunks. As much as I like the game, I won't touch it until they pay all the money they owe TMP.

Hear Hear!!!!! This is some of the best news I've heard in a long, long time.

In other words, it's still owned by Iron Crown Enterprises… those dirty skunks. As much as I like the game, I won't touch it until they pay all the money they owe TMP.

Bill,

as per our PM discussion, I'll see what I can do to settle this matter up between ICE and TMP. When I receive the invoice, I'll forward it to the CEO and put in my two yuans' worth about why it would be a very good idea to see this gets resolved, and as soon as possible.

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express Creative Content Team

Are the ships that used to be part of the Traveler line available?

"used to be part of the Traveler line"

Firebat, Hornet, Javelin, Rattler, and Praying Mantis are there. The other ships were never part of the SD line.

BlackWidowPilot
(quote with snip)
all the metal ship minis will be produced to order by RAFM Miniatures, and shipped directly to the purchaser from RAFM.

Order away.(end quote)

Is this what was done before ? As I am still waiting for ships to be sent from the caster from an order placed in 2009. And no, I don't expect them to show up after all this time.

Brother Jim,

follow the link above to the Metal Express home page. Scroll down to the bottom of that page's announcement and use the e-mail link to contact Sheldon Greaves regarding your MIA order. Give Sheldon the details on your missing order and he will indeed look into it.

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express Creative Content Team

Gypsy and Palaeo,

if I discover that we can adopt those wayward Traveler ship minis into the Silent Death universe, I'll get them back into production.

I don't believe in letting perfectly good starship minis going to waste!

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express Creative Content Team

Leland, those five already are. They were from Universal Night Watch. The other ships that RAFM did were Traveller specific (and iconic). You (and/or RAFM) would need to talk to Marc Miller about using the Scout, Free Trader, Far Trader, Patrol Cruiser, Lab Ship, RCES Clipper, Yacht, and others. Ad Astra holds that license now, by the way.

Email has been sent.

Thanks

Farstar,

thanks for the clarification re: the other ships (I am well aware of the dual identities of the UNW ships; Hell, I own enough of 'em already!). I'll have to have a word with Ad Astra then…

I see no sense in letting perfectly good starship minis going to waste….

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express Creative Content Team

Ad Astra has the license and their own models. They aren't using RAFM's at all.

Ad Astra has the license and their own models. They aren't using RAFM's at all.

That was my understanding of the matter. That said, I'm still gonna *try* as I too have a number of those RAFM Traveler minis, and I'm shameless when it comes to using perfectly good starship minis for nefarious purposes…

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express Creative Content Team

I'd like to see all the Traveller minis put back into production, if they can price them reasonably.

I'd especially like to see their Subsidized Merchant, Modular Cutter, Gazelle Close Escort, and System Defense Boat back in production, amongst some of the others.

The Ad Astra (nee MegaMinis) Traveller ships (Scout, Type A, subcraft) are more expensive because they are big.

Pictures are of the RAFM minis on a cm grid and the MegaMinis/Ad Astra minis in packaging.

Ah, I didn't know the newer Traveller ships were so much bigger. Puts them a tad closer in scale to the single-man fighters of SD… kinda.

Are there going to be any changes to the SD backstory?