"Information on Silent Death" Topic

Greetings all,

I am new to TMP, and this may be a question that has been answered before, but I am looking for any information on the current state of Silent Death. I recently pulled out all of my books and would love to start playing again, but I can't find my ships. Is there any place available to purchase them anymore? I know that I.C.E. filed bankruptcy, and I have been to Metal Express but there is nothing newer than two years ago. Any information that anyone has would be greatly appreciated. Thanks….

Welcome.
I do not have info on SD's current status.

SD's subject matter expert is on TMP if I recall correctly (Mr Erickson?). He may be along shortly.

I do know you can buy some of the plastics fighters for the game from EM4. I have personally bought from them before and they are a good outfit.

Good luck in your search.

link

Privateer,

Thank you for you're reply and thanks for the link. I just recently started looking at my gaming stuff and I really would like to get back into playing, but the only thing that is currently active in my area is Warhammer 40K. I was very pleased to find this site, and I wish I had known about it back when I was playing actively. Take care, and thanks again.

Silent Death metal miniatures are offered by Metal Express

link

Allen,

Thanks. I know that the site is still up, but there haven't been any updates since 2012, are they still actively selling miniatures? Thanks for the info.

They are in full swing. I have ordered from them relatively recently.

We're very much alive and well, actually.

I'm ruminating on an update for the home page: the lion's share of activity is to be found on the Metal Express forum, however, and yes, we do indeed have every intention of seeing into action long promised projects, from a redesigned set of ship design rules to revised Night Brood, new campaign and House books, and yes, if our sniffing around 3D printers yields results, new ships at a rate well above and beyond our current, painfully limited resources.

You may rest assured, Dr. Greaves and I do mean business about moving Silent Death forward in 2014.

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

The folks in the know beat me to responding. Glad to hear the company is going strong. I have not ordered for a couple years but have a list of stuff I am currently putting together for an order.

@BWP it would be nice if you could list the lengths of the minis on your site.

Or at least a picture with the mini next to a ruler.

Yay, I just ordered from them and was a little iffy as I noted the same thing about the last update. So I am excited to see my figures arrive.

Thanks very much for all of the responses. And especially to BlackWidowPilot. I am so glad to hear that the site is alive and well. As I know that you are a SME on SD, I may well have more questions for you in the future. I would truly love to see new stuff for SD, especially an updated set of ship design rules and a complete set of campaign rules (I know that there was something in the works a while ago). As a quick question, are the ships sold on the site now the blister packs from RAFM/ICE, or are the newly made? And are the prices for individual ships or multiple ships like in the old packaging? I wish you and Dr. Greaves the best of luck with things and look forward to getting back into playing. Again, thanks to all, and take care….

Ulf,

the ships are sold by the individual mini IIRC. They are produced to order and shipped to the purchaser direct from RAFM Miniatures in Canada, so be aware of the fact that you're tangling with the Canadian postal service as well as your own.

Regarding the size of the ship minis, one of the chores I have set down on a to-do list for Silent Death/MetalExpress is a photo shoot of the minis -all of them!- beside a ruler and post it on the MX forum site as a reference guide. One chore of many…

Regarding the Campaign System, we've wanted more play tester feedback before finalizing the beast for publication. The challenge is that a campaign system demands a higher degree of time and commitment on the part of the players and the umpire, so getting the feedback we want from playtesters has been painfully slow to say the least, exacerbated by the fact that Dr. Greaves and I are up to our eyeballs at any given moment with professional commitments and responsibilities that understandably take precedence over much anything else one could care to name. (GAH!!!)

For example, I'm trying to play catch up this week on my master's thesis (2nd draft) to try and put this monster to bed once and for all, and hopefully if my SME is gentle enough on the second pass, before the end of this month I can present a final draft to the committee. Naturally, this thing is eating my brain mercilessly, so the next week or two are pretty much impacted, limiting my spare time to deal with Silent Death much beyond keeping an eye on the MX Forum and answering questions, etc. if and when they are posted.

Phew! Wears me out just typing this!

So. Silent Death is still alive. The minis are still available AND we added the original Prize Ships for sale as well, so now everyone gets a chance to add those "fun to fly" Piranhas, Dolphins, and Orcas to their fleets! We're getting ever so close to posting a revised Night Brood rules including Brood ship design (growing?) rules to build your own nasty bugs (just need to have a few days uninterrupted to call my own and finish transcribing all my hand written notes into a Word doc. We're getting close to hitting the same goal with the revised ship design system. There are no less than three (3) House book manuscripts I'm sitting on. Had ICE not bit the walls they did in years past, House Tokugawa, House Red Star, and the Luches Utopia would already have had their House books in print.

Why not publish them? Well, let's just say that yours truly has had a pretty intensive education in a bunch of disciplines relating to geopolitics, strategy, leadership analysis, area studies analysis, et al, and so after reviewing these old efforts at creating viable fictional star faring nation states, yours truly was simply unwilling to inflict such guff on our loyal fans. No way. I can do much, much better now, and I am going to be taking a chainsaw to all three of them this year like Madea attacking a couch…

So bear with us, as it's a new year, and we've got some catching up to do!

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

Well that's terrific news to me! Just this morning, I was flipping through my SD rule books (PDFs of course), wondering if the game was still up and around. What a thrill to see it in good form! So much of my old SD stuff got destroyed some years ago when my apartment flooded out (thank you very much, Hurticane Wilma), but it's good to know I can come back to the fold again!

Ditto for me.

I've a terrible secret: I was never a fan of the game itself.

However, have loved the figs, so new ones will be delightful. And the universe was wacky in it's own way, with its counter-intuitive to me dependence on space fighters, but with an explanation I could actually swallow.

I've most of the old books (real), and still often read them with pleasure.

Have a few of the prize ships, most of which were 'earned', but will be in line to buy more.

Thanks so much, Leland!

Doug

Edit: Was just complaining about manufacturers' site lacking comparative piccies. Have you been eavesdropping? ;->=

Mr. Erickson,

Thank you very much for the extended response, it answered a lot of questions. And thanks for the heads-up on the Canadian post, but as my wife is from there, we are very familiar with cross border shipping.

I would love to volunteer to play test the campaign rules, but as you obviously know, time is at a premium. My wife and I would both like to get back into playing (and for her painting minis) but she is also working on her master's thesis, and I work for the Marine Corps, so we stay busy. I did however play the first Rookie Rules scenario with my daughter today, and she really enjoyed it. With all of that said, if you don't mind more slow responses, I would certainly be willing to provide feed back on the campaign rules. I found in my gaming file box Dr. Greaves campaign rules version 0.06, but I am sure that they are very outdated.

When time allows, I would love to see more House books, stuff on the Night Brood, and of course new ships. Especially if the books and resources improve on the quality and story of the SD universe. One question that I have is, who owns the Intellectual Property of SD these days? Is it Metal Express? And if so, are the pdf copies of some of the books that I found free on the internet legal? I don't mind buying the books from MX, but if the free ones are legal, I'll buy more ships.

Thank you again so much for all the information, and good luck with the thesis….

Ulf

Ulf,

the free books are AFAIK definitely *not* legal: would you be so kind as to post a link to the source(s) so we might have a word or two with the provider?

Concerning the IP, it is owned by Mythic Entertainment, however we are operating on an open ended written agreement to continue to produce and sell all products related to Silent Death. Metal Express/I.C.E. Controls the dice engine IP, the ship miniatures, and etc., so if something wised came up to override the open endd agreement, we would not hesitate to keep the game alive and well under a new name, with the ship miss receiving new identities accordingly. The names would change if such an unfortunate scenario came to pass, but the ships would remain, and he game would go on.

I feel your wife's pain BTW: I too am wrestling with the dread beast otherwise known as the master's thesis, and mine has done a real number on my own painting and gaming time accordingly. The positive news is that I'm on the home stretch of the process, so 2014 is looking quit prmising for your truly on the creative front.

So. Do join us on the Metal Express forum, and yes, slow or fast, we value your feedback on our prototype campaign system!

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

Mr. Erickson,

As for the books that are "free", I should clarify. They are on Scribd, and while it is a pay site, they offer a 30 day free trial. You could take advantage of of the free trial and download any of the books you wanted. Here is the URL for Dry Dock II;

link

Also, I tried to register on the MX Forums today, but the link to register seems to be dead. I tried all three links found on the page and none of them worked. I tried in both IE and Firefox. Just wanted to make you aware. Thanks again and have a great day….

Ulf

Ulf,

I have sent an alert to the appropriate parties to go and take a monkey wrench to the hyperdrive; stand by…

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

Edit: Was just complaining about manufacturers' site lacking comparative piccies. Have you been eavesdropping? ;->=

"Eavesdropping?" Well, you could say that SIGINT is part of my daily routine, Doug…

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

Sorry, at the time, I was thinking of Sean Astin in Fellowship of the Ring claiming to know nothing about dropping no eaves… ;->=

And if it gets others to post that kind of image, they can tap my phone if they wish.

Doug

Ordered 4 sprues of the basic ships and 15 more metal minis today. Hopefully we'll be up and flying soon. Even tried to get them to send us some Tim Bits, but I'll be happy just to get the ships. Thanks again for all the info BWP, and everyone else that replied.

Good Hunting,

Ulf

Sorry, at the time, I was thinking of Sean Astin in Fellowship of the Ring claiming to know nothing about dropping no eaves… ;->=

Samwise was just practicing good trade craft by sticking to his cover story; Hobbits make the best HUMINT assets, ya know…

And if it gets others to post that kind of image, they can tap my phone if they wish.

"Gentlemen do not read one another's mail." Seriously, would I do such a thing to the Colosian ambassador? Who, *moi?!*

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

Ulf,

we had our IT man look into the issue of membership registration for the MX forum, and indeed, there was a problem. It is sorted out now AFAWK, so give it a try and let's see if our IT man has earned his biscuit!

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

BWP,

Thank you very much, and I am now registered on the forums. As I have already been snooping around there, I have a lot of questions. Plus my daughter has asked if they make Star Wars ships for SD, so I will be looking here and and on the MX forums for possible place to source other ships that are to the appropriate scale for SD. So with all of that, I will probably be posting more here (and/or there) soon. I forgot just how much I enjoyed SD. I need to find Nick's contact info and thank him for introducing me to SD. Thanks a ton for all the info and help….

Good Hunting,

Ulf

Ulf, my pleasure!

BTW, for not-SW ships of a size suitable for SD:TNM:

link

link

I'm an old SW fan as well, so I share your young 'un's enthusiasm.

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net