"Silent Death - an invite" Topic

Hey all.

For all of you who know, Silent Death was the game for many for fighter combat in space. Fast, fun, yet plenty of meatiness to the game.

I am just inviting you all to go to metal-express.net and hit the forums to discuss the game. New products are being worked on and the rules are being tweaked.

So I invite you to come by and talk about the Silent Deat hto make it an even stronger game than it was in the 90's. The game is still current as far as streamlined rules go and it would easily find it's way back into the market for today's gamers who enjoy quick games.

go to metal-express.net

I'll see you there!

James Eisert (previous playtester)

While I am aware of Silent Death, I don't know much about it. Do you have a link to something that could give me a good overview about the system, miniatures, and fiction associated?

It does look very cool.

It was, quite simply, the most fun game I've ever played. I still have 11 fully painted fleets. I just want to find someone to play with in this area…someone who likes giant games.

SD is a great game and its firing/damage mechanic is very innovative to me. Here's one review of the game on Board Game Geek:
link

They even did a Star Wars SD adaptation that came out in one of Wizards of the Coasts Star Wars magazine – later available as a WOTC PDF download.

Parrot1500: What area are you in?

If I wanted to get into the game, where would I start?

Mr Harold

I always loved Silent Deatrh – and still do. We played a campaign many years ago PDF link that was a great laugh.

Just but the basic rules PDF and some space ships and some polyhedral dice and you're away!

John T

It's a hex based miniatures game so you'll need a hex grid too unless the rules now include hex less play. IIRC you have firing and target arcs to deal with and those are regulated by hexes, not to mention movement and turning. Still it's a great game. The "Unleaded" version was the cheap way to get in as it had the counters and maps you need to play. From there you can get the miniatures you want. Plastic miniatures for the game are easy enough to get if you know where to look.

LOVED Silent Death back in the day and still have all my ships/fleets for it now. Really need to get it out next Club day and see if I can draw in any new players.

Parrot1500: What area are you in?

Northern VA, within driving distance of Loudon, Fairfax, etc. Although my ex claims I live in a state of denial…..

This game looks really cool, and so does Leland's site.

If I had the time or the space, this would be my next obsession.

Look at these ships:

link

I enjoyed silent death a lot but the guys here play firestorm armada and x wing at the moment. I still have my collection in the land of safe with B5 human fleet too.

Thank you James and @grommet37 for the plugs, and yes, I *do* have to get more pix up of actual SD:TNM minis, and ASAP! For now, there are still some that can be seen in the Metal Express Home Page's Gallery:

metal-express.net/gallery

The folder labeled KAGETORA is my own work, and as I have something like circa 300+ ships painted up for SD:TNM, I really do need to make some time for more photos:

James is correct; we're working on a modest number of attainable goals for new products this year, including a substantially revised Night Brood including ship display sheets of *all* of the Brood miniatures including rules for Worm Pods and *Mutations* (yep, mutant Brood. ICK!). The Silent Death core rules ship design system is also undergoing a revision to address some significant flaws found in several templates. We will also be bringing *all* ships into alignment with the design system once it is done, to provide consistency across the board, yet still retaining as much of the flavor of the original Core Ships as humanly possible.

A sci fi ground combat game set in the SD:TNM universe is also in the works, specifically for 15mm but with rules for adapting to 20mm and 28mm figures utilizing the Metal Express dice engine found in Bladestorm and Silent Death: The Next Millennium. We'll be needing some play testers for this very soon in fact (John Treadaway, I'm looking at YOU!).

So bear with us as we labor away behind the scenes to bring these projects to fruition. It's been a long road and too damn long a hiatus, but Silent Death: The Next Millennium is very much back, very much alive, and very much available including over 100 ship miniatures, and hopefully later this year, we'll be able to inflict a few new ships and such on all of you:

Stay tuned…

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

It might generate some new heat if you guys were to put up a couple of introductory videos on Youtube… a bit of a playthrough and eye-candy.

Creative Content Team Evil Genius in Residence wrote:

A sci fi ground combat game set in the SD:TNM universe is also in the works, specifically for 15mm

OK, now I'm really interested… Keep us posted as this happens, if you please!

They even did a Star Wars SD adaptation that came out in one of Wizards of the Coasts Star Wars magazine – later available as a WOTC PDF download.

Pretty sure it's not on the WotC site anymore, but does reside on "archive.org". I found it, probably as did several others, but here's TMP post with it and several other links:

TMP link

Personally, I'd just use the original rules, and proxy an SW model for the closest SD one instead.

I might even enjoy SD more using SW terminology. ;->=

Doug

"A sci fi ground combat game set in the SD:TNM universe is also in the works, specifically for 15mm"

Some people I know (me) have already modded Silent Death to make what we consider to be EXCELLENT detailed Ogre/Bolo/Giant Tank rules. The Ogre Mk V is a Warhound; the MKII's are heavy gunboats; the Grav-tanks are snub or attrition fighter; the heavy tanks are heavy fighters; some small mods for morale rules (not a ton of morale) and some terrain effects, and Bob's your uncle…

@parrot1500, of that I have no doubt. That being said, the ground combat game will include design rules for vehicles and AFVs ranging from wheeled low tech affairs up to anti grav high tech machines, from jeep analogues to a Konigs Tiger -esque brute, upon that you can depend.

The actual game will not be using a hex map, however, but be a tabletop system, and there will be morale rules, etc. Factions will include all of The Twelve, the Prometheans, the Night Brood, and a number of Houses minor will also be covered in force organizations, background, tactical doctrines, etc.

We should be positioned to call for playtesters in a month or two, so do keep an eye peeled in our general direction for updates!

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

My priority as you know Leland would be to see Silent Death back up and running properly before you invest time and effort into a new game in a new scale.

Don't make the same mistakes that Spartan made of spreading yourself too thin.

My priority as you know Leland would be to see Silent Death back up and running properly before you invest time and effort into a new game in a new scale.

Don't make the same mistakes that Spartan made of spreading yourself too thin.

James,

we're going after low hanging fruit, using projects that were already done long ago. We're merely updating a few things to take into account additional knowledge we've been building up since projects like the ground combat game were first written out in some cases literally over ten (10) years ago.

The Night Brood were the logical first step, as there are already multiple Brood miniatures in production that have never had a ship display sheet, never been explained in any sense to allow players to use them in Silent Death, to say nothing of the extremely poor execution of what passed for playtesting the Night Brood from the beginning. Correcting those errors was a no-brainer both in the decision making process, and in the execution since.

The end results should come into print this year, and not very long after we sort out the pagemaking resource requirements and get enough play testing under our collective belts to ensure that we're barking up the right trees from a technical game play perspective (ie., it's got to work, and it has to be FUN!).

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

Silent Death is a great one, I was lucky enough to get a hard copy of The Next Millenium edition from my FLGS, and then I bought the electronic edition just because.
It's a tough game to get others interested in though because of the flux the owning company is in, and how the availability of the rules varies. Right now the PDFs are for sale, but they weren't a while back. I've sort of dropped out of the community so I'm not sure if the two year old post "We're back" ever amounted to anything.

On the upside, it's a GREAT game with one of my favorite damage systems (the damage track) ever. The ships are great and I like hexed based games for their precision. It's fun to go wild on the paint schemes too:

‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

SD is a great game (I bought my copy years ago). It is, IMHO, the best sci-fi fighter game available (and could with a little work, be adapted into a not too realistic WWI or WWII fighter game). It has plenty of pre-made factions and fighters. It also includes rules for designing your own fighters, and they put every other design your own vehicle rules to shame both in their functionality, simplicity, and balance (i.e. they put Classic Battletech and many other games to shame).

The only reservation I have about Silent Death is that combat is deadly, which is the way it is usually portrayed in cinema. I would love to see an official "character module" with optional rules for star cast member survival, but that can easily be done as a house rule.

SD spaceships are the most versatile ships in my solo gaming.Use em for every type of small ship as well as DD/CL classes.These ships are also basis for my Capellan raiders in my solo Full Thrust games.Examples of Capellan campaign AAR's below:

TMP link

Leland,any plans to release more Warhound-type ships?
Really appreciate all your effort in reviving SD!

Thx,
Mark

Mark,

we're wanting to do new Warhounds as soon as resources allow. This is especially true for the logistical vessels found in the Campaign System, plus new House designs for Colos, Tokugawa, Red Star, QVP, et al.

We're prioritizing with the Colosian Totenkopf class battle destroyer, as that is a loose end left over from the immediate aftermath of the deliberate gutting of ICE by a corporate entity I will refrain from naming, lest I indulge in some very ungentlemanly descriptive language and get myself Dawghoused for the next 10,000 years!

So, yes, we're alive, yes we're actually working quite hard on getting past some basic production necessities before we can push forward to actually start releasing new miniatures.

As it stands, we have some promising leads on resolving our current problem of ship display sheet graphics production we're following up, and there's some contacts I've cultivated for 3D prototyping to get new ships done, but one problem at a time, like peeling an onion!

As I stated to James above, our first, "low hanging fruit" project is the Night Brood. We have no less than six ship minis already in production that have no ship displays whatsoever, not even some playtest ideas written on an old cocktail napkin, so I had to personally sit down and thrash out a design system from the ground up for the Night Brood, revise nearly every piece of Night Brood technology in game terms to convert them from an unstoppable alien force no one wanted to play with or against into a force to be reckoned with that *can* be beaten *if* one is smarter than the Brood player and a bit luckier (but don't expect to get off unscathed!).

Our first project is to get ship displays done for *all* of the Night Brood incorporating the revised stats, post them on the MX site for playtesting, and build up enough playtester data to know if we're barking up the right Booster Tree or not!

Meanwhile, I am going to be posting articles on simple kit bash projects to provide players with resources for making their own war hound stand-ins, Borax Freighters, Curtis Shuttles, Stations and orbital platforms, satellites, etc. Further, there'll be ship sheets available for downloading for free for adapting readily available model kits and such to Silent Death as we get further into 2014.

Things are happening, just below the radar screen for now. The game is still alive and kicking' as long as people keep playing!

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

It might generate some new heat if you guys were to put up a couple of introductory videos on Youtube… a bit of a playthrough and eye-candy.

Monkey, I have been thinking along those lines, some video tutorials on how to paint SD:TNM ship minis quickly and easily, how to use decals to add a greater layer of detail and finish, etc. along with tutorials on how to build yer own orbital platform, satellites, etc.

Definitely something we're thinking about, but as always, we have day jobs, so this is a labor of love and persistence on a stubborn shoestring, so bear with us accordingly!

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

I've sort of dropped out of the community so I'm not sure if the two year old post "We're back" ever amounted to anything.

Thunderman, we're still very much alive. The forum community has some active members including new members who have recently joined.

If those are your ship schemes by all means do share them with our forum community! I agree with you, that the ships just beg to have one run wild with paint schemes, from the hardcore military look to the flamboyant styles of Great War aircraft. It really all is in the imagination…

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

I'm glad to hear it Leland, as I think Silent Death is a terrific system and I hope it really takes off. I could see it being a good transition for people from the FFG's X-Wing game, since it has a bit more complexity and is a more traditional tabletop game.

Those are indeed my painted ships. I actually had uploaded a few pictures to the Metal Express site back when I was more involved, under the name Bosky: link

Silent Death is the Mutts Nuts: IMHO

John T

Silent Death is the Mutt's Nuts: IMHO

John T

Leland, I remember playing SD at GenCon in the (distant) past, and it was a 'progessive' scenario where everyone came on with a basic small ship, then once you killed an enemy you moved on to a bigger ship, and so on going from Pit Vipers all the way up to Seraphs etc. As I recall, each time you progressed a level you rolled on a chart to see which ship you got from the next rung on the ladder. Does this ring any bells with you? Do you happen to recall or have a copy of the table with all the ship groups and die roll numbers? Am I even remembering this right?

Thinking about how fun it would be to do something simple like that at my local store just to get people involved (and easy to accommodate walk-ins). Oh, and do you have trade terms for stores at all? If I run some demos and it takes off it would be cool to be able to order SD stuff from the store itself (I always like to try and support the place I play at if I can!).

Thunderman/Bosky, yes, I remember you! Now get thee back to the Metal Express forum, you wayward Luches Utopian conscript, you, and share those photos!

BTW, we have a pagemaker at the moment, and we're getting set to post the first (Beta) play test ship sheets for the Revised Night Brood, just FYI…

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

Silent Death is the Mutt's Nuts: IMHO

And I say it's the whole dawg from nose to tail!

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

Bob,

that's an Astro Smash, and yes, it is the best way IMHO to introduce people to Silent Death, especially people who have never played a war-game before! I've used the Wingman Smash version (ie., each player gets two of the same type of ship at each level of advancement) at sci-fi fan conventions in years past, and always had at least one or three new fans for the game after the weekend was over!

You will find the Astro Smash in Silent Death: Rules of Warfare, with further goodness for running tournaments in Silent Death: Rules of Warfare II.

As for getting our wares into stores, that's currently a long term objective due to our dearth of resources. Our big hurdle to overcome in that direction is getting a new starter set put together, and as we're working to revise the ship design rules a bit, that will delay such a product rollout for some time I'm afraid. *sad*

So for now, we're going after low hanging fruit, starting with the Night Brood, as you may recall there were no less than six (6) Night Brood ship minis that never had their stats published (ever). So it is there we start with the new products, and progress accordingly as we tackle each challenge, like peeling an onion to invoke the old Bene Gessert wisdom.

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

I loved the Night Brood, nasty nasty customers lol. Rules of Warfare, you say? I'm pretty sure I have everything that was ever printed for SD, time to dig out the box it's all in and see if I can locate it. Thanks!

I got a set a LONG time ago – 91/92 from memory – still got the box and the minis.

About the time I got to a point where I was gaming enough to drag it out, the line had moved on so much I never got back into it….

Maybe time to take the box out again and look….

mrmy11, sounds like you have the original 1st edition. No worries, as those 1st edition ship minis every last one of 'em got reinvented as House specific ships, so waste not, want not.

Further, you'll find the 1st ed. underwent some changes including the introduction of a ship design system and quite a few optional rules, plus more ships (we're at over 100 at the present moment, not counting refits), so you'll be having all sorts of fun catching up!

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

Bob,

the Night Brood were in their original iteration grossly overpowered and were imbalancing the game grossly to put to politely. We're in the midst of a rewrite of the Night Brood to bring them down to a manageable level of play but not nerfing them by any stretch of the imagination! The Grubs will remain nasty (just not functionally invincible)….

We should have some ship display sheets posted on the Metal Express site in the next few weeks for playtesting feedback including ship displays for the very first time for the six neglected Night Brood miniatures, so stay tuned….

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

I enjoyed fighting them, to be honest – really gave that Earth vs Minbari 'Battle of the Line' desperate fight that you KNOW you're going to lose but you give it your all anyway feel :)

Leland, I disagree. Yes, the Night Brood was insane, but you could beat them with Project Drydock ships. Then when the Night Watch appeared, the Night Brood became a joke. Of course by then my Sigurd forces were practicin' peel-and-eat tactics with their gunships…..

I say keep them tough. My friends assure me it was fun seeing the despair on my face when the Brood dropped a beat on me.

Gents, give me a free hand in force selection with the Night Brood, and I will eat alive anything not packing tons of missile launchers and sextuple Pulse Laser and/or Splatterguns with a DV of less than 16.

The Night Brood were poorly playtested, grossly overbalanced, and most of the feedback received over the years was that people very quickly stopped playing Night Brood after their initial purchase out of sheer frustration.

From a business standpoint as much from a game design standpoint this is folly. Now mind you, I'm not nerfing the Night Brood. We need some really nasty, tough customers plus the background as written allows for a deus ex machina explanaition for the Night Brood's success (ie., a strategic success that decapitated Terran civilization brought on by hubris and incompetence on the part of the Human leadership). The reworking of the Night Brood is to modify them sufficiently that their technology is no longer so utterly overwhelming that it becomes *impossible* for first generation Terran ships to win in a stand up fight. By bringing them down a couple ticks on the Nasty-o-meter by tweaking their tech and creating some new vulnerabilities that savvy tactically-minded players can try and exploit (and tactically-minded Night Brood players can try and counter), the goal is to (1) bring the Night Brood a viable level of playability, (2) provide a consistent Night Brood ship design system, (3) give the six previously neglected Night Brood minis ship displays for the very first time, (4) make Night Brood an acceptable force for tournament style play, (5) rekindle interest where it was lost and garner new interest in new players in actually using the Night Brood for more than one or three games then giving up in frustration.

This is as much a business decision as it is a matter of game design rationality, and yes, we will be playtesting the new Night Brood to death, including soliciting feedback from the fan base in the form of actual AARs and postmortem analysis rather than knee jerk opinions of a single game designer with a pet project (ie., how the Night Brood came into their present form).

As we're working up the ship display sheets for playtesting as of this writing, it shouldn't be too many more days or weeks before we're ready to start playtesting, so do keep your oculars peeled in our direction, as we'll announce the availability of the playtest ship displays on both the Metal Express home page and the Forum as soon as they're ready.

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

Oh, yeah? Well, uh, your points are well-reasoned and your opinion made sense! So now I'm stifling you.

This is as much a business decision as it is a matter of game design rationality, and yes,

OMG, Leland: I refer you here TMP link

:)

That's easy fixed though. You give Night Brood the Next Generation ships the same sort of nastiness as the orignals and then they can fight against the later Earth ships.

Or better still, make the models of the really nasty ships more expensive to buy (not in points, in cash) then mini-maxers will spend their hard earned… woah – wait a minute. I think some folks have already done that! ;)

Looking forward to whatever you do Leland.

John T

John,

yet you know that that is precisely where Dr. Sheldon Greaves and I depart from Messr. Priestly and his gang; we'll be damned if we ever even consider the "Games Sweatshop" approach to marketing come Hell, high water, or the Second Coming! Yuk!!

The Night Brood are being reworked to make them more desirable to play by being more balanced against the hapless Terrans, give the too long neglected Brood miniatures (Monarch, Worm Pod, Skree, Eel, Bright Thorn, Scarab) their very own ship display sheets for the very first time so people can actually play Silent Death with the darn things, *and* add a Night Brood ship design (hatching?) system that includes the potential for *mutations* amongst different Brood clutchworlds(EEEEEEEKK!!!).

Nope, we're sticking to the Old School approach of making a game that is fun, not allow any half-assed inadequately play tested overbalanced faction to go uncorrected, and keep new ships coming as often as possible to keep the enthusiasm going. Terran Space is a very big place, and we have a great deal of ground to cover in fleshing it all out and presenting it to our loyal fans of this classic game of space operatic space fighter combat.

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

Oh, yeah? Well, uh, your points are well-reasoned and your opinion made sense! So now I'm stifling you.

Naughty bird. Just for that, I'm going to hunt your feathered backside down and make you playtest the new Night Brood as soon as they become available!

Until then, NO CRACKER FOR YOU!

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

Pretty certain this is the same as my box set in this image
link

I guess my next question would be – while my set is perfectly playable internally with counters etc if I want to expand and start using extra material from the new edition how compatible is the old 1st Ed stuff?

Can I just start buying new supplements, Im guessing not from the comments – but are the board and counters still viable as you say the miniatures are. The ship design sheets presumably have enough minor and major changes.

What I guess I'm after is what would be the recommended entry point I assumed this box set (unless I can get away with less)
link

But (and I may be being blind here) I cannot see it on the MX webstore and Im struggling to find it in the UK.

I think I remember an issue with the design system where people eventually figured out a super high Defensive Value was mathematically better than Damage Reduction. So a lot of the later optimized ships (ie: Black Widow) have DV 17 and 0 DR. I think you designed that ship Leland, so does that ring any bells? Do you think this issue would be addressed so that all options are viable?

@myrm11, your eyes are working just fine. We're rebuilding the Silent Death end of ICE pretty much from scratch on a half a shoestring, so a boxed starter set is not something we are able to offer currently. If you buy the Core Rulebook PDF which we currently have available, you're going to be caught up vis-a-vis the rules and ship displays for the twelve Core Ships plus some extras. The counters for ships are just fine, as are the miniatures from the 1st edition boxed set as those ships all received new identities in later House books and other supplements, so your ship minis are not the least bit redundant.

Further, the current rule book has a design system that while not perfect is good enough to get the job done for you and your friends to adapt other ship minis to the game as you see fit. We have long term plans to revise the ship design system in a few areas, but that will not happen until much later this year to be perfectly realistic, so until then, the Core Rulebook is going to stay the same, and the rules themselves will not be changed by the design system revision one whit regardless.

The board is the same: in fact, any hex mat or map of space will do just fine! I use a black cloth mat made by Geo-Hex that was specifically designed for Silent Death: The Next Millennium. It's a cloth 4 x 6 with a white hex grid overlaid and done with multicolored stars and airbrushed nebulae, quite the fancy mat from back in the day. You can find some excellent hex mats in black for space games from a number of makers such as Monday Knight Productions these days, so your layout can be as simple or as fancy as you like!

Missile salvo and torpedo counters are missile and torpedo counters. They remain both necessary for the game and completely compatible, so no worries there.

Currently the only source for Silent Death products is though the Metal Express online store:

link

Any paper products you order such as books will be shipped from the continental United States. Any metal miniatures you order will be shipped to you directly from our licensed manufacturer (RAFM Miniatures) in Canada.

At this point in time we only have one (1) physical book available (Operation Drydock Vol. II). As things progress we can get back to offering hard copies of all the books, but until then, the PDFs will have to do.

Here's the Core Rulebook PDF:

link

So I hope this helps! We're working to keep this classic game alive, and rekindle the interest and enthusiasm it so rightly earned when Silent Death: The Next Millennium first came on the scene. At the moment, we're focused on the low hanging fruit that is the Night Brood. Thanks to a skilled fan of the game, we're having our very first new ship display sheets getting put together literally in years, and having seen the first workups, I can confirm that they are at least as clear and easy to use as the originals.

Hope this helps, and I hope you'll join us in reviving this classic space operatic board game!

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

@Thunderman,

guilty as charged. The Black Widow along with the other Fighter Tactics Manual ships were a direct result of my many years of reading everything I could lay my hands of concerning actual fighter combat and the tactics that evolved during the 20th century from the First World War forward and how and applying them to Silent Death: The Next Millennium, with the added desire to create some designs that could use off-the-shelf technology to come closer to matching the Night Brood ships as they were originally published.

Dr. Greaves and I played the Night Brood as we played every other ship in the Silent Death stable. We very quickly found that the Night Brood were grossly overpowered and made very short work of the first generation Terran ships (and could give later House ships then available a dire beating all to easily). The end results published in the Fighter Tactics Manual were not exactly perfect solutions by any means, but they were a considerable improvement over the hapless Core Ships that were little better than piloted kibble treats for the Night Brood!

While they are essentially "min-maxed" affairs, they follow the philosophy of Fire & Maneuver, and that is how most of them are meant to be used (ie., the Bat is a light defensive escort, while the Nemesis is a flying sledgehammer with all the finesse of a chainsaw to the face). As they all lack any Damage Reduction (aka armor protection) each is susceptible to battle damage at a faster rate than convention designs. As each has a high Defensive Value (ie., highly maneuverable and/or heavily shielded), they are much harder to hit than most comparable designs, yet every point of damage inflicted on them counts, so these sorts of designs are fragile compared to those that incorporate Damage Reduction (armor).

We'll be addressing this issue as part of the revamp of the design system. Not too much has thus far been changed except in ket categories of the slot cost of Damage reduction for most templates, and imposing lower ceilings for Defensive Values on larger hull sizes (ie., heavy fighters like the Black Widow). The Black Widow will therefore be modified to reflect these new parameters, as will all other Terran ship designs (which will be quite a task, but again, one problem at a time, like peeling an onion).

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net