Bundle of Holding has a pair of bundles up for my beloved Traveller. One is a core game bundle with many of the main books for the game line, whilst the other focuses on the newer Mercenaries content. This is all for the 2nd edition of Mongoose’s Traveller. Let’s take a look, one bundle at a time…
Traveller Bundle
As is usually the case with these bundles, the books are split into two tiers. The first tier costs $17.95 and will net you three books:
Don’t be put off by the fact that this bundle has the starter set rather than the core rulebook. With the Traveller starter set, the book is split into smaller books, but with exactly the same content. You also get an extra adventure and a map. So, you’re definitely getting the core book either way. That’s good. That’s important.
This tier also includes the Traveller Companion for a ton more options. The highlights for me are the new pre-careers options, such as a colonial upbringing or a merchant academy, and the Truther and Believer careers. There’s also the latest, updated version of the Central Supply Catalogue, which is a book of many, many, many pieces of equipment from weapons, to armour, to medical equipment and drugs, computer… there’s a lot.
Tier 1 is pretty solid, giving you everything you need to play, as well as extra options and equipment. For some of the more complex elements of the game, we turn to tier 2. This is priced on a threshold which, at the time of writing, is sitting at $28.96. For this price you get everything from the first tier plus the following 4 titles:
Highguard (updated version) and the Vehicle Handbook are the highlights of this tier. Highguard is the spacecraft supplement, allowing you to design, build, and fly your ships. It feels like a game in itself! I like this book, with more than half of it consisting of floorplans and details for various ships. This is really practical and useful. The design rules are pretty thorough, following a 13-stage process.
The Vehicle Handbook also has about half the book dedicated to images, descriptions, and stats of several different vehicles. The book also has lots of cool weapons and upgrades for your vehicles. It’s a very focused book that picks one aspect of the game and doubles down on it. It does this very well.
All in all, this is a damn good bundle that will give you all 5 of the core Traveller book, plus some extras. You’ll really have everything you need to get going. You can click here to visit the bundle page over at Bundle of Holding. It’s also nice that some of your money will go to Direct Relief, a charity supporting health workers in the US, Canada and beyond.
Traveller Mercenaries Bundle
Once again, this bundle is broken down into two tiers. In this bundle (in both, actually) the tiers are explicitly labelled as being for players (tier 1) and GMs/referees (tier 2). I like this way of breaking down the bundle. Let’s look at the player tier, priced at $12.95:
The main event here is clearly the Mercenary book. This seems to cater for more combat-focused campaigns, which I can enjoy even if they’re not really my preference. I like that there’s a lot of variance in scope, from you and your party acting as individuals, all the way through to managing a vast mercenary company. With rules for running merc companies, along with new vehicles and whatnot.
Mercenaries of Charted Space is a sourcebook to pad out the universe with merc-specific content. It gives access to dealers, agencies, notable mercenary forces, and the like. This is a pretty cool companion book to go alongside the main Mercenary book.
The Field Catalogue is mostly about equipment, and most of that will be weapons. Think of it as a more aggressive version of the Central Supply Catalogue, I suppose. There’s a load of content in here that will be incredibly useful to your mercs and your budding merc groups.
The second tier is aimed at referees and is priced on a threshold. At the time of writing, it would cost you $26.28 and gets you everything in the previous tier, as well as this additional content:
Specialist Forces gives you access to… well… specialist forces. You can really get into the nitty-gritty and more fully customise your merc to be a specialist, such as an anti-armor specialist. There’s also additional ship rules and other content.
Solomani Front is all about fleshing out the scene of the most bitter fighting in the Solomani Rim War. There’s a lot of content in here, including new alien races, which have been getting pushed a lot lately with the recent Aliens of Chartered Space supplements, lots of hazards to bring into your games, ships, vehicles, and Vegans! I assume that we’re not facing off against a group of aliens who follow a strict plant-based diet, but it does claim that in this book “The Vegans and the Vegan Autonomous District are explored in detail, including Vegan Travellers and a Vegan High Guard expansion.” Now that could be fun!
There are also a few adventures in here, too. These will give you some stories to play through, or some content on which to draw when writing your own adventures.
Now, is this bundle worth it? Yes. Definitely. It’s fantastic. If you can only afford one of today’s bundle, is this the one to go for? No. Definitely not. This is a really great bundle, but everything in it is a supplement. You really need the core content first. At the very least, you’ll need the core rulebook or starter set, but the content of our first bundle would set you in really good stead. I’d try to grab both if you can. You can click here to visit the Mercenary bundle.
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