Space Tiles

Alea Publishing Group has released Paper Tiles: Space, a downloadable pdf file you can purchase from RPGnow.com.

"Need a battle map for your d20 system futuristic spaceships to battle upon or glide through the universe? Or for your strategic space combat miniatures game? Well, APG Paper Tiles: Space gives you an inexpensive, gridded map with numerous layout possibilities including, planets, asteroid fields, nebulas, and more!
Each of the map tiles are realistic, 300 .dpi, 5 in. x 8 in. skirmish size tiles with 1 inch grids ready to print-and-play!"

A demo is available so you can see what these tiles look like.

Deep Space Felt Game Mats

from Hotz ArtWorks

5/1/2008 - The latest update from Hotz:

Just a short note that we now offer our game mats with 1, 1.5, 2, 3, 4 and 5 inch hexes, and also 1, 2 and 4 inch squares. All of these are available with the Deep Space game mat (actually, any game mat we produce up to 6 x 4-ft).

12/19/2006 - Hotz ArtWorks has released mats with 2 inch and 4 inch hexes so their selection of hexes now come in 2, 3, 4 or 5 inch sizes.  

Plus they have released mats with a 2 inch square grid, perfect for the new Star Wars Miniatures Starship Combat game.

Also mats are now available in a half mat size of 45 x 34 inches (114 x 86 cm) quarter mat size of 22 x 34 inches (56 x 86 cm).

9/6/2006 - The Deep Space Felt Game Mats are now available from Hotz ArtWorks.  They are available in both with either 3 inch or 5 inch hexes in a 6x4-ft mat or without hexes in 6x4-ft and 6x8-ft sizes.

The star cluster artwork is silk screened, while cosmic dust/clouds and solar flares have been airbrushed onto the mat's surface. The mats have been treated with a protective fabric binder that helps to prevent pilling and other forms of wear normally associated with felt.

3/25/2006 - Hotz ArtWorks will soon release game mats with a few different backgrounds including Deep Space.   The mats are roughly 6-ft x 4-ft (72 x 45 inches) and made of an acrylic felt fabric treated with a fabric binder to strengthen the fabric.   They have a 5 inch hex grid silk screened on them but are also available without the hex pattern.  Other size hexes may also become available.

Star Mats from Star Mats Plus
12/19/2006 - Carl Scheu is making custom air brushed star mats on black felt in 4'x6' and 8'x6' sizes with larger sizes possible as custom orders.  Contact Carl at thrud62@yahoo.com for more information.

Uncharted Space

from WorldWorks Games

7/30/2007 - WorldWorks Games has released Uncharted Space: Sathrican Homeworld, a premium PDF gaming mat (with props), their first product targeted at tabletop, stellar-combat wargamers. This cost effective gaming mat allows users to create their very own 60” X 40” star mat and asteroid fields using a number of custom created graphic templates. By utilizing a home printer and a few basic materials, frugal gamers can build a game mat for their next engagement, in stages, as time and money allow.  A pre-printed version on vinyl is in the works for release in later 2007.

Every visual element contained within Uncharted Space is 100% original and has been handcrafted using WorldWorks Games renowned high quality texturing standards. At the base of the mat is the upper atmosphere of the giant Sathrican homeworld.  Uncharted Space includes 3-D asteroid clusters to fill the voids and add depth to your tactics.

Uncharted Space: Sathrican Homeworld Includes all of the following:

* Fully illustrated instructions for creating your very own game mat
* 32 Zero grid space tiles covering a vast region of space
* 32 1-inch Hex space tiles covering a vast region of space
* Fully illustrated instructions for creating 3-D asteroid clusters
* 2 pages of varied asteroid cluster models
* Asteroid cluster stands
* Asteroid cluster basing in 1-inch Hex
* Asteroid cluster basing in Zero Grid
* Asteroid debris field tile
* Interactive User Interface (PC users only).

With miniatures available from some of our favorite TV shows, a couple places have created some custom decal sheets to help make the finished miniatures as accurate as possible.

B5 Decals

from Griffon Games (formerly Tangents)

2/6/2008 - These decals no longer show up on their list of available products.

They have some cool stuff for sci-fi nuts, but of interest here are the decal sets for Babylon 5 miniatures (plus some other neat decal sets too).  These decals fit the Babylon 5 Wars miniatures from Agents of Gaming (now produced by Mongoose Publishing for A Call to Arms) very well.

3 sets are available,

The Forces of Earth (ship names, EA flashes, and symbols) US$10.00

The Aliens (symbols for Narn and Centauri fighters and capital ships) US$10.00

Earthforce Fighters (a variety of wingart markings, logos and numbers) US$8.00

I bought The Forces of Earth and am very happy with it.  The decals were very robust and I had no problems with them falling to pieces as I applied them to the minis.  I really thing that the decals for the Hyperion class Heavy Cruisers are wonderful and they add a lot to the final mini. 

Starship ID Codes

from Decals Express

Many gamers try to add some designation to the base of their minis to identify the ship type (destroyer, escort cruiser, dreadnought, etc.) along with a number to differentiate multiple ships of the same type.  It was hard to find lettering of the right type and size and writing the info on the base by hand with a white paint pen never looked clean enough with my handwriting.  So along comes Decals Express with their Starship ID Codes decal sheet, with enough ID's for a couple fleets at least using the common 2 and 3 letter abbreviations for ship types along with an identifying number.  I got a pre-production sample and they are durable, easy to use and look fantastic. 

9/29/2004 - Updated the website URL to http://wargames.rpgshelf.net/ per email from Tom Pope: 

We had problems with our old provider and the domain is now locked, even though some people can still see the old site.  While we sort out the details, we also have a temporary contact address of: beseny@aol.com.

3/6/2005 - A new email address is wge@speakeasy.net 

Starline 2400 Decals

From Starfighter Decals

2/6/2008 - Now online, Starfighter Decals sells decals for the Starline 2400 line of miniatures for Star Fleet Battles and Federation Commander with the approval of Amarillo Design Bureau.  Decal sheets are available for specific ships or sheets for the miniatures in one of the boxes of multiple minis.  Sheets can be customized with names and hull numbers from the List of Names published by ADB for an additional fee.

Space is full of stuff and if you don't want to make your own planets and asteroids from scratch, there is some help out there.

Custom Painted Planets

from DLD Productions

"The custom painted planets we offer, are made of acrylic plastic globes, not styrofoam! Each globe is glued together and primed then painted by our in-house artist. A stand and base is included with all planets. (Please note, all planets are subject to artist interpretation.)"

6/25/2003 - 4 sizes are available, 100mm, 80mm, 60mm, and 40mm.  There are also several basic 'Types' of planets to choose from (Temparate, Ice, Gas, Desert).  Each starts with a base color plus 2 colors standard but additional colors can be added in increase the detail (and the price).  View DLD's Custom Painted Plants page for full details and pricing along with lots of examples.

Cosmic Clutter

from EPICAST

10/15/2006 - It seems the EPICAST is no longer producing this line of space objects and has no plans to put them back in production.

EPICAST has a line of "Cosmic terrain" you can buy that should fit in with any miniature game system.

The following items are available and come as

unpainted resin with stands:

501 THE BLACK DWARF ($12.00)

502 PLANETS (2) ($12.00)

503 ASTEROID FIELD (6) ($12.00)

504 DEAD PLANET ($12.00)

505 LARGE MOON ($8.00)

506 SMALL MOONS (2) (out of production)

Galactic Features

from KimKayes

9/29/2005 - Now available from KimKayes in the UK, a full line of painted space objects for gaming.  Included in the line full and half sphere planets, moons, suns, plus asteroids.

Gamers need some way of getting their miniatures from here to there

Space Ship Tray

from Figures in Comfort

This is the first product I have seen specifically for the transportation and storage of space ship miniatures.  This foam is 350mm x 270mm and has 32 circular cut outs for the base stand of the miniature.

A second tray for larger bases and miniatures has been released and will hold 18 ship miniatures.

3/6/2005 - One item to note, I got a report from Roger that the common hex based stands don't quite fit into the holes cut into the foam on these products.  He had to do some modification to make the slightly larger hex bases fit into the round holes.

Basing miniatures can be done using stands you create yourself using washers and nails or you can use pre-made flight stands from one of many sources.  Most starship miniatures include stands plus they usually sell stands in bulk.  A few sources for stands of a unique type or in bulk are EM-4, Monday Knight Productions, Ground Zero Games, and Games Workshop.

Englobe System

from Englobe

6/30/2007 - "The Englobe System presents three dimensional movement on the wargames table, enabling Roll, Pitch and Yaw through 360 degrees to be presented. For many years, tabletop gamers have struggled to represent flight maneuvers effectively. This device is a solution to this problem. Application potentials include, space, aircraft and submarine games, superhero and rocket assisted flight games, fantasy games which include winged creatures and levitating spells.

HOW IT WORKS:

The miniature is fixed within a clear spherical capsule, this is free to rotate on a clear cradle in a roll, pitch and yaw movement. Friction with the edges of the cradle prevents the sphere from free rotating.Changes in altitude are achieved through the use of a telescopic mount (not supplied).  The cradle is magnetically attached to this rod.
Easy removal/attachment of the cradle enables gamers to set a second support at the position of the end of their move, facilitating swift gameplay. For the first time, all aspects of models become targets and firing platforms. Weapons can be bought to bear on the dorsal, ventral, fore, aft and broadside aspects. Shields arcs and firing arcs take on real significance. Rolls, Banks, Spins, Lofting attacks and even Immelman Turns are finally possible!"

There are currently 4 sizes of spheres from 50mm to 80mm and 3 sizes of cradles.

Litko Space Tokens

From Litko Aerosystems

5/1/2008 - Litko has added a bunch of flight stand add-ons and accessories to Jim's Product Lab that would be quite useful for starship miniatures.   These new bits include numbered dials, dice trays, elevation markers, peg pointers, plus vee formation and hex shaped peg toppers (perfect for mounting a formation of small fighter minis).

2/6/2008 - Litko has taken some of the products from trial release and moved them into full production under their space gaming section.  Tokens available are Space Mines, Space Shields, Space Missiles, Space Drones, Space Asteroids, Space Torpedoes, and Blast Area Effect.  

The trial release tokens not picked up for full production can still be ordered on a custom basis.

11/3/2007 - Litko has released on a trial bases a whole bunch or tokens and stands for use by the space gamer under their "Jim's Product Lab".  They are only available for a limited time and after that, only the best sellers will stay on as a regular product.  All of the other items would still be available as a custom item with a small additional fee.  Litko offers many laser cut and etched products for gaming use including build your own tokens within certain parameters.

Items in this space range include elevated fighter bases, full stop tokens, full speed tokens, hex scanner tokens (multiple colors), alien skull tokens, tractor/energy beam tokens, jammed scanner tokens, energy tokens, blast tokens, transparent gray base flight stands, evasive action tokens, repair tokens, space torpedo tokens (multiple colors), space asteroid tokens, alien target reticules, damage tokens, double hex flight stands, sensor scanner tokens (multiple colors), space drone tokens (multiple colors), space missile tokens (multiple colors), space mine tokens (multiple colors), and space shield tokens (multiple colors).