Fisher always enjoyed the constant hum of the
life support systems that went with living in the Star Navy. Flicking his hand
deftly across the data slate, he reviews the forces at his command.
“Hmmm, Warspite,” he thinks to himself. “She is
a grand old fleet escort carrier.”
Although of an antiquated design the Warspite
commands heavy shield protection, good stand off capabilities with four beam
cannon batteries and two torpedo tubes, and a reasonable load of 12 Viper
medium fighters and 3 Raptors. Ancillary armament includes four anti aircraft
point defence batteries.
Of the three support ships the Achilles is the
more powerful. Whilst not a heavy capital ship, she does none the less boast
medium phase shields and one beam and two plasma batteries. Importantly she
also provides additional anti aircraft defence with three batteries and
ancillary small craft carrying capacity with her compliment of two Vipers and a
Raptor.
Ajax is the fastest of the fleet but she only
possessed light shields. She does project good firepower support with one beam
and one plasma battery plus two anti aircraft batteries. She is quite fragile
however and won’t be able to undertake any substantial battlefield repairs.
Exeter is neither fast nor powerful but she
does carry a Raptor and a beam, a projectile and a anti aircraft battery.
Whilst the projectile battery is outdated and next to useless in a modern naval
engagement, the anti aircraft capability will inevitably be valuable should
they face opposing fighters.
The fleet has in its possession a total of 7
beam batteries, 3 plasma batteries and 1 projectile battery. The beams would
give them good range but the main firepower against heavy capital ships would
come from the plasma cannons.
The fleets main strike arm will be the fighter
compliment. Whist the Vipers only possessed short range firepower, compared to
their main opponent, the X Wing, their 3 rail guns possess a serious rate of
fire advantage. A typical missile load consists of three Fire and Forget
missiles giving the Viper good long range capability until they can close to
use their guns.
The Raptors possess heavier point weapons and are
able to carry a good range of missiles including torpedoes as part of a
standard load out. They are however fairly slow and unmanoeuvrable and will
need protection in a dogfight.
Whilst most of the fighter and bomber pilots are
straight out of the academy, Starbuck, Apollo and Boomer are veterans and will
be able to take the fight to the enemy.
Fisher puts the data slate down and thinks of
the upcoming engagements.
Looking out the view port he can see some of
the fleet on manoeuvres, preparing for the engagement ahead.
He reflects on the capability of the fleet.
It’s endurance, strengths and weaknesses. And all the while the life support
systems hum.
Looking good so far, Tim. I'm intrigued by the photo of your spaceships. They look like Brigade Models designs but I don't recognise them. I have a few of their ships myself but not these ones, assuming they are by them. Nice paint schemes, by the way.
ReplyDeleteYes they are Brigade Models - the Russian fleet. Good spot. I liked the air craft carrier in particular, which I'm painting at the moment (hence why it's not in the picture) which is why I went with the Russian fleet.
DeleteThe fighters are Studio Bergstrom. They are of excellent quality and in fact it was when I saw them and they were so good that I couldn't help my self and I decided to pick up a heap of vipers, x wings, y wings, cylon raiders, a wing, the millennium falcon etc and to use them as the fighter craft rather than to use the Brigade Model fighters. I'm so glad I did too. They are very cool.
I'll have to do a review of them.
Thanks for the comment on the paint job. I've found painting the fleet to be different to anything I've done before and for small models with not a lot of detail they've taken a while and I've have to had a few goes at it. I think it's because I wanted the ships to be nice and bright so that they were easy to photograph for the blog and also that they are so geometric in nature. Not like all the natural curves of a human etc. Anyway they're ok and I'll probably keep working on them a bit from time to time. I am pretty happy with the little vipers though. They did come up a treat.
I had to check out the Brigade Models Russian Fleet and I can see why you went with them. They have some great designs. The aircraft carrier that you mentioned is a beauty! I can certainly find a use for the Russian Fleet in my "The Ace of Spades Campaign" and so will be ordering them. Thanks for putting me onto them, mate!
DeleteI, too, have found painting spaceships a lot different to painting figures and a lot easier! No getting faces to look right! I have a fair few already painted, so I should post some reviews on my WOIN blog.
He doesn't look a very happy chappie your Admiral :-(
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the descriptions of the ships, it took me back to dreadnaughts and pre dreadnaughts probably with an ancestor of your Admiral.
Looking at the last picture and your note for Ajax I was thinking that she ought to have a more sophisticated power plant than 2 AA Batteries even if the are Duracell ones and then I realized what they were. Shows how out of touch I am with wargaming in the modern or future world ;-) Sorry - I will pay more attention in future.
Hahaha yes that is Admiral Jackie Fisher of the British Navy from WW1. I like mixing a few historical elements into the blog from time to time.
DeleteOne of the reasons why I like space ship gaming is that you can, in effect, do carrier actions and pre dreadnaught actions all at once if you want. It's awesomely flexible.
You might have noticed that I named the carrier after one of the battleships that saw the most action in WW2 and the three support ships are also named after WW2 ships - this time the ships that participated in the battle of the River Plate.
Nice pick up on the 2 AA Batteries. Hahaha. Funny how a slightly different context can change the meaning of something.
Yes I got the R. Platte reference, years and years and maybe even more years ago after reading Donald Featherstone's naval wargames book I re-fought this battle using a roll of wall paper, and a pencil to mark where the ships were. Can't remember who won though.
DeleteI'm interested to see if your games end up being nautical or aeronautical in nature.
Nice follow-up post Simon and some great looking models :-)
ReplyDeleteI haven't played anything like this in a LONG time, but events in the "Off World colonies" might take me in this direction in the Blade Runner campaign, so I'll be following yours and Bryan's exploits closely!
Yeah I'm starting to get a bit excited. I got another mail order in this week so now I have everything I need for the naval side of things (just need to get it all painted etc) so I'll have a few more introductory posts and then I should get a battle report in say a couple of weeks time. Once that happens I'll probably rip in quite a few battle reports in succession.
ReplyDeleteSounds very interesting. Just one thing, though: "wet" navies typically don't have small numbers of fighters/bombers on escort ships, but rather restrict their use to specialist carriers. I suppose it make the logistics, training &c easier. Is there something in the background to your campaign to explain this?
ReplyDeleteI haven't really thought about it like that. I was just using the stats for the capital ships from the rules. I think in the early days of WW2 they were flying hurricanes and other fighter aircraft as a stop gap measure to counter the uboats and condors from memory and I think they used to launch them off all types of stuff like battleships, cruisers and I think even merchants. But I'm not a real WW2 naval buff so I could be wrong. But maybe that's what Ed was thinking about. They won't last long in any case.....I'm expecting serious attrition.
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