Introduction
My previous articles on my "not-Star Trek" Federation, Orion and Klingon fleets have been very popular, so I plan to keep documenting further parts of my collection. Eventually I'll run out of models, of course, but that won't be for a little while yet.I played a lot of Star Fleet Battles a long time ago and remember it with a lot of fondness, tempered with frustration at the overwhelming complexity of the later versions and supplements. I also didn't like the "official" min-max tactics that were encouraged by articles in Nexus magazine and elsewhere. Still, my memories are positive enough for me to base my "not Trek" model fleets loosely on SFB rather than the images and factions from the later series of the TV show.
This time, it's the turn of the Kzinti, the fierce, clannish and honourable cat-people with a penchant for missiles and starfighters. Their ships are somewhat unusual in the Star Fleet universe because they are heavily dependent on expendable ordnance. The key to victory against Kzinti is to survive the initial storm of firepower; once they're out of missiles then your chances are greatly improved!
Design Philosophy
As before, I've looked for an existing Full Thrust fleet on which to base my Kzintis, rather than designing all of them from scratch. In this case, the FSE seemed to fit the bill, with their preference for missile salvoes and hybrid battleship-carriers. That's close enough for a starting point, though I'm quite happy to swap out a few systems here and there to make a ship more "Kzinti-like", if needed.The Ships
My Kzinti fleet is built entirely out of models from Irregular Miniatures "Confederation" fleet. Now, these miniatures are not too close in appearance to the canon Kzinti ships, but they're good enough for me. The Irregular "Confederation" fleet is fairly generic in appearance; it could also be used to represent SFB Hydrans if desired.| Irregular Designation | Picture | Full Thrust SSD |
|---|---|---|
| Not sure. Probably: DYC2: Destroyer, Hussar Class |  |  |
| DYC3 - Light Cruiser, Ryder Class |  |  |
| DYC4 - Heavy Cruiser, Harrasser [sic] Class |  |  |
| DYC5 - Battlecruiser/ Dreadnought, Percheron Class |  |  |
| DYC6 - Heavy Carrier, Camelot Class. Note that I've discarded the original angled flight deck from this model and have added landing pads of my own! |  |  |
They look great mate, I'd like to do something like this but I think it would have to be more star fighters I think. These are fab.
ReplyDeleteStar fighters? Yes, I have some of those on my workbench right now :-) .
DeleteEither way, ships or fighters are very easy to paint and you don't need many of them for a game. I've always thought that space (or naval) games are some of the easiest to start.
I think these are possibly me favourite fleet that you've shown so far.
ReplyDeleteSoon I'll be prepping for my first Full Thrust encounter with my son when his Fathering duties have ebbed a bit (so possibly Xmas then!)
Thanks, Joe - glad you like them.
DeleteOoh, I could be in all kinds of trouble with the Zombie Bloggers Association if I've distracted you with my Full Thrust articles :-) !
Another nice post on your take on a Star Trek faction. The ESU stats fit the SFB Kzinti style quite nicely, don't they?
ReplyDeleteThese models from Irregular are very nicely done. (My favorites are stil the "not-Orion's" though!). When I still gamed regularly, I painted my Confederation minis as Kzinti, and another player painted his up as SFB Hydrans (military green hull with white band and black ID script around the forward hull). The two distinct SFB paint schemes keep indentifying between the two fleets using the same minis brilliantly.
Looking forward to more "not-Star Trek" mini posts, and definetely will keep an eye on this blog for more after-action reports! :)
Mark
By the way, forgot to say, you should send these pics in to Irregular to see if they want to use them on their web site!
DeleteThanks. I didn't know that anyone else had already painted these up as SFB Kzinti warships, though it does seem kind of obvious in hindsight.
DeleteIan (from Irregular) is aware of these blog entries and has my permission to use the pictures of his models as he wishes :-) .
there are now many pictures of your models on the Irregular Miniatures site, along with due credit.
DeleteYes, Chief Lackey Rich acted as intermediary and made sure that Ian (of Irregular) would take these images. I'm pleased as anything to help with this; there have been rumblings about the Irregular website's lack of pictures for a long time.
DeleteCatching up on posts. Another good one. I'm glad irregular is using your pictures. To many online stores with bad or no pictures, really makes taking the plunge to buy them hard.
ReplyDeleteIf I'd known that Ian @ Irregular was so receptive then I might have offered to take pictures of my models for their website a long time ago. For many years there have been (unfulfilled) requests made on various forums for pictures of the Irregular spaceship ranges!
DeleteAnd these ranges deserve the publicity!
DeleteAs I said elsewhere, I used these in FASA Trek games before ADB started the SFB ranges up again. They make great substitutes.
Mark
Thanks for the re-use of my pseudo-Hydrans, which is what I originally made them for. Yes,as Trynda will attest,I designed them.
ReplyDeleteYou know, I hadn't even thought of these models as "not Hydrans" until it was mentioned in the reply above. I should have known better, but there we are. Thanks for taking the time to comment :-) .
Delete