My forces for 5150: Fighter Command

Introduction

I've spent a large part of today cleaning out my garage, so this is just going to be a short post - sorry!

A long. long time ago, when it was first released, I tried the PC game "Wing Commander" and flew space fighters in dogfights against the cat-like Kilrathi enemy.  For a while, this was my favourite game and I enjoyed it so much that I also bought and played the first sequel.  I've experienced many computer games in my life, but few were as memorable as this.

Also many years ago, I became aware of the plastic spaceship models from EM-4 miniatures.  I thought these were really neat, but since I couldn't think of any game I'd play with them, I managed to resist such a purchase on many occasions.  Even if it had occurred to me to use the EM-4 fighters to revisit the world of Wing Commander, there were no suitable rules, I thought (although Silent Death always seems to have been very popular).

What finally cracked my resolve was the recent release of 5150: Fighter Command by 2HourWargames.  It took only a few days for my determination not to start a new project to crumble and so I ordered both the rules and some plastic spacecraft.  This, I believe, is in no way unusual - many others have done exactly the same thing.

I'm slowly painting my way through the craft I bought; here are the first groups.  I haven't yet come up with a lot of background fluff for these, so you'll have to make do with the pictures:

The Good Guys (Star Navy?)

Here's some interceptors - Blue Flight from the 34th Pursuit Squadron.

A flight of heavy fighters from the "Lucky 15th" Attack Squadron.

Torpedo bombers from the 218th Assault Squadron.  I've added the under-wing anti-ship missiles myself; these were made very simply from lengths of plastic rod with the tip sharpened into a point.

The Bad Guys (Kilrathi?  Hishen?)

"Fandango"-class interceptors.  These are very common and often seen in large wings, but individually not very capable.

A little-known type of single-seat heavy fighter, codename "Firewall".  Such craft are very new and there is no accurate data on their performance.

Conclusion

So far, so good.  However, I've many more fighters yet to paint up; these will make up at least 1 (maybe 2 or 3) other factions.  I'm also looking for inspiration: what to use for capital ships and how many different types of these I might need.  Finally, I'll need to go through all my gaming boxes to see if I have some large, black hex mats.  Fighter Command can be played free-form, but reading the rules suggests that hexes might make things easier.

I really didn't need this distraction from my other projects.  I've just not got enough willpower to resist all the shiny things!