Wednesday 18 September 2013

"Not Star Wars" Imperial Fleet

Introduction

An older Star Destroyer from the Star Wars universe.  This one is not from the Empire, but rather from the New Republic.

Here's something different.  All the spaceship fleets I've displayed on this blog have been "not Star Trek" (though some of them are a bit obscure for the casual fan).  However, I also have 1 "not Star Wars" fleet - the Imperial Star Navy!

Actually, I built this fleet mainly so that I could deploy hordes of TIE fighters and pretend to stand on the bridge of the flagship in a natty grey uniform whilst proclaiming "You are part of the Rebel Alliance and a traitor. Take her away!".  Everyone must bow to the will of the Emperor!

Design Philosophy

OK, enough with the megalomania and on to the ships!

I see the vessels of the Imperial fleet as slow and stodgy, so they all have relatively low thrust ratings (even the smallest ships).  They are large enough to absorb a fair amount of damage, but aren't very good at preventing it.  For this, I give them armour rather than screens; attacks will cause damage (with nice, cinematic explosions), even if it takes a while before the ship ceases to function properly.

As well as the usual beam batteries, the signature weapons of this fleet are fighters and ion cannons.  Fighters are already modeled in Full Thrust, so no problem there.  All larger ships in my fleet will carry some fighters; there won't be any dedicated carriers.

What about the ion cannon, though?  It seems to be a direct-fire weapon, as opposed to a seeking device.  I think it has a very potent effect if it hits but won't achieve anything if it misses, so no area effect.  There's a weapon out there that behaves something like this already: the UNSC graser.  Roughly speaking, this is a bit like a regular beam weapon (if expensive and massive!), except that each hit does 1d6 damage points instead of 1!  There's a bit more to it than this; follow the link to find out.

The Fleet

My Imperial ships come from Kallistra's useful "Space Dreadnought 3000" range.  Appropriately enough they are from the "Earth Empire" faction!  Note that I'm missing E3, that model was absent from the fleet pack I bought long ago.

The fighters are from Studio Bergstrom and are officially "Scythe Empire" fleet scale craft.  But we all know where the inspiration for these comes from, don't we :-) ?
An OpenOffice .odg document containing all the SSDs for this fleet is available: here.

My apologies for the slightly red tinge in the pictures below and for the silvering of the labels on the ships' bases.  These are both artifacts of my camera flash and are not present on the original models.

Manufacturer's DesignationPictureFull Thrust SSD
E1 Earth Empire Patrol Ship
E2 Earth Empire Destroyer
E4 Earth Empire Battlecruiser
E5 Earth Empire Dreadnought
E6 Earth Empire Super Dreadnought
TIE Bombers
TIE Fighters

17 comments:

  1. Yet more damn fine work Colgar! I have a couple of fleet packs from Kallistra myself - nice models. I just wish I could make as good a job as you have!

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    1. The Kallistra fleets are very nice. My models here have a simple basecoat-wash-detailing finish.

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    2. You may call it simple, but I couldn't possibly comment .... ;)

      Have you got the Kallistra rules? I have; the combat is VERY simplistic, but they would be good to setup campaigns IIRC

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    3. Ah, have more faith in yourself :-) !

      No, I haven't seen the Kallistra rules, though I do know of their existence. I'm not really tempted; I am quite happy with Full Thrust, Starmada, BFG and other sets that I have already.

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  2. While not interested in Trek I am very interests in Wars! I have so far not looked at kallistras star ships now however you have given me more things to buy and get around to painting in 5 years time. No planned purchases at present but I feel my resolve crumbling! Still got an NSL fleet to paint yet. But these would be a nice alternative for one of the other factions.

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    1. Kallistra ships are relatively cheap; a fleet pack with 8 ships currently costs just £14.95 (plus postage, of course). And I've said it before but it's worth repeating - I find spacecraft *much* quicker and easier to paint than models of people!

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  3. Fantastic, I like how you described them for use in games terms very fitting.

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    1. I think it's helpful to describe my thinking, if only so that others can disagree with it.

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  4. Looks good, love the little fighters :P

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    1. Thanks, Mathyoo. It was a bit tiresome painting all the TIE fighters, but you have to field them in large numbers, don't you :-) ?

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  5. This is a great looking fleet, very elegant. It makes me wonder why I am so reluctant to slap paint on my ships.

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    1. Thanks, Sean. Really, you should just get on with it and paint your own fleet :-) .

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  6. That's a very good looking and unified fleet, by which I mean the designs of the models and not your excellent paint schemes. I reckon it'll be hard playing with the TIE fighters are resisting the urge to not add sound effects !

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    1. All the Kallistra fleets have such a unified theme, I think.

      As for the sound effects, I'm *way* ahead of you :-) ! Trouble is that I'm not very good at mimicking the noise of the TIE fighter's electronic "howl".

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  7. I love their look and feel. You really want to conquer the Galaxy with them

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    1. Oh, yes - these need to be played in character: "Rebel scum! Resistance is futile!" (or something like that).

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