Sunday 30 August 2015

My *other* Imperial Fleet

Introduction

I've been trying to tidy up my work area recently; it's such a mess that I've not been able to do any painting for 6 weeks or more now.  Rather than just push everything loose into yet more piles, I'm attempting a "deep clean", where I reorganise quite a lot of the storage of my finished models as well as deciding how to arrange all the tools, paints, part-finished figures and materials.  Of course, this is going very slowly...

Whilst I was opening some of the tattier cardboard boxes on my shelves to discover what was in them, I came across the following spaceships.  I thought that maybe you'd like to see them too, before they go back into a more suitable box.  They are my Imperial starships, though I'm not really sure to which Empire they belong.

I have a different Full Thrust "Imperial" fleet, based loosely on the bad guys from Star Wars, but I actually had this fleet painted up first and so technically it's my first set of  such ships.  Ah, I guess that I just like huge, star-spanning civilisations with grand, hereditary heads of state!

All of these starships are from Games Workshop's Battlefleet Gothic range.  They come from the Imperial and Space Marine ranges, though I don't necessarily regard my versions as belonging to the Warhammer 40K Universe.

The superdreadnought "Honourable"

 The "Honourable" is a huge ship.  Officially, it's a Space Marine "Battle Barge" (whatever one of those might be!), but I regard it as simply a very large battleship.  She's clearly armed with multiple heavy beams on the prow and with missile launchers or possibly guns on each broadside, plus a significant, turreted array of lighter point defence weapons.

To put a bit of distance between my models and the Warhammer 40K universe, I've painted a Warzone Imperial insignia on the tail fins.  That should confuse both sets of fanboys, I think!

The light cruiser "Obedient"

 Obedient clearly shares some of the same design principles as the Honourable, but is a lot smaller.  It's not immediately obvious just what a size difference there is until you see the two models side-by-side.

This light cruiser also has a Warzone Imperial insignia on her sides, forward-facing beam weapons and broadsides of missile or gun tubes.

52nd Destroyer Flotilla

Destroyers: Bonfire, Blaze, Pyrotechnic, Arsonist, Torch, Ember
Next up are the 6 destroyers of the 52nd flotilla.  They're all Firestorm-class vessels, though there are minor variations between each.  This is partly due to being built at different yards and partly due to varying levels of refit and upgrade.

The Firestorm-class destroyers have a heavy battery of forward-facing beam weapons.  These aren't powerful enough to take on an enemy battleship, but rather their task is to screen their own capital ships from hostile light units.

114th Frigate Squadron

Frigates: Fer-de-Lance, Asp, Diamondback, Constrictor, Cottonmouth
Finally, here are the 5 frigates of the 114th squadron.  They're all Viper-class torpedo boats, whose task is to assault enemy heavy units.  Since the Vipers are lightly built and don't have much in the way of weaponry other than their torpedoes, they have short life expectancies!  Still, every frigate's captain dreams of glory: if he, she or it could just be the one to sink an enemy flagship then they'd be a hero!

The Whole Fleet

This is quite an unbalanced fleet, with plenty of small and large ships but not much in between.  I could use a few more cruisers and I might even have 1 unbuilt Space Marine cruiser lying about somewhere.

Will I ever use these models in a game?  I hope so, though at the moment I don't have any Full Thrust SSDs for them.  I suppose they could also be used in Battlefleet Gothic, or 5150: Star Navy, though, if only I had the time...

10 comments:

  1. What a cracking post C6, I love the idea of a "deep clean" :-) And what a stunning array of ships you've assembled and painted as well. Great work on the yellow. They look absolutely corking, and I wholeheartedly approve of the Imperial insignia. Did you do that free-hand? They look the business. Great work all-round and I'd certainly be very keen to see them in battle at some point :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks. I too love the *idea* of a "deep clean" :-) . However, it's going very slowly and I cannot tell at this stage how long it might be before I can get back to some painting :-( .

      Yes, all the painting on these models is freehand - no decals or other guides were used.

      A battle? Hmm, I'll need to think about that...

      Delete
  2. They are stunning, really eye-catching stuff.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Michael. I do like the bright colours and I doubt it makes much difference to their ability to be detected (I'm assuming here that advanced infra-red, radar, gravitational flux or some such sensors are much more significant than optical spotting in space battles!)

      Delete
  3. I find yellow hard to paint! But they really do stand out against the black of space.
    Full thrust is so much better than GW Gothic! Bravo sir.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yellow is normally a colour I'd avoid, except maybe for highlights. Sadly, I painted these so long ago that I cannot remember how I did these.

      I've never played BFG and therefore I cannot judge for myself which might be better. So I'll have to bow to your superior knowledge :-) .

      Delete
  4. That's a good colour choice considering the size of the models and how they will play out on the wargaming table. I must admit though that I find W40K battleships designs one of the least appealing among all the SciFi universes out there. I prefer mine with two nacelles and a saucer. ;)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I've got quite a lot of BFG ships and I tend to agree: the designs aren't as much to my taste as many other starship models.

      The yellow colour was something of an experiment, because I hadn't got a "yellow" fleet already. Still, it does stand out, doesn't it :-) ?

      Delete
  5. Another one of your great FT fleets C6 and another stunning colour scheme.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Joe. It's been a while since I painted this fleet, but I still think it's quite good looking :-) .

      Delete