United Federation of Planets Squadron Complete!

Finally finished with all of my Feds. Of course this doesn't mean that I won't buy more in the future....

Here are the pics of the newly completed BC and DN. Followed by the whole group. (Still trying to figure this camera out, all of these ships are a stark white.)

I'm also almost done with the Black Lightning Dictator.

Finished UNSC Fireteams and a Starship

Finally got around to finishing the basic fire teams for my UNSC force, which will comprise the expeditionary forces of the Terran Confederacy in the setting I'm working on. This is the best of about 20 pictures I took with the new camera. The lesson learned here is that if you buy a $40 camera, you can expect $40 optics and $40 results. Remaining for this force are three spider gun drones and a weapons squad with four LMG teams. The platoon will be organized with a command team, three squads with a fire team and a gun drone, and the weapons squad. As I work down the Shelf of Shame I'll eventually round this out with some IFVs and a heavy weapon sections (anti-material rifles and rocket launchers). Also of note, this was my first application of the "Minwax Dip" en masse. Still working on the proper consistency.

Also finished a starship yesterday, it was mostly finished, just needed me to get off my butt and get it done. Unfortunately, the camera couldn't deal with the straight white and bright silver on the figure. This is the Nagato carrier (I think) from the Squadron Strike Japanese set available from Ad Astra Games. I'll be using them with Starmada though.

Battle Station Assault!

Finally got around to playing the final battle of the Day One campaign today. Took a lot longer than I thought it would, but that was mostly due to outside distractions.  At any rate, after replaying the third battle the two side were relatively closely matched, with the Federation having the advantage. The victory condition was destroy 900 points of enemy models. The forces were...

Federation
Battle Station
NCL
oCL
2x Frigates

Klingon
C8 Dreadnought
D7C Command Cruiser
2x D7 Battlecruiser
F5 Frigate

I controlled the Klingon cruisers, Phillip the C8 and F5 (until later when he ceded control of the F5 to me). Zachary flew the Federation.

Zachary set up the station in a corner with ships forming a defensive line three hexes in front of it.  I set up the cruisers on the near side of the station while Phil set up further out. (sorry about the fuzzy pictures, getting used to a new camera)

First turn saw Zachary dress his gun line while Phil moved forward and I did as well, but more cautiously to see if Zachary would come running out or not. Zachary hit the C8 with a couple Phaser-4s, did a couple points of hull damage but not much else.

Phil must've gotten spooked by the big guns on the station as he turned the F5 around and launched drones at the NCL. I moved forward just far enough to plink at the NCL with disruptors.

One of the D7 got hurt enough for me to pull him off the line while the other cruisers moved up to get into the edge of the Phaser-1s range. The damaged D7 only took a few points of hull damage, but his shields got chewed up pretty bad. So I figured I could make some repair rolls and have it catch up with the dreadnought. Zachary kept his gun line in place (for most of the game) and tried to score some lucky hits with proximity fused photon torpedoes. The NCL accrued damage steadily.

I decided it was go time and move the undamaged cruisers up to take out the NCL after the drones did some more damage to and Phil focused on the station. The NCL went out in a fireball, but the C8 was starting to show some stress on her hull, but systems remained largely unaffected.

With the NCL gone I was able to focus fire on the station, which was all I needed to win. The C8's shield were still holding out so I was confident in a victory even though it was down to about 5 hull at this point. managed to take out a FF with the D7 in the back, it couldn't range the station yet. The other D7 that had been the D7C's wingman was taken out by the combined firepower of the Federation ships.

And here's the end game. All but one of those blue drone tokens hit the Battlestation for the SFU version of the Macross Mega Missile attack. It left the station with 8 hull left. The C8 took it down to 3, and the D7C finished it. Unfortunately the C8 also bought it with the stations dying onslaught of Phaser-4 fire. I tried to take out the oCL before the end of the turn, but couldn't get enough hull hits.

At this point I had scored about 1040 points and Zachary had scored 893. The Klingons with the game by victory condition.  If Zachary had destroyed another ship I would still have won by points. For the campaign, having won two of the earlier games and this one the Klingons achieved a major victory. They may have lost their dreadnought, but with the station out of the way further fleets will be able to push into Federation territory freely. If Zachary had won the scenario I would still have gotten a minor victory for the Klingons.  The most he could have gotten was a minor Federation victory by winning this game with a higher victory point total than me.

The game was enjoyable despite some issues involving trying to game with an active 8 year old.  I'm debating picking up the new version of Starmada and going through and converting the SFU ships to that format, though supposedly that will be done for us. I like Starmada Admiralty edition well enough, but the new version is supposed to streamline some of the die rolling. It gets time consuming waiting for the kids to pick out the dice that were successful for the next iteration of rolls.

Next game will probably be me teaching them how to play FUBAR with either 15s or 28s.

Q'apla!

Played the second game of the Day One campaign today instead of watching the Super Bowl. Myself and sometimes Phillip were running the Klingons and Zachary the Feds. This game was anyone's game until something seemingly insignificant, a few lucky rolls at the right time, turned it in my favor. Unfortunately we didn't take pictures this time.  Forces were:

Federation Division 2:

2x Heavy Cruiser
1x New Light Cruiser
1x Old Light Cruiser

Klingon Division 2:
1x D7C Command Cruiser
2x D7 Battlecruiser
1x F5 Frigate

Zachary started by keeping his CAs in the center with lights on the flanks. Phillip and I kind of split them between us, but he scored some early lucky hits on one of the CAs. We both spent a couple turns saber dancing, but had a hard time landing hull hits, so most of the hits would just get repaired in the end phase. Finally in a position to push into overload range, Zachary moved his NCL forward and in two turns it was destroyed. The seemingly insignificant error he made was that while he did destroy the F5 that got the killing blow on his NCL (overloaded disruptors at 2 hexes). He should have split his fire and let the torpedoes finish the F5 instead of starting with phasers (which due to an untimely bad roll for him all missed, all 2's and he needed 3's) then finishing with torpedoes which generated about 10 more damage points than were needed to destroy the tiny ship. He may have gotten lucky with the phasers on a damaged D7 and taken it out along with the F5, which would have left me with a huge firepower gap. Even if he had focused on the D7 instead of the frigate he would have put me in a hurt. In the second to last turn he took out a D7, but left me in a position to destroy both CAs by turning to repair when he probably would've been better off turning about and unloading photon torpedo hell on my ships. End result was the Fed squadron only had a lightly damaged oCL remaining while I had a D7C and D7, both with hull integrity at about 50%. So, while damaged and having lost a couple ships, I still consider it a fairly big win for the Klingons that will set us up to have fairly close point values for the station assault in the last game.

The Klingons seem to have had some bad intel on the next objective though. They allocated two D7s and a D6 to engage a squadron that turned out to consist of a Command Cruiser, Heavy Cruiser, New Light Cruiser, Old Light Cruiser, and a Frigate. He'll have to destroy all three of my ships to claim victory, while I'm going to have to take out the FF, the oCL, and a third ship. If I manage a win on this one it's going to be by the skin of my teeth.

Day One Campaign, First Game

We played the first game of the Day One campaign included in the Klingon Armada rulebook. For the first game the victory conditions are to destroy 400 points of the opposing fleet. We used the movements rules posted in the Majestic XII forum that will be the movement system in the upcoming new version of Starmada.
We also instituted a house rule that allows a ship to repair a shield facing by taking a point of damage to an adjacent facing. (The Chief Engineer diverting power from one to the other)

Zachary and Michael, playing the Federation, chose their Division 1 (CA, NCL, 2x FF) and split them up. Zachary took the cruisers and Michael took the frigates. Remembering how the C8 was destroyed by light cruisers and frigates I kind of went overboard and took the Klingon Division 3 (C8, 2x D6). This gave me around a 300 pt advantage over the boys, but means the next couple games are going to be closer affairs as I'll be at a points disadvantage. I figured though that by over powering them in this game I can make up the difference in points for the final game if I lose the next couple. When I use the Klingon Division 1 (2x D7 and a D6) I'm going to be at a disadvantage, but I play it right I think I can make a good showing.

So we set up the models, the Feds put their ships in the center of their edge with Zachary putting his cruisers on their port flank CA on the outer edge. I tried to establish a refused flank by putting my squadron on starboard side of my edge. This would allow me to fly across the back edge of my side of the board and take pot shots with disruptors. This also good for the C8 because it Phaser-1s are strongest in it's broadside arcs.

In the first turn, the Feds cautiously advanced while I turned to port. The Feds were out of range while I was at extreme range for my disruptors and got a few hits on the NCL. If I could take out the NCL and CA that would be the game. I was hoping to get some lucky hull hits. I held onto my drones, while Michael launched both his and Zachary launched the one on the NCL. Zachary is getting better at holding onto his drone for defense when playing the Feds, but Michael still launches them first turn.

In the second turn the Feds continued a slow advance, with the NCL pulling slightly ahead. Well placed disruptor shots took about half the NCLs hull and seriously depleted the shields. I managed to mostly stay out of the Fed's range but a lucky Phaser-1 hit got through to one of the D6s.

In the third turn Michael decided to do a full burn across the table with his frigates to engage the lightly damaged D6. Zachary, seeing his NCL losing shields and weapons, decided to turn back to allow the damage control parties to make repairs and let the CA take the lead. Michael's drones got close enough for me to swat down one flight and reduce the other to 1 die. The C8 opened up with Phaser-1s and four distruptors on a frigate and it quickly became an expanding cloud of gas and debris. It also took a couple pot shots at the CA and took down it's front shield arc. I was hoping to take out some torpedo tubes, but shield damage makes it easier to get later hits in. One D6 was busy shooting down drones and the other nearly destoyed the remaining frigate. One D6 launched two flights of drones at the frigate figuring it would take it out and let the cruiser focus on the larger ships with its guns.

Zachary had his NCL come about as he had some good repair rolls and had gotten his forward shield arcs back up and his weapons on-line. I moved the damaged D6 forward outside of the CA's photon torpedoes arc of fire, planning to use disruptors on the NCL and the side facing Phaser-2s on the CA. The ploy worked, but as I expected I lost the D6. In return though, combined with the other ship's efforts, the CA was left heavily wounded with it's forward shield arcs down and the NCL with its shield completely down but by some providence with little additional hull damage. The C8 took a single overloaded photon torpedo hit that damaged the engines and a single weapon. I decided that the range was close enough for a mass drone launch and launched four flights from the C8 toward the CA and one flight from the D6 toward the NCL.

In what would be the final turn the CA only came forward enough to get in medium range of its main weapons and Zachary advanced his NCL. I moved the remaining D6 forward in the same manner as the previous one, thinking that if the drones didn't destroy the CA they would at least hurt it enough that it would survive and I wanted to try to get both ships out in this turn so I could claim the full point value of their squadron for this game. The drones took out the CA, meaning it wouldn't get to lend its firepower during the combat phase. The single flight against the NCL removed the shields that had been repaired in the previous turn's damage control check. Despite all my best efforts, enough hits had been made to destroy the NCL, but not enough resulted in hull hits. At the end of the turn the NCL had two hull points left but few weapons and no shields. The D6 lost a fair number of weapons, but was still in good fighting form and the C8 was relatively unscathed.

So the first game was a resounding victory for the Klingons, but given the point values that is really only to be expected. The next couple games will be much more closely won affairs.

Klingon Armada BatRep

Since it was my last day of vacation I decided to set up a Klingon Armada game to play with the boys before going back to work. Also gave me an excuse to use the C8 and Fed NCL. The scenario was that a Federation patrol consisting of light cruisers and frigates encountered a Klingon dreadnought and its escorts as it was en route to reinforce a squadron about to engage in a planetary assault. We used Klingon Armada using the simple movement and damage control optional rules.

Here's the starting positions:

I controlled the Klingon group with the C8 and two F5 frigates for escorts. Zachary had a New Light Cruiser, to Old Light Cruisers, and two Frigates. Zachary had about a 30 point advantage. Victory conditions for the Federation were to destroy the C8 and for the Klingons to exit the C8 off the opposing edge.

In the opening turn the Federation squadron split into three, with an old Light Cruiser and a Frigate on each flank and the NCL coming up the middle. I moved to the side in an effort to move forward maximize the number of weapons bearing on the NCL as I saw it to be the biggest threat. That and I was hoping to take out a couple torpedo tubes before making my run.

Combat for this turn involved the NCL connecting with a single long range phaser-1 shot, and a couple shield hits on the NCL from the C8. Zachary launched a couple shuttles targeting the C8, but I held onto my drones waiting to get a little closer to keep him from having a chance to shoot them down.

Both sides moved forward in the second turn.

This turn Zachary managed to score some really good hits on the C8, but what really did me in over the course of the game was that he learned his lesson about concentrating fire. The NCL was taken down to about half of its hull, but the torpedo launchers remained unharmed. During the fighter launch phase I launched what amounts to a Macross Mega Missile attack at the NCL. Zachary launched two drone flights targeting the C8.

These are the ships after movement in turn three but prior to the fighter phase.

Now, this is were I'm still getting the hang of flying the F5s. I had intended to use them to screen the dreadnought from drones/shuttles, however, after movement the drones were too close and I couldn't engage them before they impacted on the C8. Most of the drone hits were absorbed by the shields, but a couple got through and created openings in the shields. With all the drones that hit the NCL it was destroyed, but it took almost all of the drones to do so.

In the combat phase Zachary very nearly destroyed the C8, leaving only two hull boxes left. I destroyed both the old light cruiser and frigates on the side I was advancing.

The next turn ended up with the F5s flying by the remainig Federation ships which had finally closed to medium range and the C8 trying to advance further. Unfortunately the C8 was destroyed by an overloaded photon torpedo.

So, in light of the fact that the C8 was destroyed but all that remained of the Federation squadron was an old Light Cruiser and a Frigate we called the game a slight victory for the Federation.

Starmada still continues to provide extremely close games at roughly equal point values. I could have played it a little different, possibly trying to position the C8 between the limited arcs of the photon torpedoes. I don't think that would've worked though because we were using the simple movement optional rule. With an engine rating of 4 the C8 wouldn't have moved far enough forward to get out of the forward arcs of all those torpedo tubes. I'm starting to think that it's time to teach Zachary the standard movement rules for Starmada. He's starting to get the hang of thinking tactically.

I'm thinking the starmat is going to stay out, that was a fun game and I'm feeling another Klingon/Federation battle is in order.

Last Minis for 2011

Finished these up on the 30th, was too busy getting ready for company on New Year's Eve to get pics. Speaking of pics, my trusty old Panasonic camera died on me today after seven or eight years of service. I think the cheap blister pack cameras we got the kids for Christmas this year had a better megapixel rating than this one but I kept it around because I liked the optics. It seems to be a firmware error, but I need to research it to see if it is salvageable. In the mean time I'm using my wife's Coolpix and it is taking some adjusting to. For one thing I have no idea where the sweet spot is for the macro mode. So I apologize for the pics until I get a better feel for this camera.

So, enough on that. I did manage to get the Ironclad done, but not the Charger. I may go back over the shoulders a little bit, but for now I'm calling it done.

This next piece had been sitting on my table for some time as something I'd work on while waiting for paint to dry on other models. It was close enough for me to quickly add the last details and be done with it. It is a Federation New Light Cruiser from Amarillo Design Bureau. If I get any mini in the new line of ships it will be this one when it becomes available because the mold is just shot on this one. I'll deal with it being larger than the rest of my fleet. In the meantime, I'm looking forward to using it in games, the stats are just a bit less than the traditional Heavy Cruiser so I'm looking to try a scenario with a patrol group consisting of this NCL, two oCLs, and two FFs encountering either a Klingon C8 dreadnought or a pair of D7 battlecruisers.

Not anticipating getting any painting done today. I'm in the process of setting things up for the End of Year Wrap-Up post for 2011, which will be going up later.

More Starmada With the Kids

OK, I lied, I thought I had pics of the C8. I don't. I humbly ask forgiveness and hope you accept these pictures of a Starmada game in lieu.

This game was a three-way meeting engagement between myself (the blue/orange Mauridians), Michael (the grey/green GZG NSL), and Zachary (tan/scarlet GZG FSE). The boys actually had an advantage in that their designs were coherent, while I didn't realize earlier that somehow I had managed to mix together two separate sets of stats for the Mauridians and that the stats for the Mauridian dreadnought made no sense at all with regards for the weapons arcs. Yet in the end it came down to Michael and myself and was fairly close. He held back until Zachary was almost out of the game, then started advancing towards me. In the end though I had the dice on my side for one, especially with those one-shot supergun frigates.

Was a good, if long game. If I hadn't needed to help them with firing each turn the game would've been half as long as it was. It's not bad with only a couple ships per side, but this represented about 1500 points per side. My oldest son seems to have the hardest time grasping the combat phase. I think the stats I gave the GZG ships are fairly good, but need a little tweaking, especially for anti-fighter defense. The Mauridian carriers ended up being ridiculous, so weren't used and also need reworking. The "singularity missiles" I adapted from the original stats Xtreme Hobbies gave the Mauridians were insane. At one point in the game one hit from the weapon generated 21 damage and pretty much eviscerated Zachary's battleship. Another thing I think I need to do is boost the shield values overall.

Next week is Tomorrow's War, painted figures or not...

The Mighty Hood Goes Down

Here are the pictures from "The Mighty Hood Goes Down." I think I could've held out for the full 10 turns if I hadn't started to get bored and charged in to try to take out Zachary's D6.

 The short version is that I spent the first few turns repairing lucky long range disruptor hits, got bored in turn five (it was getting late too) turned in so I could fire some overloaded torpedoes in an attempt to take out the D6 (which I did) fully expecting to be taken out as well (which I did).

Finished Mauridian Squadron

I finally finished the Mauridian squadron from Ravenstar Studio's Cold Navy line. First, props to my favorite mini designer John Bear Ross. I really love the aesthetic of these ships. They have a very anime style to them and they'd feel right at home in a Macross fleet.

I'm really glad that I started with the big boys, as by the time I got to the smaller ones, my painting chops had degraded fairly following the deployment and subsequent PCS. If the battleship had turned out like the Ba'Rada frigates I'd have been really pissed at myself. In the end though, they are Done and at tabletop distance still look decent.

He Paints!

Finished off two of the three Ba'Rada frigates last night. Let's just say that you'd think I forgot how to paint as they are not anywhere near the same level of quality as the other Mauridian ships. I've got one more primed and ready for paint. May try to knock it out tonight. Once that one is done I'll post pics of all three and the completed squadron (though really, is any fleet ever "complete").

Ven'Tara Carriers Complete

I actually finished these a couple weeks ago, just now getting a picture of them. These are Ravenstar's Cold Navy Mauridian Ven'Tara carriers.  They are resin like the rest of Ravenstar's miniatures and the quality is the same high level of the rest of the pieces I've ordered from him. They were already base coated before I deployed so they only needed the darklining, highlighting, and details but that was more than enough to remind me that it has been a while since I painted anything.

Some Finished Mauridians

OK, I know I said I'd be scarce, but I did finish the Mauridian Gal'Ethon battleship and the two Val'Naveg cruisers from Ravenstar Studios. I ended up changing paints with the cruisers. Reaper's Master Series Paints are great paints, especially if you're doing a lot of blending on a miniature. However, when you need two coat coverage it just isn't going to happen. So I switched to Reaper's Pro Paints which have better coverage. This resulted in the cruisers being noticeably darker, but I don't mind it too terribly. As more ships get painted, the ones painted with MSPs will be the minority.

Most of these pictures include the original metal frigates I bought when Xtreme Hobbies was still making these. I've said it before and I'll say it again, the difference in detail in the resin ships blows these away. I'm going to have a hard time going back to metals after these.









Oh, yeah, the battleship is missing the aft ventral fin/wing/thingy. It came off while I was painting at some point today and I'll be darned if I can find the thing.

Couldn't Help Myself

I was going to order some more Sabol trays to increase my miniature:safe moving capacity ratio, but then I saw that Ravenstar Studios is having another 3 day sale. I missed out on the last two he had and wanted to jump on it. I was split between getting a good core group for a Terran fleet and fleshing it out later or getting a space station to use for more scenario oriented play. I opted for space stations. I ended up getting a space station (#6 in the photo) that looks something like a Starfleet Starbase from the movies. I also ordered a Cylon Basestar from the original series. I always thought they looked more like space stations than space ships and intend to use it as a battle station. With the discount I was able to get both right at my monthly budget instead of having to spread them over two purchases. Don't expect to see them painted anytime soon though.

Travel to Distant Lands, Meet New People,...

...and subjugate them to the will of the Emperor.

Had this one primed and alternated working on it and the Mauridians. Naturally, I'm waiting on those adapters to mount it. I plan on getting at least one more of these and an Imperial Star Destroyer and their complement of TIE fighters.



Now, to figure out some stats that make sense in Starmada.

The Next Fleet

I can't really say anything the picture won't except that these were designed by my favorite sculptor, John Bear Ross, for the Cold Navy line. They are available from Ravenstar Studios, though you have to email him as these aren't up on his website.

FSE Fleet and a side project

Here's the group shot:


And this is one of the side projects. A tray to help keep the dice from going all over the place. The dice tower I made a while back fits nicely in this as well. The felt isn't cut quite perfectly, but well enough to get the job done.

And the FSE fleet is done

In a final sprint I've finished the FSE battleship and battlecruiser. I think that from here on out I'm going to start with the larger vessels when I have the option. I seem to care more at the beginning of a fleet. I'll seal these last two tomorrow and mount them on their flight stands. Next up for painting are the VSD and the Mauridians. Though I need to wait for some Ninja Magic magnetic adapters to show up before I can start on the Mauridians. In the meantime I can work on the VSD and a couple side projects I have going. Nice thing about the Mauridians is that I already have a paint scheme for them from the first two frigates I bought a couple years ago. It's a bright scheme, but I like it. Hopefully it paints quick.

Four More

Finished up the three FSE corvettes and final escort cruiser this morning. Just need to seal and mount them. All that remains for that fleet is the battlecruiser and battleship. Thinking about priming the Star Destroyer.

More Stuff

Added more stuff to the "To Do List." Namely the rest of the Mauridian battlegroup (still need fighters though) and a Victory Star Destroyer from Studio Bergstrom. I'm very happy with the details and quality of both orders. Just need to get my Ninja Magic adapters in now. Hopefully this weekend I can finish the FSE corvettes and remaining escort cruiser. Doubt I'll get the battlecruiser and battleship done, those always seem to take longer than I think they will.