Spaceships!

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

To quote Benny from The Lego Movie...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUN6KP__ozM
SPACESHIP!

On my hunt for other things, I came across these. After initially glueing them on upside down I remembered they were by Zandris IV and called Zealot Class drone fighters (hence the fact they are tinier than usual fleet scale ships).


Yes, the red end is the front!


I tried to paint them to match their mothership, a Seraph-class Superheavy Beam Destroyer


Top view

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Next up are some test pieces for my Brigade Models Yenpolo fleet.
Was looking for interesting things for A Billion Suns, these really caught my eye as something so different to the usual design of warships you see, and the rest of the fleet is on order!

For some reason, the camera just would not pick up on the colour, but they are a very well shaded and modulated light purple colour, honest!
Fighters to the fore, bombers follow.


Top view




See, they are pruple, honest! I'm sure you can imagine the rest of them this colour.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Needing something to fulfill the corette/gunboat section of the Yenpol line, I dug out these two beauties that I have been having nightmares about painting since the 00s, White Stars from Babylon 5, via Drew at Studio Bergstrom!


Top view


Again, the purple is not showing brilliantly...

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Jumpgates.
Coz you need jumpgates.






And a gunstar from the 'Last Starfighter'

[Ithoriel]

Great looking stuff, Will.

I have jump gates, Yenpalo and Gunstars all in need of paint.

"I am not going to paint spaceships, I am concentrating on stuff for 5 Parsecs!"
"I am not going to paint spaceships, I am concentrating on stuff for 5 Parsecs!"
"I am not going to paint spaceships, I am concentrating on stuff for 5 Parsecs!"
"I am not going to paint spaceships, I am concentrating on stuff for 5 Parsecs!"
"I am not going to paint spaceships, I am concentrating on stuff for 5 Parsecs!"
"I am not going to paint spaceships, I am concentrating on .....ooh! Squirrel! 

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

"I am not going to paint spaceships, I am concentrating on stuff for 5 Parsecs!"
"I am not going to paint spaceships, I am concentrating on stuff for 5 Parsecs!"
"I am not going to paint spaceships, I am concentrating on stuff for 5 Parsecs!"
"I am not going to paint spaceships, I am concentrating on stuff for 5 Parsecs!"
"I am not going to paint spaceships, I am concentrating on stuff for 5 Parsecs!"
"I am not going to paint spaceships, I am concentrating on .....ooh! Squirrel! 

OHHHH hyes you are !!!!!!    Good stuff Will 

[fred.]

Lots of teeny tiny space ships! 

I've been flicking through Billion Suns this last week, and looking at Brigade Models too! With the way the game works with ships being bought turn by turn, I wasn't sure if you would want fleets (as you have done) or just a large pool of mercenary ships to buy from? BS feels very different to other wargames - has a lot more board game elements to it (at least from a read through).

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Trying it on Wednesday, I like the feel of not having two fleets line up against each other and it being scenario based.
Then I can use the fleets for other rules!!!

[fred.]

Yes, I think it will be interesting to see how it plays, do the players focus on the victory conditions to accumulate credits. Or do they just go into debt to build a fleet to shoot everything!

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

My plan is to go for victory, and if all else fails, destroy my opponent's jump gate!

[toxicpixie]

Trying it on Wednesday, I like the feel of not having two fleets line up against each other and it being scenario based.
Then I can use the fleets for other rules!!!

That was the draw for me, too! If I want a "line 'em up and laser them down" I've got Full Thrust. But a non-line of battle, scenario driven, credit based system looked well interesting

[Raider4]

Those look great!

Billion Suns sounds intriguing, but not suitable for solo play?

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Those look great!

Billion Suns sounds intriguing, but not suitable for solo play?

It should work for solo play, the example scenario is solo, and there are random events and Kraken may appear.

[fred.]

Billion Suns sounds intriguing, but not suitable for solo play?

There are some solo play rules on the BS website - http://abillionsuns.space/downloads/

I've not even read these, let alone tried them!

[Ithoriel]

When I first got the rules I ran a solo campaign playing both Wayland-Yutani and Umbrella Corp.

Wayland-Yutani did better in the early games at the expense of rapidly going broke!

I had a lot of fun (though not enough to paint any of the ships!) but deffo better with several players.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

The small, heavily armoured, drone flustered outside the door of the Auran Throne Room/Chamber/Pool. The amabssador had been gone for hours. Had he been eaten? Would he need to train up a new one?
The door creaked open slowly, the Ambassador waved cheerily and wave goodbye to his Imperial Highness. He had got away with it again!
The door slammed shut, and the Ambassador handed back a sheaf of old fashioned paper notes to the drone (The Aurans hated drones, foreign data pads, anything they had not invented themselves, best not upset them) and it impatiantly bustled. "Did you discuss the Yanpalo incursion?"
"I.."
"Did you mention they sent an alpha strike of bombers? Fair wrecked our visual sensors."


The drone buzzed round the slightly bemused Ambassador at headheight.
"Which was overtaken by fighters, they ripped apart our local screens?"
"If..."


It was showing some aggitation,nervousness even. An unsual state for a droid to get into.
"Our spy satillites then picked up a wave of six corvettes entering! Do you understand how serious an intrussion that is?"
"Yes but..."


It fixed the Ambassador's gaze, hovering and flitting slightly, like a child trying not to peak at birthday presents.
"I do hope you were able to dicuss the technical merits of their ship designs, as oh dear, we need their help on this one?"
"Um..."


It thumbedflicked at high speed through the Ambassadors notes, scanning each page at high resolution, typical, nothing written down! How do these pathetic humans ever cope without AI assistance?
"I know the Yanpalo have a thing about the value of six, but this is a real show of arrogence from them."
"Wha..."


How dare he not take notes! He did not have the synaptic boosts to mem-cord all the details.
"Corvettes, followed by those nasty frigates. How did we ever deserve an opponent like this?"
"If you woul..."


Oh human memories, so unorganised and cluttered, I'll have to scan him later as he recharges!
"Those frigates never travel on their own, always with the big stuff, you put that across, yes?"
"Yes, bu..."


The drone looked distraught, the pace of it's fussing increased.
"Oh I wish we had more allies like the Aurans, they know what to do, don't they?"
"I sai..."


Punching a manipultor at a file picture (taken from an Auran camera feed),
"To have two destroyers in system, that means they are serious. You did discuss their anti-missile capabilities that those things pack?"
"Will yo..."


It looked at another print, a good angle on the newly emerged destroyers. If the Aurans ever found we have tapped ther feeds...
"I know our fleet call them 'Angmar's Helmets; I wonder that the Auran's call them?"
"Really, you..."


It flicked through the file again. It did not need to, it knew every pixal and fold down to a micron level and knew which pages had been looked at, handled and hopefully discussed. It could probably estimate time on each page to a picosecond by sweat residues and decay due to exposure to the Auran atmosphere. Most sheets were relatively untouched, strange?
"I am glad our intelligence tapped their security feeds, that new cruiser design is a real worry. You showed but did not say where we got it from, right?"
"Of cour..."


While the stress of this situation was definitley showing on the drone,who was not on his 17th lap of the antichamber, the Ambassador looked bored.
"Our analysts reckon their firepower is just short of one of our battleships. Did you get the Auran version of their statistical anayalsis."
"I woul..."


The drone was now hovering almost touching the Ambassador's face, like a C20th drill sergent in the face of a raw recruit.
"Two of those in any sytem is horrendous! Now, what did they say about the battlecruisers?"
"I haven't..."


"We haven't seen anything bigger have we? Have they?"
"How woul..."


The door to the state chamber silently slid open behind the flustered drone.
"You know, your lack of answers really is agrivating, Human thought processes are so slow!"
"Oi..."


A long red, pearlescent tenticle drifted unseen under the drone, hugging the floor, despite the drones enhanced sensor suits, in it's stress it did not compute what was happening.
"That many ships in one system, you know what that means?"


The tenticle wrapped round the drone with the speed of movement that would make a striking cobra give up and search out a zimmer frame. It smashed the drone into the wall, the floor, twice against the ceiling, and then the other wall until bits had crumpled off the droid and scattered across the now cracked examples of finest trans-marble the Ambassador had ever seen. As the tenticle shook the last droid metallic and bio-residue off itself and slid back into the throne room, one huge, unblinking, eye looked out.
"Typical," the Emperor intoned in the Ambassador's mind, "I only wanted to know if you humans had any good recipies for roasting these Yanpole after we destroyed and captured them! Oh, and tell his successor that, yes, we know about their breaches in our satillite systems because we let them, and no, they can't keep doing it!"

The Ambassador smiled...

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Impressive

[Techno II]

Very spiffy ! 

Cheers - Phil.

[fred.]

Great fleet - and great write up, has echos of Iain M Banks

[Big Insect]

Great fleet - and great write up, has echos of Iain M Banks

That was wat I wuz gunna say!

My favourite Banks book (& bit) is that very first space battle in Excession - the one that takes a long chapter to read but actually takes place in nano-seconds of computer time.

And what is there not to like/dislike about the Affronters as a species!