Sunday Starships: additional Entomalians

I finish painting the last (but one) of my Starfleet Wars/Galactic Knights miniatures.  Just one super galactic dreadnought to go, along with several dozen starfighters, and I'll have all my minis from this line completed.

We have a New Mantis-class galactic dreadnought, a Mandible-class stellar destroyer leader, and five Wasp-class stellar destroyers.

These models add some much-needed numbers to my Entomalian fleet, one of the smaller of my forces.  Don't worry; I'll probably buy some more at a later date.

These are some of my favorite designs to paint, since I get to use a variety of metallic colors for that iridescent look. 

Like all my other models, I can use these ships for 5150: Star Navy as well as all the other starship combat games I like to play.  Since they have an organic, insectoid design, the Ent vessels might work as Bug cocoon ships for Star Navy.  I'll have to get them on the table and see. 

Coming soon ...

As seen on The Miniatures Page, 5150: Fighter Command is in the pipe, five by five.  I've had a look at the rules, and I think you'll like what's in there.

Been distracted

Sorry you haven't heard much from me lately.  I've taken a little break from tabletop gaming and been spending time playing a scenario for Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures, an old computer game from back in the day.

This software is actually a game design engine, based on the old SSI "Gold Box" games that were the first official Dungeons & Dragons games for the PC.  There's a decent-sized fan community, and hundreds of adventures have been created since UA was released 20 years ago (including a couple by yours truly).  The designs range from your standard homemade fantasy adventures, through adaptations of classic TSR modules, to modded games that stretch the software to present Old West, sci-fi, and superhero games.

Anyway, the other day I was bored, so I decided to fire up UA.  I downloaded an adventure and created a party, and it's been sucking up my time ever since.  So if posting is sparse for awhile, this is the reason why.

Some more Star Navy battle reports

Over at the Starship Combat News forums, a gamer by the handle of Remus was kind enough to post some reports of battles that he ran using a modified version of the 5150: Star Navy rules:

• Romulans vs. Dominion
• Klingons vs. Cardassians

I'm not up on the Next Gen/DS9 background, but it sounds like Remus had a good time using Star Navy to play out these battles in the Trek setting.  If you're interested, you can find his conversion rules in this thread on Star Ranger.

As I said on the message board, it's great to see gamers take something I helped create and then expand on it for their further enjoyment.  Can't wait to read more battle reports, so if y'all come across some new ones, please let me know.

Look what I got!

Ed the Two Hour Wargames Guy sent me three author's copies of 5150: Star Navy, and they got here yesterday.  It's my first professional wargame publication, and I'm still pretty thrilled about the whole thing.

Sure, I have all the rules on my computer, but I enjoy the tactile sensation of flipping through a hardcopy.  It's also more convenient to thumb through the physical book for reference than to alt-tab back and forth between the existing rules and the Star Navy expansion I'm working on.

A whole new world

I picked up another Styrofoam hemisphere to paint as a planet for my spaceship games.  With the 40% off coupon, just six bucks from Hobby Lobby.  You can see it with a Tomcat-class battlecruiser for scale.

As you can see, it's much larger than the other celestial objects I already have (12" vs. 8" vs. 4").  I plan on painting this newest half-dome as a gas giant, even though a gas giant at the same scale as a terrestrial world would fill the whole room.

It will add some tactical depth to my spaceship games, as it blocks line of sight and provides a nice hiding place for entire fleets.  Look for it in a batrep someday in the not too far off future.

Sunday Starships: Los Carnívorosos

For your viewing pleasure, the Carnivoran starships from my birthday batch of miniatures are finished and ready for action.  The two big ships are the Tomcat-class galactic battlecruiser (left) and the Tiger-class galactic dreadnought (right)--both will function as Class 5 ships for Star Navy. 

The escorts are a flight of five Cheetah-class stellar destroyers, led by a Puma-class stellar destroyer leader.  In addition to their traditional roles in Starfleet Wars and Galactic Knights, these escort ships will serve as Class 3 vessels in my games of 5150: Star Navy. 

 

 

 

I'm happy to add these ships to my Carnivoran fleet.  Until now, the Carnies were one of my smaller fleets, with just a handful of vessels, the largest being a galactic battlecruiser and a galactic attack carrier.

 

 

 

With these ships finished, I just have six Entomalian escorts and a single Ento capital ship, and I'm done with painting all my birthday minis--except for the 50 starfighters.  Time to start basing ....  Of course, I just remembered I have a Carnivoran super galactic dreadnought that needs to be stripped and repainted.  One more thing for the to-do list.