Starmada: It is full of Stars.... and madas?

The most excellent Stewart of the blog A Terrible Loss of Lead and Wealth, came round this weekend for a game of TNG era Starmada.  He brought his lovely 1/7000 ships, the mat and the rules, all I provided was lunch and a venue (as well as an escape from relatives...).

As it was just the two of us Stew looked up a scenario from the rulebook, and we set out some fleets.  I ended up with the noble Klingons, and Stew took the cowardly and weak Federation. As usual we got caught up in the game and I failed to take as many pictures as I should have, but here are some. 

Now, fortunately for the noble Klingons, they have ambushed, er gloriously engaged in battle with only HALF the Federation fleet, the other half to arrive later as a rescue.  The Federation fleet started with a Galaxy Class, and two Excelsiors. Klingons has two Vor'Cha class cruisers, a Vor'Cha with a torpedo module, a D7 analog, a warbird, and the Tsanenn, a heavy command cruiser. 

Close range disruptor practice on the appropriately named "Fearless"

This next picture shows what happens when two wings of your fleet cross on the location of a weaker opponent's ship.  Starmada utilizes written orders for movement, so usually we would futilely drift past each other, or end up with the business end of the ship facing away from the action, but a couple of times it all came together nicely.  This is also a nice closeup of the ships.  Look how pretty they are! 

After the unfortunate end of the Fearless the other half of the Federation fleet entered the board, and an Ambassador, as Akira, and a Defiant class ship warped in to join the fun.  The Akira has a whole mess of torpedo tubes and a pretty healthy phaser array so it was rather worrying.  The Defiant class is a slippery little thing with too many guns, but fortunately it spent most of the game moving past targets, or pointing those guns away from my ships! 

Two Vor'Cha ships uselessly pointing away from the Endeavor

Since the Tsanenn's guns all face forward, the Hardrov is in for a bad day

Keeping your ship squadrons intact when one or more of them take engine hits is complicated, particularly as they drift further apart and make several turns. The two Vor'Cha class cruisers on the bottom right of the picture were supposed to be staying together, but it was not working very well by this point. 

By the end, the Federation had to retreat, and the Klingons got to celebrate their victory with some bloodwine.  Another lovely game with Stew and all of that has prompted some more interest in getting through the TNG/DS9 era Cardassians I started last year, and I printed off a few more Galors of various sub-types, a small group of Netels (an obsolete destroyer), and a pair of Keldons.  I also struggled my way through the Starmada ship calculator, which is really not that bad, once you realize that not every ship can do it all.  So hopefully another game in the near-ish future with a new fleet! 

Starmada - back in action

This past weekend, Stew, of the excellent blog A Terrible Loss of Lead and Wealth, again invited a couple of fellows and myself over for a large game of Starmada- TNG style.  As with the last game, Stew provided the space to play in, a lovely star mat, ship stats. a QRF, lunch, and drinks.  And of course two extremely well painted fleets (seriously, look at those ships!). 

This time we got to pick our fleets by victory points, and I decided to bring out the big guns and selected the Sovereign class Atlantic, backed up with three comparatively obsolete Excelsior class ships.  Stew selected the Galaxy class Freitag (which was portrayed by the Galaxy class Endeavor half way through the game after a magnet failure), as well as a Defiant class, an Akira class, and another Excelsior.  The dastardly Klingons went with a fleet that utilized all the available Vor'Cha models.  In game terms, this meant that the Federation had two big battlewagons, a cruiser,  and what amounted to heavy destroyers, which the Klingons had all cruisers (and a couple of warbirds that barely figured in the game). 

As is typical, I did not take as many pictures as I could have, but here are a few. 

Federation fleet selection

First turn, as the fleets are probing for advantage

The big ships make their appearance

Excelsior classes take a pounding  The flat hex is a cloaked ship

Battlewagons eliminate everything between then (two Klingons cloaked to retreat, er tactically redeploy)

Federation victory, and another great game!

Since Stew indicated that he was running out of ships to paint, and needed another very large project, I printed something to bring along for him...

(In the event that you are not a Trek fan, that is a 1/7000 scale model of DS9 printed in two halves, which I primed before I brought it over.  A bit over 200mm wide)

Starmada - The Next Generation

This past weekend Stew of the excellent blog A Terrible loss of Lead and Wealth, invited a few other fellows and myself over to his place to playtest his modifications of Starmada for Star Trek the Next Generation era play.  I believe that he intends to run the game at a convention, and he selected a few "experts" to try it out.  In addition to some rule modifications, Stew also generated the ship stats, made QRFs, and selected the scenario, on top of painting two top notch fleets, hosting, and supplying lunch! 

After some introductory milling about, I was assigned one of the two Klingon fleets and battle commenced! 

The game was pretty exciting and I had to pay attention to what was going on and the ship stats, but I did manage a few pictures. 

Photo one:
Initial fleet placement for the good guys, and the various gaming ephemera we were issued.

Photo Two:

I think this is two turns in.  I cloaked all my little ships and they were working their way up the side undetected.

Photo Three:

The flagship mixes it up with an Excelsior class, while the Galaxy class drives by.  (following this round, the Excelsior class was crippled, and drifted off the playing area)

Photo Four:

Little ships uncloak and help to delete the Excelsior class directly in front of them.

The important part here is that the true warriors won, and pushed those milk toast Federation scientists back to their star base with their tails between their legs. 

Now Stew may claim that he is just a "table top quality" painter, or some such, but look at this Galaxy Class starship and you will see otherwise. 

So no surprise, Starmada is fun, playing games is fun, and I even had a bit of a thought about making my own 1/7000 TNG era fleets.

Pardon the messy, desk, but that is three Galors and a Excelsior class on the slipways

Well, maybe more than a bit of a thought. 

Klingon Armada - Second Game

Sunday I got together with Stew again for another game of Klingon Armada, the Armada system adaption of Federation Commander, itself a spinoff/simplification of StarFleet Battles.  Stew hosted again, and this time we had the pleasure of breaking in his brand new hexed star mat, which was absolutely perfect for the game. 

Since this was our second game, we thought we could throw some more ships around, so I switched out a D6 for a D7, and added a D7C and a second F5.  The D7C, one of the D7s and both of the F5s were newly painted for this game.

For the Federation I kept the fleet the same, but added a Dreadnaught.   The Dreadnaught is pretty beefy, and has a ton of power/weapons.  As such it rings in at over 400 points! 

As you might expect, we got pretty excited as the game went on, so I did not take very many pictures, but I did manage to capture a few.

This first picture is of the early game, where the cruisers in the center are exchanging long range fire with mostly the dreadnaught.  Look at that game mat!  

This next picture is a bit later when the Federation dreadnaught, battle cruiser, and heavy cruiser all come in to pound the Klingons. 

Cruiser scrum at in the middle of the board with a before....

And after shot.  12 overloaded disruptors did for the flagship of the Federation! 

In the above picture you can see that we figured out what to use drones for... to soak up enemy phasers! 

This last picture is of the end game, where you will note that the Klingons went from having seven ships to five, and the Federation from five to three

We had to end before one side or the other struck their colors, but of course I was going to win.

For those keeping track, it was 50% on newly painted cruisers surviving the game.  The D7C was sent to Sto-vo-kor, while the red-stripe D7 survived with the least damage of all cruisers. 

We both had a great time, and hope to play again... maybe with a third player?

D7 Command Cruiser conversion

Here is a bit of a teaser post, a hasty conversion of a standard D7 (MicroMachines version) to a D7 Command cruiser.  The command cruiser is a cruiser squadron leader, with an extra command deck, better phasers, and a couple more of them. 

I sculpted the extra neck detailing, and the little bit on top of the hanger, but otherwise just dashed this out.  A bit of repainting later, and it was done. 

Lumpy!

Here is what my digitally sculpted version looks like.  Much sharper! 

Smooth!

Comparison to a regular D7.

Next time, will these ships survive a battlefield newly painted?

Klingon Armada - Actual play

This weekend I played an actual game for the first time in a long time. 

Stew, of the excellent blog A terrible Loss of Lead and Wealth, had suggested that he was interested in trying out some Star Trek-esque gaming, and we eventually hashed out a time to get together.  As long time readers know, I have been very slowly building up a couple of TOS era forces basically since the blog began.  Despite this long build up, I still needed to prepare for the game, and spent a number of evenings painting up a few more ships and some various tokens and such. I also put together a quick reference sheet, since there is no official one, and printed a play mat.  

Drone/Missile markers of two types

Shuttles

Federation shuttle markings

Newly painted D6 cruiser

Stew had a very lovely set up with shade and three tables that more than accommodated the 3x4 foot mat I printed off at work. He took the perfidious Federation and I took the noble warrior Klingons. 

CB New Jersey Class, CA Constitution Class, DD Saladin Class, FF Burke class

D7 class cruiser, 2 D6 class cruisers, F5 and E4 frigates 

Despite both being bloggers, we were more than a little caught up in the game and I only managed one picture of the game!  

Scene of destruction

Hopefully Stew took more pictures. 

The game played very smoothly, although we both agreed that drones (heavy missiles) seemed a bit pointless, since in the numbers used they hit nothing!  Maybe next time I will have to take a CAG variant to really pump them out.  We also tried out of a few of the more esoteric Trek technologies, but unfortunately my glorious boarding action merely eliminated the redshirts on the New Jersey, and did not capture the ship. 

I had a great time, and Stew said he was hooked, so there ought to be more games in the future. 

Brigade Miniatures order

Midway through last month, I took advantage of the annual Brigade Miniatures holiday sale to order some bases and a few other things (it was pretty hard to resist testing out 15mm scifi, or getting a swath of space ships).  I ordered on the 14th, and it made it to my house on the 24th, which is pretty impressive for international shipping, particularly during the holiday season.

The main thrust of my purchase was to get these nifty bases that Brigade has for use with my Trek project.  I figure these bases will be great for tracking drones, missiles, plasma, fighters, and shuttles.  Each base is comprised of a metal hex with a die dock in the top, and a 3mm hole for a flight stem.  I got three varieties of micro dice to fit in the docks, and I will either use spare GW flight stems or buy some 3mm acrylic rod.

Shown with GW flight stem

I also bought a few packs of space fighters and other ships for multiple uses.  They could be used as fighters and shuttles in a Trek game, or on their own as micro fighters in a space game, such as 5150: Fighter Command by THW.  (which allows for solo play too)

Here is a sample of the fighters and other light craft.

Courier to fighters

 In addition to the "good guy" fighters, I got a transport and a corvette, as well as a pack of enemy fighters.

Anyway, a great buy from Brigade Miniatures, and inches me closer to having a complete Trek gaming set.  Now if only the magnets I ordered from China would show up.

Disruptor dance

Just a quick set up picture since I was fishing out more bases and had all the miniatures on hand.

Federation fleet about to be atomized: two DDK, two standard transports, and one passenger liner (which I really ought to repaint).

Soon to be victorious Klingon fleet: two E3s, a D6, D7, F5W and F5.

The "game mat" here is just a couple of 11x17" papers, which are just about enough to play test with, but also shows why larger hexes are desirable!

Unionist Forces

Way back in 2016 I designed my first 1/3788 spaceship, which I had printed, and showed off in early 2017.

Well, in the last two years I like to think that my skill as a 3d modeler has increased, so I reworked the concept of Star Trek TOS era Cardassians into the "Unionist" fleet.  Now with any Original Series era ships, it is customary to start with the heavy cruiser (just like the Enterprise was).   So here is the original ship I designed two years ago, and then following that is the remix.

Original:

Extra Crispy:

As you can see the new version adds some bulk, weapons detailing, windows, and other painting friendly aspects. (and happily matches the Galor a bit more closely)

Here is the original fleet:

And here is the new version:

(producing these fleet shots is a good exercise in seeing if the various ships are sufficiently distinctive)

These will be going up on Shapeways soon, for those who are interested in funding yet more ship purchases...

Star Empire Ships

Just a bit of a teaser to show that I am in fact still working on these (and not much else lately).

Three groups for three design eras, first post Terran war designs, then Treaty Era lend-lease ships, then post Treaty Era designs. 

In the first section with the white ships, the smallest ship is a short range gunboat, moving up to a Corvette and a Frigate, then three destroyer classes, and then a cruiser.

The next section is re-armed lend-lease ships, where the ships are refitted with plasma launchers and cloaking devices, the two shown here are a heavy frigate (KF5) and a command cruiser (C6).

The last section is indigenous designs making use of the technology and design concepts of the treaty allies, as well as a refit version of the original (and screen famous) cruiser.

Going up on my Shapeways store... sometime. (along with shuttles, attack craft, and a few more lend-lease ships)

Transport Plugs - a Tutorial

Bit of a departure from the usual fare here, as I have a short tutorial featuring a product that you can buy from my Shapeways store.

Every game can benefit from the involvement and distraction of civilians, and in a game featuring space ships, civilians are often represented by traders and freighters.  This allows for convoy action in scenarios, movable terrain, ragtag civilian fleets and so on.

What I designed was a sprue of ships designed to mate with a plastic tube to produce civilian trade ships carrying a standard cargo pod.  Happily at 1/3788 scale, a standard cargo pod is the diameter of a Bic stick type pen, which most people have in vast quantities, could "borrow" from work, or can buy for a nominal fee.  Each sprue contains five ships of five designs, which can be mixed and matched fore and aft to make more cargo ships than most will want!

What you get in Frosted Ultra Detail

What you need to make these ships: razor saw, sprue of ships, and a Bic type pen

Step one is to acquire an 8mm diameter tube from your Bic style pen. You may need to use a pair of pliers to remove the end cap if it is a new pen, but in older pens this tends to be looser.

Step two is to remove the ship portions from the sprue, which can be done with some gentle pressure as the plastic used in Smooth Fine Detail Plastic (formerly Frosted Ultra Detail) is brittle.

Step three is to use the sprue to measure your cargo pod, as I have designed it to be 52.8mm in length, which corresponds to the scale size of the cargo pod.  If you like, you could make your pod longer or shorter as desired.

Measuring the pod length

Step four is to cut your tube with the razor saw, or with a standard utility knife if you do not have the saw to hand.  If you use the utility knife, use a rocking motion to roll the pen body back and forth a bit to ensure that the cut is as even as possible.

Assembly

Step five is to select a fore and aft portion for this ship. Again, the plastic is brittle, so a gentle pressure should separate the two pieces, or you could use clippers to cut the connecting plastic rod.

Step six is to glue the two portions of the ship to the tube.  Your interpretation of how to place the drive section or fore section is just as valid as mine!

Step seven is to drill a hole in the center of mass.  Depending on the fore and aft portions that you chose, this should be around the letter O of the measuring sprue.

Step eight is to spray prime the ship(s).  I favor black for spaceships, but do what makes the most sense for you.

Step nine is to paint the ship.  Here I have gone with a standard off white color for the ships, and red and blue for the pods, but the sky is the limit as far as commercial paint jobs go in our real world, and I expect that to be so in the future too.

Step ten is to enjoy adding a new ship to your fleet!

Klingon ship comes in for the kill

This is really an easy way to bulk out your transport fleet.

If you have any questions, please contact me.

Klingons off the Port Bow

I am still continuing on my Trek binge.

Friday, I got a package in the mail from Shapeways, which contained the frosted ultra detail fruit of my digital labor. (Thanks to the Shapeways Cyber Monday sale)

Axanar D6, two E4s, F5, and F5W

 This first picture shows the Klingons I got in this order, which add an obsolescent cruiser in the form of the D6, and four escorts.  The two E4s are of my own design (based on the Axanar ships), and the F5 and F5W are obviously based on the SFB ships.

E4 and F5

 The detail is pretty extraordinary (albeit hard to see here), as you can easily make out the .4mm phaser turrets and .75mm disruptor cannon.  I expect these to turn out quite nicely when painted.

Closeup of the D6

 This Axanar D6 cruiser is based on a file I found on ThingyVerse, but heavily reworked to make it fit 1/3788 scale, partly by filling in gaps in the mesh, but also by reinforcing and thickening the neck and trimming details away from the disruptor cannon mounts.

D6 size comparison with a MicroMachines D7

Everything seems to have printed perfectly, and I am very pleased at how well these turned out, particularly the little frigate, which is a somewhat novel design.  I have several other 22nd Century ship classes and variations in the works, just need to have some more time to finalize them.  I also want to get these painted and battling some Federation stooges soon.