It's been rather quiet around here lately. I have a couple of friends over from Sweden that I have to herd around Tokyo. Busy busy busy! No time for painting, but there's always time for planning...
As I think I've mentioned my friends have recently got into Firestorm Armada and it seems like quite a good game! However, I'm not that keen on the design of the different fleets; I like the Sorylians, and the Dindrenzi are pretty ok, the upcoming Relthoza also looks like they could he interesting, but the rest are kind of saucy. I don't doubt the high production quality of the miniatures it's just that the designs look kind of... plain to me.
So I've been thinking about and looking around for alternatives. One problem is that the Firestorm minis are so damn big! The battleships are around 20 cm and the cruisers 10 cm, roughly double the size of almost any other spacehip battle game minis. I've been thinking about different ways to deal with this, but in the end I'll probably just ignore it and simply have a fleet that's a bit out of scale.
I've been a lot into hard(-ish) sci-fi lately (spending time at Atomic Rocket will do that to you) so I've had my eye mostly on realistic or semi-realistic ship designs. Ad Astra games have a lot of really nice looking minis for their Attack Vector: Tactical and Squadron Strike ranges. Irrational Games' Voidstriker models also appeal to me immensely! Especially the British fleet from Squadron Strike and the belter fleet from Voidstriker. Beautiful stuff!
The Squadron Strike miniatures are even smaller than normal though, with the battleship not measuring more than 5.5 cm...
Belter fleet from Voidstriker.
Another option that I kind of stumbled across when looking through a model store here in Tokyo is to use models from the Space Battleship Yamato (Star Blazers) series. I bought a couple of boxes with a few different models that I think would actually fit rather well with the Firestorm miniatures, size-wise at least. And I found a site selling smaller scaled minis as well that I could use for frigates and escorts. Hmm... so many choices!
The retro style of Yamato is really awesome, just have a look at these:
Cruiser.
Battleship Andromeda.
More pictures of these amazing scratch built models here.
Those are some very nice models !
ReplyDeleteFirestorm Armada was looked into by some guys at my gamesclub but quickly forgotten. Apparently the rules are somewhat cumbersome and firing a volley is made unnecessary complicated once determination of PD area comes into play. But opinions vary ofcourse ;-)
Anyway, here are some links for buying spaceships. Hope they are of some use to you.
http://minimodelmadness.com/
http://www.ravenstarstudios.com/catalog.html
http://armouryhobbies.com/
http://www.agentsofgaming.com/oshop.htm
http://studiobergstrom.com/
http://blog.vbamgames.com/
http://www.geocities.com/l4leather/
http://www.starfleetmodeler.com/
http://www.vanquisherminiatures.blogspot.com/
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=200434279036&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT
Grtz
Andy
Yes, I've heard PD rules can be a bit convoluted and also that PDs are actually too effective. But I'll give it a try myself and see.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I like just collecting spaceship models and if I don't use them for Firestorm I'll use them for Full Thrust, Diaspora or whatever. Hehe!
Oh, and thanks for the list! I knew a few of those sites from before, but not all of them. I really like the look of the Earth Alliance ships from B5. It's too bad that the full scale Omega Destroyer is sold out...
I still have 2 Omega Destroyers unglued and unpainted, if your interested just let me know !
ReplyDeleteNow I'm going to look at that Diaspora you mention, because I have no idea what it is :-)
Grtz
Andy
Oh, do you? Do you mean two full scale models or the fleet scale ones?
ReplyDeleteI'm in the middle of preparing my move back to Sweden, but I just might take you up on that offer once I'm settled down. :)
I wrote a little bit about Diaspora in an earlier post. It's a hard sci-fi rpg using the Fate mechanics (since you're into pulp you might know Spirit of the Century using the same system, if not I recommend you give it a look).
It's an rpg but has several sub or mini-games that also can be played separately. Among them is the space combat game that they also have available as a free download from the Diaspora main page. It's very different from a traditional miniature game, but quite interesting!
They are the full scale ones. Once your settled down give me a shout and we'll work something out. For now I'll keep them aside for you along with some other Earh Alliance ships.
ReplyDeleteThose links you gave me are quite interesting, might just give them a try soon !
Grtz
Andy
That's very nice of you! I'm definitely interested. All these nice looking ships have made me want to watch Babylon 5 really bad. Hehe!
ReplyDelete