Ackbar vs Adama

So, the other day I had just orderered a bunch of magnets from Amazing Magnets and was in the process of odering some flight stands from Litko. Then it occured to me that for the same price as 30 stands (including shipping) I could actually get a regular Firestorm: Armada starter fleet, which includes 10 stands. Hmm...

Also, as it happens, a friend of mine bought the mega deal where all four starter fleets are included, although he was only really interested in the Dindrenzi and the Sorylians. So he has the Terrans and Aquans just lying around. Now, I'll be the first to admit not being all that excited about the miniatures for those two races, especially the Aquans that I really hated when I first saw them. Since then though I've seen several pretty cool Aquan paint jobs and in a way it'd be interesting to paint them just to have more freedom to go a little wild and try crazy stuff. And ruleswise they might be a fun secondary fleet as they seem to play quite differently from the Star Blazers (ie Terran) fleet I'm working on at the moment.

The big problem with the Aquans as they stand today is their cruisers and frigates, they simply don't look very good. I like the carrier, the battleship isn't too shabby either, and the hammerhead design of their escorts and upcoming heavy cruiser looks pretty cool. If only they'd gone with that design from the start...

Then we have the Terrans. As I see it there's nothing really wrong with their design, it's just kind of... boring. The big flat areas don't appeal to me, without more texture they look kind of bland and toy-like. Actually, I think that's problem with the Terran design: they lack texture and detail which makes them look like toys and hence break the illusion of being huge lumbering spaceships. The Dindrenzi and Sorylians have lots of surface details in the form of hull plating etc. The Aquans don't have as much but they're supposed to be sleek and fish-like. The Terrans are just like flying shoe boxes. Boring.


I'm sure this could be offset with some clever painting, and just as with the Aquans it seems like they're trying to address this with the new miniatures that have a lot more detail, but still.

In the end I think it comes down to painting. They both pose a challenge in their own way. With the Aquans the challenge is to manage to get that fishy/coral reef thing going which makes them look a lot better (actually, as soon as I started thinking about them as fish instead of spaceships it kind of clicked). And with the Terrans it's all about providing details with your brush that aren't actually there on the model (kind of like this Zandris IV carrier).

So what do you say? Ackbar or Adama?