Federation Pursuit Ships

I’ve had these a while, originally purchased for fleet scale combat, their size is around 5.5cms I think, which makes them quite large for fleet scale ships of this size, so they were upgraded to battlecruisers. The models are 3d prints from Shapeways, I’m pretty sure they are still available.

I decided to base them on x wing flight stands, with magnets, and I will use x wing rules for them to battle the Liberator. I think I might upgrade the antenna/laser barrels, and I may repaint one to act as Servalan’s Ship. I will be making some X wing style base cards, pilot cards and dials for these as well.

Below is a comparison shot, the Liberator being about 3 times the length of these pursuit ships, to me that looks about right, other people may disagree and want a huge Liberator…….Space might be big…..but table size is somewhat limited 😉

 

Additional Fleet Scale Terran Federation

My Terran Federation fleet is quite limited, lack of suitable models is one of the main reasons…when they go head to head with other races like say Romulans or Klingons I don’t really think they have the technology or power to take them on with anything like equal footing……it’s a problem i need to look at!

However Their Fleet has had a bit of a boost with the addition of a full fighter wing (from Brigade) of 24 fighters (This was the number agreed upon as a minimum fighter force for all races….most have 24 some have more…but all have fighters now!)

It wasn’t just fighters that have been added…..I ws able to convert another E4m plastic ship, and Scouls502 produces a lovely little ship called the “Starburst” which is quite a good proxy for a Pursuit ship, beautifully detailed for something so small…slightly smaller than my Shapeways version…so it slots in as some other class yet to be decided upon!…but I have 4….and may get more!

Terran fighters ( from Brigade)

Starburst

Pursuit ship Right
Starburst Left

Fleet Scale Ships/Starship Combat News

Late last year I joined an excellent forum called Starship Combat News

Lots of very interesting stuff for anyone who likes Sci fi ships. ….there is also a trading post/orbital shipyards section where you can get in touch with people who make their own ships to sell, one such person is Scouls502 you’ll need to join the forum to speak to him and all the other guys who make stuff.

I was able to pick up quite a few ships to fill the holes in my space fleets, Scouls502 also very kindly made me a little proxy for Starbug……pictures will follow!

Amazing detail on all his ships, and a nice guy to boot….highly recommended!

 

Battlemat And Table Come Out!

The other week I decided to get out my table and battlemat and place all the ships on it…..the main reason being, my brother was visiting and we were going to chat about the rules and see what we could come up with.

The rule writing went very well, although we did not complete this!

We did however get a chance to test our ship to ship combat, movement and boarding party  rules. It did take a few simulations to get this workable.

Still quite a bit to work on including. mining operations/resource gathering, Empire building, colonisation  etc. We have Playable races and ones managed largely by the drawing of a card! Rules on diplomacy and making alliances are also under consideration…this is going to be epic.

at the moment work is being done on tokens, stats cards for each ship and i intend to put some decals on the bases with basic ship info.

Not sure how soon the game will be playable but…..we are getting closer to that day!

Terran Federation Heavy Cruisers

One of the first Fleets I started collecting was The Terran Federation from the TV series Blake’s 7.  The only available ship at the time was “The Pursuit Ship”.  On the show these travelled about in threes and seemed to be a minor threat to the Liberator.

However, in my game universe the other Fleets are equipped with ships vastly superior to the Federations Pursuit Ships which are basically Frigates. The best I could do at the time was to give Servelan a couple of Escort ships, but these again were no better than Frigates. Later I managed to find something suitable in the Destroyer size vessel but, like the escorts not cannon. As my other fleets grew it became apparent that the Terran Federation Fleet was going to struggle.

Hours and hours of searching for something suitably bigger drew a blank. Then it came to me, why not just buy a couple of upscaled Federation Pursuit ships and call them something else!!! They clearly looked the part and their obvious size would enable them to be something more powerful. So I went back to shapeways and purchased the large version of the Pursuit ship.

They are now the right size to be Heavy Cruisers….so that Fleet is up gunned a bit……still nothing in the battleship class!

For the time being at least this fleet is now complete!

A Pair of modifidied Shapeways Pursuit ships…Now Heavy Cruisers!

Cruiser along side Pursuit Ship

Heavy cruiser with the Liberator

Full Fleet

Terran Federation Destroyers, Bulking out the Fleet

Given that The Terran Federation seem to be limited to Pursuit Ships in the TV series (although they mention other types) I decided that I needed to bulk out their Fleet if they were to stand any chance in battle against anyone other than the Liberator!

I didn’t want 40 of the same ship so decided to see if there was anything out there that might fit the bill. One of My friends who is a regular contributor on here and Warlord games Forum (where i occassionally hang out) Where he is known as BigAl, suggested several sites one of which was GZG Having had a long browse the Islamic Federation Fleet looked a possibility…so when a set of 4 Destroyers came up on ebay I jumped at the chance to pick up some ships for a bargain price!

The only problem I had was mixing the right shade of “Panzer Primer” to match the Pursuit ships….I think i got away with it.

They certainly don’t look out of place amongst The Pursuit ships. There is a kind of basic design that is common to both, so it isn’t a great leap of faith to think that the destroyers are part of the Fleet……But if they are painted the same and hang out with Servalan, then hey…..they are federation!!!!

 

Servelan’s ‘Pursuit 4’ Command Ship

Servalan……………Mmmmmmm…………….

Right that’s enough of that!………….. She was the Evil leader of the Terran Federation.  Realizing that She had her own ship meant another visit to Shapeways…… So when I purchased the Scorpio I also picked up an additional Pursuit ship to paint up as her vessel.

Now seeing as normally Pursuit ships are a rusty brown colour I would assume that The Federation Ship yards gave them a lick of a Panzer like Primer and sent them on their merry way (In reality there is no corrosion or dirt or weathering in space…..apparently!) For reasons unknown Servalan’s Ship got a top coat of White paint….maybe being leader that is a perk of the job, either way it made my job a bit easier….. I didn’t do any conversions just painted it, once I get the episode on DVD I will use it as a reference source and see if the ship is modified in any way.

Federation Pursuit Ship from “Blake’s 7”

Another model from the shapeways site Alliance Pursuit ship. I purchased three of them…they always seemed to go round in threes on the TV show…and had three crew…..which didnt really seem enough for a ship about 120 metres long! But then The Liberator was about 330 metres long and had 6 crew!!!!!….it was meant to be around the same size as the USS Enterprise from the original series of star trek! Ok then, less anorak and more photo’s!!!

Size compared to Liberator

I also decided to Beef up the federation forces with additional ships to give them some sort of chance against DSV2…. These are plastic space ships that I have modified slightly (Cockpit removal) and they are now Federation Light Cruisers………..

2 Cruisers with Pursuit Ship for scale.