Fighter Stands and Torpedo Counters

So, since I've started painting space ships again, I've been wondering what game system I should play them with. I took a look at Full Thrust, and it seems like a pretty tight set of generic space combat rules. 

Fighters are launched in "stands" from carriers in Full Thrust, so I thought I'd co-op some Battlefleet Gothic fighter models I've had in the bin for some years. And here they are...

While I was at it, I rooted through my old Battlefleet Gothic box and found some torpedo counters I remembered that I wanted to make a little more "3D." I did this by painting up some old Silent Death missiles and gluing them on the BFG torp counters. A quick, but satisfying, little project.

'Til next time.

Battlefleet Gothic: Imperial Fleet

OK, time for something a little different. I'll be putting a game display into the local public library this November, and I want to get some space ships into it. I'm a big fan of Battlefleet Gothic, and have a sizeable Chaos fleet. However, I have a ton of Imperial ship models I've never built. Now is the time!

I dug into the mountain of unopened boxes of I have down in the basement. Here are the 33 Imperial ships I put together over the course of two evenings. Many of them are one-piece resin or metal models...but the battleship and cruisers took a little time to assemble. This is the entire fleet, with several cruisers mounted on a painting stick just before I start priming.

I want to get a lot of ships done quickly, so this is prime airbrush territory. I start with the ship completely sprayed with black primer.

Then an overspray of dark sea blue-grey.

Then a quick down-spray of light grey.

And a final dusting of white. The airbrushing went very quickly and was the least labor-intensive step of the painting process. The multiple over-sprays give the model depth while popping out all the great molded-in detail.

The final painting passes consisted of putting on a red prow with gold highlights, a set of weathered bronze engine exhausts, silver highlights on the guns, rams and antennas and orange-yellow running lights.

Before you know it...an Imperial fleet appears. Just over a week from start to finish.

All the support vessels, which consist of freighters, tankers, escort carriers and so on, were painted with the same process, but using sets of different colors.

I hope this might inspire you to get a project out of storage, bear down and knock it out.

'Til next time!