Brigade Models South African Confederation Designs in Full Thrust
Another set of unofficial stats, this time for Brigade Models' SAC starship minis. I'm using them as a Pan-African Union subfleet, the product of an outworld colonial shipyard that's begun producing a small range of home-built designs as the First Xeno War made it more and more difficult to purchase secondhand hulls from other powers. The smaller ships are fairly mundane designs, although they feature high thrust ratings overall. The larger hulls are a bit slower and very heavily defended, but somewhat lacking in firepower. Their destroyer design is something of an anomaly with its big pulse torpedo, and is intended for strike operations against large, heavily-screened targets rather than for the kind of independent patrol and colonial support duties most navies' destroyers are employed for.
Skipray Class Courier
From Brigade Models' SAC range - modified Devilray Lancer mini
TMF 10
NPV 35/ CPV 26
Armor 1
Weak Hull 2 (1/1/0/0) - 1 CU in last box
Thrust 8
FTL
1 Fire Control
1 Class 1 Beam Battery (All Arcs)
Devilray Class Courier
From Brigade Models' SAC range
TMF 14
NPV 46/ CPV 35
Armor 1
Weak Hull 2 (1/1/0/0) - 1 CU in last box
Thrust 8
FTL
1 Fire Control
1 Class 1 Beam Battery (All Arcs)
2 Submunition Packs (F)
Oryx Class Frigate
From Brigade Models' SAC range
TMF 24
NPV 78/ CPV 60
Armor 1
Average Hull 7 (2/2/2/1) - 2 CU, one every 4th box
Thrust 6
FTL
1 Fire Control
2 PDS
2 Class 2 Beam Batteries (F/FP/AP, F/FS/AS)
Bantu Class Destroyer
From Brigade Models' SAC range
TMF 34
NPV 114/ CPV 92
Armor 1
Average Hull 9 (3/2/2/2) - 2 CU, one every 5th box
Thrust 6
FTL
1 Fire Control
2 PDS
1 Pulse Torpedo (F/FS/FP)
2 Class 1 Beam Batteries (All Arcs)
Umgeni Class Light Cruiser
From Brigade Models' SAC range
TMF 48
NPV 163/ CPV 138
Armor 1
Average Hull 13 (4/3/3/3) - 3 CU, one every 5th box
Thrust 6
FTL
2 Fire Control
2 PDS
4 Class 2 Beam Batteries (2x F/FS/FP, F/FP/AP, F/FS/AS)
3 Submunition Packs (F)
Tshwane Class Heavy Cruiser
From Brigade Models' SAC range
TMF 82
NPV 277/ CPV 262
Strong Hull 29 (8/7/7/7) - 5 CU, one every 6th box
Thrust 4
FTL
Level-1 Screens
2 Fire Controls
3 PDS
2 Class 3 Beam Batteries (F/FS/AS/FP/AP)
4 Class 1 Beam Batteries (All Arcs)
Isandlwana Class Battleship
From Brigade Models' SAC range
TMF 122
NPV 430/ CPV 457
Strong Hull 42 (11/11/10/10) - 7 CU, one every 6th box
Thrust 4
FTL
Level-1 Screens
2 Fire Controls
4 PDS
4 Class 3 Beam Batteries (F/FS/AS/FP/AP)
6 Class 1 Beam Batteries (All Arcs)
Mafadi Class Carrier & Petrel Class Fighters
From Brigade Models' SAC range
TMF 142
NPV 487 + fighters/ CPV 385 + fighters
Armor 1
Average Hull 41 (11/10/10/10) - 8 CU, one every 6th box
Thrust 4
FTL
Level-1 Screens
1 Fire Control
1 ADFC
8 PDS
4 Hanger Bays
4 Class 1 Beam Batteries (All Arcs)
Brigade Models EuroFed Designs in Full Thrust
Wholly unofficial stats for some of Brigade Models' EuroFed starship minis. I use them either as an FSE subformation or as the Nuovo Paradiso Seperatist Movement fleet, a Italian-Nationalist breakaway faction that arose on the colony world of New Paradise during the First Xeno War. They play a lot like standard fleet book FSE, with an emphasis on high thrust ratings and missiles. Unlike FSE, they rely on massed rack launchers rather than magazine-fed systems, but carry heavier secondary beam armaments than the FSE fleet generally does. If their big strike fails to do enough damage to allow their beams to win the day, they will often use their powerful engines to withdraw rather than fight an uphill battle.
Insidioso Destroyer
From Brigade Models' EuroFed range
TMF 34
NPV 114/ CPV 92
Average Hull 10 (3/3/2/2) - CU every 5th box
Thrust 6
FTL
1 Fire Control
1 PDS
1 Salvo Missile Rack (F/FS/FP)
2 Class 2 Beam Batteries (F/FP/AP, F/FS/AS)
1 Class 1 Beam Battery (All Arcs)
Abruzzi Heavy Cruiser
From Brigade Models' EuroFed range
TMF 88
NPV 296/ CPV 285
Average Hull 26 (7/7/6/6) - CU every 6th box
Thrust 6
FTL
2 Fire Controls
3 PDS
2 Salvo Missile Racks (F/FS/FP)
6 Class 2 Beam Batteries (3x F/FP/AP, 3x F/FS/AS)
2 Class 1 Beam Batteries (All Arcs)
Milano Dreadnought
From Brigade Models' EuroFed range
TMF 158
NPV 526/ CPV 618
Average Hull 46 (12/12/11/11) - CU every 6th box
Thrust 6
FTL
3 Fire Controls
4 PDS
4 Salvo Missile Racks (F/FS/FP)
2 Class 3 Beam Batteries (F/FS/FP)
6 Class 2 Beam Batteries (3x F/FP/AP, 3x F/FS/AS)
2 Class 1 Beam Batteries (All Arcs)
Umberto Battlecarrier
From Brigade Models' EuroFed range
TMF 168
NPV 565 + fighters/ CPV 542 + fighters
Average Hull 42 (11/11/10/10) - CU every 5th box
Thrust 6
FTL
2 Fire Controls
4 PDS
3 Hanger Bays
3 Salvo Missile Racks (F/FS/FP)
6 Class 2 Beam Batteries (3x F/FP/AP, 3x F/FS/AS)
2 Class 1 Beam Batteries (All Arcs)
ESU Pankov Strikeboat Tender
While officially designated as support craft for the ESU Frontier Exploration Program, the Pankov class armed tender is more often encountered in combat roles than in scientific ones. Rather than supporting squadrons of far-roaming scouts and survey vessels, they provide repair and replenishment facilities for the increasing numbers of Cossack-class strikeboats employed in the fleet. Built on a heavily modified Nanjing escort carrier hull, they retain the full armament of their parent class but trade the carrier's hanger bays for extensive fuelling and maintainance equipment specialized for servicing smaller vessels.
Built from parts of FT-239 and FT-262
TMF 102
NPV 293 / CPV 257
Average Hull 24 (6/6/6/6) - CU every 4th box
Armour 2
Thrust 4
FTL
Level-1 Screens
2 Fire Controls
1 ADFC
4 PDS
5 Class 2 Beam Batteries (FP/F/FS, F/FP/AP, F/FS/AS, 2xAll Arcs)
21 Mass of fuel tankage, ammo stores, and repair components for small starships
The mini below uses the main hull and side engines from the FT-239 battlecruiser, and the prow and tanks from the FT-262 fleet tanker, plus a bit of plastic tubing to make the aft replenishment couplings. Simple little kitbash, and the ship has enough combat ability to make life hard for light raiders striking at a fleet supply convoy or group of Cossacks with empty missile racks. The repair/refuelling process is much too slow to complete during a battle, so the mass used for it is priced as for any non-combat equipment. If you're playing a campaign you'd want to increase the ship's cost a bit to reflect its utility for rearming strikeboats between battles.
ESU Kamchatka Battle Carrier
The Kamchatka-class battle carrier is a controversial design within the ESU fleet. A "jack of all trades" intended to provide both gunline and carrier capability on a single hull, it performs both functions somewhat poorly for its size and cost. The current admiralty favors more specialized and economical vessels and the Kamchatka likely to remain in strictly limited production for the foreseeable future.
Built from parts of FT-239, FT-240, and FT-245
TMF 142
NPV 489/ CPV 465+ Fighters
Average Hull 37 (10/9/9/9) - CU every 6th box
Armour 4
Thrust 4
FTL
Level-1 Screens
2 Fire Controls
1 ADFC
4 PDS
6 Class 2 Beam Batteries (2x F/FP/AP, 2x F/FS/AS, 2x All Arcs)
2 Class 3 Beam Batteries (2xFP/F/FS)
2 Fighter Bays
The mini below uses the aft hull and side engines of the FT-245 escort carrier, the prow of the FT-239 battlecruiser, and the dorsal engine of the FT-240 battleship. The dorsal engine requires a bit of trimming to fit securely but it's a simple enough kitbash all in all. The parts required are a bit of a chore to accumulate, though.
VKK Kasimir Lenov and Other Spacewrecks
Another one of my "lemonade" projects, the drifting hulk of the VKK Kasimir Lenov got its start as a miscast ESU heavy cruiser. I got a replacement from GZG, but there was no reason to let a perfectly good wreck go to waste, so I applied a little clipper surgery and some paint and presto!
Of course there's no sense in having a hulk (or a collection of hulks, for the ambitious) without a way to use them as something other than simple table dressing. My suggestion for generic Full Thrust rules:
The first time each game that one or more ships end movement within 6 MU of a given spacewreck, roll 2d6 and consult the chart below.
2-3: BOOM! Rigged as a deathtrap by its last few doomed crewmen, the ship's power core goes critical when any ship comes into close proximity. The wreck explodes immediately with the same effect as a class 3 plasma bolt. No PDS fire can be used against the blast due to surprise.
4-5: Not Quite Dead Yet. Although long abandoned, the ship's malfunctioning AI has managed some repairs and defends itself with mechanical fervor. The wreck has a single hull point, one FCS, and jury-rigged guns equal to two class 1 beams. It fires at the closest ship immediately, and each turn thereafter at the start of the ship fire phase.
6-8: Just A Hulk. The wreck is a wreck, and nothing more.
9-10: Thumbing Down A Ride. A handful of engineers have survived the destruction of the ship and are desperate for a way off the wreck before their jury-rigged life support runs out. The first ship to end its move within 6 MU of this wreck with a velocity of 6 MU or less may pick up the survivors, adding a single damage control team to the last open hull box on its control sheet. If there are already DCTs in every hull box on the ship, the survivors will reluctantly wait for the next bus.
11-12: Input Last Command? The wreck's AI accepts a last self-destruct command from a nearby ship, exploding in a storm of directed debris. The wreck makes an attack against any one target chosen by the owner of the nearest ship, with effects identical to three submunition packs.
Obviously you can alter the chart above to reflect scenario specific situations, such as the wrecks being aligned with one side or another or possibly containing some vital McGuffin that needs to be recovered. For simple free-for-all fights with a wreck or three drifting about the battlespace, they should do as written.
Plotted Fire: An Option For Speeding Play
Full Thrust plays pretty quickly normally, but in big multiplayer games it can bog down a bit when it comes to alternating fire between ships, leaving many of the games' participants twiddling their tumbs while two resolve damage. One fix for this is to use plotted fire rather than initiative-based alternation.
To do so, during the movement plot phase you'll also plot a target for each Fire Control System on a ship. Legal target choices include:
1) A specific vessel, eg "DD#3" or "CL#2"
2) The closest vessel, plotted as just "C" or
3) The closest vessel in a given 60 degree fire arc, plotted as "C(Arc); eg C(F) or C(FP)
Each FCS on a ship can and should choose a different option. For "closest" plots, the actual target ship is determined when the vessel fires in the Ship Fire phase. This process will lengthen your plotting phase a bit, but few ships have more than two or three FCS to plot for and you can (and probably should) put a definite limit on plotting time anyway - perhaps 5 minutes, or one minute per ship that the player with the most ships started with.
When the Ship Fire phase is reached, each ship may fire any weapons that bear at targets selected by their FCS plot. There is no initiative or alternation of fire, and several players can resolve their fire simultaneously if desired. Do not make threshhold checks for damage until all fire for the turn is complete, but do track how many thresholds are passed - I recommend alternating the direction of the slashes used to mark each turn's damage to simplify this. Ships that are destroyed may be removed from the table as soon as their own fire has been resolved, and obviously do not need to have threshold checks made for them.
Firing is pseudo-simultaneous. A destroyed ship may still fire its weapons before being removed, but ships using "closest" plots determine the closest target only when they actually fire and destroyed ships are treated as though they'd been removed from the table even if their models haven't been removed yet. Sequencing shots from several ships properly may destroy the nearest vessel and change which target is "closest" for later volleys. You're best off if you fire shots with ship-specific target plots before ones with "closest" plots sice they're actually the most restricted.
When using this variation, you'll find that larger ships lose most of their advantages over smaller ones. Because of this, I recommend using the NPV system here rather than CPV. You'll also find that wider firing arcs are fairly important for concentrating fire on specific targets, and that narrow arcs force a lot of "closest in arc" plots. Relying on "closest" plotting lets your enemy screen his more valuable ships with smaller picket vessels, which has some interesting tactical effects - but pickets can be bypassed by clever movement or destroyed one after another by salvos from multiple ships with "closest" plots.
Remember that this variation is intended specifically to speed up large multiplayer games, especially ones run at cons or clubs with inexperienced or rusty players. One thing I would advise is to avoid using one-shot weapons like submunition packs, which can slow down firing as people waffle about how many to fire. Also be wary of throwing a fleet with many narrow arc weapons (eg Kra'Vak) against an enemy with much broader arcs, as the difficulty of concentrating fire on key targets may be unbalancing.
Pirate Kitbash
One of the most appealing things about the Ravager Rim Pirates is the jury-rigged nature of their ships, which really lends itself to unique kitbashes and conversions. So, when I got a slightly defective ESU escort cruiser (quickly replaced by GZG, I should add) that sheared in half just in front of the aft hull, I said to myself it was time to try some styrene sculpting. Turns out the general style of the existing raiders is fairly easy to capture, and with a little work I had myself a fine new medium cruiser for my pirate fleet.
Ravager Rim Pirate Cruiser "Anarchist": The pirate vessel calling itself "Anarchist" began life as the Oriskansky-class escort cruiser Grigori Wu-Zhang. The vessel was lost in action during a confused battle against NAC, NSL, and Sa'Vasku forces, and her fragmented hulk was left drifting through space when the surviving ESU vessels withdrew from the battlezone. At some point thereafter a group of rim colony "entrepreneurs" recovered the ship's relatively undamaged rear hull and sold it to local warlord Dominic Faro, who used it as the basis for the latest addition to his fleet. The irony of employing an ESU ship (or at least part of one) against its former masters was especially appealing to Faro, who had served as an ESU colonial director prior to the Xeno War. The Anarchist has been involved in several convoy raids and pillaging expeditions against isolated colony worlds and mining complexes, and is currently subject to a "Destroy On Sight" directive from the Chiang Military District High Command for its role in the loss of the 177th Peoples' Population Reallocation Squadron.
Built from the rear end of FT-237, some styrene, and a few bits box contributions
Mass: 68
NPV 201 / CPV 179
Average Hull 20 (4/4/3/3/3/3) - 6 Rows, CU every 5th box
Thrust 6
FTL
2 Fire Controls
4 Class-1 Beam Batteries
2 Class-2 Beam Batteries (FS/F/FP, All Arcs)
2 Class-2 EMP Batteries (FS/F/FP)
1 Needle Beam (F)
4 Mass Cargo Space
Not as hard to make as you'd think, and it fits seamlessly with my other pirate ships. For anyone wondering about coincidences, the name was indeed inspired by a certain rather famous starship combat game that features a vessel with the same moniker and broadly similar history.
Merchant's-eye view...
Sa'Vasku House Rules
The Sa'Vasku in FB2 are fairly well-balanced as far as the canonical ship designs go, but they can be abused a bit once you start building your own designs. The biggest problem is the fact that you can load up on power generators and channel all your power through a single stinger node, which is a bit much. At the other end of the spectrum, screen nodes and spicules are quite inefficient compared to human tech and the cost of engaging your FTL node is far too high for a badly-damaged ship to actually escape a fight by an emergency jump. The following house rules address these problems.
Stinger Nodes: These are now available in a variety of classes just like human beam weapons. All FB2 ship designs are armed with the basic Class 1 stinger, which is roughly equivalent to a human beam-3. More powerful versions are available for custom designs. All Classes of stingers have a cap on how much power can be channeled through them in a given turn, which is used to produce beam dice as per the normal FB2 rules.
Class Mass Cost Maximum Power Throughput
1 3 9 4
2 6 18 8
3 12 36 16
etc.
Mass, cost, and power throughput double with each increase in class. Suggested icon for graphic SSD would simply be to use the standard numbered beam icon - it's not as though Sa'Vasku ships can mount beams anyway, so any "beam" on a spider ship would obviously be a stinger of the same class.
Screen Nodes: These are unchanged for cost and construction purposes, but a single screen node can provide either level 1 protection for the power cost listed in its icon (which is 5% of the ship's mass) or level 2 protection for double that amount of power. Note that this does make the FB2 superdreadnought and heavy carrier designs somewhat silly, and you may wish to modify them by trading one screen node for extra hull, power, or weapons - upgrading one or two stingers to Class 2 would be appropriate.
Spicules: Also unchanged for cost and construction purposes, but any spicule can draw on extra Attack pool power to fire more than one shot as indicated below, each of which can be used against a different target if desired. This is inefficient and may weaken your stinger fire later in the turn, but provides a emergency high-output PD option other than employing interceptor pods.
Power Used PD Shots Fired
1 1
4 2
9 3 (maximum)
FTL Drive Node: Power cost to activate the node is reduced to 5% of ship mass, which leaves a badly-damaged ship able to actually use it. The node itself still occupies the normal 10% of mass with appropriate point cost, only the power cost is altered.
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