What do you get when you mix paper and fireworks?

[Millenniumfalsehood]

This:

http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h4...shipWar018.jpg

http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h4...shipWar017.jpg

http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h4...shipWar012.jpg

Me and a freind of mine make a game out of this. It originally started when I asked them if they would like to blow up a model. They said yes and we battled the USS Enterprise-A and an "alien ship"(really the shuttle Surak from ST:TMP). This was recently expanded to a fleet of ships(my entire starfleet now consists of over 60 warships and auxiliary ships). This is a turn-based wargame and it's very rewarding! The last battle was three Imperial Star Destroyers, three Defiants, one Saber, one Acclamator, a Tholian webspinner, an Imperator-class carrier from Homeworld, and an Imperial Executor-class commandship versus a Borg Cube, Borg scout Cube, and an assimilated Interdictor Cruiser. I won, but at a loss of 8 ships. The opposing side lost every vessel catastrophically(i.e., total annihilation. By contrast 6 of my losses were simply scrapped due to the ship disintegrating into three or more pieces)

The full story of this particular battle was at Starship Modeler, but the thread has disappeared of the edge of the boards.

Anyway, has anybody else tried this? It's a great way to get rid of those old models and beta-tests piling up.

[paper warrior]

No, it was just, uuuhhh, ummm, weathering! Thats what happened, yeah, that.

[Lex]

I'd always like to try that!! It's just my parents say fireworks are dangerous if used like this...

[Millenniumfalsehood]

One of the great life-lessons taught by Water Boy is "what momma don't know don't hurt her"

Fireworks are dangerous if misused, but I just happen to be very careful(bucket of water, mini fire-extinguisher, and a thermal blanket. I have big ships that if they catch fire could end up destroying lots of property, especially out in the grass-filled country wher I do this, so I can never be too careful). We use three main varieties of firecracker: black cats for light shots(laser cannons, phasers, etc.), M-1000 for medium shots(turbolasers, photon torpedoes, etc.), and mini-fountains for heavy shots(Borg cutter beams, Heavy Turbolasers, etc.)

One thing I forgot to mention: I usually use several layers of paper for armor: the Executor class had ten layers for the main structure alone, and that saved it from at least four mini-fountains, and other ships like the Imperial Star Destroyer have about six at most(though that'll change after I refit the design to include twice that. . .). I'll probably start using tongue-depressors for extra structural integrity; if the fires cut the ship in half it will still be in(maybe) one piece. I used to use CA glue for strengthener, but it turns out this actually makes it more flamable, so. . .(don't ask how I found that out. . .)

I'm going to have another battle, and this time instead of the Executor class I'm building an Eclipse-class star dreadnaught. It's superlaser should make mincemeat out of practically any ship. It'll probably have some rules attached to balance it out. I figure each shot from one is equivilant to about five mini-fountains.

[Millenniumfalsehood]

Hey guys, it's been a while since I've said anything about the battles we have. I just thought I'd give an update: We're scheduled to have the next battle sometime in November, so naturally I've been hard at work replacing the ships I lost and building new ones. I'll post more on this later.

Hopefully I'll get my Eclipse finished by then. Work on it has been slow, but I'm building it like a brick outhouse, so it should be worth the extra time I've put into it. It's constructed out of foamcore for the main structure, five sheets for each half of the hull(top and bottom), and seven or eight layers for each step of the superstructure on top. The big prow will be made of five layers of posterboard for each side with a dowel inside for strength and to represent the antennas on the underside of the structure. I'll probably include some chipboard inside for it's fire-retardant properties. Since this ship will be much, much heavier than the Executor-class I lost last year, I expect this one will be around for several tours of duty after this one.

[B-Manic]

Models & pyrotechnics - does it get any better

[Millenniumfalsehood]

It sure doesn't, B-Manic!

I've uploaded a picture of my current Starfleet into my photobucket:



The *recognizable* ships are:

Cylon Basestar
Battlestar Galactica
Tholian Webspinner(my own design)
Imperial Star Destroyer(x2)
Republic Star Destroyer(x2)
Carrack Cruiser
Acclamator Assault Ship
Imperial Freighter
Saber class starship
Multi-gun Corvette
Sovereign class main hull(battle-damaged)
Cicada-class gunboats

The unrecognizables are(clockwise from the top):
Small Cruisers(TIE Interceptor wings)
Dominion War carrier
Alien Cruiser(TIE Bomber)
Alien Destroyer
Torpedo bomber(F-wing, my own design)

Not shown is a K-7 station which I'll be defending. The Borg Cube moves pretty slowly, but it has heavy armor and lots of weapons, so killing it will be rather difficult. Most of my ships don't have much armor(barely enough to last more that a few rounds). The only ones that do have massive armor belts are the Star Destroyers, the Sovereign-class starship hull, and the Alien Cruiser. This time I'm likely to be facing several Cubes in an onslaught, maybe even assimilated ships.

I've got the following ships under construction:

Imperial Star Destroyer(x3)
Victory Star Destroyer(x2)
Carrack Cruiser
Freighter(x7)
Defiant class(x5)
Saber class(x2)
Galaxy class
Eclipse Star Destroyer
Battlestar Pegasus(TOS)

I probably won't have all of these finished by the time the battle starts, but the heavy hitters in my current fleet are built tough. I will be finishing a few more Star Destroyers, as they are heavily armored and loaded for bear(60 turbolasers, 60 Ion cannons, and 8 heavy Turbolasers, plus the option to send in a wing of TIE bombers to do some long-range bombardment).

[Stev0]

The second image which appears to be an SSD looks like it sustained a glancing low powered shot from from the Death Star and in fact looks like actual movie damage. It would make an excellent derelict display.

[B-Manic]

You have quite the fleet there, Admiral. Very nice, are they all the same scale?

[Millenniumfalsehood]

Yes it would. But the ship itself was in the middle of an engagement with the Cube, and a few shots later was completely ripped in half by the mini-fountains(those things ar death to all but the largest and most heavily armored ships, and my Executor had ten layers of posterboard as the base superstructure, with the rest of the hull being plain posterboard). In our game though, the damage isn't counted until the skirmish is over, and I ended up completely destroying his Cube. I've got an entire photobucket folder dedicated to my miniature battles:

Millennium_Falsehood/Paper Miniatures war - Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

You can see what happened to the SSD and the Cube here.

That damage btw was the result of four mini-fountains, and it withstood three more before it was destroyed by them. Since then, I've begun using at least three or four layers of "armor" for larger ships. Smaller ships are cannon fodder and are used mainly to get the enemy to waste his turn on them. It works out pretty good and actually fullfills the role of frigates and destroyers in real-life battles(protecting the big ships from torpedoes).

[Millenniumfalsehood]

B-Manic: No, none of them are to scale, that I'm aware. The way scale works here is the amount of armor. The armor is a result of the ship's estimated size and the armor it carries. For instance, the Carrack Cruiser is significantly larger than it would if it were in scale with the Star Destroyers, so it doesn't get any armor. Same way with the Battlestar and Cylon Basestar. However, if the ship is larger than scale but is also considerably tough, it merits a layer of armor or two.

Armor in this game is devided up into classes: class 1 is no extra layers of cardstock. Class 2 is one extra layer, class 3 is two extra layers, and so forth. Posterboard counts as one-and-a-half classes, rounding up to the nearest whole number. Any extra defenses(packing tape, superglue, epoxy layer, etc.) counts as a class upgrade. For instance, the Cube had a base of carstock, plus posterboard, typing paper, and packing tape(in that order). It was considered a Class-4 starship. My SSD was a class-2 since it was made from posterboard and nothing else. The fact that the inside structure was so thick is irrelevant as the entire ship wasn't made from ten layers(I'd go mad cutting out that many SSDs!).

[Kezn]

Now we know how to make the "be fired" texture

[Millenniumfalsehood]

Oh yeah, baby!

I forgot to mention another crucial fact: as long as the device causing the damage is still "active" one is not allowed to attempt to put out firs, if any. After the mini-fountain is finished spewing flame(which lasts about ten seconds) the owner of the ship may attempt to put out the flame. If he is successful then he has saved his vessel from the attack. If not, then hte ship will be annihilated by the blast.

In one of the images you can see one of my Imperial Star Destroyers is not all destroyed by the mini-fountain, but because all control centers are in the rear end, the ship was considered "dead in space"(not destroyed).

[Millenniumfalsehood]

Well I've got some fresh news from my shipyards: The Eclipse class Super Star Destroyer Obliterator has resumed construction and should be finished by the end of the month. Here are some photos of the ship so far:

http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h4...stroyer001.jpg

http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h4...stroyer002.jpg

Doesn't she look majestic in the first pic?

I plan on painting her black when I'm done with the hull, but I'm not sure if spray-paint is more or less flamable than simply using black posterboard. I'm pretty sure it's just the accelerant that's flamable, but I'll have to run a few tests on some spare pieces of posterboard to make sure.

[Millenniumfalsehood]

Got more work done on her:







I actually have finished the ship, black paint and everything. I'm keeping her outside to dry for now, so I can't take pics. I'll also post a couple of links to images from the comic books showing the Ecplise I and II so you can compare. My ship is a hybrid of the two.