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Before we get on to release news, a quick update on orders as I prepare to leave for Crisis; I’ve caught up on all outstanding ones now, but because I’m off to Belgium shortly I won’t be able to send anything this weekend. So if you have an order with us, it’s sitting in the post bag at the workshop and will ship early next week.

Before I leave for the channel tunnel, I’ve had time to press the GO button on the new spaceships of the Chinese Democratic Socialist Union now we can cast the resin dreadnought hulls again. There are twelve new models, ranging from massive dreadnoughts down to tiny fighter craft – and I will have stocks of these at Crisis tomorrow.

At the top end of the scale is the Longzi dreadnought, a huge four-engined behemoth over 100mm long. The resin hull has two twin forward firing railguns and four twin gun turrets in metal, plus a number of other separate parts. The slightly smaller Jiangxi dreadnought has the same railgun mounts with a single turret and two metal engines.

There are three cruiser classes, in decreasing order of size these are the Guangdong, Wuxi and Haitun. All three are single piece metal models.

Supporting the larger vessels are four types of escort – the workhorses are the Xingzi destroyer and Shenyang frigate. These are supported by the larger Shaoxing and Kaifeng destroyers.

The smallest models are the three fighter types – the Wusheng multi-role fighter, Zhengsheng attack fighter and Yongsheng escort fighter.

We’ve rejigged the contents of the CDSU fleet packs to accommodate the new vessels; the patrol fleet has briefly been retired since it contains models that we haven’t yet replaced, but there is also a new second fleet pack.

SFS-500 – Longzi Dreadnought – £9.00
SFS-501 – Jiangzi Dreadnought – £6.50
SFS-520 – Guangdong Heavy Cruiser – £3.25
SFS-521 – Wuxi Escort Cruiser – £3.00
SFS-522 – Haitun Light Cruiser – £2.50
SFS-530 – Kaifeng Heavy Destroyer – £2.00
SFS-531 – Xingxi Destroyer – £1.25
SFS-532 – Shaoxing Attack Destroyer – £2.00
SFS-540 – Shenyang Frigate – £1.00
SFS-560 – Wusheng Fighter (x12) – £1.50
SFS-561 – Zhengsheng Attack Fighter (x12) – £1.50
SFS-563 – Yongsheng Escort Fighter (x12) – £1.50

SFSP-501 – CDSU Reserve Fleet – £22.00
SFSP-502 – CDSU Carrier Group – £22.00
SFSP-504 – CDSU Battle Fleet – £22.00

These new designs replace all of the existing CDSU range with the exception of the already updated Shanzi carrier. Seasoned Chinese Grand Admirals will have spotted that not all of the older designs have replacements, there are still a few gaps, so expect further CDSU reinforcements in the coming months.

LINK

Our British spaceship fleet gets three new reinforcements this week. The largest of the three is is Medway class Patrol Ship – this is a deep space patrol vessel tasked with keeping watch over distant colonies, showing the flag and generally showing up wherever it can be useful. It has a railgun battery as main armament, and also room for a marine squad and a fighter bay which can be useful for either interceptors or shuttle craft. They can just as often be found running rescue or humanitarian missions as military ones.

Joining the main fleet are the new Triumph class heavy destroyers. Slower than most fleet escorts, they have a battery of Stardart missiles and additional armour to help them stand in the line of battle.

The Shark class Stealth Destroyers are part of the fleet’s Deep Strike arm, joining the larger Swiftsure cruisers as part of a task force that specialises in fast interdiction missions on enemy installations. They’re equipped wwith heavy forward firing railguns for hitting power and a stealth generator to keep them hidden.

Starmada-X stats can be found for these three new ships on our website.

SFS-133 – Triump class Heavy Destroyer – £1.50
SFS-134 – Shark class Stealth Destroyer – £1.25
SFS-174 – Medway class Patrol Ship – £1.75

We’ll be rejigging the contents of our British fleet packs to accommodate these new ships, although that hasn’t quite happened yet.

Alas, due to the slightly late arrival of the production mould I won’t have any of these at Cavalier on Sunday

LINK

Most of our spaceship fleets are human fleets, based as they are around the background from Wessex Games’ long-out-of-print Iron Cow ruleset. We do have a couple of alien fleets, and today one of those is getting a complete revamp.

The Yenpalo are humanoid reptilians with a thing about hexagons and the number six. Our existing fleet was designed by Phil long ago, but has been on the replacement list for a little while as the moulds aren’t in great shape. The new ships were created by James Claypole from Beadspoke Designs who offered them to us as he’d already designed them and just wanted to see them come to life as physical models.

There are five ships in this initial offering, ranging from battlecruiser down to corvette, plus a fleet pack. These replace the original Yenpalo designs which are no longer available (as I said, the moulds really did need replacing…)

SFSP-1101 – Yenpalo Attack Fleet – £22.00

SFS-1100 – Klaion class Battlecruiser – £4.50
SFS-1120 – Trepes class Heavy Cruiser – £3.25
SFS-1130 – Celeph class Destroyer – £2.00
SFS-1140 – Phlam class Frigate – £1.00
SFS-1150 – Ebhaku class Corvette – £0.75

LINK

Ages ago we used to have a couple of small satellite models in the spaceships range, but they disappeared due to issues with the production moulds. This week we’re releasing a replacement model, an all new design that will serve as either an orbital communications or surveillance satellite, or something more military. It is also ideal as a Battlesat, a weapon system in Starmada (carried by the German Pommerania class amongst others).

Each pack contains four satellite models with detailed solar panels, 12mm long and 20mm across. Each has a mounting hole in the bottom for a stand, but I wanted mine to be at varying angles. So I clipped the nib off the top of a plastic flying stand and used a round needle file to create a groove in the top of the post. The circular body of the satellite sits neatly in this groove and can be glued at any angle that takes your fancy.

Painting is straightforward – I painted my pale grey, followed by a wash of thinned-down GW Nuln Oil (neat Nuln Oil is too dark). I then drybrushed them white, before giving the solar panels two coats of GW Drakenhof Nightshade (a blue wash). Then they just need a bit of tidying up with white to delineate the edges of the panels, and whatever areas of spot colour you fancy (I went for some red rings around the nose).

SFS-6006 – Satellites (x4) – £1.50

LINK