50 Fighter Groups

I'm in the middle of basing 50 groups of fighters for the Sci-Fi
Crossover game I'm running at GenCon. With the recent talk on fighter bases
and now carriers I thought I would share what I am doing with the list.

First off, Sci-Fi Crossover is a scenario where ships from your favorite
TV series and movies get to do battle. Basically its the Empire from Star Wars
(Micro Machine Star Destroyers) vs the combined might of the Star Trek
Original Series Federation (Gamescience minis), Earthforce (AoG minis plus the
small Whitestars sold on the web), a Battlestar (the Comet mini), and a SCVN
from Space: Above and Beyond (the Ark Royal miniature from Stellardyne, a
local friend). This game got lots of looks last year (the guys from AoG
wandered by and said "It has to be Full Thrust, no other game can do all
that") and I hope for more this year. Most of these popular ships are carriers
so that results in a lot of fighters to deal with. Last year the Empire walked
over the combined forces. This year I'm adding the Battlestar and the SCVN
along with some other ship modifications. I was able to playtest the changes
with Indy, Noam, and Keith Watt when I was in the Baltimore area a couple
months ago (thanks for the game guys). I had overcompensated and the Empire
(me) got kicked. So a few more changes and tests and now its time get the
minis ready.

I need about 50 fighter groups for this game so first I had do decide how to
base them (last year at GenCon I used counters -yuck-).  I kept all of
the posts on basing fighters and looked at the painting FAQ for ideas. I like
the Battletech hex base filled with putty except for a spot for a die but it
would be pricey to do 50 groups this way. I wanted to make them small and
transportable and hopefully inexpensive. So I decided that I would base 3
fighters per base to keep the size down and decrease the number of fighters I
need.

So I ended up using 1" fender washers glued to 1" wood discs from a craft
store ($1 for 7) as the bottom of the base. I used earring posts to mount the
individual fighter minis ($2.99 for 72, 4mm round disc at one end). With a pin
vise I drilled small holes in the bottoms of the fighter minis and superglued
the fighter to the post and the disc end of the post to the top of the wood
base. The 3 fighters are mounted in a V formation, point forward, and there is
enough room for a small die or two in the back for numbers and endurance. I
have completed (but not finished painting) about half of what I need and they
are pretty sturdy. Now I am waiting on an order from Brigade to arrive so I
can mount the hoards of "Fighter with Hex Solar Panels" that I need. So far I
have a lot of GZG 'Star Tiger' groups, a few 'Star Sabre' groups, some
'Hammer' fighters. With no good minis for Vipers from Battlestar Galactica,
I'm using Terran 'Comet' and 'Meteor' fighters from Superior's Star Fleet Wars
line.

To transport this mass of fighter bases, I'm using some compartmentalized
plastic boxes, the type used for fishing lures or misc small stuff. A strip
magnet is stuck to the bottom of each compartment which keeps the base (with
washer on the bottom) from bouncing around instead of trying to pad
everything.

I'm bringing my digital camera to GenCon and Mark Siefert has agreed to put up
pictures daily from the con so you can all see what these fleets (and the rest
of the con) look like in August.

> Dean Gundberg wrote:

> Now I am waiting on an order from Brigade to arrive so I can mount the

Your cheque arrived yesterday - we'll turn it around as fast as we can !

> > Now I am waiting on an order from Brigade to arrive so I can mount

Well since your having to cast lots more, I might aswell put in another order
:)

Anyone taken a serious look at how much work would be required to make GZG's
tri-lobed fighter into a Colonial Viper ?

For that matter, Dean, had you considered throwing in some Chigs?

> Anyone taken a serious look at how much work would be required to

Did we ever see anything other than Chig fighters? I don't remember any and
I'd like to avoid a force of only fighters.

Currently the Empire from Star Wars are a big enough menace in this year's
Sci-Fi Crossover.  I thought about next year and I might throw in a
surprise.  Maybe I'll add the Yamato/Argo from Star Blazers, maybe I'll
have it everyone against a Super Star Destroyer (a couple years ago they came
out with a Collector's Fleet Super Star Destroyer with lights and sounds etc.
It was real hard to find in stores but ebay usually has a few for sale. It
is very close to in-scale with the Micro Machine Star Destroyers.....;)

In the Premier we see *large* cap ships. Check out:

http://www.web-worthy.com/saab/

> Dean Gundberg wrote:

> Did we ever see anything other than Chig fighters? I don't remember