From: Izenberg, Noam <Noam.Izenberg@j...>
Date: Fri, 8 Oct 2004 15:45:42 -0400
Subject: [FT] The knight who sees NI (long)
Mine eyes have seen the glory that is the new New Israeli Fleet. It's fantastic. Jon was kind enough to send me about 10 megs of pics of the new miniatures, and I'm going to tease you with inadequate descriptions. You may commence drooling in 3... 2... 1... Mark. You already know and love the Tzayad DD, Maccabee CE, and Sabra BB, so my ship descriptions will relate to those. First - the fighters FT 1501 Kfir Light Fighters - already out, these are not BG Colonial Vipers. FT 1521 Bard'las Heavy Fighters look... heavy, already starting the wing+pod theme of the ships of the fleet. The ships all have the Techno/Deco look to them that the first three in the series established. The designs hint at 1920's and 1930's concepts of rounded streamlined spaceships in the fore parts, then getting into more "bricky" modern sci-fi as you move aft. The arrowhead shapes of the bodies are distinctive, and the vertical "wings" in the capital ships are unique. The star-engines are also quite nifty. I like that they're pretty subtle unless you're looking at them dead aft. FT 1502 Sheir Scoutship FT 1503 Sa'ar Corvette These are rather dart shaped, and look built for speed. FT 1504 Ra'am Battle Frigate FT 1505 Tzayad Destroyer Ra'am looks less arrow-head like than Tzayad - a bit like the human fighters in the rather awful movie rendition of the Human-Kilrathi spacewar game who's title escapes me at the moment. WHile the movie was bad, the ship design was cool, and Ra'am is, of course, a frigate, not a fighter. FT 1506 Kashat Light Cruiser FT 1507 Maccabee Escort/Patrol Cruiser FT 1508 Yerushalayim class Heavy Cruiser The cruisers are again all related, looking like three stages of growth of the same ship from youth to adolescent to adult. Kasaht is a little more jagged than Mac, and Yerushalayim is longer and more muscular looking - especially in the fore-hull. Yerushalayim and larger all have that underslung barrel (evloving into it's own pod in some of the larger classes) which seems to beg for a heavy weapon. FT 1509 Barak Battlecruiser FT 1510 Sabra Battleship Barak is an evolution of Yerushaliym in that the arrowhead wings grow some, and the forehull gets more meat. Sabra looks basically like a Barak unfolding into the third dimension. FT 1511 Chalutz Chalal Heavy Battleship (Battledreadnought) Take a Sabra, widen the arrowhead enough to fit _two_ engine nacelles in the back, modify the fore hull a bit, and you have a Chalutz Chalal. Very nice. FT 1512 David Ben Gurion Superdreadnought Widen it still more, and stik on two quad shoulder gunpods facing forward, and you have Ben Gurion. David means serious business. FT 1513 Kineret Light Carrier Take a Chalutz and swap out the forehull with an underslung fighter bay pod, and you have a Kineret - probably 4 groups FT 1514 Tzion Supercarrier Change out the shoulder gunpods of the Ben Gurion for Fighter bays, and thicken up the fore hull, and you have the awesome Tzion. 8 groups, maybe around 280 TMF They're great! I just know that kitbashers are going to love the capital classes. I'm in the process of generating some Alpha test stats for the ships (alas, _not_ with stealth hulls_). These will be released with, or soon after the pics go up - whenever Jon gives the OK. My fleet is going to kick so much @ss (when I get the darn thing painted). But here's a preview... one of my almost finished Sabras. With a little CG http://nift.firedrake.org/Mini_Images/SabraCG.jpg