"Aeronef beginner question" Topic

Just starting to get into the Aeronef world. I am looking at Brigade Models for the ships and see a term I don't understand.
They refer to "digs" as in Armoured Dig Cruisers. I have the rules and do not see anything about digs. What are they referring to here?

Any suggestions on what my first fleets should be?

thanks everyone

Digs is short for dirigibles. Lighter-than-air vessels. You know, Zeppelins and that. I'm sure that is explained in there somewhere. Unless I am going mad there are definitely rules for them in the book.

I believe 'Dig' is short for 'Dirigible'… or a lighter than air ship.

I started out with the classic match-up of British and Prussian fleets.

(edit: I see Plynkes beat me by a minute while I was typing)

First fleets? I dunno, but I have a fancy for an aerial Russo-Japanese spat myself. Got some Japanese kites, never got around to building a Russian fleet yet.

The dirigibles are treated as any other airship although generally statistic wise, they are slower, more often used in a bomber role, and are a bit less robust.

I thought that the aerostats were dirigibles or Zepplins?
Am I mixing up terms here or are Digs a different type of dirigibles, different than aerostats?

Aeronefs are the generic term for all the ship sized flying vessels in Aeronef while Digs are a dirigible hulled subset.

Aerostat is indeed another term for dirigibles (and I belive blimps and balloons as well), eg lighter than air craft.

Aeronefs are both the generic term for any ship sized flying craft, and the term for rigid hulled craft, lifted by means of r-matter or anti-gravity.

Aeroplanes are less common in Aeronef than in our world.

These are all simply explained in the rules, somewhere. In general it effects how much space there is for stuff in a hull, and speed, weapons etc. If you have the statistics for the ship in question, you can quite happilly play without worrying if it is a dig, nef, etc.

Brigade quite nicely provide stats for their models.

Welcome to the skies. Be sure to drop by the WSGVSF Yahoo group.

"Any suggestions on what my first fleets should be?"

I went for the Italian/Austro-Hungarian starter myself, and have since added to both fleets.

My next fleet may be "Castle Wolfenbach", the flying dig city. Some of the digs have been flying in formation for so long they have laundry hung between them.

Russian is fun Battleships are like armoured snails but their light stuff is lightening fast and well armed. I just love the round shape of some of their ships.
The Klingons SORRY Austro hungarians are worthy opponents.

Since the Austro-Hungarian fleet bears more resmblance to the ships of the Hydrans, calling them Klingons is a good way to start a fight…

Defaming the Deep Space Fleet,argggh,even referencing them with AH or Hydrans makes the blood boil.Anyone up for a sabredance?

"WSGVSF"

You gotta love a group name that tells people who see it the first time exactly what they are all about…

Seriously, I am sure the group is filled with useful info and fun people, but what the heck is going on with that name?

Never got this whole aeronef thing. The minis are nice but I'm not down with the concept. Why not just blast the bottoms of the things, for example.

Grr… The impulse to comment on old threads…
In response to Pizza, it's probably because the undersides are reinforced to assist landing anyway, and the anti-grav gear is simply spread out.
As for first fleets, I went for British vs French. When I finish the last half dozen and clear out my 1/600 aircraft backlog, I'm adding the Austro-Hungarians and Italians for a north Mediterranean/Adriatic campaign. A Sammarinese fleet will also be in the works!

Inkpaduta I've been into Aeronef for some time for myself I started with a French-British starter set and liked the ships right off.

From there I began slowly and over the years making orders from Brigade and obtaining peoples collections I now have a substantial collection.

Right now I have Fleets from the following Nations:

United States
Great Britain
Germany
France
Russia
Japan
Austria-Hungary
Brazil
Netherlands
Belgium
Luxembourg
Argentina
Peru
Chile
Italy
Turkey

My guess is that I have close to 900 Aeronef minis right now and I'm not quite done yet.

To any your question about Starting Fleets you can do the following:

US vs Japan

US vs Great Britain

Austria vs Italy

Russia vs Japan

Great Britain vs Germany

These are just a few examples of starting Fleets and you don't need a lot for either side a few Capital ships some Cruisers and also some smaller ships like Patrol Nefs and Torpedo Nefs.

You can do a nice Battle with 15-20 ships per side.

For myself each of my Fleets varies in size for example my Britsh Fleet is around 125 ships while my Perivisn Fleet is at 6 ships the rest of my Fleets falls between these 2.

Some of my friends ask me why do I have so many Aeronef ships and I tell them several things including I have so many because if I do a large game I'll have enough ships for any type of Battle.

See I look at it this way I want to have enough ships so no one else has to bring any ships themselves(if they have any)and I can provide all.

I've done this with my StarBlazers collection which I have around 500 ships or so split between 4 Fleets.

Grr… The impulse to comment on old threads…
In response to Pizza, it's probably because the undersides are reinforced to assist landing anyway, and the anti-grav gear is simply spread out.

So, this is YOUR fault… ;->=

Actually, I assume they fly high enough to bypass most defenses, though, I've assumed, they should be vulnerable when making attacks against the ground.

No Norden Bombsights…

As no one explained before:

"WSGVSF"

Must be a typo: WGVSF stands for Wessex Games Victorian Science Fiction. Wessex produces the VSF Aeronef and Land Ironclads, and several not-so-VSF games.

And, as I'm half Brit, half Jerry, your last is my first pairing, Captain. In fact, watch for the next Aethergraph, as there may be such a pairing in a VERY short story.

Doug