"15mm Aircraft, Star Fighters Freetraders" Topic

Ok there have been a number of requests for Aircraft in 15mm. I understand that.

My 1st question is What size aircraft do you want?

Y'all understand that most combat aircraft with wings have a much larger footprint than tanks and trucks do?

Helos aren't as bad as the wing can mostly be ignored as it in operation is mostly not visible. Even so most Helos are larger than their automotive compatriots.

Now wingless Vtols and Grav flyers can trend down into the Automotive scales and thus as mentioned in one thread be more cost effective than other larger models.

I am not saying the idea is bad, honest, as I write this I ponder at least two 15mm Small Freetraders I have build over the years. (they average 13.5 inches in length, 7 inches in width and height) And to replicate them would cost somewhere in $200 USD+ range just for the materials to make master molds.

Well, I would like to see a source for transport aircraft of some type, possibly gunships. The functional equivalent of Hueys, Blackhawks, maybe Ospreys and H53s, Hinds, Apache/Cobra, etc.

GZG has the AV6/AV7 'fanvan', which is a bit small to my eyes.

I prefer smaller-scale tactical aircraft (1/200 or 1/300 is really about right for most airplanes over a 1/100 table).

I think that you will have to ask yourself the questions are fixed wing aircraft viable in 15mm sci-fi war games? Now don't get me wrong I'm all up for new models to be produced but could fixed wing aircraft be playable on such a small gaming area the average being 2x2ft. I can see them being used to represent a drop zone, deployment area or even being used as a games objective but not for actual game play that's were jet bikes or flying drones come into play, I'm all up for great looking big eye candy on the game table, but are larger aircraft really needed.???

Regarding free traders and similar-sized ships, it just seems like a more cost effective route to scratchbuild. I can't imagine the market for them is big enough to merit the effort in making production molds, etc.

Are we talking about aircraft or starships here? Quite different beasts to this punter.

Millennium Falcon 25m
x-wing 13m
F-14 19m

Three examples of flying objects. in rough the classes I was thinking of Collins355.

A foot is approx.. 30 meters in scale. which is about the max size of vehicles I am talking about.

I agree with Lion about the appropriate scaling of models flying over the board. Though the idea does strike me that different scale models could be used to represent differing altitudes.

Lion in the Stars the GZG's FanVan is a good example of a automotive scale aircraft.

As a side note the Freetrader I have built are more terrain than models I intend to use on the table.

In one of the photo galleries of the GZG's East Coast Convention from a couple of years ago had some great pictures of 50 dTon Modular Cutters as aircraft on the table and they tended to dominate where ever they where….

I've been on the look out for a single manned (or unmanned -drone) Gunship. Something that could hover on a larger (4x8) battlefield. Even on my larger board fighters just (should) move too fast to be useful. I would like to one day have a battle where one or two VTOLs could be used.

Something about this size would be perfect for my gaming table.

taken from a post from TMP member LoveJoy

Fixed wing aircraft barely belong in 6mm games, let alone larger ones. I am inclined to use smaller scale aircraft alongside my 15s to convey the illusion of height.

Agreed with the above. I play on 2'x2' tables… the idea of combat/ground support aircraft is extremely laughable. I have a few Rebel and Combat Wombat dropships, but they haven't seen much use.

Small spacecraft are wonderful objectives and terrain for skirmish games. But I'd have a hard time spending much money on them.

-Chris K.

Not to forget the Old Crow VTOL gunships and transports.

For a typical SF skirmish game, "aircraft" only need to be represented by models if they are acting as objectives or terrain (you can't have a spaceport shootout without some small spacecraft)

True, you don't really "need" aircraft on the table, but I like at least having transports in figure scale (assuming Ambush Alley rules here, where figure scale = groundscale), because that lets you show the player exactly where to go for medevac or whatever.

I don't really see a need for aircraft. I don't even recall any rule sets that would need models. Most of them treat airstrikes the same way they do artillery. Even Flames of War doesn't need the aircraft on the table. They pop on and do a single action then leave.

For a dropship I'd absolutely love something similar to those used by the troops in Space: Above and Beyond.

I also will agree that large aircraft are an incredibly silly concept on the table top, but it really has nothing to do with table space. Large aircraft both from a historical and common sense perspective are always going to be high atmosphere and therefore shouldn't even be visible on the table top along with orbital ships which are far out of range on any small to mid sized weapons.

What I feel is missing and what I think everyone else who asks for aircraft are talking about are either singular gunships or fighter-gunship hybrids.

Gunships are similar to helicopters (though those seem silly in a scifi setting) or what LordNth posted above.

Fighter-gunship hybrids are craft designed primarily for acting as an Air to Air fighter but can also function in a battlefield support role through low flying strafing runs and the like. The particular example I think of is the Wraith fighter from Starcraft.

The only miniature that keeps poping into my mind is a Mech Warrior clicky tech one man strike VTOL, i think it should just be the right size for 15mm gaming too.

Yeah, one man VTOLs, dropships than can plausibly hold at least 14 men (Average squad+attachments I figure.)

Maybe one man VTOLs with side seats, think something like the modern day Little Bird, which can be used to insert or recover fireteam sized units or can be fitted with weapon pods/packages.

Largest aircraft that should ever appear in a 15mm game is something able to drop a vehicle. The class of vehicle is another story. I could see a heavier dropship being able to dump off anything up to a light tank plus an infantry squad if said tank is small enough, or the dropship is made large enough.

So, then raises the classification of dropships and gunship VTOLs by Light, Medium and Heavy, or perhaps Small, Medium and Large if you prefer. I'm regularly bothered by the lack of gunships and dropships out there. Light craft even more so. I really hope Lovejoy's little VTOL gets into production soon though. That's exactly the sort of concept in terms of size and weapons package I'm looking for in a one man VTOL.

I realy disagree with the comments about flyers having no place on sci fi tabletops.
Even in today modern warfare airpower and helos rock dispite the fact that you can make a case for them being obsolete with all the guided gun and missile systems we have today.

I expect that to be true in the future as well (more or less). But all of that is besides the point for me. Sci fi gaming is all about cool looking models and cool concepts (other planets and environments and aliens!!!)

As such i very much want flyers, floaters, anti-grav etc. Etc. These need to fit on the tabletop and as such must have a maximum footprint of about the avarage MBT in the game.

The concept of airmobile troops where gunships provide the heavy firepower of the unit and you exchange protection (armor) for speed and mobility as brilliant to me and is just begging to be moddeled in sci fi.

The Rule of Cool (tm) trumps here. Is it FUN to have aircraft models represented on the table?

Of course it is.

Rebel and GZG both make excellent tactical VTOLs. Infojunky's pic shows us yet another great design. It makes perfect sense for VTOLs to be filling the Blackhawk niche: heavy troop transport. In fact, in many settings with space travel, you can expect even larger troop transports because the propulsion assumptions that let them get into space often also allow larger chassis.

There's room at the low end for a VTOL "light truck" (much like the current-era Little Bird). In a colonial setting, such a light vtol might be the basis of a "toyota war" style technical.

At the top end, you have ships like the Millennium Falcon and the Serenity. They're free traders that you can live aboard but also spend a lot of time on the ground. Most useful in… well, as the canon suggests, rebellions and Wild West settings. Khurasan makes the end-all, be-all large free trader space truck for this kind of concept.

For example, look at this beast:

You can all return from the edge of your seats now. Depending on your preference, you could call it either a super-heavy dropship or a long-range free trader. Or (as Jon from Khurasan suggests), both depending on the loadout.

In play, such a ship is either treated as a fortification, or an objective, or a support vehicle. Or it's a means of arrival departure for your troops. Or some combination thereof.

Fixed wing aircraft, admittedly, don't fill this niche as well. Largely because their stall speeds put them off the board in a turn, and if you're going to make them VTOL, then they're no different in play than any other vtol. That doesn't mean I don't want to see them.

However, the economics of these designs from a miniatures production standpoint means that you'll never see a wide range of ships produced. Instead, we'll have to raid 1/100 models, toys and kitbashes if we want something very unique/specific.

My current 15mm dropship collection includes two of the above-pictured terminator models, plus two of the shuttles from Firefly ("Inara's Shuttle", produced as a Christmas ornament). I intend to get a Khurasan ship when I can afford one. Do they show up in every scenario? Of course not, but they are very valuable both for display and in battle. (And for RPGs they're essential)

Well I use this one from brigade regularly in games

Also an old Cylon raider can still get eaten by big bugs :)

I use lots as transports in game but mainly as objectives but are fun part of the games you even get into chase sequences as well :)

And a few more transports and gun ships :)

The point I was trying to make has nothing to do with more dropships or fixed wing aircraft models being produced I am also up for seeing more eye candy on a games table as I previously stated im guilty of owning atleast 7 or 8 dropships in various scales. The problem is the size of the games surface area when playing in a 15mm If you are like most of the gamers that I know and started to game in 15mm scale to save on storage of miniatures and terrain the chances are you also game on a much smaller games board a 2x2 or 3x3 being the norm as you can store them away with ease in the hall cupboard under the stairs or on top of a wardrobe. When gaming on a smaller surface it's very difficult to use large aircraft or dropships in their full capacity you are very limited in the roles they can perform in a game other than the ones I mentioned earlier such as using a landed aircraft or VTOL to represent a drop zone or they can be used as an objectives in campaign's, they can't be used to fly around the game table to attack individual units because the surface area is to smalland the aircraft to big so you may as well categories them as off table support, now smaller one man strike VTOL's or fixed wing craft are small enough to be manoeuvred around the game table with minimal movement infringements due to their size, I would treat them as either large flying droids or at a pinch jet bikes and creating stats for them should be straight forward enough.

Spaceships are terrain as far as I'm concerned as a 2x2 table gamer. I would feel the same way if I still had my old 6x4 though.

I regulary game on 6' x 4' and 3' x 3' and have no issues on that size of table :) but I can see that if 2' x 2' are used it would be an objective instead of transport and this does happen in some games I play :)

They wouldn't be used in every game but most gamers in my area use similar size of tables as well. I do a few times a year run larger games on 12' x 6' table which improves the scale some what but that is not the norm which is sad :(

Cheers Matt