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Belated, but finally here, here is the second wave (of currently five) of the Xygritt Matriarchy! The ships are all done now, so it is just a case of releasing them! (I might do two next month if I get a lot of interest!)
Nolaarulu Class Super Dreadnought
Direct price: £16.00 GBP
Shapeways price: $29.48 USD (£29.11) link
The Nolaarulu Super Dreadnought is an anti-capital ship vessel par excellence. Centred around the massive super heavy lazer cannon at its core, the Nolaarulu is capable of devastating smaller ship before they even can get within its range.
Two spinal-mount lazer cannons are mounted further down the dorsal thermal vane to supplement the main gun. Sixty-eight various particle beam turret provide full coverage around the vessel. The primary point defence arrays and their additional turrets grant the ship a rating of 720 on the Xygritt's military scale.
Above the GVD emitter, the Nolaarulu unobtrusively mounts a forward missile bay with 192 warheads, fired in salvoes of twenty four. The missile bay on the Nolaarulu is something of a halfway house between racks and an internal missile launcher, and it may be a stepping stone towards future warhead launchers like those carried by Xyriat vessels. Advancements in missile shielding technology mean that the warheads can be kept in the main safely, unlike the missile pods of the small vessels. This complicates the reloading procedure, as the external missile pods are easily replaced, but are also harder to target.
The Nolaarulu's main weakness is its low manoeuvrability. It is comparatively lightly shielded for a vessel of its size; it has barely more shield and armour than the Hashallaxit three-quarters of its size. The bulk of the blame lies in the power requirements of the main lazer cannon. However, the weapon is sufficiently potent that the Nolaarulu often only needs a single pass to break an enemy formation.
Gosillix Class Artillery Cruiser
Direct price: £4.30 GBP
Shapeways price: $5.60 USD (£5.53) link
The Gosillix Artillery Cruiser was as its name suggests, created for long-range fire support.
The Gosillix pioneered the unusual split dorsal thermal vane, later used on the Makoria Force Dreadnought and more recent Aarpot Carrier. This departure from convention was required due to the Gosillix's massive rail cannon. The original design specification called for a weapon capable of delivering a single huge slug, for penetrating planetary shields or attacking enemy capital ships. This proved to be impossible with current design technology. While the weapon theoretically possible to build, it would have required a vessel much larger than the Gosillix to mount, and would also have had limited utility. And the low mobility require from a larger hull would have reduced that further.
In scaling back the weapon so that it could be fitted onto the Gosillix's hull, a compromise was reached. By dropping the calibre and the penetrating power considerably, the engineers were able to drastically increase the cannon's rate of fire. So instead of firing a single slug, the Gosillix's rail cannon fires a short burst of four. While the penetration is reduced, this is gives the Gosillix considerably more tactical flexibility. Rather than a specialist siege weapon, the Gosillix could function as a ship-of-the-line.
The weapon was still too large to be mounted with the dorsal thermal vane; it would have blocked the heatsinks. Placing it above would have required a complete hull-redesign and a much taller and more vulnerable bridge – and to either side would have added damaging torque to the recoil stresses. So instead, two dorsal vanes were added at an angle. While this required some compromises – the combined area is larger than a single vane would have been – it solved the problem.
This required moving two of the Gosillix's four missile pods to their current horizontally asymmetric positions, as the lower pods would otherwise have been block by the vanes.
The Gosillix is unremarkable in shields, armour and agility for a ship of its size. It has an impressive rating 360 point-defence system, however, as the expectation would be that it would take most fire from long-range weapons like missiles.
Unlike most cruisers, the Gosillix has only one primary fire-control array, meaning that the missiles have to be slaved to the main gun if they are to fire together.
Xagnaola Class Torpedo Cruiser
Direct price: £4.50 GBP
Shapeways price: $5.60 USD (£5.53) link
Of the relative few torpedo-carrying vessels in the Matriarchal Navy, the Xagnaola is the most frequently deployed.
The Xagnaola carries six forward and six rear tubes. It supplements this with twelve particle beam turrets, and a point defence system that rates as 300 on the Xygritt's PD scale.
It has reasonable protection and has above average manoeuvrability, which helps keep it in the fight longer.
While the particle beam turrets cannot bring to bear in the rear arc, the presence of the rear torpedo tubes means the Xagnaola is one of the few Xygritt vessels to lack the weakness of almost no rear firepower.
Lillours Class Frigate
Direct price: £4.40 GBP (4)
Shapeways price: $6.19 USD (£6.11) (4) link
The Lillours Frigate is the most numerous of the Xygritt capital ships. A hull that leant itself to modification, the Lillours and its variants serve a wide range of roles throughout the fleet.
The basic Lillours frigate serves as an anti-ship platform. While only lightly protected with shields and a rating 60 point-defence system, the Lillours mounts a dozen particle beam turrets.
As with many of the smaller Xygritt vessels, the Lillours has little to no firepower in the rear, making it vulnerable particularly to Xyriat tractor beams. However, as such a small vessel, the Lillours is less likely to be targeted during a pitched battle, and thus this is not as larger a disadvantage as on higher-priority targets, such as the Thulagos.
Lillours-OX Class Escort Frigate
Direct price: £4.40 GBP (4)
Shapeways price: $6.25 USD (£6.25) (4) link
The Lillours-OX is the smallest dedicated escort vessel in the Matriarchal Navy. Frequently seen in the company of large vessels, the Lillours-OX is the oldest variant of the frigate.
The Lillours-OX removes half of the Lillours' particle beam turrets to add additional point-defence systems, raising the rating to an impressive 420 on the Xygritt's scale.
The Lillours-OX is expected to be slowly replaced over time with larger and newer Goulonat Defence Cruiser, but its sheer ubiquity means it is likely to be in service for a long time to come.
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Photos of Replicator 2 versions. Where possible, I've used the painted ones, but the fleet has a sufficiently large number of ships in a short space of time that I've kind of overloaded my mate (who is painting them!)
Next month will be third wave of combat capital ships, followed by the fighters and carriers and then the support ships. Then after that, there is one or two waves of the Phystyulons to go (their carriers, fighters and support ships). I will probably work on some ground forces next, before I do another new fleet, but there's an odd starship or two in the backlog too!
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Accelerate & Attack: Aeons of War is also out now (a generic build-your-own ships system suitable for any set of models) is also now available of Wargames Vault here:
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There is also a free Web Enhancement Pack; this contains the markers and the QR sheet the latter of which is an indicator of the level of the game if you want to have a quick nosey.
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And, of course, I'm always happy to answer questions about it (and through Facebook, this is now theorhetically much easier!)
