"Ad Astra: "Show Us Your Ships!"" Topic

Sounds very cool, is there any pics of the 2 ships listed?

Thanks

Yes, they're the really big ships in the middle foreground of the two box covers.

You can find better illustrations in the Jayne's Intelligence Briefing books. link

Very Freudian.

I think the point of the contests is to get the gamers to provide pictures for the online store…

Too bad I'm not interested in either of those designs.

I'm trying really hard here to think of a less interesting design for a starship than these, and right now I've got nothing.

There's not even any difference in design between the two fleets – other than the ‘glans' at either end of the ‘shaft' being ever-so-slightly rounder in one than the other…

"I'm trying really hard here to think of a less interesting design for a starship than these, and right now I've got nothing."

They're accurate to the source material (the Honor Harrington novels). Given the choice of being flogged by non-fans or being flogged by fans for "Inaccurate!!!" being flogged by non-fans is a safer choice.

"There's not even any difference in design between the two fleets"

Much the same can be said of most real-world naval vessels.

Oh, and there are some really subtle differences in the arrangement of the armament in the broadsides. You can tell on the miniatures and you can see it in the full-sized images. The "deckhouses" on top of the ships are also quite different.

Subtle? Yes.

"They're accurate to the source material (the Honor Harrington novels). Given the choice of being flogged by non-fans or being flogged by fans for "Inaccurate!!!" being flogged by non-fans is a safer choice."

Oh, I can quite agree with that. If the novels describe the ships as looking ‘uniformly like the least important bolt in a Vauxhall Viva's offside brake', then I'd fully expect the fans to go into conniptions if they didn't.

I'm sorry, I'm sure there are people that are going to love these. But source material or no, I prefer my tabletop games to have just a bit of visual flair. And not to look as if I emptied out a tin from my Dad's shed and primered the contents.

Is Honor Harrington big in the US? I've never even heard of him over here in the UK. I would be interested to read the description given that they are rather ugly and boring. I'm not criticising the miniatures as such, which look to be well sculpted, but I probably am criticising the source…

I wonder if getting Ken at Litko to do some acrylic sidewalls for these ships would look any better (or just really crap)?

PeteUK, you can find the Honoer Harrington novels (some of them, at least) in bookshops in the UK. On Basilisk Station is the first one. They're Hornblower in space (and Honor Harrington is the heroine of the series, BTW). Apart from David Weber's rather tiresome "military good, politicians bad" worldview, they're quite entertaining. 19th-century Royal Navy against a wierd mix of Revolutionary France and the Soviet Union, with nuclear missiles.

Ken, when this swings round to the Ten Worlds ships, I might take part. Some guidance on 'official' colour schemes would be nice, too; you posted on the subject on the Ad Astra forums, but your post contradicts the CG art, which is "all gunmetal, all the time".

"Is Honor Harrington big in the US? I've never even heard of him over here in the UK. I would be interested to read the description given that they are rather ugly and boring."

Oh, they're spot-on to the descriptions and they match the cover art, only they're better-looking than the cover art.

Do a search for David Weber on Amazon and take a look at the cover art.

Oh, they're spot-on to the descriptions and they match the cover art

The later cover art, certainly; I'm sure I remember some covers that were even more lurid and cheap-looking than usual for Baen novels, that featured distinctly different-looking ships.

Two Owl Bob,

I think On Basilisk Station is in the free library:
baen.com/library

You can check out the first novel and see if you like it.