Dis tope is your tope, dis tope is my tope . . . .

Hi,

Having devised a means to work around the walking catastrophe that is my mail carrier, I picked up a box at the post office Wednesday night. Inside was a whole bundle of happy.



Fleet starter box comes with a range of templates and tokens . . .



along with FIGs (Fleet Information Guides) for each class of model. That's one for the Uwatsu class frigates that come in the box, with a model and my fingers for scale.



FIGs are heavy card stock, templates and tokens are made of what feels like heavy duty photo paper. For the traditionalists out there, or those concerned with durability, there's a link on the spartan forums from a guy who refomatted the FIGs to fit into card sleeves, and I'm sure GF9 will come out with a token set, if they haven't already.

And now for the hotness. The Tenkei Sky fortress and bits:

Top:

Bottom:

Side:

Bits, including the rotors and tiny fighter stands:



With a close-up of a fighter stand:



You get 6 fighter stands with the Sky Fortress, and 10 in the fleet box. BTW, that seam on the side of the Tenkei carrier - the ONLY appreciable bit of flash across 16 models. Everywhere else was either a small film extending out from the ship base or a bit of drainage off the metal. Detail is insane - you can see rivets in some of the photos, and the fighter engine cowlings are nice and crisp. There are little doors all over the place - I'm still finding them after two days of gleeful handling.

Next up, a closer shot of the Uwatsu class frigate. These are nasty little buggers, especially in numbers. They can link fire between their fore turret and side guns to throw out an attack at almost cruiser strength.



Next up is the DFA-170 bomber, both top:



And bottom:



Game scale, these fall into the same size category as a cruiser, so you can think of them as sort of a flying super-duper fortress. With a bomb payload as damaging as a hit from a British main turret.

Next we have the Sokotsu class battleship, biggest naval vessal besides the Hachiman dreadnaught and the giant robotic squid ;):











The ship comes with the pieces to mount two different support systems, a disruptor to mess with other people's toys, and a shield generator to make the Sokotsu even tougher. Fun with magnets will ensue.

Last is the fleet workhorse, the Nakatsu class cruiser:









I cannot stress enough how lovely these figs are. Spartan seems to have jumped with both feet into CAD/CAM sculpting, and the results are visible. I suspect this will be one of those projects where I really try to stretch my painting skills, because frankly, the models are worth it.

Cannot wait to get these on the table.

TMtW