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Was over on Star Ranger's site when I came across these... wonder if they would be any good for Aeronautica...?

http://hangar18fasa-skykings.blogspot.com/

Rather generic looking lot aren't they?

They look like they should be in a Dan Dare comic. I quite like them...

The terrain tiles are designed to lock with HeroScape hex tiles.

Wonder if the mechanics will be similar to Crimson Skies, then?

I like the terrain, and particularly that it seems to be designed to work with HeroScape... although I thought that HeroScape was discontiuned.

Anyway, more interesting looking than yet another Victorian ship in the air.

The terrain seems a bit small relative to the ships - not too expensive though.

Epic fail, Ill stick with Dystopian Wars thank you very much.

Is it just me, or do half the buildings look like they've been stolen from Red Alert?
I mean, tesla lightning machine? Really? And that aircraft factory looks rather like the airbase in Red Alert 2....

nieto666 wrote:Epic fail, Ill stick with Dystopian Wars thank you very much.

Thats a little harsh. They are hardly that bad and aside from that it is a different time period. I did go to the website though and didn't see anyway to order them?

Ketara wrote:Is it just me, or do half the buildings look like they've been stolen from Red Alert?
I mean, tesla lightning machine? Really? And that aircraft factory looks rather like the airbase in Red Alert 2....

Considering an airbase is an airbase and that tesla cannons are very common themes in mid-20th century pulp sci fi? You're stretching here.

yikes, good models I like the idea! Might think about getting some one of these days.

Brother SRM wrote:

Ketara wrote:Is it just me, or do half the buildings look like they've been stolen from Red Alert?
I mean, tesla lightning machine? Really? And that aircraft factory looks rather like the airbase in Red Alert 2....

Considering an airbase is an airbase and that tesla cannons are very common themes in mid-20th century pulp sci fi? You're stretching here.

If they were similar in name only, that would be the case. However, Red Alert has a lot of small buildings that look surprisingly like the ones being portrayed here.....the names are almost on the side of that...

MEH.

They're not really Alt-WW2 era at all. Heck, they aren't even Dieselpunk!

The aircraft seem to fit in 2 widely different styles, as if the designers couldn't decide on an overall theme and just thought "that's cool, let's do that!"
- either heavily streamlined, with very little surface detail:


Or overly complicated behemoths that hardly look air-worthy:


And the terrain (while nice) is much too Sci-Fi for the WW2 era (the turbines on the powerplant are direct copies of those in Empire Strikes Back)


I'll second nieto666's quote that this is an epic fail in the design of an Alt-WW2 game.

Agreed. The Storm Raven would fit right in there with "Things that wouldn't fly for $1000, Alex".

BrookM wrote:Rather generic looking lot aren't they?

some more than others...

Scenery looks interesting for Epic not to keen on the fighter design and for Alt-WW2 I see a disturbing lack of Spitfires innn Spppaaacceee which means its missing a lot of Awesome.

yeah,

ancientsociety wrote:the turbines on the powerplant are direct copies of those in Empire Strikes Back

this is never a bad thing...
never...

Panic...

ancientsociety wrote:MEH.

They're not really Alt-WW2 era at all. Heck, they aren't even Dieselpunk!

The aircraft seem to fit in 2 widely different styles, as if the designers couldn't decide on an overall theme and just thought "that's cool, let's do that!"
- either heavily streamlined, with very little surface detail:


Or overly complicated behemoths that hardly look air-worthy:


I'll second nieto666's quote that this is an epic fail in the design of an Alt-WW2 game.

That is like saying Tau doesn't look anything like Orks, so GW fails at model-making.
The two ships shown belong to different factions.

Steelmage99 wrote:

That is like saying Tau doesn't look anything like Orks, so GW fails at model-making.
The two ships shown belong to different factions.

If you would have read my full comment, you would have seen my point was:

They're not really Alt-WW2 era at all.

Which, none of the designs are. It wasn't that they were dissimilar, but about the design aesthetic overall.

Two problems with this one from my point of view:

1) Alternate WWII games of every kind have been done to death, steamrolled, scraped up, roasted, shot out of a cannon, chopped up with an axe, sandblasted, set on fire, and then done to death some more. It's a hackneyed idea at this point.
2) Real WWII birds are some of the coolest airplanes ever, ever, ever to have flown. Alternate WWII birds are somewhat lacking by comparison to the real thing. A really good WWII bird dog fighting historical simulation game would be much cooler than this thing or anything like it. By the same token, there are better, cooler looking fantasy games already out there.

Based on points one and two above, this game fills no niche that needs filling.

Here's a bit of advice for people trying to come up with new fantasy miniatures games. Come up with a good, clever, creative fantasy or science fiction setting of your own. Alternate historical realities were already an old idea when they appeared on a couple of episodes of the original Star Trek TV series more than 40 years ago and those are not some of their better episodes. They are also not some of the better game ideas out there at this point.

P.S. The real "Sky King" went off the air before most people playing miniatures games were born.

The other thing to add to your assessment, Brass, is that the "paper" Luftewaffe aircraft (Lufte '46) are also interesting.
A straight forward, "what if "these things were actually developed and used against Allied developments could be worthwhile perhaps?

For instance a couple of conventional American carrier bourne aircraft like the Tigercat and Bearcat were just too late to see service in WW2. The British Hornet and Sea Fury likewise.
That is before the X-planes stuff:

Yeah, there's tons of great real stuff out there on top of the most famous Warbirds like P51, FW190, P38, P47, Zero, B25 (gunship attack version is really cool), B29, Spitfire, Lancaster, Hurricane, Corsair, Typhoon, Me262, Yak 9, and on and on and on...

Fying Pancake


XP-54

Steelmage99 wrote:

ancientsociety wrote:MEH.

They're not really Alt-WW2 era at all. Heck, they aren't even Dieselpunk!

The aircraft seem to fit in 2 widely different styles, as if the designers couldn't decide on an overall theme and just thought "that's cool, let's do that!"
- either heavily streamlined, with very little surface detail:


Or overly complicated behemoths that hardly look air-worthy:


I'll second nieto666's quote that this is an epic fail in the design of an Alt-WW2 game.

That is like saying Tau doesn't look anything like Orks, so GW fails at model-making.
The two ships shown belong to different factions.

The differences between Tau and Orks are much greater than the differences between the Japanese and the Americans. Much much greater. Both the Americans and Japanese are humans, that evolved on the same planet, using the same technology, sharing the same influences (and depending how the history of this alternate timeline, one greatly influenced the other) yet the styles are completely separate and irreconcilable with one another. Take a look at real world military vehicles, the designs tend to share very similar characteristics, to the point that it takes a somewhat trained eye to be able to differentiate one countries technology from another.

To me, they're just aesthetically bad. Most of them look like several bombers mashed together, especially the American ones. Apparently American super-planes need 4 cockpits? They're just too nonsensical, especially for an alternate history game.

I'd be more concerned with the jet exaust melting off the tailplanes.

Don't mind the unaesthetic design tbh
but I agree that a nod to historical sources would have been good.
Some sense of function of the form would also be preferable given the context as I assume the laws of physics would be the same.