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I've had an idea recently for a fortress of redemption based off of a crashed imperial ship. I was thinking of basing it off of one of these: http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat480005a&prodId=prod1690052&rootCatGameStyle=, but making it into 28mm scale. I think that this may be too big, however, so I have been wondering what kind of ship it could be. I already started the prow, based off of a soap dispenser like the ones in public bathrooms (bought at a thrift store), and have quite a few parts for it. What size should it be? I am being inspired mostly by this: http://www.ironhands.com/daunt.htm

Fluffwise I believe the Red Scorpions actually buried several of those in the desert as an ambush. However, keep in mind that a cobra is around 1km long which in 40k scale translates to roughly 50'+ real size (6+ table lengths). You may be able to get by with a defense monitor as an entire table but probably something more akin to a cutter or a system patrol ship. Even the weapons systems on a downed starhawk bomber would be comparable to a FoR & with some creativity on its crash could be similar in size & shape.

Starships are massive.

If anything, something like a downed Fleet-to-Surface troop transport could be plausible as like half of a board.

I am probably going with a cutter, as red starrise said. I think that the missiles will be the torpedoes on the prow, the lascannon will be either on a turret between the prow and the bridge, or on the wings. I am thinking that the bridge might be the tower. The main issue now is: should I make it specifically for one of my armies, or should I make it so that I could use it for any of them. I was thinking of making it into an ork base, but I would not be able to use it for my other armies. The second idea sounds more sensible, but it's so fun to make ork-held buildings!

a modern cutter is at it's smallest 75 feet long, if you translate this to tabletop terms you will be looking at a full sized board, what you are looking for I think is a patrol boat, something small, but has high real-space speed and high maneuverability, larger amounts of ordinance for it's size and just enough living quarters to keep a crew for a week or two at most without replenishment.

a true cutter is something like this:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamilton_class_cutter

whereas a patrolboat (still a cutter technically, but much smaller and has a much shorter time before replenishment is required):


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_Protector_class_coastal_patrol_boat

the first is the USCGC Mellon (my boat) she is a 378 foot law-enforcement cutter for the USCG (in fact this was the only cutter to ever have missiles installed onboard)

whereas the second is an 87 foot coastal patrol boat, the USCGC Barracuda.

the real difference is when you look at the crew complement, the 87' only has a crew of ten men, and the 378' has a crew of 150+ (i have seen almost 180 people shoved into one of these before)

so in 40k terms you would need a craft about 100-120 feet long with a live crew complement of 10-15 and servitor assisted weapons systems, probably a small scale lance battery and then multiple auto-cannons or heavy bolters for point defence (around 6 or so).

this if built to the scale of the bastion would be about right.

Good point, Captaincliff, I will probably make it a patrol torpedo boat (to better represent the fragstorm/krakstorm missiles), and the heavy bolters would definitely work. The lances could "count as" an icarus lascannon; the prow could be pointed upwards, as it will have been broken at least in half on its way to the planet's surface. This should be fun

in truth if it is an imperial patrol craft the prow would probably still be attached to the hull as their prows are designed to ram other ships thus they have an up-armored prow, if a part of the ship was detached you will probably more likely see the stern somewhere else.

 chaplaincliff wrote:
a modern cutter is at it's smallest 75 feet long, if you translate this to tabletop terms you will be looking at a full sized board, what you are looking for I think is a patrol boat, something small, but has high real-space speed and high maneuverability, larger amounts of ordinance for it's size and just enough living quarters to keep a crew for a week or two at most without replenishment.

75 feet is only twice as long as a main battle tank. I don't see how you are getting "full sized board"

ph34r, if you want specifics, the M1 Abrams' hull is only 24 feet long, so 75 feet is more than 3 times the length of a main battle tank. As for the 'tabletop terms' issue, 40k has a tendency to make ships a bit larger than what they are in modern times, so a destroyer like mentioned in the OP for 40k terms is around one kilometer long, whereas a modern US destroyer is only just over 500 feet long;


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arleigh_Burke_class_destroyer

the 40k ship is 6.5 times the size of the modern equivalent, but a battleship is a whopping 29.5 times the size of a modern battleship.

so saying a cutter is the size of a game board is not a far cry from what it truly would be, as a 75 foot cutter would be anywhere from 487 to 2,212 feet long.

Another possibility is to build it as a crashed Thunderhawk Gunship that was rebuilt into a fortress. A Thunderhawk would be about the right size.

An older WD had an article where someone cut up an old Star Wars rebel transport and used it as a crashed cargo pod from a starship, with a crashed escape pod and a torn off landing strut as a separate piece of terrain. You could use a part of the ship as the terrain piece rather than the entire ship. Who knows how much of the ship was damaged in battle, and more that burned off or exploded away during the crash?

I still recommend a starhawk bomberpersonally, it fits the bill about right since a fury is around 70m long and a starhawk is about 2x the size of a fury then a wrecked one (maybe fallen out of the bay of a crashing escort carrier) would be about right in size. It carries a complement of plasma bombs, armor piercing missiles and turreted lascannons. I'm sure it also has point defense systems much like an Arleigh Burke has that could represent the heavy bolter emplacements.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Starhawk#.ULwb0GfVqns

 chaplaincliff wrote:
ph34r, if you want specifics, the M1 Abrams' hull is only 24 feet long, so 75 feet is more than 3 times the length of a main battle tank. As for the 'tabletop terms' issue, 40k has a tendency to make ships a bit larger than what they are in modern times, so a destroyer like mentioned in the OP for 40k terms is around one kilometer long, whereas a modern US destroyer is only just over 500 feet long;


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arleigh_Burke_class_destroyer

the 40k ship is 6.5 times the size of the modern equivalent, but a battleship is a whopping 29.5 times the size of a modern battleship.

so saying a cutter is the size of a game board is not a far cry from what it truly would be, as a 75 foot cutter would be anywhere from 487 to 2,212 feet long.

I do want specifics. I can wikipedia just as well as you can, the value I was using was including main gun barrel making it ~twice the length, which is correct. The smallest imperial escort class ships are 750m long. While an escort is out of the question, innumerable smaller classes of warship exist. The problem is that even the smallest gunboats will likely be thunderhawk sized, which is already too large to be a "fortress" which just highlights how silly 40k's terrain scale is.

most terrain is about the right size i think. They are getting pretty good with scale it's just that the fortress should really be call, 'half buried outpost with a missile' instead. If you really want to think confusing, try comparing the size of the emperors palace to some of the largest ships and see what happens.

On Gw's site, I believe they say the Fortress is 24 inches long, so knowing that, you have a place to start, and I'd go with what Tanhausser said, but the problem is, who wants to convert a real thunderhawk for a Fortress of redemption? I think plasticard is going to be your best friend on this one.

You could always get over the size issue by making it mostly buried by a sandstorm or something? so make the bridge tower or something?

I think that I will use parts of a patrol torpedo type ship, I have a prow that is about 13" long by 6" wide by 4.5" tall, and will probably add maybe a bridge and a turret, from there. I have quite a few bitz gathered here!

In regards to the inspiration piece, that ship looks awesome, but it's clearly not to scale. I do really like the idea though, I hope you can pull it off somehow.

 glomscient wrote:
The main issue now is: should I make it specifically for one of my armies, or should I make it so that I could use it for any of them. I was thinking of making it into an ork base, but I would not be able to use it for my other armies. The second idea sounds more sensible, but it's so fun to make ork-held buildings!

What you could do is make the ship have barely any markings left on it. Fluff wise this would be accurate because small debris particles cast into space from ship-to-ship combat often remove the coloration of fighters to the point of being unrecognizable. In addition, you don't know how long the ship has been there or the conditions of the planet's atmosphere, so you could assume that much, if not all, of the paint had been removed and left only the bare metal of the superstructure beneath. If you're worried about it getting boring, add some scorch marks and rust (like I said, it could be a really harsh environment) and it should make the piece exciting enough to look at. Hope this helped you out!