Painted Dropfleet Commander UCM (more added 1/22)

[Hobby Services]

Finished painting the first battlegroup of my UCM figs, consisting of a San Francisco-class troopship and a pair of New Orleans-class strike carriers.



Feels odd to start painting a new fleet with troop carriers rather than combat ships, but these are by far the most important models for actually winning the game.  Blowing up the enemy is nice, but doesn't generally earn the VPs that getting troops to the planet does.



In game terms, that's about the minimum number of troop ships you'd want to have when playing skirmish-level scenarios.  A third strike carrier instead of the big San Fran is a cheaper option point-wise and looks good on paper, but in a few months when the corvette models come out the safety of hiding in atmosphere is going to go way down, and fast.



Besides, I wanted to paint a cruiser-sized troopship.  It's a neat model, and I enjoy painting a billion tiny little windows.  



The models are fairly large, as the ruler hopefully shows.  Certainly the cruisers are on par with their Battlefleet Gothic kin, and the frigate hulls are actually quite a bit bigger than BFG escorts were.



The kits are extremely well cast and require minimal cleanup, although you do need to be careful when removing the parts from the sprue.



The cruisers require a fair amount of assembly, but everything fits together well.  All the kits are quite modular and can build multiple classes of canonical ships.



You wind up with a fair number of spare parts in the end, which is helpful if you're trying to make the heavy cruiser variants or larger groups of frigates.



You could build a number of variants out of the cruiser kits that don't exist in the game by combining odd parts with each other, which could be useful if you're planning on playing Full Thrust or Starmada or something with these kits instead of just using them for DfC.  I didn't mess around with magnetizing parts for swaps, but it could clearly be done with most components.  The main sticking point would probably be the "engine wings" on the cruisers, which are a pretty tight fit during assembly and probably couldn't be swapped easily without damaging your paint jobs.



All in all I'm quite pleased with the UCM kits.  Sensibly designed, plenty of detail, and versatile.  The design aesthetic may not be to your taste, but then there are three other very different fleets in the game.  And I'll eat my hat if we don't see a Resistance/pirate fleet before long.

[Harwood Hobbies]

Nice, clean painting and I enjoyed reading the post as well.   Finally got my minis in the mail and look forward to painting them!

[Daeothar]

Awesome work!

 You gave them Chris Foss-like paintjobs, which is obviously cool.

The models themselves are just gorgeous, and your work complements them well.

Keep it up!

[Major_Gilbear]

Gosh, that was quick work getting those painted up already - nice one!  

It's funny seeing your photos though; even having the sprues in-hand, I hadn't really registered how big the escort ships are.

Looking at them, I suppose the parts are also cross-compatible between the two kits as well; so you could put one of the big cruiser turret guns into the upper deck of an escort for example (again, thinking of other games besides DFC here ).

Anyway, thank you for sharing them; I hope you add the other fleets to this thread as an when you get around to them?

[The_Beast]

Another damn fleet I am not thrilled with, turned into an object of desire by another damn paint job...

Doug

[Dr.Falkenhayn]

these are spot on  i've played a few very enjoying Demogames at my local Gamestore.Pitty i've already invested too heavy in Firestorm Armada 

[The Voivod]

Lovely work.
Though I shuddered at the amount of windows you claim to have painted....

[Hobby Services]

Thanks, all.  I've got more UCM in the works, after which I'll be tackling the Scourge.

Pitty i've already invested too heavy in Firestorm Armada

I've painted quite a few of those models over the years as well.  Not sold on the rules even under 2.0, but the figures have certainly grown tremendously in terms of variety and quality since their startup.

Though I shuddered at the amount of windows you claim to have painted....

Ah, these were nothing.  Try painting the gun barrels on some of the Firestorm Armada ships sometime and you'll really be needing some therapy for repetitive stress disorder.  

Gosh, that was quick work getting those painted up already - nice one!

Thought I was being kind of slow, actually.  I've had the game for a week now but I held off on assembly till I'd read it, digested the rules, and considered what you'd want in a fleet list.  Still, I bought them for ebay paint-and-sell shenanigans and I seem to be the first person on the planet to get a painted lot up.  So yay me, right?  

It's funny seeing your photos though; even having the sprues in-hand, I hadn't really registered how big the escort ships are.

Yeah, the game keeps reminding me of Battlefleet Gothic, but the size disparity between the small ships and the cruisers is much smaller in this game.  Which seems apropos since 3-4 combat frigates are a pretty even match for a cruiser in most cases, instead of the 5-6 that you usually needed to have a prayer in BFG.

Looking at them, I suppose the parts are also cross-compatible between the two kits as well; so you could put one of the big cruiser turret guns into the upper deck of an escort for example

I don't think that will work without some surgery.  The top fin/nacelle of the rear fin part on the frigates sits over the turret when assembled and I think the tolerance is a little to tight for the big cruiser turrets to fit.  Might be wrong though, I haven't tried a test fit.

You gave them Chris Foss-like paintjobs, which is obviously cool.

Now that's a compliment indeed.  I don't aspire to anything like Foss' amazing talents.

[Hobby Services]

Next batch done, this time a 4-ship battlegroup that could be either a Line or Pathfinder force.



For those of you not up on your UCM fleet identification skills, that's a pair of New Cairo-class light cruisers and a pair of Lima-class frigates.



The cruisers are fast, inexpensive combat ships armed with gigantic ship-killing spinal mount lasers, which are not only seriously dangerous in their own right but also leave their victims with one or two sensor spikes, making them easier for the rest of the fleet to target.



The frigates are lightly armed support ships with specialized sensor arrays that make the game's current masters of the Active Scan order, which again places sensor spikes on select targets or breaks down Silent Running orders.



Working together these ships play to one of the UCM's strengths, the ability to extend their fleet's effective range by upping the effective signature on key enemy targets.



UCM sensor ratings are universally mediocre-to-poor, but when you're lit up by Active Scans or having your hull heated red-hot by a giant laser strike even myopic targeting arrays can do the job fine.



Any fleet can use the Active Scan order to do this sort of thing, and most of them have some kind of weapon with the Flash trait, but the UCM currently have the best options in terms of cost and versatility.



As a balancing factor, once you have a Major Spike on your ship there's no longer any need to worry about things getting worse.  Might as well go Weapons Free and blaze away for as long as you can stay alive.  Which probably won't be long.

[Hobby Services]

Yet another Battlegroup finished, this time with four Toulon-class combat frigates and a single Rio-class cruiser.



These are pretty much the "generic" UCM ships, cheap, commonplace, and armed with lots and lots of turreted railguns.



Rather like these designs, especially the frigates which have a bit of a Starblazers feel to them for me.



Getting pretty comfortable with the detailing and general paint scheme here as I do more figures.



The first ones were a little daunting, but now I've got a feel for the overall aesthetic.



Looking forward to trying my hand at some of the other fleets.



They all have such very different looks to them it'll be quite a change doing, say, Scourge.

[The_Beast]

You know? It's been quite awhile since I invoked my list of 'painters of hated competence. '

Welcome amongst the despised. 

Doug

[Hobby Services]

Glad you liked them, I guess.   

Anyway, here's the last of the UCM for now, at least.



That's a Vanguard Battlegroup composed of a pair of Moscow-class heavy cruisers.



Massive railgun turrets, upgraded hull strength, bit slow though.



They've got all the subtlety of a brick to the face, and they're pretty much going to spend all the time they can on Weapons Free orders to allow all those guns to keep firing.



Definitely not a great choice if you expect to need to maneuver much, but if all your enemies have been reduced to scrap who needs maneuvering?



Also pretty good at contesting Critical Objectives, since they weigh in at twice the tonnage value of a standard cruiser for that purpose.



Just make sure you get them pointed toward whatever cluster you're after right at the start, because like I said they really don't want to have to waste time turning instead of shooting.

[Hobby Services]

And one more big lot, including a New York-class battleship (well, carrier, really), a Madrid-class bombardment cruiser, a Berlin-class spinal mount cruiser, a Seattle-class carrier, three Jakarta-class escort frigates, and another New Orleans-class dropship carrier.

[Dentatus]

I'm not a space ship gamer but those are all pretty awesome, dude. I like that color scheme a lot.

[Hobby Services]

Thanks.  After the equivalent to three starter boxes and a battleship worth of them, I've gotten pretty practiced at doing it.