Battlefleet Gothic – Chaos Fleet Pt 3

With the miniatures set and mostly here, it is time to assemble my Chaos Fleet.

I got myself a drill and created inserts on those models, who didn't have any right away from the stl. If you're familiar with some editing programs like mesh mixer for example, you could modify your stls in a way, that they come with this right from the start. I intend to glue the flight bases to the models. If you use metal miniatures or heavier resin kits, using magnets might be an option. From my research there are multiple views on that topic, some players replace the plastic rods from their flight stands completely with brass rods.

The only models requiring assembly beyond putting them on a base, were the Grand Cruiser and Battle Barge. With the Battle Barge I had weapon bay options, I could have magnetized, but I don't go that deep into WYSIWYG on this scale / system.

I mixed the weapon battery slots with a second design for more variation. The greatest question, where to place the launch bays? Front, Middle or Back. I did a instagram vote on that (@chaosbunker), and was reassured that placing the launch bays in the back would look best.

Obviously, if your printer is big enough, you could combine the stls right in the slicer and have a large single file, with less gaps etc. In this picture I wanted to give you an idea of the size differences between the Battle Barge, a Cruiser and one of the Escorts. Most of my fleet is printed from designs by ItalianMoose, including the Raiders and Destroyers. Just the Infidel Class Raiders came from MkHandIndustries, who has quite the amount of vehicles in epic and regular scale, but covers the Chaos Raiding ships as well.

While planning the print, I mixed up the heavy cruisers and regular cruisers, so I ended up with

• 1x Heavy Cruiser Styx (Bays)
• 2x Heavy Cruiser Acheron (Big Guns) (one of which was a minor misprint, so I'll convert it)
• 2x Cruiser Murder (Small Weapons, Twin Barrel) (and a second minor misprint which I will convert into a  possessed vessel)
• 1x Cruiser Carnage (Small Weapons, Single Barrel)
• 1x Cruiser Slaughter (1 Big Gun, 2 Small Weapons)

To play the third heavy cruiser, I would need another two regular cruisers and I think I'll choose Devastation and Inferno classes, which are currently on the printer as we speak, but will be moved toward the Dark Mechanicum sub section of my fleet.

I went with the regular Citadel Flight bases, but I would love to get my hands on some base toppers / name shields like these. Along with the stunning paint job that Dorns Arrow added to his Sons of Horus fleet. Versatile Terrain, who offer these name plates, charge 3 to 5,50 GBP per Base, along with not offering IOSS would add up to more than 80 EUR, which is not a reasonable amount to pay for name plates from my point of view. So I'm looking for an STL alternative that I can print myself.

As far as the weather and time slots allow me to, I'll grab a rattle can and try my best for the first coats of paint on these. Thematically I want to have a combined fleet, which is supported by the Dark Mechanicum, so I want to use some models from that range in this list (just models, not a mixed rules fleet). I have a Grand Cruiser, that I like to convert to match that idea and will probably go for Mechanicum Cruisers to cover the Devastation and Inferno Class ships (and used the Dictator and Lunar class by ItalianMoose).

I have to see what kind of tokens I need, as they are proper attack craft stls with fitting designs available. As well as some amazing transporters and mission objectives by the Hobby Butterflies.

A proper centre piece for this project would be the Planet Killer (and fortunately there are substitutes for that as well), but that has time until I progressed further and made my first few games.