Aotrs Shipyards March 2024 Release: Royal Elven Army Wave Three

[Aotrs Shipyards]

Aotrs Shipyards March 2024 Release: Royal Elven Army Wave Three

So, first off, the Only-Games Store is back open. (If you missed the post on the staus of that, please read here.)I was quite frankly astonished at the support from Ko-Fi, which has reached enough to meet the subscriptions until July, which is more than I ever would have expected; so thank you from the bottom of my heart for all those that have supported me.

The most important thing is, of course, the Only-Games store is open. The side benefits of the subscription to TheShop3D+, it means bare minimum that the resin prints (that will fit) in the shiny clam-shell packaging with the custom back cover (which will be like the ones I take round the shows and such, photo posted at the end, along with the new custom version.) There’s also the options to bundle PDF files with the purchase (so I could conceivably include the same lore files that I do at MMF) and potentially 2D manufacturing for booklets and things, though I don’t currently see an obvious use for that right out of the gate.

I will periodically re-set the goal as we close to towards the end of the period, but really, we’ll just have to see how we go.

As an aside, I apologise to anyone who tried to donate anonymously; while it’s anonymous at Ko-Fi, Paypal, hopelessly, tells the creator (that is, me) the email of the donator anyway, which I didn’t realised until I’d thanked a couple of people directly. I looked into things to see if there was a way to actually do it, but it’s a bit of farce. Unless you have Paypal business, when you can apparently decide what to put on stuff, basically, you’d have to have an email without your name attached for it to actually anonymous. The other method of paying is Stripe, which looking at it, seemed to imply that would tell the creator *even more* details. So that’s all a bit silly really. Sorry about that, doesn’t seem a lot I can do on that front.

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So, on to today’s release. Today’s release is the third and (for the moment) final wave of the Royal Elven Kingdoms army.

The REK army has had to deal with a lot of mend-and-make-do as far as its armed forces go, as is apparent here – the Gladrusc Command Tank – a modification of the Gladrusc MBT – and Silmanordo APC hull, pushed into two different roles, AA vehicle and weapons carrier. (Not unlike the M113.)

Gladrusc Command Tank

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Physical Print
Only-Games £3.72
Shapeways $9.07

FDM £3.20

With a very limited resource budget, the Royal Elven Army has put Gladrusc hull to a variety of uses, none of them ideal. In order to cut down on the total number of vehicles in production, the civilian government pushed through the idea of replacing some scout units by placing a drone on the Gladrusc. This necessitated removing the point-defence lazer and smoke dischargers and instead replacing them with the mounting point for a Long Flight drone. Initially, it was conceived that each platoon of four would have one of these vehicles and three standard Gladruscs. The military – having wiser minds – fought the idea, as is substantially reduced the defences of the tank, even with the addition of mist emitters in lieu of the smoke dischargers.

In the end, a compromise was made, and the “recon” version of the Gladrusc was regulated to being a command vehicle, primarily for company commanders. This necessitated the addition of more equipment internally, but the removal of the lazer left more than sufficient mass, since the Long Flight was relatively light.

The Long Flight Recon Drone is a low-cost, unarmed reconnaissance platform. Weighing in at around 250kg, it is essentially little more than a power core and expanded sensor array attached to an antigrav drive and flight engines. The sensor software includes warhead targeting packages, which allow it to spot for other missile-equipped units. It has an operational range of 24 hours over 500 miles.

It is most commonly deployed on the command variant of the Gladrusc, or elf-deployed launchers carried by specialist reconnaissance infantry in an APC. In this latter case, due to the volume constraints of the APCs, the wings cannot be transported in situ and must be mounted before it can be launched. This increases the deployment time to around twenty minutes. Given that most of these specialist infantry are deployed as strategic, rather than tactical units who are primarily concerned with locating enemy armies, this is only a minor drawback.

Long Flights used by the Gladrusc command tanks are instead frequently only used at much shorter distances for battlefield support rather than long-range reconnaissance, principally as missile spotters.

The disposable nature of the Long Flight means that they have seen significant sensor upgrades over their long design life to keep their technology current.
The command version of the Gladrusc is moderately successful as a company command vehicle, but insufficient for a dedicated command vehicle for higher level, simply because it lacks the required space; the role is typically served instead by command versions of the Silmanordo or Aincaala.

Silmanordo Talco–Nertë AAA

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Physical Print
Only-Games £4.91
Shapeways $10.42

FDM £3.30

The Royal Elven Army’s limited resource budget over the last century has required it adapt to a policy of “making do.” The army has had to adapt existing designs to new functions. While this is often the case for armoured vehicles, for the REA, it has been a particularly acute problem.

It is not unusual in the history of armoured vehicles to see an APC transformed into a weapons carrier (and as evidenced by the Talco-Otso Silmanordo variant), but rather more rare for one to be converted into a primary anti-aircraft role.

Yet that is precisely what the Silmanordo Talco-Nertë Anti-Aircraft Artillery (lit. “silver oak mark nine”) vehicle is. Fundamentally, the Talco-Nertë is a Silmanordo hull with a new turret slapped on top. Without the ability to design a dedicated hull to house all the required electronics, the Talco-Nertë had to place the majority of its functions in the automated turret and what little space and mass was left over in the relatively small Silmanordo hull. The result was a somewhat ungainly-looking vehicle that performs notable much worse when it is require to fly, being not at all stream-lined and rather top heavy.

However, when functioning as ground vehicle, the Talco-Nertë at least performs its function adequately.

The turret is at least slightly better armoured than the hull, rating at Tier 16 verses energy weapons, and a Tier above the hull against kinetic weapons at Tier 12.

The weapons load-out is the vehicle’s strongest feature. The Talco-Nertë’s primary weapons are the four rotary railguns, a rare direct-fire weapon system that is not energy based. In concert, these weapons can reach a combined rating of Tier 19, and it has sufficient ammunition for extended fire missions.

The railguns are backed up by two rail-mounted Stormlight missiles; with a warhead rated to Tier 21, the Stormlights are a threat to main battle tanks.

However, the efficacy of these weapons is somewhat muted by the sensor array, which is only updated from the base Silmanordo’s by the addition of the AA tracking systems. This leaves the sensor suite quite basis, and incapable of performing any other useful actions such as transmitting firing locks.

Due to the relatively low combat usage, the Talco-Nertë has not suffered extensively due to its shortcomings, but as the galactic situation continues to deteriorate, it is a race against time for the REA to replace or upgrade these aging vehicles before they become more liability than asset.

 

Silmanordo Talco-Otso Weapons Carrier

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Physical Print
Only-Games £5.17
Shapeways $10.32

FDM £3.60

The Silmanordo Talco-Otso Weapons Carrier (lit. “silver oak mark seven”) was initially only conceived as a stop-gap measure to provide infantry units with more fire support. However, the civilian oversight committee once again interceded, and the Talco-Otso was pushed into wider use than originally intended.

The Talco-Otso now provides the Royal Elven Army as its primary missile vehicle. It still performs this task quite well, considering the age of its systems.

The Talco-Otso carries four Starfall missile Pods, each contain four Starfall missiles. The Starfall is a lock-and-launch missile, rated to Tier 19. At the time of its inception, this was enough to be a threat to main battle tanks – hence why it was promoted from infantry support – but the advancement of the past century has reduced that effectiveness somewhat. Nevertheless, it is still enough firepower it cannot be ignored. However, once the Talco-Orto has emptied its pods, it has no other back-up weapons.

The turret, when fixed forward in flight mode, has a small enough profile it doesn’t not significantly impede the vehicle in flight mode, though it does have a measurable decrease in speed and agility over a standard Silmanordo.

The turret has slightly improved armour over the hull and an incremental improvement to ECM systems, but otherwise is little better protected than its parent unit – and only when one considers passive defence, as it has no active point-defence weapons at all. The Talco-Orto does not have standard smoke dischargers, but instead two mist emitters were mounted to the hull to provide point-protection. This was considered sufficient as the Talco-Orto was not intended to get too close to the enemy.

It is quite remarkable, then, that with this determination, the sensor package of the Talco-Orto remains almost identical to the standard Silmanordo, meaning that it requires stopping for indirect fire from other units.

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Only-Games Store Status
Current Ko-fi Total: £110 => Only-Games Subscription costs met until 19th July 2024.
Ko-fi link.

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Photos of Replicator 2 versions.

There is likely to be a pause on the sci-fi releases, though not a long one; my intention is to have the Grand Terran Sovereign Republic fleet on the table at Partizan on the 19th of May and work is progressing on that currently. (Strictly, I have enough to do a month’s release or two if I stretch it out, but I’d prefer a few more models yet.) This also has to be fitted around commissions, and of course, the work on Bleakbane’s Galaxy Guide, the lore book, which is also getting perilously close to a first edition state. (I don’t say “complete,” since as a living document, it never going to be “complete…”)

In the meantime, co-incident with today’s release, there is new entry on the Bleakbane’s Galaxy Guide SpaceBattles thread here.

This is a relatively short one, covering dimensions, planes and cosmologies, something I realised I needed to write to aid the understanding of the Saiyvalyss Alliance Quick Look. (Which it itself written bar the final checks, and will be hopefully up there in the next week or so.)

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Leopard 2A4 in the bubble pack from… whenever I got that done.

New backing card from as of from today.

• This topic was modified 1 month ago by Aotrs Shipyards.
• This topic was modified 2 weeks, 2 days ago by Editor.

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