Saturn Syndicate Ascendancy Fleet and Tarrainian Federation Army

[Aotrs Shipyards]

This month (at considerable effort, more on that later…) I have for you the re-release of the Saturn Syndicate Ascendancy Fleet and the Tarrainian Federation Army.

Both are human powers, relatively small and comparatively and (for once!) not in the Evil pile.

The tiny Tarrainian Federation is one of the few (maybe only) human powers that is capital-g Good, as oppose to merely being neutral of the goodish-side of neutral. The TarFeds are a sharp contrast to the nearest neighbours, our old friends the fabulous corrupt Herosine Empire, their long-term nemesis. As a small power, the vast majority of their vehicles and starships are off-the-market designs with some refitting. (Along with the fleet is the current only in-house starship design, the Cavalier Torpedo frigate. As it might as well come out with them as not.)

The Saturn Syndicate Ascendancy is larger and more mercantile. They, up until a few years ago, were the Saturn Syndicate Authority, a co-operative fundamentally formed from a number of early interstellar corporations. Unlike Herosines, the SSA were more the civilian side, hence their lag behind in military technology. They are also notable as one of the very few human powers to use Warp Drive instead of Hyperdrive, since they were the early adopters.

The SSA are arguably my favourite fleet. They are, in many ways, definitive of the Shipyards in a way the actual Aotrs even aren’t. The SSA are pretty directly inspired by Stewart Cowley’s Spacecraft 2000-2100AD, which is basically the entire reason any of this exists. (It is very definitely why all the scifi stuff comes with attended fluff.) Flip open Spacecraft, go to the first ship entry, and the merchant ship being blown up is the direct inspiration for the Nomad. SSA is very much an atomic-scifi flavoured fleet, down to the 1970s/80s inspired naming conventions and the old-school emphasis on the nuts-and-bolts. (A bridge on an SSA ship probably DOES look very much like something out of Star Trek TOS or Thunderbirds or something!) Even the name, SSA is a homage to Spacecraft’s TTA (the Terran Trade Authority)! I hope you enjoy them as much as I have.

Saturn Syndicate Ascendancy Fleet

As before, I won’t link every single SSA ship, but instead encourage you to grab the catalogue, which has all the links, though on Shapeways you can look under the SSA section, and on Only-Games, sort by newest or look for the SSA codes. The SSA have all been painstaking re-faceted to 32 facets and re-sprued up for their re-release.

HSB-124 Pegasus Heavy Bomber

MMF-101 Comet Interceptor

HSF-112 Breach Heavy Fighter

WDF-78T Siren Medium Fighter

CAW-109 Spoiler and CAW-109C Spoiler C Class Fighterdestroyers

HAM-117 Class Scarab Attack Cutter

MM-193 Chariot Class Frigate

WDN-109 Riposte Class Frigate

HAM-119 Spider Wasp Class Destroyer

CAW-107 Fusillade Class Destroyer

HAM-112 Enfilade Class Corvette

WDN-113 Strix Class Frigate

CAW-104 Arbalest Class Light Cruiser

HAM-123 Bulwark Class Escort Cruiser

HAM-124 Marlin Class Heavy Cruiser

HAM-106 Heimdallr Class Light Cruiser

WDN-114 Cataphract Class Dreadnought

HAC-124 Nomad Class Freighter

HAM-127 Charybis Battlecruiser

HAM-128 Corsair Battlecruiser

Tarrainian Federation Army

The TarFeds are, as noted, mostly using off-the-shelf available vehicles with some refits, so sci-fi-ed-up versions of the Wiesel 1, Chieftain and Leopard 2SG. They got done originally since I was starting to run short of time before a convention and thus lent themselves to a relatively quicker job. The Vampires and Neurons both started out as fold-flat cardboard models my Dad did during our Stargrunt II phase. (As those of you with long memories may recall from the Aotrs release with their version of the Vampire.) The infantry are all new, of course; and indeed, one of the reasons the ground forces have been held back for so long was simply that we didn’t have a good release option for them, since they can’t be done on my printers*. (At the time, Shapeways had a file size limit for upload that the infantry pretty much broke except in small numbers and when that was lifted, they were and are still very expensive.) Thankfully, we now have Only-Games!

*Or even my mate’s home resin printer, we’ve just been experimenting for some infantry from the Zirakthargûm Divinity…

Vampire (Tracked) Direct price: £3.50 Only-Games: £4.22 Link Shapeways: £8.03 Link

Vampire (Grav) Direct price: £3.10 Only-Games price: £6.50 (Resin) Link Shapeways price: $15.77 (£11.75) Link

Neuron Truck Direct price:£4.20 Only-Games: £7.76 Link Shapeways: £13.12 Link

Neuron Command Vehicle Direct price: £4.50 Only-Games: £8.40 Link Shapeways: £13.85 Link

Neuron MRLS Direct price: £6.10 Only-Games: £9.88 Link Shapeways: £18.25 Link

Leopard 2X8 MBT Direct price: £4.00 Only-Games: £5.23 Link Shapeways: £9.18 Link

Chieftain Mk T5D MBT Direct price: £4.20 Only-Games: £5.24 Link Shapeways: £9.36 Link

Wiesel 11 Direct price: £3.60 Only-Games: £3.80 Link Shapeways: £6.99 Link

Tarrainian Federation Infantry Only-Games: £4.57 Link Shapeways: £18.91 Link

Cavalier Class Light Torpedo Frigate Direct price: £2.10 Only-Games: £1.29 Link Shapeways: £4.05 Link

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Photos of VPN versions (SSA), Replicator 2 and Prusa versions (TarFeds).

So this was more of a chore than I would have liked. Only-Games now require you to have square images. Now, of course, I had been proactive and gotten all the render ready weeks ago, when that wasn’t mandatory. So I had to go through them all over again. The problem is compounded, of course, by the fact the vast majority of my models are longer than they are tall, so they don’t fit well in a square box. Cropping has not become, instead of an automated batch process, and iterative one, since there is now previous little leeway to get the models in at a decent size. So that has probably added the better part of two hours to the process, and… I did all next month’s renders ahead of time to, so I’ll have to do this all again NEXT time.

New the bad news. I have to report that it feels increasingly like there will have to be a price increase in April. Today, uploading everything on the same +12% of base cost I’ve been using, I was looking at a scant few pence if I believe the estimated profit section per model. I really don’t want to have to do that (just on workload alone, aside other concerns, it’s be a massive pain), but it looks increasingly like it’s going to have to happen. I have always worked on the basis of keeping the net cost of my models low, in the hopes of, well, not adhering to the Corporate Rip-Off standard. (Some might accuse me of going too far the other way.) But that only works if you are selling a steady number of products and, well, that just isn’t happening, to my disappointment, despite my best efforts. So in order that I can keep doing this at all, I’m going to have to be making SOME money on stuff. As I say, I won’t be doing anything until likely the end of March, but I just want to everyone to be aware ahead of time that it might (likely will) be happening.

Next month, I will be at (barring snow or COVID) Recon 2021, and that will see the re-release of the Phystyulon fleet, and the release of their ground forces, where I will also be handing out 15% discount flyers!

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