Poseidon class battleship

Stock Poseidon

Continuing my Jovian Wars series, here is now my article on the Poseidon class battleship.  I don't think I had planned to modify it much at first. From the start, I wanted to add 2 hangars on the front and fuel pods on the aft section.







Then I though the large exterior fuel tanks would be vulnerable, So I imagined that I could install some kind of armour shroud around them. That structure simply grew. The exterior spars made of segmented folded styrene extends almost to the engine section.In my mind I suppose it most contain armored fuel pipes that lead to the engines. I'm no engineer, but I do have a technical view of things. So I belive look comes from function. Nothing without a more or less obvious purpose should be on anything.

Since I put magnets on almost all the turrets, I was struggling with the placement of the 4 forward kinetic cannons. I made lateral  buttresses to change the orientation of the turrets. Not sure if that made it easier, but it did change the overall look. I have some Green stuff Yellow stuff (Tamiya epoxy by the way) work left to do on there. I take all my time. Going to spend more months in isolation, so I can take time to make the fleet as nice as possible.

The other change was the location of the main hangars. They normally affix themselves to the bottom forward hull. The normal position for any extra launch bays is on the twin hardpoints on the upper hull. I chose to instead put then on the lateral centerline. It was a bit tedious, but I do like the look it gives.

Overall, I found that those 3 mods really changed the top-down silhouette of the ship, giving it more "laterality".

Also visible in this here picture, one of the main beam weapon turrets. The two turrets normally go on the extremities of the centrifuge section. My other beam turret is on the bottom aft section.

I surmise that those centrifuge sections stop spinning during combat. Since the ship now have a broad lateral look, I prefered  the centrifuge to be positioned horizontal during combat.That meant putting the turrets directly on the hull. It does make the battleship look more"battleshippy".

Very small change visible here are also the extra containers.  I could not get a good front view image with focus on the 4 bay doors without shadows. I should learn to make better pictures.

I will most certainly post on the finishing touches and the painting of that juggernaut...

Valiant Strike cruiser

I haven't posted in a while here.

This time, it`s a converted Valiant class strike cruiser from the space combat game Jovian Wars from Dream Pod 9. This re-imagined, upscaled game from their classic version is currently in beta testing.

This game is begging for conversions I find. The spaceships are modular in nature both in the fluff and the game system. The inline ships indeed can be added whole modules and tack-on pods to the many hardpoints on the hull itself and around the centrifuge sections the majority of the vessels possess. Also the classic Miniature rule books and the Jovian chronicle RPG reference show ships of the same class having lots of difference.

Converted Valiant

I wish I had kept pictures pre-paint. The stock picture from dp9`s site  below can show the differences.

Closeup of Comms module and hangars.

My Conversion is based around a standard cargo module. Three of  the cargo containers became new hangars and the rest of the cylinder became a sensor array counting
the whole as a Comms module. Those are covered in the rules but have no model yet. This was impossible for me to resist making one. Beside the usual green stuff and Evergreen polystyrene , included is a single sensor pod and 2 fuel pods.

Cargo module

Stock

Up next, I believe I'l start a post on my Poseidon battleship. This one is a work in progress and pictures will clearly show modification.

I also want to build a space station for which no official models exist yet. This is going to be fun.