Firestorm Armada Terquai unboxings

It was inevitable that those accursed traitors, the Terquai, would wash into Oscar's painting queue at some point, and that time has come. Actually, he's had the Dread for a while, and the Patrol Fleet and cruiser box have just joined that - time to look at the all together! Let's start with the Patrol Fleet and go from there....

As usual Spartan do a nice job of their boxes, with lovely full colour photography of the studio models on the front, and breakdowns of the box on the back as normal.

Inside you get the resin, bases, TACs and token sheets as you'd expect...of course we're primarily interested in the models.

These come in two bubble-wrap bags and one zip-lock bag...

...which open up to quite a lot of stuff! Starting from the small end this time, you get four frigates, which are chubby chunkers!

Comparing to a standard Aquan Chimaera, you can see its a little longer, but MUCH fatter...who ate all the pies??

Despite its weight issues (!), these one-piece models are really nicely done, and I just adore the Terquai propulsion golf balls - they remind me of the Liberator from Blakes 7 (if you don't know that ship, you're no sci-fi fan!!!)

Next up are the three cruisers, which can all be built as either assault or torpedo versions. This is neatly achieved by both top and side drop ons (plus a common underside drop-on). I like the addition of all parts so you have complete freedom here - it's a really nice touch from SG.

The cruiser obviously slims out if it grows up from a Frigate, being a little shorter than an Isonade, but lacking its needle-sharp anorexia. The drop-ons themselves are very clever;

 

These two top drop-ons give the ship a different profile and look.

As do the two side drop-ons. Combined they do produce two very different cruisers from the same hull, which can't be said for all the "modular" designs (yes, I'm looking at you, Huntsman!)

The underside piece and flight peg holder is common to both versions, but this doesn't detract from the designs at all

I won't cover the separate cruiser box, suffice to say you get an exact duplication of the Cruiser elements from the Patrol Fleet in a nice box;

Finally for the patrol fleet, you get the Alkonost. This is a three part model (four if you count the underside drop on, which is the same as the cruiser piece), which actually isn't really longer than the cruisers, but it is bulkier and has the two ski side-pods.

The hull has really nice flowing lines to it, and looks like a blend of human and Aquan tech

The side "ski" pods are handed (and have convenient L & R stamped into them).

But again, my favourite part of this models is its engines

Now the Alkonost is an Assault carrier, which means it has SRS tokens. The Terquai have some of the nicest yet;

So moving onto the dreadnought...

 Another gorgeous shot, and we're into the box contents...

This is a bit of a monster! It has a great aesthetic, which times in nicely with the other ships and the prior v1/1.5 Terquai cruisers too.

The hull has great detail and is not as elegant as the Alkonost, but does convey a sense of sturdiness.

The two side pods are the size of a ship each, and have phenomenal detail considering they're both single pieces.

here you can see detail of the surfaces , especially the various guns, and also see how little casting flash they have. One of my side pods has a small bubble in the front, but nothing that either a spot of Green Stuff or painting as light battle damage won't fix!

Both side pods and hull have the same golf-ball aesthetic drive systems, which gives the terquai a very distinct look.

Overall these Terquai releases continue the trend we've seen from SG in the Firestorm Releases - great designs, clever moulding, quality casting and good value. The only thing I don't like about them is that they're on the wrong side!

Veydreth Unboxing

Well this is long overdue, but with work, moving, putting together the Podcast and general gaming, I have neglected these somewhat. I'll try to address this over the next couple of weeks.

So the first of these will be the Veydreth, and we'll start with the Patrol fleet

No surprises here - the usual sleeved box with full colour photography plus schematics and fluff

Inside we get the usual Spartan bubble bags protecting the resin, counters, bases and TACs

The most obvious ship in the box is, perhaps unsurprisingly, the Predator battleship - mostly because the thing is mammoth! It's a huge slab of resin that could almost be used as a physical weapon to beat someone with! That doesn't stop it from carrying the usual level of detail that Spartan consistently put into their models.

The model does require some minimal assembly as the engines are separate pieces, plus it requires the flight stand peg adaptor fitting into the base.

The other capital ships in the Patrol fleet box are a bit of a break from the norm, but similar to the Ba'kash box, in that they are the Destroyers. These are probably the biggest departure from their first metal iterations, and have a much larger, beefed up but also slightly generic look to them - they could easily be Terran ships. Now, fluff-wise, the Veydreth have been getting tech from Hawker Industries for a while, but I'd still have preferred to see something a little different here.

Last in the box are the Corvettes, which are both really nice stat-wise, and really nice models - being sufficiently unique and interesting to really set them apart. The downside is that they sort of highlight the blandness of the Destroyers somewhat.

Next up is the Cruiser box

As always, we have the overhead view, fluff and contents on the reverse of the glossy sleeve

Whilst not as full as the Patrol Fleet box, the one thing that stands out when you open the box here are the number of components you are getting!

The cruisers each have 9 parts - a central hull, flight peg adaptor, nose, three engine and three "spikes". Four of these pieces per cruiser have alternatives - the three engine and nose pieces. This allows you to build both regular and assault versions of the ships.

Here's the common hull section, showing the detail and triangular cross-section geometry.

The last of the Veydreth boxes today are the Gunships

Each ship has almost as many components as the cruisers - eight in all this time, but there are no options and the hull section is dominant - the add-ons being very much just that.

The hull is a great casting, complex and detailed but still holding a general design feel very similar to that of the original hybrid resin and metal castings (which looked like one of these after a starvation diet!)

While I said there was no option in the gunships, as the engine drop-ons are hexagonal in outline you can actually put these on in different orientations, which gives a nod back to the V1 designs where the engines could be put in different positions as though they were vectoring in flight.

Overall the Veydreth releases are really good - in particular the Battleship and Cruisers stand out, and the little Corvettes are gorgeous. They are a brutal force to face, and they look appropriately imposing when on the table.