Warship Build Special — Clanner Fleet

This post includes instructions for the Broadsword and the Carrier dropships.

And now we get to the final part of this Holiday special series. It was really fun to make and I am contemplating making fleets for other Battletech factions in the same way. Space fleets in this setting are weirdly small, so this format is perfect for this (the sizes of these navies doesn’t really make sense in the context of the setting, which is why I tend to assume them to be around 5 times larger for Blake’s War).

With this said, let’s meet the Clanner fleet.

The main Clans in this AU are the Nova Cats, arguably the protagonists of the story, and the Ghost Bears. This sample is more characteristic of the former, as the Bears have their own way of fighting space battles. Additionally, I tried to use the generic Clanner formation of five ships plus escort fighters.

Thus, this fleet works differently compared to the others. It is more mobile, centered on a massive ship that works almost like a fortress, a linchpin for the others. It also wants to get close and personal, blowing other fleets into oblivion with large-bore weapons.

The six fighter squadrons are meant to both scatter across the map to control critical locations, but also to ambush larger ships and strike them from the back, where they can do more damage. Weak as they may be, they can hurt the other player if they are not careful.

There are also three dropships. The Broadsword is a basic Clanner transport. During the war against the Word of Blake these were commonly used to ferry combat units around, especially ‘Mechs. In space combat their use is rather limited, so this single Broadsword exists more to provide fire support to the fighters with its secondary weapons and also to attempt to take over some damaged vessels with its Boarding Pods.

In addition to the Broadsword there are two Carrier dropships. These work as light aerospace fighter carriers, each one boasting a Hangar Bay system. While the normal fighter squadrons are comprised of long-range machines like the Visigoth, each Carrier transports a squadron of smaller machines like the Chaeronea. This conjunction turned out to be quite effective against the massed formations of the Blakist militias, descending to the surface of planets to provide fire support in ground battles, but also flying into space to escort warships and transport convoys.

Large numbers of Carriers and the small fighters they carry were used in the war, proving to be a decisive weapon time and again.

There is a single escort-type ship, a Fredasa corvette. This ship is highly mobile, being both a scout and a fast attacker to defend and support the capital warship. It equips a Giga Cannon in the front, a Stealth Rig, and a Nuclear Engine. This ship is fast, hard to hit, and can punch holes in ships many times its size. Such ships were widely used by most Clans, and with good reason.

Then, there’s the main vessel, the mighty Aegis. Such ships represent an old design, that goes back many centuries. However, they were constantly updated, and the Clanner version of the class is a respected warship boasting superlative firepower. These were the mainstays of the Nova Cat navy, the same also being true for several other Clans. Due to the ground-focused nature of this era and Clan doctrine in particular, the development of new warships wasn’t seen as a priority.

Nevertheless, the Clanner Aegis is still terrifying. The front equips a Missile Cluster to deal with smaller ships, and each broadside sports a Giga Cannon array. Additionally, there’s a Hangar Bay in the back to deal with pursuing fighters, a Precision Rig to improve accuracy, and a Repair Bay to aid the smaller ships with emergency repairs. All in all, it is the core of the fleet.

And with this, I have completed three fleets for the three main factions of Blake’s War.

This was a really fun experiment. I would like to know your opinions. Do you want to see more stuff like this? Combining the models I’ve made thus far into cohesive forces one can have fun with is really neat. And I can always add more models while at it.

For now, this is what I had for you for the Holidays. I really hope your year ended awesomely and the new one started with fun and love.

Next week we’ll return to the normal programming for the Warship Wednesdays. I bet you cannot guess which ship it will be!