Playtest Fleet: Kharadorn Royal Navy (v.0.5.1)

Kharadorn Main Body

The pictured fleet is the third of Xtreme Hobby’s Cold Navy fleets, the Kharadorn Royal Navy. (Click to enlarge.)

Unlike the other playtest fleets I’ve presented thus far, the Kharadorn have been divided into two pictures. The “main body” above, which consists of the ships that match, and “raiders” (which I’ll talk about later).

The big one in the middle is a Rerroarak battle carrier. The medium-sized ones in the back are Nargaro light cruisers, and the little guys on the right are Gerrakk frigates.

Karria Raiders

These guys are officially Karria “destroyers”. If there was any question that this fleet was inspired by the Klingons, this class removes all doubt. And, like the Klingon progression from D5 to D7 to the Bird of Prey, these models don’t look they came out of the same design shop. (The paint scheme hides it pretty well in action, but I got lucky.)

Like the other Cold Navy fleets, the Kharadorn had casting issues. They were not as pronounced, but they made assembling the Karria difficult. None of the stabilizers on the back of the ship fit right, and required too much putty to correct. (The stabilizers were too thin to safely drill for pinning.)

A final problem unique to the Kharadorn is that none of the ships in the “main body” swoosh right. While the fleet looks great together, the individual ships look wrong by themselves. There’s a tendency for new players to try to face them backwards — at least, until they see the entire fleet arrayed.

Gerraks with their engines reversed

Unlike the other posted Cold Navy fleets, the first picture contains some Ravenstar resin models (all the Gerrakks). My original Gerrakks were assembled wrong, hence the picture above. The example on the left was assembled backwards to make it swoosh better. Unfortunately, it and my other metal ones look totally out of place in a fleet shot, especially after they’ve been painted.

(On my “to do” list is trying to pull the engines off the metal models and re-assemble them correctly.)

The Kharadorn were problematic during the earlier stages of the playtest, primarily because I chose to call the chin-mounted armament missiles. For the 0.5 playtest, those weapons are now spines, and the Kharadorn use the Split Blind Spot fire template:

Class        Type      Cost Hull Shd PD Arm Thr Over 
-----        ----      ---- ---- --- -- --- --- ---- 
Gerrakk      Escort    55   1    2   2  7   10  15 
             Weapon    Grd Str Range Arcs 
             ------    --- --- ----- ---- 
             Lasers    E   2   12    L/F/R 
             Lasers    E   2   12    L/A/R

Class        Type      Cost Hull Shd PD Arm Thr Over 
-----        ----      ---- ---- --- -- --- --- ---- 
Karria       Destroyer 225  6    2   1  7   5   8 
             Weapon    Grd Str Range Arcs 
             ------    --- --- ----- ---- 
             Spine     D   4   12    S 
             Laser     D   2   12    L/F/R
             Laser     D   2   12    F/L/A
             Laser     D   2   12    F/R/A
             Laser     D   2   12    L/A/R

Class        Type      Cost Hull Shd PD Arm Thr Over 
-----        ----      ---- ---- --- -- --- --- ---- 
Nargaro      Destroyer 304  8    2   1  7   4   6 
             Weapon    Grd Str Range Arcs 
             ------    --- --- ----- ---- 
             Spine     D   4   12    S
             Lasers    D   5   12    L/F/R
             Lasers    D   3   12    L/A/R
             Fighters  -   8   -     -

Class        Type      Cost Hull Shd PD Arm Thr Over 
-----        ----      ---- ---- --- -- --- --- ---- 
Rerroarak    Cruiser   676  18   2   1  7   2   4 
             Weapon    Grd Str Range Arcs 
             ------    --- --- ----- ---- 
             Spine     C   8   18    S
             Lasers    C   6   18    L/F/R
             Lasers    C   3   18    L/A/R
             Fighters  -   20  -     -