• Registered: 2021-03-01
  • Posts: 17

Topic: Painting Fighter Craft

Hey I was finishing up my (very long overdue) UNSC fleet while waiting for my Yomi prints to finish up and realized I need to order more fighter craft. This led me to wondering what most players do to differentiate their different squadrons. So just a quick question to see what is more popular:

Painting all fighters in the fleet the same way and using tokens to mark the ship, type/mod
Painting a single style/scheme per type of fighter and using tokens to mark their ship
Painting a different scheme for each wing and using tokens like they’re all the same
Painting a single scheme per ship and using tokens to mark their type.

The UNSC fleet has two different models for fighter craft while the Yomi has only one. I’m thinking about using different schemes (and quantities) to differentiate the fighter types and then using a marker to signify their carrier. But wanted to check what is the most common means of handling it.

2 Reply by Go0gleplex (edited by Go0gleplex 2023-03-27 17:02:35)

  • Registered: 2022-11-15
  • Posts: 1,284

Re: Painting Fighter Craft

I typically paint mine the same way and number the bases...if the same fighter type.

If differing fighter types, I'll use the same color palette, but the markings would be different. What you're proposing sounds totally reasonable IMO.

ed: Looking back at my Yomi files, I did originally have a missile fighter. I just never updated the design with the newer general fighter. 'spose I should do that soon. (wry chuckle)  Any other fighter types I should consider while I'm at it? lol

  • From: Denver, CO
  • Registered: 2005-03-27
  • Posts: 3,575

Re: Painting Fighter Craft

Curious-- do you feel it necessary to differentiate which fighter came from which carrier? Or do you assume fighters can land on whatever carrier has space for them?

Daniel Kast
Majestic Twelve Games
cricket@mj12games.com

mj12games's Website

4 Reply by DracRTC (edited by DracRTC 2023-03-28 14:56:56)

  • Registered: 2021-03-01
  • Posts: 17

Re: Painting Fighter Craft

As far as I can recall, it isn’t actually required for any of the games I’ve played before, but it’s been a fairly common houserule in some groups I played with so it became a bit of a habit. An additional advantage I’ve found is when I’m playing games with two or more carriers with  varied fighter load outs as I don’t need to track which types of fighters a particular carrier has already launched. I like to be able to be able to use my ships in multiple game systems (even if I rarely actually play) and some systems you may not be able to launch all wings at the same time. So if both my fleet and escort carrier have mixed bomber and interceptor wings and launch different craft types I can just look to the side to see which one still has bombers in reserve.

  • Registered: 2021-03-01
  • Posts: 17

Re: Painting Fighter Craft

Go0gleplex wrote:

I typically paint mine the same way and number the bases...if the same fighter type.

If differing fighter types, I'll use the same color palette, but the markings would be different. What you're proposing sounds totally reasonable IMO.

ed: Looking back at my Yomi files, I did originally have a missile fighter. I just never updated the design with the newer general fighter. 'spose I should do that soon. (wry chuckle)  Any other fighter types I should consider while I'm at it? lol

Generally, so long as a fleet has one lighter and one heavier fighter type I can make it work with no fuss, but even if they only have a single type it is rarely an issue to be honest. However for aesthetics only it tends to look best if the fleet has fighters in two sizes. If the fleet has dozens of fighter craft I may go crazy trying to fit them all into my fleet list but that’s just my inner completionist at work…