18 April 2015

Royal Salamander Navy (RSN) & Marine Corps (RSMC)

I'm (re-)reading (and enjoying!) the Honor Harrington (HH) books and, of course, toying with a "not-" version of its various military forces...

The Star Kingdom of Salamander is thus your quintessencial "Brits-in-Space" space nation... Relatively small but controling an important space nexus, its strategic value is backed by a powerful navy (and an extensive merchant marine) which traditions go back all the way to the 16th century (British) Royal (Wet) Navy!

A quick sketch of a RSN roundel...
So here is what I'm thinking:
  • RSN ships: I'm not too found of the sheer size (and manning requirements) of the canon HH ships; and frankly, while I laud the author for actually coming up with a (relatively) coherent "form follows function" design philosophy, giant flying dildos aren't quite what I'd like to lead into battle; Brigade Models British have a nice sensible look to them... 
Brigade Model British Swiftsure-class Strike Cruiser. Picture from Brigade Models Webstite.
  • RSMC infantry:
    • Power Armour (PA): the original idea was to make an RSMC "Imperial Strike Force" for Alien Squad Leader, and thus a PA only force; GZG both Neu Swabian League (NSL) and New Anglian Confederation (NAC) new sculpts PA look great; can't really decide from the pictures on the side which would match my idea of the RSMC better...
    • "Light" infantry: either GZG NI (they look a bit like HH RMMC skin suits to me) or GZG NAC marines (including some with berets) for "shirtsleeves" low intensity operations; of course I don't need anything not PA for an "Imperial Strike Force"!
And a low-vis variant...
  • RSN pinaces/cutters/drophips/shuttles: the HH pinace have a very aerodynamic "20th Century airplane" to them, and I think I'd like to keep that look...
    • I like the ClearHorizon Miniatures SX-18 Aurora Stealth VTOL aestetic the most but it's supposed to be a small special operations vector only carrying a handfull troopers, not 3 stands worth of PA like a proper ASL dropship
    • ClearHorizon Miniatures X-14A Raven and its bigger brother the Condor look more up to the job but their tilting engines makes them a bit too "space-helo" rather than "space-plane" (not a negative opinion on the models, just not quite what I'm looking for for this particular project)...
    • Old Crow Models had a couple of nice, 6mm, dropships, the armoured one might pass for a 15mm light dropship but like the Aurora it's probably a bit too small for a dozen PA...
  • Other RSMC and/or Army vehicles: HH RMMC isn't described using anything but their parent ships small crafts and the army remains in the background of the books, so I'd like to stick to Royal Marines and keep them a strickltly spaceborne infantry/PA force; so no tanks...
    • The only think I'd consider adding to my RSMC arsenal (possibly instead of the pinaces I can't quite find) are ClearHorizon Miniatures droppods... But then again, ASL does'nt really have rules for them either... 
Picture from Dwartist's Painting Blog...

1 comment:

  1. Fun Fact:
    - HH "Republic of Haven" is translated into French by "Rรฉpublique de Havre"
    - Le Havre is a French city which coat of arms main charge is... A Salamander!

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