Brave Defenders of Humanity

Rear Admiral Augustine Terrell, head of SECCOM for all UNSC forces in his AO, is responsible for the defense of the remaining worlds of his sector.

Rear Admiral of the UNSC Navy and commander of the Fourth Sector

UNSC forces in the sector fit into two categories: the organic defense groups assigned to individual systems and regions, and expeditionary units assigned to the sector from the UNSC's main forces. Defense ships are easily recognized by the green markings on their hulls, where as expeditionary ships lack these. In addition, the United Nations Colonial Star Guard (UNCSG) maintains numerous smaller vessels and stations in the region, in addition to several frigates and patrol craft to assist the Navy.
The fleet is mostly concentrated around strategic assets and systems, like New Constantinople, Port Zanzibar, and along the Draco Spur. Systems closest to what is considered "Covenant space," former human systems gradually lost over the war, host small squadrons of ships for defense. Many systems can also boast defense stations and numerous planet-based fighter and bomber squadrons for organic defense.
Most of the fleet is of lighter tonnage, with the Paris-class heavy frigate being by far the most common class. The Paris, as the most-powerful of the frigate classes, is employed almost exclusively to leverage against the small numbers of larger vessels available.

UNSC heavy frigates in "Fleet Grey" are a common sight in the region, often in lieu of larger vessels

Destroyers also appear in some numbers, typically around important task forces and locations.

Cruiser hulls are exclusively Marathons, with all lighter cruisers lost to the Covenant in the dark, early years of the war and not replaced. These are the flagships and backbones of the sector's task groups.

The heavy-hitters of the UNSC Navy, Marathons are the Navy's best defense against high-tonnage Covenant vessels that appear in the Sector

Two carriers are currently directly assigned to SECCOM, an Epoch-class heavy carrier and a Cyclops-class light carrier, a rare subclass of the Marathon cruiser hull. Both of these ships, and their escorts, function as fire-brigades of sorts, responding to the most dire threats against the Sector.

The only heavy carrier in the region, she is also the largest ship Reach is currently willing to assign to the area

Sacrificing much of her missile throw-weight and cargo space, the Cyclops sub-class boasts greatly increased hangar capacity and more robust communications and flight control

One of the first deployments of the UNSC's energy field technology, greatly furthered by captured Covenant material. This vessel has energy fields as opposed to bay doors for her fighter recovery decks. An armored bay door still protects the launch tube at fore due to lingering fears of gaussing from the nearby MACs

Additional forces beyond the Navy defend Fourth Sector's space, ranging from special forces to second-line status.

Unbeknownst to the UNSC proper, ONI maintains several highly modified frigates for missions beyond the capabilities of the Prowler Corps

Though currently assisting in the survey of the artifact-rich Zeta Prime system, there is little doubt the CINCONI would deploy these frigates if it served ONI's purposes; even if it meant operating in the open with UNSC forces

As mentioned, the United Nations Colonial Star Guard (UNCSG) is also present in defense of the region. The organization is a holdover of the CMA absorbed by the UNSC during the Insurrection, and is notable for having a dedicated law-enforcement mandate as well as military capability. Several patrol groups of frigates, assigned to the area since before the war began, are engaged in escorting convoys to frontline systems, standing vigil over important orbital and deep space installations, managing Insurrection flare-ups, and protecting against Covenant raiders. This in addition to assisting UEG authorities with refugee management, customs duties, and disaster relief.

Hard to mistake with Navy vessels, UNCSG frigates used to running-down smugglers and Insurrectionists now dodge plasma fire while assisting the UNSC Navy. They are the heaviest assets available to the organization

Of note, FLEETCOM on Reach has begun to view the large facilities available on Port Zanzibar favorably as a base for long-range raiding fleets, the kind typically centered around Orion-class carriers and their support groups. These are unlikely to be on-hand for sector fleet operations, but could still represent powerful reinforcements if the high command decides to proceed...

On a real-world note, very sad news today in that Spartan Games, the producer of my favorite Halo-themed starship combat game, as well as Dystopian Wars and Firestorm Armada, has closed down today very suddenly. Prayers to the owner of the company, who is not in good health according to the Facebook community. Hopefully, another company picks up where Spartan leaves off...

From the secret files of CINCONI...

 Paris N-class Frigate
    Also known as the Paris Zero and the Noir-class among ONI personnel, all designations refer to SinoViet heavy frigates modified for service with the Office of Naval Intelligence's Alpha Zero unit, part of Section One. One of several naval units at ONI's disposal, Alpha Zero division handles direct military operations outside the purview of the Prowler Corps and when inappropriate to involve UNSC naval elements. The unit operates at the sole discretion of the CINCONI.

     Of all the UNSC's light warships, the Paris-class was selected for it's marriage of heavy armament to a manueverable and speedy hull. Taking delivery of basic hulls directly from SinoViet, ONI engineers replace the standard fusion drives with larger, higher-quality versions to produce roughly 20% more total thrust compared to the baseline Paris. Most hulls are believed to come from the array of shipyard facilities over Reach, though rumors abound that frigate hulls from New Constantinople in Sector 4 are quietly appropriated as well. A weakness of the new engines is that they do not well tolerate the stresses of hard-burn maneuvers, to say nothing of the sensitive electronic components aboard, and as such ship AIs are directed to permit no more than 2/3 the standard hard-burn thrust. The fuel bunker has been reinforced and expanded at the expense of the ship's ventral cargo elevator for improved operational duration, a sacrifice easy to make as Paris Noirs are not intended to deploy ground forces.



     Paris N frigates also boast greatly upgraded communications, sensory, and EW suites compared to standard, allowing each ship to serve in intelligence-gathering and reconnaissance roles. The hulls proved poorly-adapted to the stealth coatings used on the Prowlers, with a cross-section and more flat surfaces than any stealth-coating could mitigate. Externally, aside from a slightly more streamlined appearance and the larger engines, there is little to distinguish a Paris N from a standard Paris-class.

    Her armaments are largely unchanged from the already well-armed standard Paris hull, being maintained at a light MAC, 11 point defense guns, and a battery of 50 Archer pods. The Noir loses her rear dorsal point defense emplacement secondary to major calibration difficulties with it's proximity to the upgraded engine pods. The magnetic coils of the MAC are typically of a higher quality than the UNSC's standard, permitting an on-target kinetic discharge roughly 25-33% greater than average.

    Operational history and disposition of this class are, unsurprisingly, suppressed from public consumption and well-classified within ONI and the UNSC Navy. Ships of this type notably raided the Covenant supply station Wayward Provider, shut down the Insurrectionist arms smuggling operation in the Gallonigher colonies, secured the Forerunner sites on Delta Prime from a Kig-Yar raider group, and interdicted the Covenant stealth ships attempting to shadow the evacuation of Merrick's Star. ONI maintains several squadrons of the Paris N, and while none are currently in active combat operations, Sunspot and Blizzard squadrons in the Delta Prime system are considered in a high-risk area. The on-going operations there, however, are too valuable for ONI to abandon...

     These little guys are an experiment with what can be done with all the extra Paris frigates I have from both the Fall of Reach starter box and the contents of the UNSC Core Battlegroup box. I first saw this idea on the Spartan Games forums, where a poster named Landlubber gave some of his extra frigates an ONI paint scheme. I really liked his idea, and now shamelessly copy it. :D I trimmed a little off the underside of the hulls, added some squared styrene strip to the engines to represent faster ships, and gave them a black paint job to represent the shadowy forces of ONI, the Office of Naval Intelligence and primary intelligence apparatus of the UNSC. I'm thinking an improved base speed of 2', a decrease in her hard-burn distance, and an extra MAC die regardless of formation for a yet-to-be-determined cost increase. Next in the Halo: Fleet Battles pipeline will be some Insurrectionist ships and a little bit of backstory for them, too. Until then, my friends.

Start of the UNSC

Back again. Losing a pet is tough, much tougher after having him around for more than half my life, but life goes on.

As post one of two today, an update to my UNSC fleet for Halo: Fleet Battles. The bulk of my fleet is actually going to be in this shade of grey but with green accents; it looks very militaristic in a utilitarian way, perfect for the UNSC. These ships are both proof-of-concept and are intended to represent remnants of another UNSC fleet in my main fleet, as the budding campaign concept has the UNSC forces not on the front-lines, but on a secondary front and thus more patchwork...

UNSC Collossus

UNSC Valiant Heart, UNSC Tiger by the Tail, UNSC Makassar

These are just primed with Army Painter Uniform Grey, washed with GW Nuln Oil, the colors were brought back up with P3 Ironhull Grey, with Cryx Bane Highlight for added definition. The blue is Cygnar Blue Highlight with GW Lothern Blue. Viewport lights with Morrow White.

Cyclops/Marathon Heavy Cruiser

One of the more interesting Specialist Battlegroups you can get for the UNSC in Halo: Fleet Battles is the Cyclops Battlegroup, three frigate Tridents and one Supported Marathon. That Marathon is modified to function as a light carrier, losing it's Missile Barrage ability to gain Hangar 5- a big increase from it's normal Hangar 2. The Hangar rating represents how many Flights of fighters and/or bombers an element carries, and these Flights are grouped up into Wings of at least 2 Flights but can contain as many as 5. Each side has limitations on size for each Wing; for example, the UNSC can place 5 Bomber Flights into a Wing while the Covenant can only place 4, but the UNSC can only have up to 4 Fighters in a Wing vs. the Covenant's 5. Halo Fleet Battles lets anything with a Carrier ability effectively regenerate their fighter complements so long as the enemy keeps killing your fighters and bombers, making the Carrier Action the Cyclops also gets very useful indeed. Most opponents you play know to expect a steady stream of Fighters and Bombers coming from an Epoch Fleet Carrier, but a Marathon? Not so much.

Yes, that's all well and interesting, but how about some content? I liked the idea of the Cyclops Light Carrier so much I modified one of my Marathons to represent a converted carrier on the tabletop.

I plasti-welded the dark grey armor panels with the slits in them (that came on a sprue from Kotobukiya- courtesy of HLJ) on the sides of the ship to represent hangar doors for recovering her complement, while I used some strip styrene to bulk up her dorsal hull and add a communications mast to better-coordinate her increased fighter group.

I also used styrene rod, U-channel, and assorted other bits to create a launch tube on the underside of the vessel to really help it stand out from it's standard Marathon sisters. The only modification to the OoB Marathon mini that I made was to snip off the two "prongs" from the piece glued on the underside, everything else was simply added on. The rectangular styrene rod was able to fit into the cavity already present in the design with no issues.

To shift gears for a minute, I confess I've fallen off the H:FB wagon a bit to work on one of my newest poisons: Robotech RPG Tactics. Yes, the company responsible for the game has bungled things at several steps along the way, but I don't feel they're out to screw us all over like many other voices on the Internet would have you believe. The models are, well, a pain in the ass to be charitable. I build Gundam models from time to time for fun, so I have some experience with clipping small parts from sprues, cleaning said parts of mold-lines and pressure points, and using plastic cement and files to make two pieces appear to be one. If you can say the same, you shouldn't be daunted by trying the game out, but believe me, you'll need those acquired skills to put the minis together. Using greenstuff or liquid greenstuff to fill gaps is also useful, but not as critical.

I went into the Kickstarter back when it was on, and while I feel I fretted less than most over getting the final product in-hand as late as we did, I was dismayed by the sheer number of parts that make up each figure. I put off building anything from the Kickstarter until very recently. This, I think, is the greatest failing of the game: the sheer complexity of the models and the amount of work you need to put in to just build a few figures from what is meant to be an introductory starter boxset. I shudder to think of how much potential sales have been missed by people being turned off by the above. It's too bad, as the rules and the game itself seem easy-enough to pick up and learn, but the minis are a weak point, at least until you put them together.

Stepping off the soap box, I wanted to show some progress on my Zentraedi forces. I almost have all the Zent minis from the Intro box done, missing just 3 Regults which are on queue. Not pictured but completed is the Quel-Gulnau recovery pod, an important component in letting Officer Pods recycle their fallen minions after every turn by way of the Zentraedi Armada rule. I used model railroad ballast and bits of cork boarding with some cut-up sprue pieces to represent a wasteland type base, as I'm thinking more of a Robotech: Battlecry theme of remnant Zentraedi and the Malcontent Uprisings, but also allows me leeway to paint blasted urban rubble if I choose to go with a Macross City theme. Haven't quite decided.

Hope you enjoy!

Progress on Space Station

How about some actual content?

I built this using a simple styrofoam block from Michael's crafts store with thin balsa wood sheets to cover, pretty much just as the BFG Dock I referenced a couple posts ago. I used some L-angled styrene strips to cover the joins between the planes of the station (and cover up some of my shoddier measurements). The whole thing is still a work-in-progress, but I am very pleased with how it's turning out. The whole thing is mounted on a spare H:FB base with eight small pegs for stability.

If you're familiar with Spartan Games scenery, you'll likely recognize pieces from their Military Buildings set, like the landing pads, the bio-domes, the hangar bay doors, and the hexagonal fortress piece you can make from the blister. The other buildings are part left-over 40K bits and styrene tubing and sheet to resemble miniature structures on the surface of the greater station. The comms array is an Infinity small base with tubing and 40K IG bits, and the sensor dish is an old MicroMachines piece. I used balsa sheets to add some extra height and varied structural details to the otherwise flat surface. Much still needs to be added to give it the look I'm hoping for.

The docks for my UNSC Fourth Fleet are simple wooden dowels placed at similar heights up the side to correspond with my minis, regardless if I used a small, medium, or large peg to mount the ship. The docks are particularly WiP, with plans to add docking tubes and styrene brackets to all docks and some miniature cranes/robotic arms to the two rectangular dock pieces.

Enjoy!

Campaign UNSC Background

Commanded by Rear Admiral Augustine Terrell, the Fourth Sector Fleet is responsible for the defense of the remaining worlds of their region. Largely composed of smaller vessels such as Frigates and Destroyers, the forces of the region have been steadily de-prioritized for years now as more and more losses are sustained by UNSC fleets facing the main axis of Covenant advance. Instead of dividing forces into parcels for each populated world, SECCOM has chosen to concentrate it's forces in a few strategic locations. When the fleet does patrol, tactical preference is to remain in full battlegroup-sized deployments for safety. Port Zanzibar, the fleet's base in the sector, has a large number of vessels at almost all times, as does heavily-populated New Constantinople. The remaining colonies closest to what is considered "Covenant space" also host small naval squadrons for defense, as do planets with important industry. Most planets are left to rely on defense stations and planet-based fighter and bomber wings for immediate defense until reinforcements arrive.
    SinoViet's Paris-class frigate is by far the most common ship in the sector, with ships launching from SinoViet's shipyard in New Constantinople at a brisk pace together with a trickle of hulls from Reach. The Charon and Stalwart classes are occasionally present, but typically these ships are passing through the sector, usually as escorts for convoys to-and-from the Inner Colonies.
    Destroyers of all classes are uncommon in the sector, where the intensity of enemy action isn't the same as in the Inner Colonies, not to mention the added expense in their manufacture and upkeep, making frigates more appropriate to operations in Fourth Sector. The Halberd-class is seen in some number around important planets, installations, and ships, but the depletion of destroyers is another result of losses elsewhere in human space.
    Admiral Terrel had to lobby heavily to retain the four Marathon Heavy Cruisers still under his command, and there are rumors on a near-daily basis that these ships are to be reassigned elsewhere. The older Halcyon-class is more commonly seen, often serving as flagships and heavy muscle for the large patrol task forces SECCOM prefers.
    Carriers are one class of ships the fleet is currently very deficient in. The Marathon UNSC Winter Road is a Cyclops subvariant of that class, capable of carrying five wings of Broadsword fighters and Longsword bombers in her expanded flight bays, and is at present the only dedicated carrier in the sector. She frequently hosts Admiral Terrell's flag when he's off of Port Zanzibar station. FLEETCOM at Reach have been dithering on assigning a new fleet carrier to the sector based on increasing Covenant raider activity, but have not decided as yet. If they do, it is likely a new Epoch-class would be committed.