UCM Fleet

Once refugees, freebooters, and frontier laborers, the United Colonies of Mankind are now re-forged into a sword plunged deep into the heart of the Scourge. The Reconquest has begun.

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My UCM fleet was of course my first (as part of my original Kickstarter bundle) and my paint skills have evolved throughout their painting and additions. As a result, the UCM ships of old are much darker than my more recent additions, but thankfully, this all kind of balances out because I use a good deal of weathering washes on these ships anyhow. The end result, I hope you'll agree, is a battle-hardened fleet that looks like it's seen more than it's fair share of campaigning against the hated enemy.

Cruisers

UCM forces enjoy a wide variety of useful and surprisingly potent cruisers... everyone loves the New Cairo's and Seattle's, but for me it's all about the Moscow (with it's recently revised stats).

All my cruisers wings and turrets are magnetized, allowing me to produce just about any combination of ships for a given battle.

Three New Cairos is a pretty devastating group, just don't expect it to survive and hold any clusters... they're LIGHT cruisers!

One of my very first UCM models I painted, this established the level of detail I'd commit to for the rest of the ships... so many regrets lol.

Every fleet needs carriers! Actually, that isn't really true with UCM which can make do with Aegis ships... but early on in collecting, a Seattle or two will do you wonders and provide meaningful firepower.

Here you can really see the difference between my early painting and later stage painting... this Atlantis Battlecruiser carrier is a lot brighter and pops out more. Meanwhile, the Seattle in the back was given some airbrush work to "brighten it" to help it blend with the newer ships... I don't think that worked well, but I had to try.

Nobody's favorite ship is the San Francisco... it's a Troopship and it's usually destined to be blown to smithereens early on in a battle... I've learned that I absolutely have to take them however, and I keep them on Silent Running for most of any game. I've had success by using a pair to slowly creep up.

I have not one, but two Moscow heavy cruisers and I often field them with a group of Kievs for maximum Weapons Free goodness.

One of my older models again, the Moscow can almost appear blue in the right lighting... something I personal fell OUT of love with.

The Avalon is a fun ship... it isn't a great choice though if you have an admiral on board and would like them to survive most of the battle. This is all about how you use the Avalon, but it is a noisy and aggressive ship and it's hard not to play it as such.

Getting that red laser glow right took a few tries... I used a pink ink actually.

Destroyers and Monitors

I've scratch built many of my Destroyers and Monitors (Escort Frigates) and if you are clever, you can get a lot out of a single pack of Destroyers. I've magnetized the main "prows" of the Destroyer class, so I can field each of the three variants as intended, though only one at a time. Hands down, Destroyers are my favorite class of UCM ships with special love for the Havana.

This custom Kiev is my Novgorod class destroyer (you can find a tutorial on this site). It's my favorite custom build and I've made three thus far... and I suspect I'll make three more one day! Overall, the Kiev class has value not only because of it's ability to snipe targets in atmosphere, but because your opponent sees these as high value targets and they are pretty tough to take down. A pair of these with one or two Moscows is one of the most brutal battlegroups I've ever fielded.

I can field the traditional Kiev as well because I have magnetized the prows... however, this means that I can't properly field my Havana destroyers.

The Vancouver is a "spackle" ship... meaning I use it to fill gaps when necessary, but otherwise I tend to leave it at home.

It is very easy to combine two cruiser carrier wings and magnetize them to the Vancouver's hull.

The Havana has seen a few iterations rule-wise, as has the torpedo rules... I generally use the community errata that allows torpedoes to hit during the launch phase when fired at close range. Regardless of ruleset though, I have never regretted taking Havana. I often use their torpedoes to capsize Scourge frigates and then plow them into enemy Djinn or other close combat vessels. This softens the threat such enemies pose to my other larger ships. I often pair Havana with Taipei or even a Jakarta to maximize their threat potential.

The Vienna class escort frigate is technically not a monitor and is a great tool to protect battleships and other high value assets.

My custom Vienna utilizes the space station kit's burnthrough turret and some other bits. Since this ship is labeled as a escort frigate I see no reason not to use a frigate hull.

Frigates

UCM Frigates are generally sub-par compared to other factions, that being said, they are all very reasonably priced, and recently the addition of the Squadron rule to the Toulon has been very helpful. Regardless, the models are great and really fun to build and play with.

My favorite UCM frigate is the Taipei... ultimately because I constantly face Scourge opponents and if I can hit their Djinn with these before the Djinn strike my fleet... I've neutered them nicely. I often pair these with Havana for this very reason.

The Toulon is an effective ship if the Squadron rule applies... otherwise I'd spend the points on just about anything else.

It is increasingly difficult to see the point in the Jakarta now that we have the Vienna class.

The New Orleans strike carrier is the least sexy ship in the entire game... but you will always have them and they are the unsung heroes of every UCM fleet.

When I first started playing I loved my Limas for their ability to light up enemy Scourge ships. As time passed and my Scourge opponent began to take more and more cloaked units, I found the Lima less and less worthwhile ironically... why bother when a New Orleans can do the same job and cheaper?

For funsies, I created a custom frigate that represents the next generation in stealth and detection technology... you'll note that it is entirely unarmed however! The detector dish is beneath the front of the hull.

Corvettes

UCM corvettes are just plain bad in my opinion... and you can use Kievs to fufill their intended purpose of assassinating targets in atmosphere. Alas, as Scourge tactics adapt to my beloved Kievs I have found myself needing to field a few Santiagos here and there.

This custom corvette isn't "efficient", it's not saving you parts and uses an entire frigate hull... it's also plenty of work, because you have to shorten the hull and attach wings in an unorthodox way... add to that the space station kit missile launcher underneath and it's a costly model to produce.

BUT, it's awesome!

A small but decent "spare parts" model. It's fine if you want to produce a bunch of corvettes cheap and dirty.

My original custom corvettes were built from spare frigate bits before the official corvette was released. While I don't dislike the official corvette, I found the price point vs quantity vs utility of the ship to be undesirable and never bought any.

Battleship and Dreadnought

Battleships in the UCM sit in a precarious state... like all faction's Battleships... but the New York is probably the best of their three choices and so I've built one without magnetizing options. For Dreadnoughts, the general consensus is that the Washington class is superior to the London, but I really wasn't feeling up to magnetizing the beast, and I can't see myself using all of my launch in one vessel (I need my light torpedoes!), so I built a London.

The New York is a pretty great battleship, able to hang back and snipe with a torpedo or two. Various community errata link the guns and make torpedoes worthwhile!

Those copper wires... were... a challenge... but overall I had a lot of fun painting the Battleship and it is one of my favorite UCM models. Though a bit front heavy and benefits from a weighted base or lower stand.

The UCM Dreadnought was the very last model I painted for the UCM and I was very careful to use my best techniques and not rush myself... overall I'm ecstatic with the result (though I do wish that blue engine effect was a little richer). Whilst I was careful in construction and painting, I was trying to be quick and got this done in a just a couple sessions... maybe four or five hours of work (and drying time included)... I didn't take the time to magnetize the turrets and such and I really don't regret that. Notably, my kit was missing a couple of interior turrets and I didn't have spares... I'll get some on there eventually.

Cycle through and read the captions for a overview of my techniques for this amazing model.

Miscellaneous

Reconquest unto Victory!

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