A few random things on my forebrain about the game:

1. What the actual hell is up with their release of the game?

I hadn’t quite realized how half-assed their approach to the game was until I went to build some Thunderbolts. I bought some Thunderbolts, you see, thinking they might be fun to add to the Imperials I got with Skies of Fire.

“What are their options?” I asked myself. That’s when I realized: I have no way of knowing.

They’re not in the available 2020 Imperial Navy+Astra Militarum Aircraft & Aces cards; they’re in the 2019 Imperial Navy Aircraft & Aces cards that have been OOP since June. They’re not in the Taros Air War book; they’re in the Rynn’s World book that’s been OOP since August. (Neither are to be found online.) In fact, the only way you have any ability to purchase these rules is via the $35 ePub.

This is even more outrageous when you consider that although this is true of half the Imperial options, it’s also true of the entire Ork faction. If you want to play this game with Orks, you’re buying a $35 ePub. Ugh.

(I was lucky: my FLGS, Huzzah Hobbies, happened to have a pack of the 2019 Imperial Navy cards. But that’s the only way you’re going to find them: just some stock somewhere that hasn’t moved at a store that doesn’t do websales.)

2. Card organizer

Speaking of cards: the card packs include some big cards but also some little cards. I didn’t like how the little cards would sort of float around in the bottom of the box, so I made a little tray divider.

FDM printers are perfect for me, because something like this really bugs me and a few minutes in TinkerCAD lets me solve it.

Aeronautica Imperialis Card Tray on Thingiverse

3. Transportation

I’ve fully converted to the Olo Pawi A-Case Church of Magnetization. But…. I don’t think these AI aircraft will take magnetization well.

• The plastic of the bottom of the bases is too thick to really support simply gluing a magnet to the inside of the base.
• I don’t want to screw around with drilling holes in the bottom of the bases to accommodate one or more magnets.
• I worry about things popping off (aircraft from flight stands, flight stands from bases) while removing them from the metal shelf or, worse yet, breaking.

But I am pretty much fucking around with foam, and I am absolutely not tracking foam down for this.

The solution: hexes that keep the bases from sliding around, which in turn keep the aircraft from bumping into each other.

Some variations of this to fill out a Sterilite Stack-and-Carry (this is the largest size I can fit on my print bed, but multiple jobs and some glue can work around that). Between these and a thin sheet of foam across the top to keep things from popping up out of their hexes and I think I’m solid.

This won’t do but so much if I decided to toss the case down the stairs, but it’ll keep everything in place and safe to and from the game store.

Aeronautica Imperialis Organizer on Thingiverse

That’s pretty much it. There’s a non-zero chance I pick up some more AI models. They’re so easy to paint I really enjoy it. Not likely to be able to play the actual game any time soon, so who knows if it’s any good but: if I’m doing it for the joy of painting, who cares?

I love/hate these. I love how the aircraft came out: I think the results are excellent, particularly considering how little effort went into them. I hate how the bases came out: I feel like every decision I made around them was wrong and I ended up spending more time on the damn bases than the aircraft, if that’s believable.

When I say “little effort,” I mean it. These are all basecoated, a few details picked out with solid colors, and weathered with oils (burnt umber). That’s it. The Tau got the tiniest bit more effort, with the top being different colors from the bottom and with a second color being airbrushed on for “camo.”

Really the key is going light so you can go nuts with the oils. I started trying to just pin wash, and got lazy. That’s fine: it’s way to remove oil paint and that’s kind of the point. By brushing it away from nose to tail, I can clean up my mess and add texture & depth.

Bases aside, all of this was the work of maybe two afternoons.

These were my first batch. I skipped decals on these, and I feel like that was a huge mistake: just the tiniest bit more effort and they’d have come out quite a bit better.