These ships created by Steve Osmanski

I understand that the Battlestar: Galactica name and materials are still under copyright. Nothing on this page is intended to infringe on that copyright in any way.

While I have not yet been able to locate a source for BATTLESTAR: GALCTICA miniatures to use in games, this universe is just too much fun to ignore. This is the fighter-heavy universe from hell. Fighters are the way and the light in this universe, and if you can't make good use of fighters you're in trouble. All ships in this universe are TL4 unless otherwise stated (the Colonial Heavy Carrier). These ships are designed using my house rules, especially the Gunstar with her triple-size Plasma and the Fuel Tanker, which has many unused hull boxes. Both the Colonials and the Cylons made extensive use of mines.

You can play these ships with standard fighters if you desire, without really distorting things too much. If you want more variety, the Colonial Viper could be classed as a fast/light fighter and the Cylon Raider as a slow/heavy fighter. There are also reports that both sides used fighters that could be classified as torpedo bombers, although such craft were rare.

The Colonial fleet also had the Asp recon fighter. Never issued in large numbers, it was rare for any ship, even a Battlestar, to have more than 4 Asps. Used for deep space reconnaissance and flank guard patrols, the Asp gave up all its weapons for a greatly enhanced sensor package (for a fighter, that is). Asps can be simulated in ASFoS by allowing the Colonial player to buy one or two (not more) Asp fighters for a scenario. Asp fighters are fast/light fighters, with no weapons, but they have the ability to scan for blips like regular ships according to the EW rules. Asps are destroyed by a single hit. Asp fighters cost 2 points each.

The Colonial Fleet was the pride and the shield of the Twelve Colonies. A hardened, battlewise force it fought with incredible skill and dedication but was overwhelmed in the end by the superior numbers and ruthlessness of its enemy. Colonial ships rarely have Green crews, and often are Elite.

Battlestar: the Battlestar was the pride of the Colonial Fleet. Huge ships with enormous fighter bays, they existed for their Viper squadrons. Battlestars should not be risked in direct combat as they have little firepower of their own. Send in the 96 Vipers and keep the Battlestar out of the way.	Gunstar: the Gunstar was the direct combatant equivalent of the Battlestar. Not as glamorous as the Battlestars, the Gunstars took higher losses yet killed many Cylon Baseships with their huge Megapulsar Laser (treated as a triple-size Plasma Cannon in this game). The Gunstar's fighters are intended to defend the ship as it closes to blast the enemy.

Destroyer: Colonial Destroyers were the ships of all work in the Colonial Fleet. Smaller and cheaper than the huge Gunstars or Battlestars, the Destroyers did all the lesser chores and enough of them could even take on a Baseship, although losses were always heavy. The Destroyer came in three main variants: the basic Destroyer was a direct combatant like the Gunstar, while the Destroyer Carrier was a smaller (much smaller) Battlestar. The third variant was the Missile Destroyer, replacing the main pulsar lasers with massed batteries of missiles. While named "Destroyers" these ships are actually more like battlecruisers in their size and firepower. The Destroyer Carrier and Missile Destroyer are faster since they don't have to divert as much engine power to their weapons. This also helps them stay out of the way of enemies.

Light Cruisers: The Light Cruiser was the last of the old Colonial Fleet vessels to remain in service, and indeed it remained in service even up to the destruction of the Twelve Colonies. It is the smallest of the common combatant ships of the Colonial Fleet and really should be left to escorting convoys and other minor actions. The Light Cruiser hull was used for many variants filling all the roles needed in a space fleet. At least they were fast. These ships were built at TL 3, but the examples given below have all been refitted to TL 4.

Heavy Carrier: The Heavy Carrier was the predecessor of the Battlestar. Even less well armed for direct combat, or even defending itself against fighter attack, the Heavy Carrier took massive losses in the early yahrens of the 1000-Yahren War. Heavy Carriers served with the Light Cruisers, but were retired after the Battlestars were built. This ship is TL 3.

The Cylons didn't have many different classes of ships, as far as they were concerned if it didn't carry lots of fighters it wasn't worth bothering with. They took this to the extreme with their gargantuan Baseships. Most Cylon ships have Green crews (at least it reduces the cost of such huge ships) and almost never have Elite crews. It's not so much that Cylon crews were inexperienced; it's just that their robotic minds were constantly being taken by surprise by the chaotic improvisations of their organic opponents.

Baseship: The Baseship was not only the biggest ship in the Cylon fleet (or anyone else's for that matter); it was also the most common (not counting the Raider-class fighter, of course). The Cylons built big and didn't care who knew it.

Halfship: For those rare occasions when the Cylons felt they didn't need to send their best, the Halfship was the answer. Literally it's just the top disk of a Baseship, but it has less than half the firepower. Usually these ships were found in action against pirates or Colonial allies, not against Colonial Warriors. A Battlestar and her fighters is more than a match for a Halfship.

Attackship: The Attackship was the Cylon's answer to the Gunstar. This ship was an experimental design and the Cylons never build many of them, feeling that the best answer to a Gunstar was the 144 Raiders carried by a fully equipped Baseship.

Fuel Tanker: Those 144 fighters on a Cylon Baseship used vast quantities of fuel, as did the massive ship itself. These fuel tankers were the answer, bringing enormous amounts of fuel to the front lines. For self-protection, the ship has light shields, a few defensive laser turrets and carries a dozen Raider fighters. If attacked, the tanker would launch the fighters as a screen while the ship tried to jump to lightspeed. If the tanker escaped, it was considered worth the loss of a few fighters. Fuel tankers were often the targets of raids or boarding actions by Colonial forces.

Players might ask how the Cylons managed to control vast numbers of star systems without the fleet of small patrol ships everyone else uses. The answer is that fighters (both Colonial and Cylon) in the BATTLESTAR: GALACTICA universe can make short jumps through hyperspace to adjacent star systems and back again. Standard Cylon procedure was for a Baseship to move into a central star system and use its vast numbers of fighters to patrol and control all the surrounding systems. When the Battlestar Galactica was fleeing from the Cylons, she used her Viper fighters to scout ahead and to the flanks as she moved from system to system. This means that players could set up scenarios where a Colonial fleet sends its fighters off to an adjacent star system to attack a Cylon Baseship, only to find themselves under similar attack in return from the Baseship's Raiders. Fighters could also launch from ground or orbital bases and patrol adjacent systems. Fighters were only capable of two such jumps before they ran out of fuel. Usually this would be out and back again, but could be a two-jump hop from one system through a second to a final destination, but the fighters would need immediate refueling after such a hop, skip, and jump.

I suspect this is what happened at the ambush of the "Peace Fleet" in the opening episode of BATTLESTAR: GALACTICA. The Cylons agreed to keep their Baseships three star systems away (out of even one-way fighter strike range) from the site of the negotiations in the Cimtar star system as a peaceful gesture. This reassured the leaders of the Colonial forces (all but Commander Adama). But the Cylons had secretly set up a forward refueling point with fuel tankers and flew their Raiders from the Baseships to that refueling point where they refueled for the attack on the Peace Fleet. Captain Apollo and his younger brother were on a routine patrol when they stumbled upon the massed Cylon fighter strike while it was refueling from the tankers.