Inspiration can come from some odd places, and the Rapier Light Fighter started with a Singapore Sling in a local hotel sun terrace bar. A two for one offer, naturally. I am of course partial to a cocktail, particularly a Mai Tai or the above mentioned sling. The inspiration however was the little plastic sword impaling a glacé cherry atop the gin and fruit juice.
"Right folks, I'm doing a craft project, hand over your swords!" I soon had a dozen. Building starfighters that average 2 cm in length means that oddly shaped plastic pieces like these are excellent for chopping up and crafting.The cocktail swords also gave me a name, the Rapier. And since this is a light fighter it will have only seven slots.
Points values in "Starfighters!" are based on the number of system slots available. Simply put a light starfighter has 7, a medium 10 and a heavy 15. Since a players points for a game are generally capped at 30 it limits a force to a pair of heavies, three mediums, four lights or a mix.
In my previous games I used my scratch built "Gladiator" medium starfighter to learn the game. It uses most of its slots for four medium lasers making it something of a one trick pony. Probably time to expand a little and add a flight of lights and possibly another heavy to my scratch build collection
The build.
I used the pointy end as the nose of the fighter. The grip on the hilt has an interesting pattern and that becomes the upper fuselage. The rounded ends of the cross guard are removed and repositioned on top, the foremost as the cowling for the pilot and the rearward as the advanced targetting and evasive countermeasures droid, taking up two of my seven slots.
The cross guard itself is re-positioned as "wings" not aerodynamic of course, but these will hold the lasers. Two light lasers one on each wingtip, cost one system slot each, and the Rapier now has four filled slots.
Some artists card is needed at this stage. I drive a sewing pin through it to give the fighter a really strong and solid link for the flight stand. This will be the lower fuselage. I would have preferred to use only the plastic sword in the construction, but I've learned that even models this small need a firm anchor.The "engines" are almost the last thing to add. For the mediums I used 1 cm lengths of bamboo skewers, mainly because I wanted a chunky look to the mediums. The lights can get away with a more insubstantial look. I used the remaining length of the blade to make two rear mounted nacelles.With the exception of the artists card the whole construction used plastic cement glue, and I did not experience the problems that I had with the mediums.I still have half a dozen cocktail swords left over, and no real excuse to obtain more via the sun terrace bar and another Singapore Sling or two.
Stats• Laser (L) x2
• Advanced Targeting
• Dogfighter
• Evasive Counterm.
• Fast
• Nimble.
Overall the Rapier can't take much damage, and it's weapons are weak, but it is speedy and nimble, intended to be used as a dogfighter. It will require different tactics on table to my Medium fighters, but if it can close the range the Rapier will run rings around the Gladiators.
The Paint job
I have Red and Blue as my Medium starfighter flights. For lights I'm going metallic and these will be Gold flight. Actually I used bronze to do a few highlights, some white dabs and a little black. Yellow as the drive for the engines, and finally a white number 1 to show that this is Gold Leader
