For Asgard!

THE ASGARD-CLASS HEAVY BATTLE CARRIER FINALLY ARRIVES FOR THE KINGDOM OF DENMARK

Last week's painting project was the Asgard-class Heavy Battle Carrier for the Kingdom of Denmark, the most recent and largest addition to the Alliance Nation released earlier in the year. After many months, I have finally gotten around to building and painting this monster for use in an upcoming Battle Report.

Painting the Battle Carrier took a surprisingly long time due to its large size and the huge amount of detail - most of which seems to be hidden under the flight deck and is out of sight! Additional time was also spent painting the six SAW tokens and six Assault Craft that accompany the ship, and a lot of this time was wasted trying to work out what colour to paint them!

I settled on traditional red for the flyers and grey for the Assault Craft rather than introduce a new colour to the mix, as I wanted to maintain the cohesion of the monochrome scheme. In some of my other fleets, different squadrons (and particularly SAW types) are marked with different colours, but I thought for the sheer number of tokens the Kingdom of Denmark can field it would be more impressive to paint them all the same. In a standard list, I will be running six to eight squadrons of tiny flyers - wave after wave of red death from above should look good on the table,

OFFENSIVE
The vessel features two Main Turrets with the usual Danish strength and Close Gunnery, plus a massive broadside and mine-laying capability. This gives it good power in the shooting phase, especially at close-range, and should make the enemy think twice about getting too close. Firing nine dice at RB3 is nasty, let alone arriving into RB1 undamaged. Seven Aggressive crew gives options for boarding alongside the Tyr-class Assault Boats, and the Mines are an extra layer of icing on the cake.

DEFENSIVE
The Battle Carrier has a solid DR6 and CR10, with HP9 letting it match most Fleet Carriers in the game. The model is longer than a Dreadnought, so this makes sense. AA5 is not spectacular, and the crew level is fairly low, though they are Aggressive, good for a late game counter-attack! Kept in the "second line" of Danish vessels, the Asgard should be able to weather a lot of enemy firepower and still be able to support the fleet in the later turns, but I would never recommend it to lead the charge.

GENERATOR OPTIONS
The Asgard may exchange one of its Main Turrets for a Calcification Generator, but I am not a huge fan of this. Calcification Generators should be easier to field through the Skagerrak-class Gunships, and I would rather keep the Asgard a bit further back, even if the Generator does have a 12" range. I have a general preference for plain gunnery over tricks like Calcification Generators, and don't like to field too many of them.

The other options are for the Internal Nullification Generator to be upgraded to a Tesla Generator or a Shield Generator. Given the good defensive statistics, I would field the Shield Generator every time, as the other two do not bring much to the vessel. With Shields, the Asgard becomes very difficult to shift with conventional weaponry.

TYR-CLASS ASSAULT BOATS
Not content with good firepower and carrier value, the Asgard-class Heavy Battle Carrier also carries six bases of Tyr-class Assault Craft. Yet another form of Tiny Naval Models, these ones are designed for boarding, and feature a fast 12" move, Terror Tactics and Difficult Target to ensure they carry their crew of mad Vikings into range.

Not being submersible like the boarding craft of the Federated States of the Honourable Eclipse Company makes them more vulnerable, but they can still hide in amongst terrain or behind the Asgard itself.

The Kingdom of Denmark is surprisingly good at boarding, but I hesitate to use it too aggressively too early as it can easily lead to over-stretching your fleet and leaving ships exposed to counter-boarding. The Tyr-class Assault Craft do not need to worry about this and can be used as an expendable throwaway, but I prefer to hold them back until later in the game. Let the Magni-class Assault Airships or even the Korsor-class Minelayers run forward, drop their mines and expend their boarding parties damaging the enemy vessels, and then sweep in with the Assault Craft.

The Assault Craft are an interesting addition to the Danish fleet, and give them a good boost to their boarding potential that will work well with their mine-laying shenanigans and heavy close-range firepower.

Overall, the Asgard is a fantastic addition to the fleet and brings a lot of Activations, enhances the boarding potential, takes the pressure off the Raggnarok and carries a brutal amount of firepower. For the points, I believe it is an excellent investment and would consider a second if I wanted to play competitively with the Danes. In the game, I would use it in a similar manner to an Elbe-class Fleet Carrier - an aggressive battering ram, but not at the forefront of the fleet. Maintain the swarms of tiny flyers, shoot from a distance and then move in to mop up the survivors. It is a hammer, to be sure, but let the rest of the fleet brawl before committing this expensive piece of kit to the front line.

It also looks great!

Thanks for reading,

George