The Great Leap Forward

Before we get on to release news, a quick update on orders as I prepare to leave for Crisis; I’ve caught up on all outstanding ones now, but because I’m off to Belgium shortly I won’t be able to send anything this weekend. So if you have an order with us, it’s sitting in the post bag at the workshop and will ship early next week.

Before I leave for the channel tunnel, I’ve had time to press the GO button on the new spaceships of the Chinese Democratic Socialist Union now we can cast the resin dreadnought hulls again. There are twelve new models, ranging from massive dreadnoughts down to tiny fighter craft – and I will have stocks of these at Crisis tomorrow.

At the top end of the scale is the Longzi dreadnought, a huge four-engined behemoth over 100mm long. The resin hull has two twin forward firing railguns and four twin gun turrets in metal, plus a number of other separate parts. The slightly smaller Jiangxi dreadnought has the same railgun mounts with a single turret and two metal engines.

There are three cruiser classes, in decreasing order of size these are the Guangdong, Wuxi and Haitun. All three are single piece metal models.

Supporting the larger vessels are four types of escort – the workhorses are the Xingzi destroyer and Shenyang frigate. These are supported by the larger Shaoxing and Kaifeng destroyers.

The smallest models are the three fighter types – the Wusheng multi-role fighter, Zhengsheng attack fighter and Yongsheng escort fighter.

We’ve rejigged the contents of the CDSU fleet packs to accommodate the new vessels; the patrol fleet has briefly been retired since it contains models that we haven’t yet replaced, but there is also a new second fleet pack.

SFS-500 – Longzi Dreadnought – £9.00
SFS-501 – Jiangzi Dreadnought – £6.50
SFS-520 – Guangdong Heavy Cruiser – £3.25
SFS-521 – Wuxi Escort Cruiser – £3.00
SFS-522 – Haitun Light Cruiser – £2.50
SFS-530 – Kaifeng Heavy Destroyer – £2.00
SFS-531 – Xingxi Destroyer – £1.25
SFS-532 – Shaoxing Attack Destroyer – £2.00
SFS-540 – Shenyang Frigate – £1.00
SFS-560 – Wusheng Fighter (x12) – £1.50
SFS-561 – Zhengsheng Attack Fighter (x12) – £1.50
SFS-563 – Yongsheng Escort Fighter (x12) – £1.50

SFSP-501 – CDSU Reserve Fleet – £22.00
SFSP-502 – CDSU Carrier Group – £22.00
SFSP-504 – CDSU Battle Fleet – £22.00

These new designs replace all of the existing CDSU range with the exception of the already updated Shanzi carrier. Seasoned Chinese Grand Admirals will have spotted that not all of the older designs have replacements, there are still a few gaps, so expect further CDSU reinforcements in the coming months.