Sunday, August 28, 2011

Sunday Starships: the name game

As I've mentioned before, I have a house rule that all players must name their starships before beginning any space battle.  I enforced this requirement at the South Texas Mini-Con, and I thought I would share the names the players came up with.  My space station (shown below being infested by the bugs), which served as the objective of the game, was an artifact of the long-lost Mag'Uph'Un Empire, so it was referred to as the Mag'Uph'Un:
Speaking of the bugs, Joe, the Entomalian player, named his largest battlecruiser the Scorpion King (technically a goof because the Scorpion-class BC is the asymmetrical ship, not the biggest one, which is a Roach-class BC), the other BC the Killer Roach (I think--he didn't write all the names down on the ships stat sheet), and his Hornet-class cruisers the Green (get it?) and the Doolittle (historical reference--the Hornet was the carrier that launched Gen. Doolittle's bomber raid on Japan not long after Pearl Harbor):
Chris, who played the birdlike Avarians, had fewer but more powerful ships.  He christened his Eagle-class battlecruiser the Sam'm (complete with apostrophe for that SF naming authenticity), his Screech Owl-class destroyer leader was the Big Bird, and his Hawk-class destroyer was named the Vultan in an homage to Brian Blessed's character in Flash Gordon ("First wave, DIVE!!!"):
Chip had the Carnivorans, and he assigned the Lion-class battlecruiser the name Mufasa, designated the two Panther-class cruisers as the Malcom and the Denzel (I know, Malcom X wasn't associated with the Black Panthers, but I didn't want to say anything at the time), and called his Cheetah-class detroyer (not pictured) the Chester:
Finally, there was this humble blogger and game organizer, playing the Aquarians.  I went with a (surprise!) nautical theme in designating my starships.  OK, it was more of a seafood theme--I called my Shark-class battlecruiser the Mrs. Paul, named my Barracuda-class cruisers the Fish Sticks and the Fillet O Fish, and gave my Piranah-class destroyer the moniker Chicken of the Sea (appropriate, because it spent the last three turns limping away from the battle with 3 out of its starting 30 power units):
So what are some of the names you've encountered in your starship games?  Let me know in the comments.

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