THE WITCH OF ENDOR

"Ariadne" (The Witch of Endor) NC variant Lunar Class Cruiser

                                                  The ship was built as LUN84472 in the 28th millennium at Honorus prime forgeworld. She had a fairly colourless history until  the war of the Illiatus succession During this vicious civil war between two aspiring imperial noble houses, she took part in a remarkable action to save Fureilla, the homeworld of the eventual winner of the conflict  Governor Maximilian Albrecht and in doing so saved the life of his consort Duquessa Ariadne. At the end of the conflict, as part of the celebration that accompanied his succession, Governor Albrecht had the ship named Ariadne in his lady's honour and commissioned the 300 metre high figurehead in her likeness. The ship again served an uneventful career for 400 years until the action that earned her the alias by which she is universally known. Ariadne was sent to the relief of the blockaded agri world of Endor in the Camperdown system, which  was then currently in rebellion.   On arrival the ships captain was dismayed to find not two rebel light cruiser as recorded by Imp-intel but six major capital ships The Ariadne and it's accompanying escorts continued with their attack. During the action the Ariadne seemed impregnable and in return unable to miss a shot. She disable 4 enemy vessels and forced the other 2 to disengage. As a result of her impossible victory , word spread that Ariadne's success was a miracle and she slowly became known as the Witch of Endor . This name has remained with the vessel as an alternative registration and is indeed even entered in imperial records. At the present time the great ship serves in the Golgotha battle group and it is said that her huge figurehead of the Duqeussa of  Fureilla gazes sightlessly into the void ever ready to cast her spells in defence of her vessel.   

                               The Witch is a fairly standard lunar. She has had some redesign of the engine tubing after battle damage, which entailed reduction of the sensor spans on the wing pieces. This was compensated for by the addition of an experimental astro globe on the upper dorsal turret mount. The experiment returned the vessel to standard sensing capabilities but did not provide the improved navigation properties expected.  The vessel was originally built with twin barrelled anti ordnance mounts . However the installation of the astro dome reduced the total turret firepower and this was in turn compensated for by mounting triple barrelled mounts on the forward dorsal in place of the original doubles.       

The Witch of Endor

The Model

                         The model is a minor  conversion using a plastic cruiser, a new mouded prow and some reshaping of the wing pieces. i also added a small round headed pin for the dorsal sensor dome and extra tubing to fill the space vacated by cutting down the wings. All in all a simple conversion.