Spaced out with Fleet Scale Starships........!

I once said that I needed a new project like I needed a hole in my head; in fact, I think I mentioned like two holes in the head.... so I guess the neurosurgeon must have been visiting SteelonSand Towers with his trepanning kit lately, because here I go again!

I'm of the generation of course, that cut its teeth on Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica and all points in between, but for some reason I had mostly avoided putting a love of all of these together with wargaming, apart from the small scale Sci-Fi seen elsewhere on this Blog. So where are all the Galaxy-spanning Capital ships, full-thrusting their way across the emptiness of space, C-beams a glitter?

Well, you might well ask, as in typical fashion, it appears they have crept onto my sensor screens in the guise of the 'Ragtag Fugitive Fleet' from the original BSG.

I'd always had ideas about modelling this iconic collection of ships, but it is only recently that these have become more concrete, thanks to some guidance I picked up over at the excellent Star Ranger Forums:

http://www.star-ranger.com/forum/

Now there have been a number of great scale models, collectible ships and gaming miniatures available for a number of years that are representative of the craft in question, from the Titanium BSG ships to the amazing Ravenstar sculpts, but as always, I was looking for something that would be within budget for my 'subsidiary' project limitations, and have taken as my starting point Irregular Miniatures in the UK, as well as the brilliant and affordable creations of Studio Bergstrom in the 'States.

http://studiobergstrom.com/index.php?categoryID=51

Now there is a lot of well informed and technical debate out there as to the canonical proportions of Fleet-scale ships, but in my usual way, I wanted to go with something generic and 'looks right to my eyes' rather than anything more formal; hence the Irregular Minis DYC 8 Dreadnought Supercarrier and the Bergstrom 'Galactics' look-alike Carrier we see below:

Between them, I think we have a nice facsimile of a certain famous Battlestar, as well as what might be an earlier model of vessel - the 'Pre-' to the iconic Dreadnought perhaps?

Both ships appear in these photos in their as-delivered states, hence the obvious flash on the Irregular offering. Certainly, it would bear some conversion work, whilst the Bergstom example is just calling out for a good thrashing with the dry-brush to highlight all the various greeblies on its hull:

The Irregular vessel comes with separate carrier-bays, which again might allow for fielding differently-styled versions:

So having started off with some contenders for the leader of the Ragtag Fleet, I couldn't resist getting in the Bergstrom version of the baddie, to whit the 'Zylon' Carrier; this comes in two parts, as you can see, in order to form the upper and lower saucer sections:

and has a nifty tongue and groove arrangement for joining the two parts together:

All the surfaces have some lovely detailing, with visible carrier/ launch bays in all directions:

Seen up against its fellow from Bergstrom, I'm sure you can share my excitement over this 'yet-another, yes, that-really-is-too-many projects' Project:

These should be tremendous fun to paint and will always look great for display, even if they never get off the ground, gaming wise - although I am sure someone out there has already done their Stats for one of the widely available rulesets......

In the near future, I'll be looking into some likely contenders for the other ships in the fleet, a useful list of which can be found here:

http://www.tecr.com/galactica/miscships/miscships.htm

as well as thinking about some fighter stand-ins lurking amongst the GZG catalogue, so stay tuned, Space freaks!