Fleet Scale Sci-Fi: Trekkin' about over Christmas...

Well, having found it very difficult in the latter part of this year to concentrate on spending quality time with miniatures, and in particular advancing the various detailed projects I had on the go, I've decided to have a bit of fun and keep things simple to end 2011.

It looks like hulls and nacelles will be a relatively easy option rather than trying to struggle with uniforms and all their accoutrements, so I'm going to indulge myself with some classic Trek, in the shape of some recent Ebay scores and a few craft from Irregular Miniatures.

As you'll see above, I've managed to lay my hands on a FASA style Klingon D7 and D18, alongside a trio of Romulan Birds of Prey, as well as a pair of already painted craft from Irregular's Sci-Fi range - not strictly canon, of course, being the DYO 13 'Black Star Liner', but I think they look good as proto-Romulan ships - perhaps a developmental stage we never actually saw on-screen...

These are countered by three of the Imperial Faction DYE 11, Perry Class Frigate (Revised) from Irregular, which come with separate old-school style warp nacelles, which as you have no doubt noticed, allow for a variety of mounting options.

Above you can see the basic hull with the nacelles mounted three differing ways - from the left, raised erect in classic Enterprise/Constitution Class stylee, followed by a flat mounting with the miniature's saucer section placed upside down, and then a conventional flat mount, probably as intended by the manufacturer. You must excuse the currently rather clumsy looking application of plasticard that is visible in bracing the latter mountings - I found I needed these to beef up the join, which has to fit into a rather small cut-out in the body of the main hull.

To be fair, the saucer section 'underside' of the miniature is a bit rough in terms of sculpting, but I wanted to use one upside down to add to the available range of vessels - all of course are rather on the small side, so definitely in the Frigate category, but then that should make the match-up with the Aliens all the more challenging....

Not that I am in really in a position to launch these into a gaming scenario in the near future, I merely wanted to paint some cool ships!

The timescale for these is very much immediately post 'The Original Series', I think, or at least will involve ships in combat away from the glamour of Kirk's flagship adventures....

I won't be aiming for super-detailing with them - there are some amazingly talented people out there using micro-decals and such like to produce tiny masterpieces, but I'll be happy with something representative and characterful, with any luck.... of course the Ebay finds mean that I can even cheat on the overall painting process, with most of it done already!

Irregular's current pricing puts the DYE11 Perry (revised) at just £1.20 each, which even given their relatively diminutive size, is pretty darn good, considering how much Trek-related stuff normally costs, so I am quite pleased with these 'not-Trek' stand-ins, and will proudly use them to fly the Federa.....ahem, I mean 'Imperial' flag....