Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => Future Wars => Topic started by: auspexRex on November 22, 2021, 05:25:38 PM
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I'm running an rpg that's going to have to some space battles and I'm looking over my options for acquiring a decent collection of spaceship minis. I love the dropfleet commander ships, but it looks like they're a bit hard to find these days. I want to avoid super obvious recognizable ships like those from trek, star wars, and such, but ideally would have a good variety.
Essentially, I'm just curious who all is producing a good range of space ship minis these days to narrow my search a bit. Thanks.
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Do you have a 3D printer? Or know someone who does? Assault Publishing Studio has fleets of ships on a "Pay as you want" bases. at the Wargame Vault.
https://www.wargamevault.com/browse/pub/16581/Assault-Publishing-Studio (https://www.wargamevault.com/browse/pub/16581/Assault-Publishing-Studio)
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Brigade Models has a pretty wide assortment of spaceships- everything from dreadnaughts and fleet carriers down to scouts and civilian transports. Ground Zero Games (GZG) also does an enormous range of spacecraft. Those manufacturers are very compatible with each other.
The only thing caution about those lines is that the ships are meant for massed fleet combat games and are in a somewhat smaller nominal scale than models from Dropfleet Commander. Space ships are fairly scale agnostic, but you still might find Brigade and GZG small if you like heftier models.
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Not interested in 3D printing my own. Though I may end up buying some already printed. I've seen some decent offerings on etsy.
Brigade's range looks about right for what I'm going for. Just trying to get a sense for who is producing lines still in pewter or plastic or resin, mostly.
Thank you.
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Brigade Models has a pretty wide assortment of spaceships- everything from dreadnaughts and fleet carriers down to scouts and civilian transports. Ground Zero Games (GZG) also does an enormous range of spacecraft. Those manufacturers are very compatible with each other.
The only thing caution about those lines is that the ships are meant for massed fleet combat games and are in a somewhat smaller nominal scale than models from Dropfleet Commander. Space ships are fairly scale agnostic, but you still might find Brigade and GZG small if you like heftier models.
With Dropfleet, I don't know that I've seen them in real life, just dig the style and detail.
The Brigade and GZG models look about the right size... I think. I'm more interested in making sure the ships I get look right next to each other than anything else. It's good to know GZG and Brigade are compatible though. That essentially gives me a much larger range to work with.
Curious how the Kallistra ships measure up: https://www.kallistra.co.uk/?page=22
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What about EM4? 12 ships for £4.99.
(https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0049/4593/6502/products/spacecraft_720x.jpg?v=1543927052)
https://em4miniatures.com/collections/science-fiction-near-future-miniatures/products/spacecraft (https://em4miniatures.com/collections/science-fiction-near-future-miniatures/products/spacecraft)
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What about EM4? 12 ships for £4.99.
Yeah, those are great. Worth grabbing at that price just because.
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The Brigade and GZG models look about the right size... I think. I'm more interested in making sure the ships I get look right next to each other than anything else. It's good to know GZG and Brigade are compatible though. That essentially gives me a much larger range to work with.
Brigade's starship range actually started life as Israeli ships for Full Thrust, way back in the days before GZG made their own figs for them, after which they got split up into multiple national fleets and renamed. Most have been replaced with newer resculpts at this point, but anything with a prow like the Kincaid destroyer below is one of those old vets.
(http://www.brigademodels.co.uk/Pics/SFS/SFS-231-1.jpg)
Anyway, both companies use the same general "scale" for different classes - destroyers are generally about an inch long, really big capital ships might reach 5" or a bit more, etc.
Curious how the Kallistra ships measure up: https://www.kallistra.co.uk/?page=22
They have their length and width dimensions listed, as do many/most of the Brigade figs. Should be able to compare the two and get decent feel for relative sizes.
I'd also recommend a look through the Silent Death range. There's about 150 sculpts over there, all remarkably inexpensive, and while most are theoretically fighters or small gunboats many are pretty free from obvious details defining scale and could be just about any class of ship. Most are under 2" long so not a good source for capital ships in the "Full Thrust scale" GZG and brigade use, but they're great for the kind of smaller vessels RPG characters tend to use and fight most often. "Adventure class" ships used to be the name for that sort of thing - Free Traders, Type S Scouts, Millennium Falcons and Fireflies. Think FASA might actually have coined the term way back when.
https://silent-death.mx/store/
Note that they have the same Silent Death plastics EM-4 makes, and are maybe cheaper if you're in North America.
Also don't skip on Studio Bergstrom, who have a huge and quite varied range ranging from rather, ah, recognizable IPs to more original stuff. Do not be alarmed by the crap quality of many of his catalog images, the stuff looks great in person. Really wish he'd take the time to get better images up, I've been making excuses for him about that for decades now. :\ He's getting better lately though, ie:
https://studiobergstrom.com/index.php?route=product/category&path=92
Hey, when the heck did all those Scandinavian-named ones come out? Son of a...Drew also sucks at announcing new releases! :)
https://studiobergstrom.com/
If you want largely unrecognizable ship designs with a hint of the Dropfleet Commander aesthetic, I'm still sitting on most of the kitbashed-out-of-spare-parts designs from a few years back, eg:
https://brokenstarsburningships.blogspot.com/2019/10/full-thrust-zedoss-monarchy-kitbashed.html
(https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IEAf_ZSqC4w/XairXaMKlyI/AAAAAAAAFc0/daOgp4WYJVML9j6KVUvJMQYkvpPbBiSJQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/101_8316.jpg)
(https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rd_m9lnh0MU/XairgWS5IoI/AAAAAAAAFc4/EnqhiGVf9LQ4sbVrig_TU6iy0WmCtLJNACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/101_8318.jpg)
(https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gjb2owO5EfA/Xa4U77J4L_I/AAAAAAAAFf0/4PvcsUdCwDUr1U3Aq45jY26FwqG-4f0kACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/101_8328.jpg)
(https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3nSD57Y4pvo/XaoROjuHEtI/AAAAAAAAFdo/c1FOjaF_owU1Nhi6MUm6Vl8wVMRUBzRAACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/101_8297.jpg)
Wouldn't mind selling/trading off some of those if you want to PM me about it.
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Note that they have the same Silent Death plastics EM-4 makes, and are maybe cheaper if you're in North America.
...
If you want largely unrecognizable ship designs with a hint of the Dropfleet Commander aesthetic, I'm still sitting on most of the kitbashed-out-of-spare-parts designs from a few years back, eg.
I remember loving the silent death ships from when I was a kid, but didn't realize anyone still sold them. Will check that out. Thanks!
Those kitbashed ships are lovely, but almost certainly more than I'm willing to pony up for right now. I need a line I can buy a few here and there over the coming months depending on how much we play. Plus, I like to paint too.
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I remember loving the silent death ships from when I was a kid, but didn't realize anyone still sold them. Will check that out. Thanks!
Yeah, they've never quite gone out of production. The New Millennium era sculpts (especially the plastics) were years ahead of their time when they were new and still hold up well today. SD has some diehard fans and there's still hope for a new edition someday, although I wouldn't recommend holding my breath for at at this point. :)
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I was just pointing out on the VSF forum the Irregular Miniatures line. Their 'flying battleships' are on the same page as their space fleets, if I remember right.
Bargain priced, though I'd say a) keep your eyes open for a bit too much genre-borrowed themes, as you've already mentioned, and b) they can vary as to how irregular, though I could make both comments about Studio Bergstrom, and I've a metric b***load of his work.
So, Bergstrom in the colonies, and Irregular in the mother land? If you're going budget, shippage can be a tiger, and I hate the paper work.
Doug
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Irregular's sculpt quality is pretty consistently good from the point where it says "New Spaceship Range" on the page on downward. That's where the mostly newer designs start, the figs farther up the page are older and a bit more, well, irregular. The newer stuff was pretty clearly sculpted to mesh with the Star Fleet Battles range from Amarillo Design Bureau, although it's more of a vague aesthetic similarity and choice of ship classes than a recognizable IP thing.
Maddeningly you can't link directly to the science fiction & spaceships page, it's well-hidden under the 6mm category, way down toward the bottom of a long list of mostly historical stuff in that scale.
If you want similarly retro sculpts from a US manufacturer, Tin Soldier has a selection based on the Starguard universe that's worth a look. Much like Irregular's site, you can't link directly to all the ship categories but you can find the starships tab way down toward the bottom left here, just above the paper stuff:
https://www.tin-soldier.com/sgdp.html
Honest to Noshabkeming, how some companies stay afloat with these insanely awkward web stores is beyond me.
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In case you weren't aware, Dropfleet Comander can be purchased from TTCombat:
https://ttcombat.com/collections/dropfleet-commander
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There are a load of official Traveller ships over on Shapeways at 1:1000 - Foreven Shipyards (https://www.shapeways.com/shops/foreven-shipyards?li=pb)
Bit too expensive for massed battles, but useful for the RPG sessions. The killer with Shapeways is they use UPS for delivery, which is brutal in p&p terms :-[
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Ad Astra also sells a fair range of Traveller ship figures in both 1:2500 and 1:7200 scale if you want something smaller, although they're still pretty expensive.
https://www.adastragames.com/products?category=Miniatures
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I bumped into these ships whilst browsing recently, and remembering your post here, I thought you might be interested:
https://www.fate-amenable-to-change.co.uk/product-category/ships/ (https://www.fate-amenable-to-change.co.uk/product-category/ships/)
Prices seem okay-ish, but no indication of model size.
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I bumped into these ships whilst browsing recently, and remembering your post here, I thought you might be interested:
https://www.fate-amenable-to-change.co.uk/product-category/ships/ (https://www.fate-amenable-to-change.co.uk/product-category/ships/)
Prices seem okay-ish, but no indication of model size.
Click on the individual listings, they have dimensions listed in the description text. Or at least the ones I tested out did.
Studio Bergstrom has some similar "flat, loads of space for turrets, probably inspired by Homeworld" designs here:
https://studiobergstrom.com/index.php?route=product/category&path=99
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Plastic soldier company are selling off lots for not a lot...
https://www.theplasticsoldiercompany.co.uk/shop/sale-items/ (https://www.theplasticsoldiercompany.co.uk/shop/sale-items/)
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0-hr.com has some nice models that you can also get Poster/floorplans of each ship. he does a lot with Kickstarter and he starts shipping stuff right after the kickstarter ends
https://0-hr.com/Shop/index.htm
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Plastic soldier company are selling off lots for not a lot...
https://www.theplasticsoldiercompany.co.uk/shop/sale-items/ (https://www.theplasticsoldiercompany.co.uk/shop/sale-items/)
I have these myself, and you can't fault the price range. The miniatures are fairly decent, and can be quite scale agnostic - meaning a miniature played as a destroyer one game, could easily be played as a cruiser or a light corvette another game. They paint up fairly decently, though the detail is a little on the shallow side, so washes aren't so effective on them. I think I gave £10 for a big bag of 30 odd ships, which means you can quickly and easily build up a fleet.
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I am very partial to old school so the McEwan Miniatures starships which expanded on their Starguard universe always captivated me, or at least many of the designs.
https://tin-soldier.com/scific.html
This is the start of their sci fi section. Click on Starguard then look at the vertical list on the left side. There are a few groups of "owners" and they are split up there.
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I am very partial to old school so the McEwan Miniatures starships which expanded on their Starguard universe always captivated me, or at least many of the designs.
https://tin-soldier.com/scific.html
This is the start of their sci fi section. Click on Starguard then look at the vertical list on the left side. There are a few groups of "owners" and they are split up there.
Already linked to them on the first page, with commentary on how to find them on that clunker of a website.
If you want really old school, there's also the Minifigs starships range:
http://www.miniaturefigurines.co.uk/Catalogue.aspx?ScaleID=3&CategoryID=35&SubCategoryID=353
And almost as old, Valiant's Stardate 300 figs:
https://www.veltd.net/collections/stardate-3000-space-ships
And Monday Knight's casting Superior's Starfleet Wars range:
http://www.mondayknight.com/OnlineStore.html
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I don't think anyone has mentioned Kallistra yet...
https://www.kallistra.co.uk/?page=22 (https://www.kallistra.co.uk/?page=22)
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Ryan wolf just started another kickstarter with a ne miniature
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/0-hr/yoshida-starship-map-and-miniature?ref=section-homepage-view-more-recommendations-p2