Space, to boldly go where...uh...hrm...wow those are tiny

[Rhelyk]

My group has been planning on getting some Federation Commander in again. FedCom tends to come out onto our table every couple of years for a month or two then to go right back in until we get the itch again. I play Federation, everyone else likes to play Klingon or Romulans or Kzinti, and that's just fine by me, but while the Zocchi plastics are pretty great, they're kind of large to play with. The new resins that Mongoose did? Blech, well detailed but ridiculously large for a hex based game. And really too large for their own game, I had the same issue with their Babylon 5 ships and went with the old Agents of Gaming fleet scale for B5. A friend got some pretty great Trek ships on Shapeways that were about half the size, perfect for hex battling. I MAY have gotten the wrong size ships...










On the plus side I got a largish federation AND klingon fleet for $34 USD shipped, and they'll certainly fit in any hexes I put them in!

[Bergil]

The desire I have to own such tiny ships is ludicrous.

Do they have a very wide range of these star trek ships available?

[Rhelyk]

Most of the major FedCom/SFB races, including refit versions of the Federation. Probably going to order some more so I have romulans too, and also because the Fast Attack set doesn't come with Battlecruisers or Dreadnoughts

http://www.shapeways.com/shops/javelin98?section=MicroFleets&s=0

[Rhelyk]

Got 4 of them painted up as a test, would have done more but I forgot to clean my airbrush thoroughly and spent most of the night on that. Pretty darn pleased with how they came out, THEY"RE SO TINY! Gonna magnetize the rest before I paint em, did one as a test with some small rare earth magnets I've had and it was MUCH easier to hold and paint

[ced1106]

It's like little tiny spaceship babies!

fwiw, Secret Weapon miniatures has a two-minute tutorial on weathering pigments ($5 at Miniature Market) for your spaceships. Send me a PM if you can't find it!

[nathan]

I love the Microfleets.  I was going to go with them for FC but ended up scratchbuilding my own 1/7000 scale instead.

They painted up great and look fantastic.

And no worries about them fitting in the hexes

[maxxon]

Those are cute.

Though you should probably put numbers on the bases as well. At least I've found that stuff like that without identifying tags causes lots of hassle in a game. Even if I can tell them apart, none of my friends can.

[blackstone]

Those are great I'll be getting some soosn for sure. Would probably rebase them so they'd be on a square base with all the info that's on the chit. I wonder if they could be printed without the integral stands and whether that would make them cheaper? Btw do these fit on the small hex side?

[YPU]

I'm not really into Star trek ships but I might just start CAD drawing some small ships like this for Colonial battle-fleet and save a lot of money and time on them.  Or I will when I get back from Finland. (Sangennaru will probably read this and beat me to it)

[The_Beast]

I saw this fellow's stuff on TMP and was mightily impressed. Not just ST; plenty of other 'verses. Check out the 'aeronefs' and not-GW dropships.

Impressively, he seems willing to group them on request. I'm even thinking of which would do well for a chess set...  

Doug

Edit: From TMP: 'Yeah, they're more like "1/Lots". I designed them for use with the 1/2" paper hex maps, so the bases are 1/2" across and the ships themselves are scaled mostly to be consistent with their classes.'

[sundayhero]

This is very interesting. Recently, when I had some hobby money available (money I spent in shadowrun minis), I was interested by startrek games (I even posted about it on LAF). But with the lack of cheap options for starships, I forgot it.

Now I know there is a good option. But no money left. 

[OSHIROmodels]

Oh, they really are diddy 

Cracking paint work though 

Maybe you could game it in with the ranges in actual scale 

cheers

James

[Whitwort Stormbringer]

I'm a poor gamer that loves Star Trek, so these have some great appeal, for me!  I would love to do some large-scale fleet engagements, which just isn't feasible with the rules I currently use (price/mini or scope of the rules), but if I can find a good rule set for larger fleets that these will work with, by Jove I'm going to try it out!

Love that he does TNG Federation ships, since that's my preferred era.  Too bad pickins are slim for enemies :/

[sundayhero]

Concerning startrek,I believe that one of the best options is Federation COmmander. Reading reviews of it really give this startrek feeling, where power location is very important.

[Whitwort Stormbringer]

Thanks for the recommendation!  I've heard only good things about Federation Commander, and also A Call to Arms: Starfleet.  Not 100% certain I want to game the "Starfleet Universe," though.  I'm a trekkie due to the shows, but have never really gotten my hands dirty with the gaming side of things.  I'm guess all there is for me to do is to go look into it!