The Neutral Zone: Star Trek Wargaming

[Commissar Molotov]

So, today I assembled a flying stand. I've managed to find an appropriately-sized drill bit to get my ships based:





Using an old piece of MDF I had lying around, I've undercoated it black and added stars:





Whilst it's a little barebones, it'll help us have a starfield to fight over. I'm now looking at putting together some asteroids and maybe a planet!

[e2055261]

Make sure the planet is made of foam. It should look more realistic than the actual show.

Is that Pike or Kirk in the captains chair?

[Commissar Molotov]

Thanks for the comment! My campaign is going to be set in 2269, so it would be Kirk aboard the Enterprise - though I'm going to be having a different Constitution-Class vessel (the USS Republic) taking centre stage.

Some progress:

I've managed to get some flying stands, so you can see the progress of my Klingon squadron - they do need some more work doing to them, but they're getting there.



I also found a cool little art shop in Leicester that had all sorts of Polystyrene balls, which will form the basis of an asteroid field (for the most part).



The largest ones, however, will have other uses:



With a bit of work, they ought to make serviceable planets for us to fight around (and over!)

[e2055261]

Great work thus far. I really am surprised how few comments you have received. I expecially like the stars on the bases. Your photos don't realy show the ships well enough though...

I was right about the planets then? Foam! Ask the ST Original special effects dept for some modelling tips. But seriously though, the planets will be hard to model IMO. You're probably best off making them M class planets with continents and stuff. What are your plans there?

[WarpWhisperer]

Nice to see work progressing here; are you planning to 'texturize' the asteroids in any way?

How do you plan to differentiate the Klingon ships?

[Darthvegeta800]

I used to have some SW Micromachines. And I remember the Star Trek ones. They'd be ideal for your needs.
A fun collection you have so far in any case. Keep it up! ^__^

[Horus Aximand]

Are you considering any scratch-built TOS ships, or expanding into other series such as TNG or DS9? I remember DS9 to be fulled to the brim with massive fleet actions for the last few series, and some purple Jem'Hadar and the USS Defiant would look beautiful here. What about rulesets?

[precinctomega]

Brilliant stuff! Keep it up.

The Firestorm: Armada space fleet rules include an appendix to allow you to design your own ships and fleets using their rules; you'd be able to field your Starfleet Federation Ships against the Terran Federation, the Dindrenzi, the Directorate and the rest of the F:A range using their rules!

R.

[Admiral Koppenflak]

This is such an epic idea.

I briefly tried designing my own set of rules for WW2 naval combat in my waning days of highschool, for 1/700 scale given the range of ships available... I immediately regretted my large choice of scale, because we ended up guessing shell ranges over the distance of the entire garage floor! Great fun though.

Having refound my love of Trek recently, consider me subscribed and inspired.

[major soma]

Always nice to find another Trek fan. Scale can be an issue when gaming in Trek or Star Wars for that matter. I wish Micro Machines still made the Star Trek models.

[major soma]

Ouch did you see the Furuta Defiants price?

[AndrewGPaul]

Oooh, very nice. I have, somewhere, some of the FASA metal ships - a Constitution, Enterprise-A, Excelsior, a D-7, a movie-era Klingon cruiser and a couple of Romulan ships that FASA invented for their game. I even scored the Excelsior in the original packaging, with a translucent blue flight stand. Didn't stay that way for long.

Which reminds me; one reason why there's so little in the way of Star Trek wargaming is that Gene Roddenberry didn't like the idea of setting a wargame in his utopian universe. I believe he was instrumental in restricting FASA's licence and preventing them from releasing the Next Generation sourcebook they'd written. ADB's licence is much older, only covers the original 60's series and is apparently impossible to revoke.

Amusingly, in the late 80s and early 90s, FASA/Ral Partha and Citadel had some sort of arrangement to manufacture each other's miniatures in the US and UK; the Doctor Who and Star Trek ranges were made by both companies. I've got a Klingon bird-of-prey I can legitimately use in games of Battlefleet Gothic in GW stores.

I'm getting rather tempted to drag my old minis out of storage and repaint them, now.

[major soma]

Yup ADB's contract cant be revoked part of that deal was that they only cover TOS and their own creations. Roddenberry had some interesting ideas and squished anything which didnt meet his vision including ruling that starships needed two nacelles to travel.

[chromedog]

I used to have some SW Micromachines. And I remember the Star Trek ones. They'd be ideal for your needs.
A fun collection you have so far in any case. Keep it up! ^__^

My wife has a full set of the micromachines Star Trek ship sets. She got them as a birthday present around 10 years ago from her brother (who bought several lots himself) - I got given the Star Wars set

They are ideal for this kinda gaming though.

The MM SW sets are identical to the Star Wars fleet battle miniatures as well - I believe the same moulds were used for them.

Awesome work. Can't wait to see the planets and asteroids painted up. Reminds me a lot of the club Full Thrust campaigns I used to play in - and the old Star Trek battle simulator (not SFB).

[Commissar Molotov]

Hey guys,

I've been playing a game called "Star Trek D-A-C" on XBLA recently, and it reignited my passion for the clunky old Star Trek of my youth. Wobbly sets, polystyrene planets and all!

I've been doing some careful eBaying, and I bought another Constitution-Class Cruiser off the net. However, this one was made by Furuta, a Japanese company.

The model came in various bits, as seen below:



Now, this kit is a snap-together kit, designed to be put together without any glue. However, the instructions weren't very much help for me:



However, in truth it's pretty simple. You can't go that wrong. In fact, the nacelle support struts have cleverly notched pegs to ensure you can't put them the wrong way round.

Putting it together, however, I was struck by something. This is the previous (keyring) Enterprise:



And now, alongside the Furuta Enterprise:




As you can see, it's pretty much twice the size of all the other ships I've got so far! However, that's not immediately a bad thing. I love the presence the model has, and as there are going to be much fewer models per table than BFG, I don't think it's immediately that bad. I've ordered a few more Furuta vessels - oddly enough, I've ordered a couple of Jem'Hadar Attack Ships (from DS9) which with a little bit of work will make usable Orion Pirate ships.

A bigger problem can be seen here:



My Klingon ships are tiny! Whilst these can be passed off as "D5 Warbirds" or the like, I wanted a big D7, and I can't find a Furuta one anywhere. I'm currently waiting for a Johnny Lightning D7 to be sent to me as a test, but at the moment I'm a bit disappointed, as I am hoping for Klingons to be a major feature in my campaign.

More progress will be coming soon!

[Hushrong]

Those old-school Romulan Birds of Prey brings back good memories. Especially when they had been used as ninja stars.

But man oh man, I am hit with nostalgia! Especially after talking with a buddy and starting up some star trek fleet battles (old system from the 80s, i think, that he has and a new one coming out soon).

I'm half-tempted to dig out my Star Trek 'collectibles' and 'simulate' a battle with them. Please keep this up Commissar Molotov!

[major soma]

You could use the Klingon ship as a D6 one of the older class ships. Or just measure from the base its fairly easy to work around. I also use the Futura ships for gaming with the SFB system however I'll probably switch to the Call to Arms system once the Star Trek version is launched.

[Commissar Molotov]

Yeah, we'll probably be measuring from the base (akin to BFG) but still, the models will look smaller. I've also ebayed two Klingon cruisers from the Konami line. They're apparently (according to a youtube video I watched) a similar scale to my newest Constitutions.



I've recently heard about the Call to Arms range - I'll be intrigued, but it's certainly dependant on scale.

[Commissar Molotov]

As you can see, I got another D7. This one is about a third bigger than my previous ones, and is made by a company called Johnny Lightning. Thing is, this is a Romulan D7, one of the ships the Romulans got after trading cloaking devices to the Klingons. I'm going to be repainting it, but at the moment it's good to have some opposition for the Constitution.



Alongside these two you can see one of the three(!) Jem'Hadar attack ships I bought to serve as Orion Raiders. They're decent enough models.

Finally, in these three you can see the Saladin-Class destroyer I've converted from one of the Furuta Constitutions. It's not perfect, but these models aren't supposed to win awards, simply to be playing pieces.

[Hushrong]

Lovely stuff!

I might have to look into Furuta minis and get cracking on a fleet for the Terran Empire.