State of the Blog Address (2019 in Review)

I have to say that this year passed by quickly!  It's basically a blog tradition that I go over what I did and didn't accomplish over the past 12 months and this year is yet again a bit of a mixed bag.  I'm the traditional hobby front, 2019 wasn't unfortunately much different than the prior year.  I managed to finish what I thought would be my final Winged Hussar (link here) as well as four figs for basically the same rpg character idea.  Why so many?  Well, the character changed as well as my ideas of how to portray him.   The first fig (link here) was printed on shapeways for a previous defunct campaign attempt whereas the others were done at home on my only big hobby project purchase, the Elegoo Mars 3d printer.

I had previously thought I was done with my hussar project but the upcoming release of Master Lazarus for 40k as well as a free 3d model from Artel W might convince me to dip my toes back into that pool later this year.  In the meantime, I've taken a stab at samurai inspired space marines instead with some success (link here) that I have yet to paint as well as a Space Wolf that at least I finished (link here).

Too big...too small...just right!

On the Star Trek front, I made a few entries to my SHIELD UP! house rules section.  While I didn't end up revising my Fasa STSTCS ship manual, I revised the existing D-15 FASA ship (link here) as well as added the Atlas dreadnought to my STA house rules (link here).  I also decided to test out a theory regarding whether you could noticeably improve prepainted heroclix minis with a quick wash and/or drybrush (link here).    Finally, I  came up with some more nuanced rules for playing STA in the Enterprise/NX era of trek (link here).  In that same update, I previewed a 3d version of my old NXL ship design which later got a test print or two (link here) but I never did more with them.  It's not alot but I suppose an optimistic way to look at it would be that I put out at least quarterly trek updates if averaged out for the year.  I don't have any ambitious plans for the trek side of the hobby but I do hope to revisit printing my NXL design now that I'm more experienced with supporting prints as well as coming out with a short Klingon D-7 update for FASA.  I generally need a direct motivation for my hobby work and the lack of any real chance of playing anything trek related locally unfortunately hampers that.

 Cactus Trek!

Ending the recap on a positive note, I was finally able to find a relatively stable rpg group this past year.  While I'm not enamored particularly with the ruleset (review link), it works for me as a player and we've been managing a monthly game since the summer.  It's because of that campaign that I've been focused more on my Krogan miniatures than the others.  I'd love it if we were playing longer than the 3-4 hours per session we average as well as playing every two weeks as originally planned instead of monthly but it's a good group of easy going players and I'm glad to have them.  With that, my yearly TL;DR hobby therapy session post is over and I wish everyone a happy 2020!

 

Another upcoming Krogan RPG character mini!

Birth of the Federation (NX era rules for STA)

I've been working on my first ever "remix" of a Star Trek 3D model (basically the digital equivalent of a plastic model kitbash or conversion).  A while back on one of my first blog entries, I posted my NXL Long Range Exploratory pod idea (link here) and decided recently to try and add a 3rd dimension to the visualization.  That of course brought up the more practical gaming uses for it and reminded me that I wasn't entirely happy with the rules for the NX era in the modern Star Trek Adventures RPG.  The problem that I have with it is that I feel that the rules penalize ships from the era a bit too much as you not only get downgraded but also have to pay an extra cost for the privilege.  For example, you have to pay for the privilege of downgrading your tractor beam to a grappler cannon using a ship trait; similarly, downgrading shields to hull plating costs another.  While I wholeheartedly support making ships of that era worse than those from a century earlier, this double penalizes the worst ships whereas the most powerful ships of the era are functionally equivalent to those that come over a century later when updated. 

Tripp: "How can you be so damn sure what our sensors can do?"

T'Pol: "Vulcan children play with toys that are more sophisticated."  

RULES FOR PLAYING IN THE NX ERA

Ships originating from this era (pre-2200 introduction) have a baseline technology level below that of most eras covered by the Star Trek Adventures core rules.  As such, the starting equipment for a spaceframe introduced before 2200 has the following changes:

• Remove access to shields and the tractor beam; replace them with the polarized hull plating and grappler cable rules respectively from page 55 of the Command Division book supplement.
• Remove photon torpedoes and phasers/disruptors and replace them with plasma turrets (no special qualities) and either the spatial torpedoes and/or nuclear warheads from page 55 of the Command Division book supplement.

   Tripp: "That tractor beam of yours is quite somethin'.  Any chance we could take a look at the specifications?" 

Vannik: "That information is classified."

 In order to emulate the more advanced ships from the era, the following talent is available for selection.

STATE OF THE ART 
Pre-2200 service date introduction only.  This ship contains systems that are far in advance of the common technology of the day.  Each time you select this talent (max twice), you must choose to either upgrade the offensive or defensive systems of the ship.  If you choose the offensive option, you may upgrade your baseline weapons to phase weapons and/or photonic torpedoes.  If you choose defensive, you may upgrade your systems to include shields and/or tractor beams.

For example, the original NX class as launched would just include plasma turrets and spatial torpedoes with all three talent slots open.  If you instead choose to portray the ship as equiped in later seasons, the ship would have the State of the Art (Offensive) talent with the phase weapon and photonic torpedo upgrades.  If you instead wanted to go even later in the era, the NX refit would spend another slot on a second State of the Art talent in order for the ship to include shields and tractor beams.  As always, feel free to let me know what you think of this as an alternative to the official rules for the game.

Star Trek Heroclix... worth a quick touchup?

Recently I gave another player the advice that a quick wash/shade of the Star Trek heroclix figs improves their look and the level of visible detail and I realized that I had never actually done so with my own Trek clix figs that I picked up last year.  While I had done the same thing with some other clix figs like AVP and Marvel/DC ones, those examples were a few years ago and I figured I should update the blog with an example of the quick and dirty technique on the newer Star Trek figs.   My goal was to show what can be done quickly, easily, and relatively inexpensively by a player without any real experience with painting miniatures.  

I tried to choose a half dozen figs showcasing a variety of factions and colors.  The original prepainted figs are duplicates of the same sculpt/paint job as I didn't think of taking the before pics of the exact same figs; any minor deviations on the base paint scheme (like roving eyebrows on the red shirt!) are just paint errors from the clix factory.  And, yes, the red shirt that I touched up is indeed missing a hand as he came like that from the ebay auction.  I had a second one of the fig so figured it wasn't worth raising a stink with the seller with one defective fig out of 20+ in the lot.  Besides, it's a bit appropriate given he's a red shirt and nurse Chapel is nearby anyways to treat his wound.  :)   Here is the starting "before" pic:

The first step that I did was a quick wash of the main uniform color.  I used a dark flesh wash on the Klingon/Romulan and a light wash on the Andorian.  The Federation figs instead got (from L to R) a red wash, soft flesh, and blue wash on the uniforms.  Skin and hands then got the approrpriate wash as well (blue for the Andorian, soft flesh for the rest).  I didn't wait for the first wash to dry before applying the second as I was purposely trying to show what a quick, relatively no fuss novice technique could do.  About the only care that I took was to avoid excessive pooling in areas like eye sockets and splotches on big flat areas.   No fig got more than 30 seconds each in total of actual painting time/attention with both washes combined.

While I was happy with the added detail in folds of the uniforms as well as on the faces, the above obviously isn't a home run either.  Despite my (admittedly minor) efforts to prevent excessive pooling, there are still areas where the wash dried a bit too prominently for my tastes so I figured I'd try and see what adding a second quick dry brush step could do for the figs.  For this next pic, I basically just dry brushed whatever the closest color I had to the base color (red for red, light blue for blue, brass for brass/copper, etc)  even if it wasn't the exact same tone to pick out the raised areas a bit more.  I wasn't careful regarding how I applied this paint so areas like the starfleet delta uniform details are somewhat obliterated.  If you want to keep those details, I'd say use a traditional careful technique in that one same area instead of drybrushing.

For darker colored figs like the klingons, I don't think the technique has much utility as the only place that I see a difference on him is on the grey uniform top (similarly the helmet/face on the romulan).  I do think though that it does improve the lighter colored figures in the line for minimal effort.  It's obviously *NOT* the same thing as repainting them with care and detail nor is it perfect as some things are lost (uniform badges and the whites of the eyes) but overall I think it is a moderate improvement for minimal effort.  Including the washes drying, the set of figs above was completely done in about an hour (most of that time taken up with waiting for the washes to dry!) with no individual figure taking more than 2-3 minutes total for both steps combined in actual painting effort.

Here is an animated comparison of the three steps in succession on the two figs that I think it had the greatest impact on.  As always, feel free to let me know what you think and whether or not the quick wash and/or dry brush is worth the effort (or if it is even an improvement in the first place!).

State of the Blog Address (2018 in review)

Well, another year has gone by and so it's time for another year in review post.  I'll start with what amounted to the majority of progress on my blog... digital hobby publishing.  Starting with Star Trek tabletop gaming, I worked on over a dozen sheets under my SHIELDS UP! house rules (link here) divided up between the current Star Trek Adventures RPG by Modiphius and the classic FASA Starship Combat games.  This is where the bulk of my updates are for 2018 and, while I myself haven't tried any of them out in actual games, some other players have reported using my fan ship designs in their own campaigns.

Additionally, I tried my hand at some very basic programming and developed some custom ships (link here) for the fan made computer game version of the classic FASA game along with a tutorial for getting it all working (link here).  All in all, I'd say that I was significantly more productive in that virtual realm compared with typical tabletop hobby work albeit with almost no difference in the "games played" metric described above (excluding single player missions).

When it comes to actual hands on traditional hobby work, I frankly didn't accomplish much.  In 2018, the only miniatures that I worked on were the painted Winged Hussar pictured in the center below and another converted/built yet to be painted.  I had hoped to finish off a half painted Tau broadside suit conversion I worked on a few years ago but never got around to it. 

I hope to do better next year but realistically I said the same thing last year in my previous review so I won't hold my breath.  While I did visit the local games store a bit more in 2018 for RPG reasons, I only ended up playing a single miniatures game after an RPG session.  That definitely puts a damper on any larger hobby plans leaving me with the occasional conversion project (like my RAFM minis or Winged Hussars).  In the next month, I do plan on painting some of my 3D printed figures as part of the last phase of my review of them.

Next we have a mix of the two categories above in my Shapeways miniatures printing.  I relearned by brute force trial and error how to pose and modify existing models (although actual modelling is still far beyond my grasp) and mostly successfully printed out physical miniatures.  I did hear back from Shapeways about the misprint in my order and am awaiting my reorder of tweaked figures.  I do plan on covering the reprints as well as painting up several of the figures for use as well.  If time and budget allows, I also hope to place another later on in the year for my first ever custom starship miniatures including hopefully a ship or two featured in my SHIELDS UP! house rules.

Finally we have the miscellaneous updates.  In between the above, I've recounted my truthful experience in backing the failed Robotech Tactics miniatures kickstarter (link here), reviewed Artel W's series of boutique 40k themed miniatures (link here) as well as the Star Trek Discovery Season 1 (link here), reviewed the Starfinder RPG and my unsuccessful attempt at starting a local group (link here), and even covered the history of my blog's title (link here).

All in all that makes 26 updates for 2018 or roughly one every two weeks or so on average.  In reality, they came more in fits and spurts with May being a month without any update.  In addition to hopefully doing a bit more hands on painting in 2019, I do also hope to post a bit more regularly or, at a minimum, not completely miss any months on the blog.  As stated above, I do hope to finish off some existing miniatures on my painting table (like my 40k Tau broadside linked here as well as my recent 3D printed figs).  On the digital front, I don't see myself coming out with too many ships but I am considering publishing an updated 2019 edition of my TOS Recognition Manual (link here) if I can come up with a suitable Romulan ship to add to the roster.

I don't know if this type of review is informative to any potential readers but I do feel that it (at least temporarily) helps to focus my efforts for the upcoming months.  Regardless, see you all in a few weeks with my next 3D printing update and thanks again for reading!

Star Trek: What if? The Century Class for STA

What if the Federation never encountered the Borg and the Dominion?  What would the next heavy cruiser in Starfleet look like?  A while back, I discovered DJ Curtis' Century Class design in a mod for the Star Trek Bridge Commnader video game (link here).  I liked the sleek design of the ship and was happy to see that unusualsuspex on deviant did his own artwork for the ship as well.
 

Deviant Art Gallery Link 

Unusualsuspex was kind enough to allow me to use his gallery for some of my sheets so I was excited to do a variant of the Century for Star Trek Adventures.  In DJ Curtis' fan created backstory, the Century class was the followup to the Sovereign and the bearer of the coveted title of 1701-F roughly 30 years or so after Star Trek Nemesis.  Star Trek Adventures doesn't internally cover that time period and that fan created backstory has largely been replaced by licensed Star Trek Online in the decade since so I decided instead to reimagine the Century as an alternative to the Sovereign class.

To borrow from the title of a classic Marvel Comics series, what if Starfleet had never encountered the Borg or the Dominion and instead pursued the same focus on peaceful exploration that had lead to the creation of the Galaxy class?  Without the urgent need for increased tactical capabilities, I instead focused the ship onto the role of an advanced heavy exploration cruiser with a focus on science, medicine, and exploration.  The command speciality as the flagship of the Federation would be gone as would be the tactical upgrades of the Sovereign.  Instead, the ship would have slightly less overall power and lower top speed than the Sovereign but able to travel with increased efficiency (allowing it to cruise at max warp for many hours despite its size similar to the smaller Intrepid).  The quantum torpedoes would instead be replaced with improved shielding (the only tactical upgrade) as well as advanced sensors and automated laboratories.

As always, let me know if there are any mistakes in the writeup and feel free to comment below.

PDF Link

Derf Tender to the Rescue!

One of the easiest overlooked and least glamorous classes in the old FASA Star Trek game was the Derf Tender.  Much like Chief O'Brien, these ships were the no frills, hard working unsung heroes of Starfleet.  Funtioning as a mobile repair station, the ship capable of doing extensive repairs on deep space buoys as well as other ships and even small stations on site without the necessity of having them towed to a larger starbase.

Obviously this ship already has FASA stats but I wanted to also update it for the new Star Trek Adventures game.  As with the Pioneer class, I thought that the upcoming release of the Ops book would be a good time to introduce this TOS era engineering focused starship.  For the first time, I decided to use official talents not in the core book but instead from the Command Division supplement as they seemed very appropriate to the role that I wanted the ship to fill.  With a high powered tractor beam (backed up by a secondary grappler cable), I imagined this starship being capable of towing at low warp much larger objects up to and including the K series stations.  With a large dedicated engineering staff, it would have the capability to also repair multiple other ships simultaneously as part of a larger fleet.

As always, let me know if there are any issues and thanks for looking here at my custom fan ship sheets.  Normally, I make a single version of the stat sheet but I've decided for this class to instead make two.  CaptShade's art, whose art (link here) I've used for some of my other FASA conversions, graces the classic FASA style sheet below so thanks to him for allowing me to use it.  

PDF Link

 When searching for a more realistic style of art for use on the post's banner image, I found JAFisher44's 3D model pictured above (link here) for this little known class as well.  I decided to make another STA style sheet for the workhorse of Starfleet using his image as well.  The stats are the same on both so the choice on which to use for readers comes down to which style you prefer.

PDF Link

Blazing the Oregon Sector Trail with the Pioneer Class

It's been a while since I converted a Star Trek player ship but a recent flurry of activity in the FASA community made me want to scratch that itch again.  With the release of the Ops book next for the Star Trek Adventures RPG, I decided to release similarly themed ships starting with the Pioneer Class Utility light cruiser.

I'm a big fan of Cryptic Studios' Agents of Yesterday Expansion for Star Trek Online (link here!) and I decided to convert their Pioneer Class cruiser for both the venerable FASA game as well as the current Star Trek Adventures RPG.  Apaskins1991 over on deviantart has a huge gallery of Trek ship art and I was lucky enough to have him let me use his Pioneer class art for my sheets.

There isn't a whole heck of a lot of information about the Pioneer beyond that it's a light utility cruiser with a smaller crew complement than the larger, more famous ships from that era.  I imagined it in my FASA backstory as a light and fast ship able to perform many of the same roles as the larger Constitution but with a still impressive but shorter tour duration (perhaps a 3 year mission instead of the famous 5 year mission of the Connie).  Over on the STA side, I focused the build on more peaceful activity with a relatively even split amongst science, medicine, and engineering with less tactical capability compared with the Constitution class of the same era.

As always, let me know if you find any typos or other issues or just have any general feedback.  For full size versions of the image, just right click and open them in a new window or just download the PDFs if you prefer.

Pioneer Class FASA pdf link

Pioneer Class STA pdf link

Edit: After finding JAFisher44's work (link here) in modelling classic FASA designs in 3D for my follow Derf Class sheet, I was pleasantly surprised to see that he also worked on a Pioneer model as well and was willing to let me use it for my sheet.  For those who prefer 3d model art to the classic orthographic drawings, here is a version of the sheet with that instead.

 Pioneer Class (3D model version) Link

TNG Time... The Emissary and Patriot classes for STA

As mentioned before, I've mainly focused on TMP and especially TOS era can ships for Star Trek Adventures due to the lack of care variety both in the game rules and the source material.  I decided recently though to take my first dip in the TNG pool with my take on the Emissary and Patriot classes below.

Die-hard trekkies might recognize the image above as the original concept version of the Enterprise C Ambassador Class by veteran trek artist and designer Andrew Probert.  While I'm a fan of the version that made it to the screen in the Yesterday's Enterprise episode, the original is hands down IMO an amazing design that much better segways between the Excelsior and Galaxy classes. Years after the end of the show, this original version of the ship was fully fleshed out and updated to modern standards by the talented Tobias Richter for the Ships of the Line calendar.  Both artists were kind enough to allow me to adapt their work for my sheet and I thank them for being able to bring the ship into the game with the free fan stat sheet below.  Initially I was going to refer to it as an Ambassador refit or maybe even the Diplomat class but a synonym search for Ambassador turned up a name that I thought was more appropriate to Trek flavor for a diplomatic and exploration heavy cruiser... the Emissary Class!  I had to differentiate it from the on screen version of the Ambassador that already has official stats so I gave it advanced warp drive to showcase its streamlined look as well as improved hull integrity to put it a half step between scales 5 and 6 mechanically.  The obvious choice of the diplomatic suites talent that was not on the Ambassador class official writeup rounds out the third standard talent for the ship class.

Emissary Class PDF Link

On the other end of the size spectrum is the light cruiser Patriot class shown below.  I found this awesome design by Joe McMullen by happenstance while looking for images of another ship and was instantly hooked.

While I don't have exact dimensions, some of the images Joe made have a scale human figure in them showing the ship to be midway between the Nova and Intrepid classes in size.  When I matched the size of the bridge dome and the escape pods of the Nova class to these, the Patriot turned out to be about 10% longer and has a beefier saucer and secondary hull.  I decided to keep it as a scale 3 ship similar to the Nova but to specialize it for reconnaissance and electronic warfare instead.  In 20th century aviation terms, it's a mix between a SR-71 Blackbird and a wild weasel aircraft.  Equipped with sensitive electronics capable of both spying on and jaming the communications of adversaries, this small ship relies on its extreme speed (Warp 9.985 for up to 6 hours) and electronic capabilities as its primary defense.

Patriot Class PDF Link

As always, right click on the image to open it up full size in a new window or just click the pdf link for that format.  I'd appreciate any feedback folks might have and please  let me know if you find any errors.

A Dastardly Duo Approaches!

I initially focused on custom hero/player ships for the Star Trek Adventures game as obviously they'd see alot of play if used and the pickings for the TOS/TMP eras were pretty slim in the core book.   Equally slim though were the choices for adversaries in those eras and the subsequent expansions haven't really broadened the choices either outside of the TNG era.  As such, I decided to stat up two of my favorite ships from the classic FASA game for use with Star Trek Adventures.

Luckily for me, Brad Torgersen has a treasure trove of classic FASA ship images on his STSTCSOLDA website that he reworked to modern standards and graciously allowed me to use them.  Here are what I will call my dastardly duo double pack... the D-10 Command Cruiser for the Klingons and the V-7 ECM Cruiser for the Romulans.

PDF Link

I've included a section for breaches on the sheets using the NPC quick damage rules format.  If you prefer using the full player character ship damage rules, just pencil in the first few letters of the system damaged in each box instead of filling it in.  And, just in case anyone out there is playing a "villain" campaign and would like to use either of these as their player character ship, just add 2 points each to the systems and the departments divided up however you want and then choose two additional ship talents.  Once you update those stats (and any dependent ones like shields and weapons for example), you'll have a fully capable player character ship to use for your Romulan or Klingon crews.  As always, let me know if there are any typos that I missed or mistakes in the ship construction and thanks for checking this out. 

Let Slip the Ships of War! (Ares Class)

Anyone remember when this ship and its production were the most controversial and divisive topic in Trek fandom?  Ah, the good ol' days of 2016!  :)   It took me a while but I've finally gotten around to stating up the cool looking Ares class from the Prelude to Axanar fan film for both the new Star Trek Adventures RPG by Modiphius as well as the old FASA Starship Combat and RPG game.  There isn't a single complete repository of information about this fan created ship so I've looked around various wikis and the extensive series of Trekyards interviews in order to properly stat up the ship.  Special thanks to CaptShade who has allowed me to use his images on my blog as well as to Sean Tourangeau and Alec Peters for creating the Axanar ship design in the first place.  While I may disagree with how the Axanar team conducted themselves in the years after their initial crowdfunding, I can't deny that I enjoyed the initial fruits of their labor in Prelude.

For balance purposes, the Ares in the FASA rules has "only" six (!) photon torpedo launchers for the Mk I instead of the eight officially listed and I've reclassified it as a frigate built during the Four Year's War given the its role in the Axanar lore as a dedicated warship (instead of an assault cruiser which doesn't exist in Fasa).   Additionally, I've included some small counters for the class to use as needed on a hex board.  The more abstracted and less nitty gritty Star Trek Adventures rules for ship frameworks meant that I could pretty much stat it up without changing anything significant.  Just click on the images below in a new window for full sized versions of the sheets or click on the subsequent PDF links for that format.  As always, feel free to comment below and I hope you all enjoy this tough uncharacteristic warship of the Federation!

Ares FASA pdf

Ares Star Trek Adventures pdf

State of the Blog Address for 2017

It's that time of the (new) year so I'll recap the past year's progress on the blog moreso for myself but hopefully might be useful entertaining or informative for any readers as well.  Looking over the past year, it was more productive than 2016 largely due to digital hobby work as opposed to physical models painted.

I caught the Star Trek bug again back in 2016 and started doing a few FASA style sheets for some of my favorite fanships.  I continued that in 2017 with many more ships as well as some house rules and even counters to use them on the tabletop.  This culminated with my publication of a fan ship pdf collection under my SHIELDS UP! label.  While I definitely needlessly reinvented the wheel by using MSPaint for interior and cover art and Open Office for publishing, I was quite happy with the end result linked below.  I can't thank enough the various artists who let me use their fan created ship art on my sheets as without them I'd have some pretty bland stat lines and nothing else!

After putting out the above supplement for a long dead game from the 1980's, I decided to focus on the exact opposite and publish a few ship stat sheets for the then upcoming Star Trek Adventures RPG from Modiphius games.  Just like with the above FASA sheets, the company and fan artists were kind enough to use their art yet again.  I eventually decided on releasing two four packs of ships that likely would never otherwise see themselves officially written up for the RPG, one set of fan ships and the other of FASA classics.

 With the release of Warhammer 40,000 8th Edition this past summer along with the Primaris marine models, a tiny bit of my 40k interest resurfaced.  Largely due to the horribly unbalanced army construction rules of the previous 6th/7th editions, my interest in the property (models, novels, game rules, etc) dropped down to almost zero during those years.  While I don't have any definitive opinions on the new edition, my first impression is that, while they did address my biggest complaint in returning some semblance of sanity/balance to the construction rules, they also made the game more bland with bucket'o'dice mechanics at the expense of some common sense and variety in the ruleset.  Similarly mixed is my reception to the new Primaris style marines.  Whereas I really like the actual basic intercessor models themselves, I wasn't a fan of their introduction into the backstory of 40k and the likely replacement of "normal" marines both figuratively and literally (in terms of models) down the line.  I'd have strongly preferred introducing them just like every other model kit and fluff development for the past 30 years but there was no doubt that I preferred the more truescaled proportions and poses.  I picked up a few models here and there on ebay and decided to finally start my long awaited Winged Hussar chapter of Space Marines.  With some trial and error, I decided on the paint and modelling scheme on the left below.

 

Yup... my entire 2017 completed physical hobby effort amounted to the two models above along with a third prototype marine.  I do hope to continue to paint a few more with the same scheme (including a larger 54mm Inquisitor scale variant) but it was always meant to be a small project of a few models largely for potential future wargaming or RPG characters rather than a full army.

Additionally, I posted a few other one off updates about topics such as finishing my Heavy Gear Rafm scale force with some head swaps thanks to Ashley from Paint it Pink, tweaking some images to make a bucket filling version of the Primaris Coloring Book from GW, and commenting at length about the closure of several gaming companies (most notably Spartan Games whose line of Halo Fleet Battles miniatures I covered here extensively).

Looking forward to what I hope to accomplish in 2018, I hope that I'll strike a more even balance between virtual hobby work (like house rules) and phsyical ones (painted models).  While I've got several other house rule ideas at various stages (like advanced rules for Star Trek Attack Wing, rules lite intro Shadowrun, and mass battle LRB HG Blitz modifications), I don't have any concrete plans to publish them at this time.  With my slow return to physical painting, I'd like to instead finish a few more models from previous years such as my last remaining Tau Broadside battlesuit, the Logan Grimnar conversion from the Primarch Horus model, as well as a single Deathwatch model which happens to be my first hobby purchase of the new year.  There are some more substantial hobby projects dancing around my head as well (like a small force of Adeptus Custodes for 40k or finishing up my Rafm scale Heavy Gear force) but, in the interest of keeping myself honest, I won't be counting those chickens before they hatch and instead keep my sights a bit lower/more realistic.

Thanks again to my readers for sticking with me for another year and I hope to post some interesting things in the 12 months to come!

SHIELDS UP! FASA Framework Four Pack for Star Trek Adventures RPG

On the heels of my TOS Fanship framework pack, I decided to incorporate a few of the more unique (and some of my favorite) designs from the classic FASA RPG for use with the new licensed game by Modiphius.  Obviously these are my own personal takes using Captshade's expansive collection of classic FASA artwork so completely unofficial but hopefully based on the letter and/or spirit of the old FASA rules. 

 

PDF link

I used elements from Modiphius' TOS sheet along with some from the classic FASA ones as well.  Thanks to Modiphius for allowing me to modify their sheets for posting on my blog, CaptShade for the permission to use his artwork, and FASASTSTCS.com for the Fasa style templates.  Thanks for looking and enjoy!  As always, comments/questions/criticisms are welcome.

SHIELDS UP! Fanship Framework Four Pack for Star Trek Adventures RPG

Over the past two weeks, I've been working on a set of frameworks for Modiphius' Star Trek Adventures RPG to give TOS fans a bit of variety in the ships they can choose to set their campaigns on beyond just the officially statted out Constitution class.  I decided that I'd combine a few of my favorite fanships from the era into a set similar to what I did with my FASA ships of the same era.  With the permission of various talented artists like Scott Bell-Fleitas, Bill Krause, Chris Freeman, and Masao Okazaki, I've made framework sheets for the Sentinel, Hood, Attucks, and Archer classes for use with Modiphius' new rpg.  Modiphius has also kindly allowed me to modify their official TOS sheets for use on my blog and I've combined them into one easy PDF download as well as linked the individual blog posts below.  Thanks again to all those above for allowing me to use their designs as frankly I don't have any artistic talent of my own.

Fanship Framework Four Pack for STA PDF Link

For those interested in larger images and pdfs of individual ships, just click the tab to the right for my SHIELDS UP! fan rules and you'll find them there.  Let me know if this format works (especially in regards to legible text when printing) in the comments below and thanks for checking it out.

Archer Class Scout Framework for STA

The fourth and final fanship framework in my planned TOS fourpack for STA is the Archer Class.  Designed by Masao Okazaki on the Starfleet Museum and popularized in the Vanguard series of Trek novels, the Archer class was an instant favorite of mine when I got back into Trek expanded lore with my FASA sheets.  It seemed like a great ship to base a fan production or rpg campaign on due to the unique size and role it played compared with normal "hero" ships in Trek.  When Scott Bell-Fleitas of Starship Dynamics came out with his deckplans, I ordered them as soon as possible.  Luckily for me, Masao has allowed me to use his design and Scott his deckplan exterior artwork so I'm able to come out with a framework for this class as well.

At first, I had planned on statting it out with some custom rules to go along with the atypical ship.  My idea was to come up with a "medium ship" trait that gave it some of the benefits and penalties of small craft but only to a limited extent.  I decided that the final result might be a bit too much of a lightweight for a campaign setting and that the custom nature of the rules (especially untested) might turn folks off.  Instead, I utilized the normal rules in the ship section along with one unwritten one from the examples.  The Nova class is an official statted out ship that is the TNG equivalent of the Archer and has roughly 4 less system points than the Intrepid that was developed during roughly the same era.  Though it doesn't state that as an official rule, I decided to incorporate that penalty for the Archer as well.  As always (and especially the case in this atypical framework), feedback would be appreciated.

PDF link

Hood Class Framework Sheet for Star Trek Adventures

What if you took a grand heavy cruiser designed as the preeminent multirole exploration vessel and kitted it out instead for combat?  That's what Bill Krause did with his Hood Class Battlecruiser 1/350 scale model shown below and I'm happy that he allowed me to adapt his ships yet again for my sheets.

Obviously his physical model is photoshopped into a digital scene but the original scale model is quite impressive as shown in the link above to his WIP thread.  Also, Scott Bell-Fleitas was kind enough again to allow me to use his art from his deckplans (which I highly recommend as an RPG aid as an owner of two sets).  This ship, while still capable as an exploratory vessel, is statted out as a refitted combat bruiser.  While I suppose simply applying the "refit" rules for a few decades could also have depicted the Hood Class, I thought that the changes were significant enough (both in role and superstructure) to be its own class.  Additionally, the "refits" of the Connie are obviously the TMP era Enterprise and subsequent 1701A so I thought it best to further differentiate it from them.

As always, I appreciate feedback on the sheets as the format is still somewhat evolving.  Finally, thanks to Modiphius for allowing me to adapt their TOS era sheet for my favorite fan ships.

PDF link

Attucks class, attacks! Star Trek Adventures Framework

For almost a year after seeing some excellent 1/1000 scale model conversions of the TNG Akira to both TMP and TOS versions, I attempted various methods of making a TOS era Akira ship equivalent to no avail.  I tried Neale Davidson's ship toolkits and came up with this:

I also tried converting the Sins of a Solar Empire Trek mod's 3d model of a similar ship into something more FASA like in appearance coming up with this:

Both are excellent resources but I was never really confident in the my efforts on the final FASA style appearance to put it into a sheet.  Luckily for me, I stumbled onto another Trek ship site and found Chris Freeman's much, much better take on the same subject.

Chris' Treknology Ship Entry

Obviously there is a wide gulf in the difference in quality between my own efforts and his so I asked if I could use his decision for both FASA and Star Trek Adventures sheets and he kindly allowed me to.  It turns out that these sheets are a bit quicker to do for STA than the old FASA ones since they don't involve (relatively) labor intensive calculations and fitting them into decades old discontinued fluff so I worked on the STA version first over the weekend. 

PDF Link

I kept the ship true to Chris' own ideas on the class as much as possible (moreso than I'd have been able to with the FASA rules!) keeping the dates and the theme of it being a Trek carrier style ship intact.  Also, I made a few minor tweaks in the appearance and layout as well as added some explanatory text compared with my initial Sentinel prototype version (which I've also updated since) in response to some feedback.  I'm debating whether I should add in more explanatory text as well such as what the talents actually do so feedback would be appreciated. 

Update: I've finally come up with a version of the Attucks class for the FASA game as well that you can find at the link here.

Sentinel Class Star Trek Adventures RPG Framework

Hey, folks!  Sorry it's been a while since my last update but alot has been going on in real life since my last update but I'm back and just in time for the release of a new Star Trek rpg.  Modiphius has come out with Star Trek Adventures which includes a section where players build the ship they're serving on.  Naturally, that part piqued my interest and Modiphius was kind enough both to release TOS and TNG era ship sheets and allow me to modify/post them here.  My FASA sheets started with my favorite TOS era ship, the Sentinel Class, and its creator, Bill Krause, was kind enough to let me use his design and images again for a second game system.

As with the FASA sheets, the Star Trek Adventures ship sheet will likely change and adapt in the future as this is my first attempt at the new format.  If I ever run a campaign of the game, I'll definitely try to steer the players towards this ship class as I plan on getting the 1/2500 and/or 1/1000 scale model of it from UGH models upon its release and already have the deck plans from Starship Dynamics!  Anyways... without further comment, here are both the ship sheet pic along with the pdf version linked below.

PDF link

Blogger's Note: I've updated the above image and PDF to include full color ship images thanks to Scott Bell-Fleitas of Starship Dynamics who has kindly allowed me to once again use his images on my sheets.