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. 

Javelin Class Shuttlecraft for FASA

Master modelmaker Bill Krause was busy yet again this year creating another scratch built TOS era Star Trek model for the Wonderfest competition.  His design for a 1/24 scale N-Type Javelin Shuttlecraft took both the Best Scratch Building and Trekcellent Awards for Wonderfest 2018.

 

With a fully detailed interior complete with all the modern amenities expected in such a vessel and multicolor lighting throughout, it's not surprising that he came home with some more awards to add to his trophy case.  The full build process from concept to finished award winning model can be found here at Bill's WIP thread.  As with several previous of his designs, he was kind enough to let me stat his latest design up for tabletop gaming.  I'll eventually revisit the Javelin when some more supplements come out for the Star Trek Adventures detailing shuttlecraft rules but I've already come up with a sheet to use it for the venerable FASA system.  As always, just right click and open the image in a new window for the full size or just click on the link below for the pdf version.  Enjoy!

PDF Link

Artel W Miniatures Review

I've been following a Russian miniatures company called Artel W for the past year but never quite managed to pull the trigger on placing an order despite my interest.  They do a variety of grimdark 32mm scale miniatures with realistic proportions that would be great for Warhammer 40k characters.

Artel W Miniatures

Back in January, they announced that they had received a cease and desist type of letter from Games Workshop and would soon be discontinuing some of their figures including some of the ones I was most interested in.  They were running a variety of very generous contests for the sets they were discontinuing and I was lucky enough to win one!  At that point (with free shipping even), I had no excuse not to place an order and added some more minis to the order.  It appears I wasn't the only one as they announced they were swamped with orders.  It took several months for them to work through the backlog but I finally got my miniatures this month.

It's definitely the nicest package I've ever received once I opened up the commercial mailer and online package tracking worked continuously from Russia to my doorstep.  This wasn't just for the contest winners as I've seen folks post the same with regular orders as well.  The figs were well padded and organized with no missing parts.  I have to say that I'm very impressed with the level of intricate detail that they put on their sculpts.  Seeing the pictures online is one thing but having those tiny pieces of resin in your hands and seeing no bubbles, miscasts, and only minimal flash is quite impressive.

Here are a few comparison pictures with official 40k figures as well as a few more zoomed in pics of individual figures.  I have to say again that the detail is quite impressive and daunting at the same time.  The realistic scale even at 32mm means that some of the slimmer figures (especially female models) have connection points that are less than 1mm in diamater and height/depth. 

Although I haven't assembled any yet (let alone tested the durability), my experience with other such figures in resin and metal lead me to believe that they're not particulary durable and will likely have broken parts simply from falling over onto their side with a wayward hand move across the table let alone a fall from a height of a few feet.  Below are a few size comparisons with GW figures as well.

Overall I'm definitely satisfied with my purchase (let alone the prize I got in addition to my order) and wouldn't hesitate to order again.  I actually regret not getting a couple more figs that are now discontinued but luckily there are others still on my want list like the female techpriest.  They've reported that the long wait times should be over this month (April) so future order should only take a few weeks with international shipping.

P.S. I apologize for the quality of the pics and lack of light balance but I've tried unsuccessfully indoors and outdoors to get nice pics close up with neither the lighting indoors or the overcast skies outdoors cooperating with my efforts!