Saturday 17 September 2016

"Beware Romulans Bearing Gifts."

"Romulans were aware of Humanity for some time before Earth knew of them."
These ten 6mm scale metal Blitzspear Class Corvettes can be found within “Irregular Miniatures” Dysonian Fleet Spaceship range as code DYD1 and measure just 20mm in length and 11mm in width. Appearing somewhat reminiscent of the spacecraft seen in the old Thirties "Flash Gordon" Science Fiction Film serials, the tiny vessels will also hopefully make a good proxies for a flotilla of Romulan Raiders in my "Star Trek" fleet battles using an adapted version of the "7TV" rule-set by "Crooked Dice Game Design Studio".

All the models come with a pre-drilled hole in order for them to be placed upon flying stands. However I found them to be too small to hold the old OOP "Games Workshop" 'ball and socket' stems I wanted to place them onto, so each hole subsequently had to be enlarged. It was at this point that I discovered just how fragile these sculpts are, with the vessel's wings seemingly being 'paper-thin'. As a result just simply holding the miniatures still in order to drill them became something of a major task if I wasn't going to bend or even tear off one of their wings accidentally; something I had previously done whilst working on an Imperial Sheriff Class Police Ship.
The U.S.S Bozeman is ambushed by a small flotilla of Romulan Raiders
To begin with all of the vessels were treated to a double undercoat of "Vallejo" Heavy Green and washed with "Citadel" Thrakka Green. Each raider was then lightly dry-brushed with more "Vallejo" Heavy Green and had their exhausts and command domes 'picked out' with a little "Citadel" Abaddon Black. These areas were subsequently painted either with a combination of Ironbreaker and Nuln Oil or "Vallejo" Heavy Green and "Citadel" Thrakka Green. Finally all the models were given a protective layer of "Coat d'arms" Gloss Varnish.

"Irregular Miniatures" currently produce two other kinds of similarly-sized Dysonian starcraft, the DYD11 Revised Blitzspear Class Corvette and DYD12 Rapier Class Gunboat. As a result I plan to use this early (and therefore somewhat) 'inferior' Romulan vessel as little more than a lightly armed 'guard' of the Star Empire, whose stinging close-range attacks and 2" Blocker (Physical Trait) will prove more of an annoying hindrance on the tabletop than a definite threat. Unless of course they are fielded in numbers...
Nurglings WIPs - These razor-sharp toothed terrors now need to have their horns, eyes and teeth 'picked out'
In addition to completing my ten Romulan Raiders I have also finished a second of "Irregular Miniatures" DYE2 Perry Class Frigates. As with the first 'Soyuz-class Federation Starship' it was undercoated using “Vallejo” Heavy Bluegrey, washed with “Citadel” Nuln Oil and dry-brushed with more “Vallejo” Heavy Bluegrey. I then used some “Vallejo” Heavy Red for the two Polyduranide nacelle particle apertures, Gunmetal Metal on its three saucer sensor dishes and Heavy Blue for its four warp engine filed grills. These areas were finished off by being washed with “Citadel” Carroburg Crimson, Nuln Oil and Asurmen Blue.

Finally I am still making some headway with my Nurgle Host for "Age Of Sigmar". One of the units I hope to soon field are three stacks of Nurgling bases. Setting aside my frustrations that ultimately a number of these cheerful psychopathic terrors are actually going to be hidden from view behind some of their brethren once the models are properly assembled, I have finished priming, washing and dry-brushing the remaining six rows needed to complete the horde.

26 comments:

  1. Why did you have to mention "Flash Gordon", you know I have a weakness for all things "pulpy" and that I mentioned the "Fireball XL5" ship the other day, you've gone and got me twitching again now!

    Those Dysonian ships are rather nice now (I know I slagged them off the other day but I can change my mind!) and the Federation ships are really cool looking.

    I never realised that the stacks of Nurglings were different (well the top on is anyway) till these pictures, they should make a nice little "horde" when finished.

    Cheers Roger.

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    1. Thanks Roger. The Dysonian ships get better as you go through their range, imho. But the Blitzspear class corvettes are rather nice, and certainly look good on the tabletop imho.

      The Nurglings are deceptively different when you look at them closely, and I hope to have a few more WIPs of them to post over the coming week as I complete my unit of three bases.

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  2. You've been painting a lot of green lately. I hope that, a) you haven't run out of the paint colour, and b) you aren't sick of painting the colour green. I'mg guessing you've more green things to paint.

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    1. Lots of green left to paint Roy, so loads more coming :-) I find the odd "Guild Ball" mini and grey "Star Trek" starship helps break the monotony. Besides I'm using three different shades of green these days ;-)

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  3. Nice work, Simon. Those Romulan ships look tiny. What a shame their wings are so fragile. They might outnumber the U.S.S. Bozeman but my money's on the Federation to defeat them.

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    1. Cheer Bryan. The Romulan raiders are very tiny, and delicate as I say. But look good on the tabletop imho. We'll have to see how the U.S.S. Bozeman and U.S.S. Reliant cope when facing them in my upcoming "7TV" BatRep ;-)

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  4. More Star Trek goodness, look forward to reading your 7TV battle with them

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    1. Thanks Andy. It'll probably come at the end of the month as I have a couple more "Star Trek: Attack Wing" ones lined up first. Plus that'll give me more time to paint up some additional ships - for a big space battle!!

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  5. Nice work on your starships, Simon. I do believe that Irregular will be receiving an order from me shortly. Or maybe Kallistra. Or Brigade Models. Or Ground Zero. Decisions, decisions...
    However, I have now officially run out of flying stands, so my next purchase will probably be from eM-4 - their plastic spaceships pack not only has some useful models, but comes with 12 black plastic flying stands, so even if I don't base all the ships, I can use the bases for some more of my own.
    And I'm looking forward to seeing how you use 7TV for space combat. Once I've finished tinkering with my rules, you might like to give them a go. The first playtest/batrep will hopefully be posted before the end of the weekend...

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    1. Cheers Jez. There are certainly a lot of nice manufacturers out there. I'll be sticking with "Irregular Miniatures" for now as despite some casting issues the service is great and the minis paint up well.

      Flying stands are also an issue for me as I only these days use the old "Games Workshop" Ball & Socket ones, and they are now OOP. I do though use some of their others to 'hold' the vessels until I'm finished painting them.

      The "7TV" BatRep won't be that different to a normal game, except movement (templates) and close combat (boarding actions). But I'd be delighted to give your version a go too if you'd like?

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  6. If only they did 28mm scale Flash Gordon Rocket Ships! Nurglings are coming along very nicely!

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    1. Thanks Gordon. But could you imagine how much it would cost us if some did 28mm Flash Gordon Rocket Ships!?! We'd both want a flotilla of each sides!! :-)

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    2. I did look into this a few years ago as an addition to our "Dick Garrison" range but the fact we would have to get them cast up by someone else, and the issues with the weight and most of our sales being to the US, put a bit of a kybosh on the whole idea, for us.

      they would be nice though.

      Cheers Roger.

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    3. Indeed. Though I did manage to pick up a "V" skimmer from "Nexus Miniatures" for some hamster-eating lizard action at some point :-)

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  7. Looks terrific, Simon. The silhouette of those corvettes has a definite Romulan feel.

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    1. Cheers Finch. Simple stuff but I do like the little corvettes.

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  8. September has certainly taken off around here, wonderful progress Simon.

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    1. Thanks Michael. The last couple of months have been rather productive from my pov, and next month looks good too ;-)

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  9. Nice work on your not-Romulan vessels. :)

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    1. Cheers Leon. I need a couple more Federation starships to balance things up and my "7TV" BatRep will be good to go.

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  10. I've got a lot of good feeling for the Irregular spaceships. The only real downside is that their online catalogue is not very nice and finding pictures of the models is ... patchy.

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    1. It was your site which got me into the "Irregular Miniatures" spaceships Hugh. But as you say their online catalogue doesn't show you everything you'd want. As a result I bought one of each from their Imperial and Dysonian Fleets simply to see what the vessels looked like in the flesh, and was so impressed by their service that I've subsequently bought more reinforcements like these :-)

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  11. Great seeing your thumbs up for the irregular minis, I think they're great too when painted up (Thank C6 for that).
    I can't help but think of your nurgling things as some sort of weird, deformed Cheerleading group.

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    1. Thanks Joe, glad you're a fan of "Irregular Miniatures" spaceships too - and Hugh's old posting on them is absolutely responsible for my purchasing so many of them!!

      I think you're spot on about the Nurglings being some sort of diseased group of deranged cheerleaders!! Many of the units for Nurgle do seem to be rather cheerful, bouncy creatures, such as the Beast of Nurgle.

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  12. Really like those Romulan ships, very much in keeping with the original theme in their designs!

    Nurglings - can never have too many, except when you can't see the ones in the middle!

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    1. I'm rather pleased with how the Romulans have turned out Dai. A simple paint-job but it does the job imho.

      It is a bit odd that the Nurgling models come in rows, and as a result cover up the middle ones. But I suppose it allows you to customise etc, as the box does contain a few individual Nurglings, so you don't have to use the stacks if you don't want to.

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