Babylon 5 Wars Vorlon Battle Group and Shadow Fleet

I finished up painting my Babylon 5 Shadow fleet. I added 3 new fighter groups and 2 Shadow destroyers. The Shadow fleet now consists of 5 Shadow cruisers, 2 destroyers and 6 fighter groups. The fleet is more than enough to take on a much larger fleet from any of the other younger races from B5. To counter this powerful enemy fleet, I have also been painting up a Vorlon fleet. So far, I have a small battlegroup. In this battlegroup are 1 Vorlon heavy cruiser, 1 destroyer and 3 fighter stands. I plan on adding 4 more heavy cruisers, 5 destroyers and 8 fighter wings. Its hard enough to take down one single Vorlon heavy cruiser, let alone 5 of them. For compairison, it would take a fleet of 6 to 8 EA Omega Class Destroyers to take out a single Vorlon heavy Cruiser. The Vorlon ships use organic technology and their ships are able to repair themselves during battle. Vorlon technology and weapons are centuries ahead of any of the other races technology. So if you come up against one or even a fleet of Vorlon cruisers.....good luck!

Star Trek Micro Machines

  Micro Machines (Galoob) has a few ships that fit well into the 1/7000 gaming scale.  I have purchased many Micro Machine Klingon Vorchas and Federation Excelsiors the past few years to bulk up on my fleets. The Cardassion Galors could easily pass for 1/7000.

Cardassian Keldon Class

Cardassian Galor Class

Klingon Vorcha Battlecruiser



Federation Excelsior Class NX-2000

Federation Stargazer Class

 I have purchase about 10 of them just in case, but I choose Studio Bergstroms Cardassian ships because they are a little smaller and made of metal. Studio Bergstom also makes a Klingon BOP that goes perfectly with the Micro Machine Vorcha Battlecruiser. Here are some pictures of the ships I feel go well with other 1/7000 models or are very close.

Federation Excelsior Class NCC-2000

Federation Enterprise 1701-B

My Wargaming Table

 A few years back, I was givin a gift by my wifes dad. It was something that I really wanted and needed. A table to play and store my miniatures. I told him about the table idea a few months prior. I didn't realize he was accually making it until he knocked on my door ready to drop it off. I was super exited ready to get a game going. I like smaller scale miniatures. For example, 6mm Napoleonics, 1/285 Vietnam and 15mm modern. So with that in mind, I figured a gaming table of around 4' x 4' would be perfect. To my suprise, that is what I got. It is accually 4-1/2' x 4-1/2'. It has large drawers on each side and is made of oak. It is a very heavy piece. Getting more into space warfare, I thought the table was a little small. Even for fleet scale ships. After all, space is unlimited. I went to the hardware store and was able to find three identical boards of 6-1/2' x 2'. At one inch thick, they are heavy but durable. I didn't hestite to purchase them. So now I am able to expand my playing area by 2' on each side. It sure made a huge difference. Working on my Dominion War 2 project, I have been using two of these  "battle boards" for rule testing. I'm not using huge fleets by any means. 10 to 20 ships per side. This playing are is handling these size battles with ease with plenty of room to manuver. With the extra board, I will be able to play much larger battles without having to play on the floor. This is a photo of the table and boards while a DW2 game is in progress. C  ya!

Gaming tabe at 6-1/2 x 4-1/2 Ft.

Searching around the internet the past few years, I have managed to find some ship size compairison charts. They give a great indication of one ships mass in relation to another. I'm sure most of you have already seen these but i'm adding them to my blog as a quick reference for everyone. I think they are great and useful.

Federation Ships

Dominion-Cardassian-Klingon Ships

Star Trek Spaceship Manufacturers and Sellers

 This section will focus on all the makers of Star Trek ships in the fleet scale range. I'm really not sure what "fleet scale" excactly represents, but im talking around 1/7000 or smaller. I use the 1/7000 scale to form a foundation of what my fleets will consist of. Occasionally I find a maker of a ship that is close to that scale, for instance ( Furuta 1/6300) and use that "close enough" factor. Its really hard to tell the size difference of a 1/7000 and 1/6300 Enterprise D from a distance. Its only a mm or two. Either way, on a gaming table they both look great. This section will grow a ton as I add more starship manufacturers to the list. I hope to compile a great archive on this and give people some information on each ship and its company. You can't have a great archive without starting with possibly the greatest maker of Star Trek Ships around, FASA.  FASA makes some really high quality miniatures and have been doing it for many years. They are not to hard to find these days, but you will pay good money. I look on Ebay from time to time and have some success in finding them.

 

 Here is a story I would like to share on a miniature purchase I had a few years back. When I first started collecting Star Trek ships, I was told that Romando made some excellent 1/7000 miniatures. I did some research on them and decided to purchase one or two just to start out with. So I got on Ebay and started looking to see what I could find. The prices of these ships were through the roof I thought. I couldn't find a Romando ship for under $25. So I thought to myself, this is BS. I looked again and again for a month or so and never found one for cheap....until this- I signed into Ebay one morning and did a search for Romando Star Trek once again. To my suprise, an Ebay member had just listed the whole Romando set for $15. This was not an auction but a "Buy It Now". I thought there was some kind of mistake in the price, and maybe there was on their part. I didn't hesitate in purchasing the lot. I don't think the seller really knew what they had and what price to put on them. I'm assuming they didn't know a thing about Romando 1/7000 ships and how much they were really going for. These were not boxed up in their original packaging, but loose and in great shape. All of them were. I have a feedback score of around 700 transactions on Ebay and to this date, that was my best purchase ever!!!

  The top photo is Romando Star Trek Series 1. It consist of 12 (completed) ship designs. These ships are all plastic but very detailed. They also come with there own bases. The second picture is Romando Star Trek Series 2. It also consists of 12 plactic but greatly detailed ships. Romando is a company based out of Japan. The Romando  Star Trek line was discontinued a few years back. I prefer pewter and resin models as opposed to the plastic ones, but these are great ships. I will add more pictures of each ship in the future.

 Another great company that makes highly detailed plastic Star Trek ships is Furuta. It to is a company from Japan. Furuta models are not based on just one size like the Romando series is. My focus on this line is the Enterprise D and Future Enterprise D. They are the only two ships from Furuta that are in the 1/7000 scale range. Not a true 1/7000, but 1/6300. I have managed to mass a whole fleet of these great Enterprise D replicas. On the gaming table, you can hardly tell the size difference between the Romando models and the Furuta ships. Of coarse the Furutas will be a bit larger. Like I stated in the past, Romando models are priced way higher than there Furuta counterparts. Why? I don't know.....availability I guess. Furuta ships are not quite as detailed, but for the cheaper price, who cares!

1/6300 Furuta Enterprise D

1/6300  Future Enterprise D

Dominion War 2 Gaming

 It's been a while since I have posted anything new on this blog. This is going to change starting today. I have tons more spare time. So now I can focus on painting more ships, working on my DW2 project and posting batreps and sharing information on this blog on miniatures, scenarios and anything else relating to Star Trek or Babylon 5 ship miniatures. I'm trying to stick to one scale when purchasing Star Trek ships. I think that 1/7000 is best for gaming and collecting (just my opinion).  There are so many manufacturers of high quality gaming miniatures now, you can find just about whatever ship you desire. I have a few of those shops posted on this blog in the links section.

 I was able to get a game in over the weekend and here are a few pictures of that game. I have decided to use colored beads to represent what each ship has done during play sequence. Yellow: Ship has fired    Red: Ship Damage to shields or hull    Black: Ship destroyed, adrift or captured. These colored markers will work well with the Ship Stat Cards that I developed. More on that later.

 As you can see. I placed the colored beads on the bases of the ships. I have the daunting task of rebasing all my fleets and I am in the process of finding bases that will have slots to place the colored markers so they won't fall off the bases during play. One thing at a time I guess. Enjoy!

Ships waiting to be painted.

Now that I am 1/3 done painting my Jem Hadar fleet, its time to switch gears and move on to something else. I plan on finishing up my Cardassian fleet. I was only able to paint 20 Hideki fighters a few months back. I have been using Micro Machine Galor Cruisers for game testing, but its time to finish up my real fleet (Studio Bergstrom Miniatures). Sitting on my table is an entire Cardassian Attack Group consisting of Galor Class Attack Cruisers, Keldon Class Cruisers and many more Hideki Fighters. Oh, I threw in a couple Vorlon destroyers for good measure. When I first started painting miniatures, I used white primer. That has changed, and now I stick with grey or black. It seems to bring out the detail better and works great when painting with darker colors. Here are some pictures of whats on my work bench. The 5 painted cruisers was a test of some new paints I tried out.  I Didn't care for them at all. Way to glossy. The Romando DS9 is in need of repairs. It has came un-glued in some areas. Hopefully the Dominion won't attack while the station is taking on these repairs.