Mounting Star Blazers Minis

Another simple step in a quick, small project!

Ha-ha-ha-ha-haaaaaaa....

You see, it's all quite easy when you are a card carrying...

All I can say is, I wish I had seen this tutorial before I did this! While I learned some useful lessons along the way parts of this were frustrating. Still, the final result is what I wanted and I'll be able to do this a bit faster in the future.

The BLUF is that there are a few simple steps and tools to doing this "the easy way" instead of the hard way.  They are summarized at the bottom.

When it comes to ships, especially these small ones, there's plenty of basing options. I didn't want to use the "clear" plastic bases that came with the models: 

They aren't terrible, but they are way too large for the smaller ships, make them look like a pillared statue or something.  They're also a bit too large at 1" hexed.

I decided on Litko 3mm clear squares, as they are deep enough to drill into and hold a piano wire "pin", will show any mat / board below [and blend in better] and even the little 3mm "halo" will look kinda cool, sort of like a targeting system outlining the ships.

My initial thought was to pin the ships, stick them in insulating foam bits, and paint them on that. Below, the tools of destruction, erhm, construction, .025 piano wire from Hobby Lobby, Litko 20mm clear square bases 3mm deep, insulation bit.

My dollar store [$1.25 store now] CHICOM self-healing mats turned out to be in Standard [English] measurements...

...but my more expensive mat [unknown origins - most likely Hobby Lobby] turned out to be metric, w'5mm squares: 

This allowed me to center an X-acto blade [sharp!, new] on the clear plastic...

...and make a guide point for the drill:

Next challenge was to match a drill bit size with the piano wire. First drill bit was a bit large even for .032 wire, which is a bit larger than needed - the point is for the wire to be painted black and "disappear" in the cloth, anyway.

The below .032 with first drill bit chosen [there's no markings on the bits, unfortunately, you have to eyeball it]. It was a bit wobbly.

I got a better match with my smallest bit and .025 wire. For variety of ship heights [which seems realistic to me] and to make "formations" of ships, I mount them at various heights. Using the CHICOM mat, I clipped the .025 at just over 1/2", 3/4", and 1". In the past, these heights have been a nice balance of ship depth off the mat without making them terribly "tippy".

As the ships came in "sixes", I opted for two sets of 3 heights each ship "section" or "division".  Note: it is always easier to cut the wire down if too long rather than try to make it longer, later, haha...! So measure twice, cut once!

Some of the ships had neat holes bored in them, but they got a bit filled with the spray primer. I used a pin vice to clean them out.

Note the excellent "healing qualities" of the cheap CHICOM mat!

And here are six Gamelon destroyers stuck in the foam...

...and the earth ships with them...

...as expected, they turn too easily, but as I they were mounted I gave them a thin coat of Vallejo off-white while bracing them with a finger...

While they dried, I started to work on the bases.  I guestimated by eye and decided to just go through the bases. The combination of aiming the bit, holding the Dremel Tool, and securing the base itself was a bit daunting. I didn't want to go thru the base at first, but it was a lot easier and didn't make much difference in the end.

In fact, it seemed like drilling "thru" would be helpful, at first.

It would allow me to glue from the bottom. This seemed like a great idea at the time, but was just as if not more fiddly and problematic as glueing from the top! 

The problem is they have to stand on their bottoms while drying, and the glue smears. Fortunately, the bases are easily cleaned of super glue with Acetone, and don't show any signs of glazing or tinting.

With some cussin' and frustration, I managed to get the first six Gamelon DDs done.

I like the way the formations look.

My logic is that all of them need to be on a "plane" where their central dorsal / underbody mounts can shoot 360 degrees. This means they can't all be on the same "plane" which has to have the enemy ships sideways / athwarts[?] the ship for maximum convenient firepower. 

This is a crucial design aspect of wet navy and space nave ships.  Interestingly, it means that you want the enemy on a plane that resembles the ocean's surface, except that it doesn't curve with the planet, of course, but is a constantly "flat" plane.

You can see where the bases are a bit smudged from finger-handling, but they clean up just fine.

Below, the super-helpful painting diagram that comes with these minis. A rarely seen thing, in my experience!

Some color images of what they should look like:

Some lessons:

- experiment matching wire size / drill bit size; try for a snug fit wire-to-hole.

- need medium and fast flowing super-glue,

- start the pinhole with a X-Acto, follow up with a pin-vise to deepen

- eyeball the final hole vertical, it's preferable to not go all the way thru, actually

- put drop of glue on pin, insert from top, clean any excess with acetone

Below the finished product:

As stated above, even the "halo" caused by the 3mm depth of the bases is kinda cool - it looks like a targeting system, and I have no problem with it.

Below some variations on formations...

And this is what they'll look like on the table:

Looks a bit more "realistic" [ha ha - what does that mean, anyway, with sci-fi gaming???] to me, but will be more and more borne out by actual play using the Starfire rules.

Tactically, these have some ship design features that do provide game restricted and optimized use of maneuver and positions. Ultimately, that is the *main point* of space ship [fictional] design and weapon systems, to provide interesting tactical challenges for players, albeit that they are largely artificial.  That's OK as long as they appear to match the speculative technology and what science we know at present. 

Starfire [in its many permutations - I prefer the 2e box set] has always had this going for it along with ship design. So I expect my battles to be interesting and challenging, and the ships themselves to enhance the experience. 

Which is something that has to be started next, along with painting these little guys.

Star Blazers for Starfire!

Two Great Things that Go Great Together!

 +
...and no, it isn't chocolate and peanut butter...!

It's been a while since I worked on this project - Classic Starfire 2e [box edition] rules [CLICK] with the Star Blazers miniatures [CLICK]. It was first conceived because the official Star Blazers Fleet Battle System miniature game [CLICK] was one of the few that had small, appealing, inexpensive models that were easy to acquire.  Then I got sidetracked by "Real Life" and other gaming projects.  But now I'm working to bang out this project, which should be a quick one [should...!].

Minis were cleaned and filed previously, but I decided to wash them again as they'd been sitting in baggies for a few years.

Above, the four larger ships and 36 little ones all scrubbed down.

The weather being perfect, it was easy to give the ships primer coats.  Not only is grey the official color for the larger ships, but it will be easy to match in my collection.  The little ships are all white, mostly because as small ships I plan to make them as bright as possible, even exaggerating colors to the lighter spectrum.

And with the miniatures on the way, it was time to consider the pernicious question of Basing, and a good mat or backdrop to play on.  

For Basing, I decided to run with square 3mm clear bases, drill holes for piano wire to hold the miniatures.  My main thought was that they'd look good on any backdrop and the 90 angles would be convenient for Turns / Fire Angles in the miniatures version of Solar Starfire. A quick look at A-zon and it showed Litko does sell there so I included the Bases in an order with some other things:

While I'm looking for a good hex grid [to be faithful to the original Classic game] I was tempted into buying a couple of space wall tapestries, from a suggestion in the TMP forums [click].  At $9 for a large one, I couldn't resist giving them a try:

...and they are free returns at A-zon if I don't like them.

Finally, I couldn't resist the free download from Starfire Design [CLICK] since it game in both hex and open-table / miniature versions, and it is short, a similar draw to the original 1979 game I still own.

Plan is to finish the miniatures, give Classic 2e/box and the new version a try, and see what plays best.

Stay tuned!