Klingon and Federation Fleet Boxes

[Celisasu]

So I got both of these. The Federation box was okay. Some ships in good shape, some in okay shape, nothing in too terrible shape luckily. Just minor fixes that compared to what I had to deal with from my Narn ships really aren't that bad.

The Klingon box unfortunately.....well I have at least two ships which are apparently looking down and up respectively as they hunt their prey(one of the D6's and one of the E4's). Even worse is my C8 Dreadnaught. Which seems to be lacking warp nacelles. Any at all. I'm guessing someone forgot to pack all of it's parts into the box. Also it seems to have had an unfortunate head on high heat collision with....something. It's almost as if it was in a sprue and the sprue melted into the C8. I have a bunch of melted pillars sticking out of the bottom of it. Including a really thick one the size of my finger coming right out of the bottom rear where the slot for my base should be. I can maybe get the parts coming out of the wing without damaging the ship too much. I don't see how I'm going to get the ones attached to the rear and bridge off without messing up something though. At least the C8 I have from my squadron box is in okay shape(which actually adds to the sadness as while the bottom is a total disaster, the top of the C8 is almost completely flash free as opposed to my squadron C8) so I can still use a C8, but I'm very disappointed in the quality of the Klingon Fleet box and couldn't recommend it as it currently stands.

 

[billclo]

It appears that what you are seeing with the C8 is typical. Several people, including myself, have noted the large hunks of resin sticking out. However, the mini itself tends to be pretty good once you clean it up.

What I use is a tool from a hobby store (comic stores that sell minis may have it as well) is a nipper designed to cut soft metals. Like these:

You'll probably want one to speedup removal of hunks of flash anyways.

Or if you have a Dremel tool, use a cutting wheel to remove most of it, and file the rest down by hand.

And yes, some of the Klingons tend to have bent booms. Looks to me like they are bending as they are removed from the mold. Thankfully easy to re-bend if you're gentle.

While the new metal minis still could use some improvement in quality, they're light-years ahead of the original metal ones.

 

[Rambler]

Bill I don't think the boom bending I have seen is from removing minis from the mold but instead is more akin to damage by shipping.

With the switch from resin to pewter Mongoose may need to atlease consider a slight redesign of Klingon booms. The resign was much more forgiving of thin wall conditions than pewter is.

 

[Celisasu]

Or look into repackaging in such a way that makes it so the ships won't be jostled around so much. One or the other.

And I own some basic modeling clippers. Just not not sure if they're designed to remove something as thick as what is sticking out of the C8's center. And Mongoose is good about replacement parts. Or at least used to be(I haven't really had to ask since B5 when my boxed set of Narn ships had a mix of Centauri fighters included in it for some reason.....target practice I suppose). I'll email them later asking if they can send me the warp nacelles the C8 is supposed to come with.


Switching to happier subjects I'm debating the paint scheme for my Klingons. I seem to have a fair amount of black and red paint left(Narn) so I was thinking of instead of grey or green, going with black since I already have it and red for warp nacelles and the like.

I do sort of wish that each race had it's own distinctive shuttlecraft. Not sure they'll ever actually get used, but somehow I don't see Klingon shuttles looking like Federation shuttles. For now I'll just use different paint schemes to distinguish each race's shuttles.

 

[Da Boss]

My C8 Dreadnought was the same - just got a knife and sawed it off - even for me it it was easy

Looking forward to seeing your red and black Klingons

 

[Red-24]

My Klingon fleet is now assembled. Much painting to do.

 

[Trenchbucket]

My Klingon fleet is now assembled. Much painting to do.

Nice Fleet, nothing in the game looks more scary than a Klingon Fleet, I think its cause they look so similar we think we are up against a fleet of C7's when they are all D6's :roll:

The only Good Klingon is a dead one, or a living one on your side (though watch your back)"

 

[Red-24]

And that's not quite all of it. Some of my remainin Klinks are resin, and they just take so long to prep. Plus I have a couple replacements coming from Mongoose.

 

[Finlos]

Picked up my metal Klingon fleet box today. All pieces present and accounted for and, overall, very good quality. Much better than their resin counterparts (my Klingon squadron box was resin). The metal minis have sharper detail and considerably less flash to remove.

There are a few cases of 'boom droop' (not sure what else to call it while keeping it PG ) which is fortunately easier to fix with metal minis than it would have been with resin. My C8 is, as expected, in resin and has that large plug on the underside of the model which others have also noted. Fortunately I have easy access to a Dremel.

Looking forward to painting these.

 

[tneva82]

which is fortunately easier to fix with metal minis than it would have been with resin.

Dunno. Dip piece to boiling water, hang it down, put to cold water. Pretty easy as well. Though albeit I haven't tried it with mongoose resin yet but in every other resin that has worked.

With a bonus that it has resulted in nicer result than with metals where often thin pieces end up so that you KNOW it's been bent sometime.

Flash of Mongoose resins sounds awful(hopefully they can fix that in future). Pity as I prefer resins as a rule of thumb due to lightness(no paint scratching. Metal models need constant repainting. Also easier to carry around).

 

[Finlos]

I hope Mongoose gets their production issues with resin resolved as I also would prefer resin over metal. But 'birds in the hand' and whatnot....

I've never really had to reshape resin myself but I've heard the same procedure from others.