Showing posts with label micro machines. Show all posts
Showing posts with label micro machines. Show all posts
Saturday, 26 September 2015
Army Focus - Star Trek Micro Machines
My recent acquisition of a few of the new Star Wars Micro Machines inspired me to dig out my Star Trek Micro machines for this photo-shoot. This collection is a mix of some that I had as a kid and some more recent ebay purchases, with the intention of playing some wargames with them. That hasn't happened yet, but it definitely will do one day!
A couple of issues arise from the nature of the figures, the first is scale. All the Micro Machines are roughly the same size, which of course means they are way out of scale to one another. At first this bothered me immensely, but have decided not to worry about it and treat the ships as markers on a larger scale area of space rather than as realistic dog-fight style game. The second small issues is that some of the figures are silver special editions, which can look a bit silly next to more 'realistically' coloured ships, again I have decided to try and ignore this and maybe use the silver ones to denote command ships.
The core of the collection is this, my Next Generation era Federation fleet. It also contains older classes of vessels that still featured in the various battle scenes in the Next Generation and Deep Space Nine. The fleets hitting power is provided by nine Galaxy class, three Ambassador class and one Nebula class ships. This is supported by a Defiant class, two Miranda class, six Excelsior class and three Constellation class ships. There are also a couple of science vessels, which aren't much use in a fight but could be useful objectives for scenarios,
The Federation of course need someone to fight..... how about seven Borg Cubes! I think the fleet above might struggle to cope with one or two of these and that it wouldn't be that fun as a game.
More realistic opponents of the Federation is this Klingon fleet. Whilst not as big as the Federation fleet there is enough here for a good game. There are three very different ships here, essentially a battleship, a cruiser and a destroyer, but I do wish there was slightly more variety in the classes avaliable.
The Romulans also lack variety having only two ship classes, the mighty Warbird and a scout. Whilst I only have seven Romulan vessels, Warbirds are very powerful ships and this is definitely enough figures to have a game with against a numerically larger Klingon or Federation fleet.
Both the Ferengi (on the left) and Cardassians only have a single class of ship in my collection, which wouldn't make for a particularly interesting game even if both fleets have just enough ships for a skirmish. I think the best use of the Cardassians would be to use them in conjunction with the Romulans to represent a fleet at the time of the Tal Shiar and Obsidian Order alliance.
These are Romulan Warbirds and Federation Constitution class ships for the original series era, which can't find their way into the Next Gen era of the fleets above, I''m not really planning on doing anything with them at all.
Here we have a bunch of shuttles, runabouts and other assorted ships. No use for fighting at large scales, but could potentially be used as scenario pieces.
And finally a few space stations, which of course can potentially be used as static weapon platforms.
That's it for now, I'm not actively adding to this collection at the moment, but I'm aware that it's not complete and if some different ship classes happened to cross my eyes I could well end up buying more.
Friday, 11 September 2015
New Stars Wars:The Force Awakens Toys!
New Toys!
One of the great sources of trial in my life is that I work in a shop that sells toys, this means every day there is the temptation to buy more stuff. The Lego section in particular normally helps fill any remaining space in my house. I returned from a week off to discover that the new Star Wars toys had come in, a wave of childish joy came over me as I headed off to the toy department to check them out, inevitably at the end of my shift I had to make a couple of purchases.......
Galactic Showdown
As well as the action figures and Lego that I was anticipating I was delighted to discover that Micro Machines were making a comeback. They were surprisingly cheap as well, the above set of five vehicles and two figures was only a fiver. I'm sure that I can remember a set of three of the old Star Wars Micro Machines used to cost a fiver too, and that was 20 years ago! In the set I picked up we have two TIE fighters (one that looks like it's been flying through snow), two X-Wings, a little snow speeder, which looks to be a new design, and what I can only assume is a good guy and a bad guy. The set didn't come with any of the little plastic flight stands, but oddly all the ships had a hole in them which the flight stands from the original Star Wars Micro Machines fitted perfectly.
My Old Star Wars Micro Machines
Micro Machines were amongst my favourite toys as a child, and I had quite a lot, but spread over many different themes and properties. After coming home with my new toys though I had to go and dig out my old ones. The price difference suddenly made a bit more sense, the originals were of a much higher quality and the new ones do feel cheap in comparison.
My X-Wings Together
The truth is adding this cheap little set of figures and vehicles to my collection made my day and it was worth the price just for that alone.
Whilst the Micro Machines were an unexpected purchase, I knew that some of the new Lego would inevitably make it home.....
Rey's Speeder
I decided on the cheapest set for now, as an intro to the range. This is the female lead, Rey, on her speeder, which was seen in the trailer. I don't really know anything about Rey yet as I've trying to avoid any plot and character details as much as possible before the films release. It's a nifty little set actually, the build was interesting and a bit different and of course features one of the main characters, she comes nicely equipped with her staff and hair and mask options. The set had one negative and that was the number of stickers that needed applying and lining up, Lego can and do print pieces in some sets, I wish they did it all the time and did away with stickers.
Rey vs Thug
The speeder opens up and houses a storage container, although I was there was also a hole somewhere to hide the hair/mask piece that isn't in use at the time. Rey of course needs someone to fight, and 'Unkars Thug' is provided, he's a bit of a mystery at the moment, but he's quite a nice minifig with some interesting printing. A good set overall, and it gets my seal of approval.
After all this I really hope the movie isn't another episode I...
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