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2016/05/10 05:25:58
Subject: Re:Need a proverbial French crap-ton of space ships?
2 similar products from Rhode Island Novelty, planes this time but may be of use for some games. Both come in bags of 1 gross (144 units) for like $3~$5.
Same company as the 144 space ships and the airplanes.
Not sure if these are included in one of the other sets I linked to but for now I don't think I'll be ordering. Not with a few 100 ships on the way already.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/05/10 08:25:15
2016/05/10 11:12:59
Subject: Re:Need a proverbial French crap-ton of space ships?
Interesting to see the origin of those ships. The one I had as a kid was also metalic looking and now that I think of it probably did come from a vending machine. Thanks for finding that!
Good to see the new plastic ship kit. Even at the higher price, I might try it out sometime. I'd be curious to know the size.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/05/10 14:41:56
OK so I got my Rinco ships in and here's some initial thoughts.
TL/DR-They're $6 for 144 ships. If you play and of the small scale science fiction games like X-Wing, Star Trek Attack Wing, Battlefleet Gothic, Epic, Drop Zone Commander, whatever, chances are you will find a use for some of these as civilian ships, terrain, wrecks, or even as part of your fleet. I haven't tried cutting or gluing them yet (give me a day or two) but it looks like something will work. And again, for $6...
Long Form
Spoiler:
It's an impressive package, 7" square weighing a pound or more.
Makes for a big pile too
They feel a bit waxy like toy soldiers, I doubt model cement will work on them. We'll see.
My bag came with 2 miscasts.
You get 8 types of ship in several colors
Looking at them from a design perspective I see 3 factions, the curvy advanced ships, the boxy ships and the 2 saucer looking ones
The open topped speeder is the runt of the litter with a hollow bottom with no details
The 3 ships from Silent Death are all winners, some have bad casts and are a bit twisted but over all they're a superior design and details.
The two from Message from Space are no slouches however. The boxy one especially will work great for 40k or X-wing.
The half saucer is a bit thin, some them are warped, but I can buy it as a some sort of swift scout ship or early Federation ship.
And the saucer is iconic, it's the biggest of the 8 and well, it's a saucer. Either you need one or you don't.
Glad I got them, they really make me feel like a kid when I'd study my toys and make up whole background for them.
And yes, i will be writing a 1-2 page rule set using these and the Buck Rogers ships on order.
Pew! Pew! Pew! I'm play testing!
I'll be back in a day or two with word on how well they can be converted or painted.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/05/10 17:30:54
2016/05/10 17:40:03
Subject: Need a proverbial French crap-ton of space ships?
Nice Review. Except for the difference in colors, they look exactly like the ones I got.
For rules, here's a couple free options.
I think they'd be a great choice for Full Thrust. It's not a simple rules lite game, but rather a classic full fledged space combat game that still holds up well today.
I recommend the "cross dimensions" fan variant which nicely ties the original and supplements and fixes a few things.
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~laranzu/fullthrust/rules/ It has rules for fighters as well which would give you a use for all the tiny buck rogers fighter models.
The Panzer 8 rules series of 2 page rulesets has a Space variant. I've only played the sci-fi ground version, but I like it quite a bit. I may give the space version a shot with my kid. The panzer 8 rulesets tend to be great for getting alot of units on the table with minimal fuss and since you've got 144 ships...
http://panzer8.weebly.com/rules.html
Star Crashers by Sean Patten of Necromundicon is another simple game that I may try with my son.
http://www.ironhands.com/starcrashers.htm I've not tried any of his rulesets, but they look quite clever and he's got one of the best guides ever to making your own spaceships from assorted junk and toys.
http://www.ironhands.com/starcrashmodels.htm
Just did a google search and it looks like there are quite alot of folks who have done their own homebrew space rulesets.
This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2016/05/10 19:32:50
If they're anything like the EM4 ships (which they appear to be, but god damn do I wish EM4 had the saucers too) then they're hard plastic, not too awful to cut but prone to snapping, paintable and glueable, but I haven't tried with liquid poly yet
If the bag's a pound, I'm guessing shipping to the UK is going to be extortionate, right?
Same company as the 144 space ships and the airplanes.
Not sure if these are included in one of the other sets I linked to but for now I don't think I'll be ordering. Not with a few 100 ships on the way already.
I just checked the questions section of that listing. The seller says they're 5" long and a buyer estimates around 3". That would suggest that maybe these are in the realm of 10mm or even bigger! Suddenly $15 doesn't seem quite so bad.
Long story short, DO NOT get these if you're planning elaborate conversions or kit bashing. Unless you like a lot of extra work just to get glue to hold. They're also a bit brittle to cut.
I'm no engineering mentat so I'm afraid I can't tell you what plastic they're made of but it ain't styrene, this @#$% laughs at plastic cement. Laughs!
Superglue worked but I had to distress the surface with a file to get anything to hold. The outside feels waxy.
With some work I was able to get a passable Federation type ship out of parts from 3 ships.
Size wise each ship is bigger than a 28mm model.
They'll be OK to decortate some terrain or vehicles but not really as parts of models. The saucer and half saucer would make good flying platforms though. Cut up they can also help fill out rubble piles.
Trimmed down the boxy ship should work in BFG as a transport or something. The Silent Death ships and saucers could also make for Tau force.
Does anyone know if this stuff will take paint or spray primer? Or will spray paint melt them? I'll experiment this weekend and see.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/05/12 17:37:12
2016/05/12 17:56:19
Subject: Need a proverbial French crap-ton of space ships?
Well, I think since there is car primers and even primers for Styrofoam out there in the market, you will find something that will stick to it. When all fails paint on primer by brush from the hardeware store...
The federation ship looks convincing enough, and in the last pic the yellow one reminds me of a power pack from ghost busters...with its wings it could work as an IG jump pack even...
Does anyone know if this stuff will take paint or spray primer? Or will spray paint melt them? I'll experiment this weekend and see.
Mine took Krylon spray primer just fine. May need a bit of cleanup of flash and around the ejection ports, but they've got more than enough detail on them to take a decent paintjob.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/05/12 22:04:15
Nice work on that "not-Trek" ship. Maybe you can use the half saucers and some wings to make some "not-romulans" to fight them? What sort of numbers of each ship did you get?
I think these sorts of things are usually polyethylene and you need a specialty plastic glue to really glue them well. I have a loctite set which has a "primer" to go with the superglue, and it held some pretty crummy plastic together.
If they are like toy soldiers, then you might try PVA glue and/or gesso as primers, but Krylon Fusion should also work. (Might be hard to source if you are still in India, unless someone can put it in the diplo bag for you?)
If you want more recognizable ships there's a Star Trek board game coming out with 200 miniatures. War Store has/will have it for $70. Costier than gumball machine ships but still less than I spent this month on 25 year old Space Fleet models
lasgunpacker wrote: Nice work on that "not-Trek" ship. Maybe you can use the half saucers and some wings to make some "not-romulans" to fight them? What sort of numbers of each ship did you get?
I think these sorts of things are usually polyethylene and you need a specialty plastic glue to really glue them well. I have a loctite set which has a "primer" to go with the superglue, and it held some pretty crummy plastic together.
If they are like toy soldiers, then you might try PVA glue and/or gesso as primers, but Krylon Fusion should also work. (Might be hard to source if you are still in India, unless someone can put it in the diplo bag for you?)
Overseas I use car primers. Spray paint is apparently very hard to ship and I've never seen miniature primers outside of the US/UK/Japan. Even in Beijing which had a good modeling community spray paint was the one thing we could not find.
Numbers wise it feels like an even split. I've not taken inventory or even confirmed I got my full 144 but again for $6...
And I stand by my earlier thought they're worth it for almost anyone doing space games or 15mm or less sci fi. If nothing else cut them up for wreckage terrain.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/05/13 06:08:09
2016/05/13 11:13:19
Subject: Need a proverbial French crap-ton of space ships?
I had some of those ships as a kid, one of many dollar store buys. Great to see them again... and great to know they're still just as cheap.
Now I could make rules for them, or just leech off of, say Star Wars X-Wing...
I have those rules.
Make Dolls Great Again
Clover/Trump 2016
For the United Shelves of America!
2016/05/13 16:55:19
Subject: Re:Need a proverbial French crap-ton of space ships?
Just wanted to add that in addition to the silent death ships, EM4 also sells the hexagonal flying bases. 15 bases for 1gbp!
http://www.em4miniatures.com/acatalog/MINIAATURES_BASES.html They're a bit small for many of the larger currently produced sci-fi ship ranges like firestorm armada, but they'd be perfect for these toy plastic spaceships.
My buddy has some of these and I don't recall the exact size (around 1 inch maybe) but there's a common size of steel washer that will fit right in side the bases if you want to magnetize them. I've not done magnetic basing and storage, but it's a cheap and easy way to protect light fiddly models like small plastic spaceships.
I'm not completely sure, but I seem to recall that the flight stands also fit perfectly into the tray of the Em4 "Mech" hexagon bases.
Not that it's necessary, but it does give it a very nice look and the strait sides of the base make a good place to write unit info. Or you could leave them loose and mark each side of the base differently so you can rotate the hex to indicate the status of the ship.
Regarding rules...
I was just reading through the panzer 8 space battle rules and they require a hex sheet. I may still give them a try, but I'm now leaning more toward Star Crashers which is hex-less and uses measuring sticks.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2016/05/13 18:02:11
lasgunpacker wrote: Nice work on that "not-Trek" ship. Maybe you can use the half saucers and some wings to make some "not-romulans" to fight them? What sort of numbers of each ship did you get?
I checked last night, the numbers range from 14 to 28 of each ship. I ended up with 145 + 2 miscasts so things are good in that respect.
Still have to try paint though.
2016/05/17 16:19:04
Subject: Re:Need a proverbial French crap-ton of space ships?
Happy to say after the disappointment with glue, painting went totally fine.
Primer went on with no fuss, no damage to the model and after that painting was fast and easy.
Sorry about the yellow paint against the yellow background, wasn't thinking.
These are basic, basic jobs but it shows how good these dime story ships can look.
The Silent Death Ships (blue and yellow) of course are the stand outs but even the sausers and the anime ones look pretty good. I really love the boxy ship.
In conclusion, if you play any sort of 15mm, 10mm, 5mm sci fi or space combat game these are worth your time. They can be part of your force, they can be civilians/objects, they can dress up terrain, they be cut up for derbies. The only thing can't do is glue them for kitbashes.
But for $5, why not?
Also got my 1000+ Buck Rogers ships today.
Big lot, really big. Much lower detail than the Rinco ships but even cheaper. I really like the shuttles and gun pods. Look for a fuller review in a few days.
Oh I have to share this
made in Hong Kong! When was the last time you saw a toy made in Hong Kong? how long have these been sitting in a warehouse?
Originally I thought that Science Surplus must have gotten the molds and be keeping these in production ala EM4 or Rinco ships but no, I would bet these have been sitting in a TSR and now an American Science Surplus warehouse longer than some people here have been alive!
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/05/17 16:26:18
2016/05/17 20:21:15
Subject: Need a proverbial French crap-ton of space ships?
I've been going to American Science and Surplus since I was a kid (one of their stores is near where I grew up). I don't recall seeing them when I was super young, but I think they've been selling these bags of figures since the late 90's and maybe earlier. They actually used to have a few other gaming things including RPG modules for Star Trek and a few others and the Dragon Strike figs we discussed earlier.
They used to have more interesting surplus toys too, but you don't see as much of that anymore. I bought Diesel Engines from the Hot Wheels train system (circa 80's I think) when I was a kid. They had a tons of them loose in a box.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2016/05/17 20:27:59
~2800 points 
