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I'd been considering getting this box for a good few years now, but I was spending too much on Space Marines to consider it. But news of an upcoming Star Trek movie cause me to become interested in little starships again, and I finally bit to bullet and ordered the box from Amarillo Design Bureau. It arrived in four days. Nice.

The designs of the five 1/3788 scale starships are licensed from Franz Joseph, creator of the original Star Trek Blueprints and Star Fleet Technical Manual from the '70's, and represent the classes detail in the Tech Manual. The models date back to before my birth (they say (C) 1975 on 'em!) and are molded in hard plastic. The ships were cast ages ago and have been sitting in a warehouse ever since. Amarillo just threw them (carefully) into a fancy new box and shipped 'em to me; they don't make them any more.

What I got:

Heavy Cruiser: The familiar Constitution-class Heavy Cruiser, recognizable as the famous USS Enterprise from the Star Trek TV show.
Dreadnought: A larger ship with two shuttle bays, three warp nacelles, and additional sensors.
Scout: A smaller ship consisting of a saucer-shaped primary hull, a single warp nacelle, and a sensor dish.
Destroyer: A more heavy-armed version of the Scout ship. Yes, even at 1/3788 scale, they bothered to model on the tiny additional phasers and torpedo launchers!
Tug: The tug really blew me away. Instead of a secondary hull, this thing has a tow pad. The kit comes with two (count 'em, two!) cargo pods, which can be configured in a variety of ways. You can have two separate pods: one cargo pod and one "starliner" passenger pod (which can fly around on its own at sublight speed), or you can have two linked cargo pods, for a veritable "space train."

Detail: The detail is really amazing, especially considering when these miniatures were made. They are more detailed than the pictures from the Tech Manual, but less-detailed than the blueprints. Compared with Citadel's Imperial Space Marines of over a decade later, Lou Zocchi's starships look a hell of a lot more detailed. You really have to get close and squint to see the details. 10/10.

Plastic: The models were molded in a variety of types of plastic over the years, in various colors, including glow-in-the-dark and transparent. My Cruiser, Tug and Dreadnought came in glow-in-the-dark, which wasn't quite as good as the regular gray plastic of the Scout and the Destroyer. There was some slight graininess or pitting, but I'm pretty sure that it won't be at all noticeable after I've painted them.

Overall: I was completely surprised at the quality of these models. I thought they'd be a bit of fun, and the idea of having the ships from the Tech Manual really appealed to me, so I ordered the box. I had no idea that I would encounter such a high-quality product. It really was a "best case scenario," and I recommend these to anyone who's into the old Trek technical fandom stuff from the 70's and 80's, or just wants an interesting piece of gaming history. Get 'em while they last; I don't think anyone will make these ever again when the warehouse empties.

Yep, Zocchi knows his plastic science.

So, this is my first post, and I'm needing to gush about some starship minis I grabbed at the FLGS. I managed to pick up a pair of squadron boxes for Federation Commander: #10 (Convoy Ambush) and #12 (Romulans).

Each of the two have five ships, and all the ships are very nicely detailed, though they've got a bit of bending from storage, and a fair dose of flash.

A couple of weeks ago, I picked up the starter box (Romulan Border) for Federation Commander, and I'd like to play, but I'd really like to try out some of the introductory battles with actual miniatures. So I was hoping to get a few ships that could act as a sort of basic opposing force for one another, in keeping with my Gamer OCD ("always start with two factions!").

The ambushed Gorn-Federation Convoy in #10 is extremely characterful - you've got one big, clumsy ship acting as a fuel tanker/general MacGuffin for scenarios, and a Gorn Light Cruiser - which isn't too far off from federation designs, with a saucer section up front, and vertically-arranged nacelles above and below the rear hull. Without the rear saucer, it looks less like the usual "peanut" shape than the other Gorn ships. There's a Romulan "Snipe", which is a pint-sized version of the usual War Eagle/King Eagle ships, probably intended to drop in, decloak and plasma its ambush target. The warbird chassis is fairly plain-jane, as they tend to be.

However, #10 includes two excellent Federation ships: the sleek, fine-tuned Strike Cruiser and the Light Cruiser, a classic-looking Federation support vessel with three nacelles clustered around a saucer; looks a lot like the Reliant, or any number of second-line ships from TNG (the Hathaway, for instance). The Strike Cruiser is really great, and all together the ships give you everything you need for a quick engagement from the Romulan Attack book.

Squadron Box #12 is a Romulan fleet, which has one classic "warbird"-style ship, a King Eagle. Like the Snipe from pack #10 it's a bit flat, but I assume we're supposed to paint on the big orange bird from the show, so too much gribblies would only complicate things.

Romulans employ a number of Klingon ships, and consequently the fleet in box #12 is headed by an insanely badass Klingon Dreadnought. Looking like the classic Klingon cruiser, but twice the size, the details are pretty good, particularly on the bridge section. There's also a Klingon Destroyer (or Light Frigate) which is sort of cute but a bit diminutive. Good detail on the nacelles, though; it is a fun design. If I recall correctly, something not unlike it was blasted apart early in Star Trek III, and come to think of it, it actually doesn't look too dissimilar to what would eventually be the Klingon Bird of Prey, from the movies and TNG.

The last two ships in the Romulan box are "Hawk"-style cruisers, which are a little bit new to me. They're not a design from the actual Star Trek material, instead resembling 1930's "rocketships" or even dolphins. I'm not blown away; they don't quite look like warships, but I'm not a Star Fleet Universe veteran, so the aesthetic may take some time to grow on me.

I'm not planning on amassing a huge number of spaceships for FC, mostly because it is the sort of game that is played around scenarios, and most scenarios deal with fleets of 1-4 ships (or, I hear, risk taking many hours to resolve, thanks to its hyperdetailed Star Fleet Battles pedigree). But this looked like a fun way to start, and the detail -- as Pariah mentioned -- is excellent.

I have Gorn, Romulan and Federation fleets... perhaps 60 ships in total. Played SFB as a kid back in the early 80's and I have been a huge trekie since the age of 4 in the early 70's...

ADB has done a great job at streamlining SFB and morphing it into FC. The only thing I really miss is plotting movement... FC just seems to get a little silly because the tactical movement of SFB has been lost and it generally turns into a " catch me if you can" game.

I'm looking to get into the game(as it's recently been re-picked up my one of my FLGS), and looking over the fleets, I think I might start a Klingon fleet. Could someone with a bit more knowledge in the game help me figure which is the better beginners buy out of:

Klingon Fleet Box containing C8 dreadnought, D7 heavy cruiser, D5 war cruiser, F5 frigate, and T7 tug.

and

Klingon B10 Fleet Box containing B10, E4 escort, E5 escort, F6 frignaut, and E7 cruiser.

Did ya see this? Just another option that fits the Klingon border SSDs.

http://store.starfleetstore.com/merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=S&Product_Code=4302&Category_Code=FCKB

Federation Commander is a great game system. I have Romulan Border, Klingon Border, Romulan Attack, and Klingon attack.

Unfortunately I don't have any of the minis yet, but even if I got them I imagine I'd still play the game on the hex maps instead of using the miniature movement rules.