26 March 2009

Starline 2400 Miniatures

Along with my Star Fleet Battles rules I ordered a couple of miniatures, a Federation Heavy Cruiser and a Klingon D7 Battlecruiser. The Federation casting has got some terrible mold lines and flash. It also looks like it will be a bear to align and assemble. These are problems that I was aware of prior to ordering, as there have been discussions on the topic on The Minitures Page. The Klingon ship came in one piece, but it was bent and warped quite a bit. The fuselage was fairly easy to bend back into place, although there was a second or two there when I thought it would snap rather than bend. One of the wings was warped excessively, it took quite a bit of work to get it bent and flattened to a point that the warping wasn't too noticeable. My overall impression is that the figures aren't that great as far as quality and are probably a bit overpriced. I don't think there's a real fix for it. Given that these games are a niche hobby within a niche hobby within a niche hobby there probably isn't a lot of demand for the figures, especially when you consider that many players will either just use the cardoard chits and/or only need a few miniatures for most scenarios. Redoing the molds or commissioning new sculpts probably wouldn't be a profitable venture. All that being said, the ships will probably paint up just fine and I wouldn't hesistate to order the ones I needed for a game.

No comments:

Post a Comment