Special Delivery: Eaglemoss Gives Us Nine

We have infiltrated the deepest depths of Eaglemoss and can reveal some exclusive news just ahead of the official announcement itself...

The first of the special edition Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection is a lot closer to release than you might think. In fact, it's coming on November 28th 2013 and it's focusing on Deep Space Nine.

This is a little earlier than we were expecting and will be out on the same day as Issue Eight, USS Excelsior. This could mean parting with some serious cash on that day as we can also confirm that the first of the specials will be priced at £18.99 (wow - that's blown my budget) off the shelf and £17.99 for subscribers. 

Thanks to our friends at Eaglemoss we have a couple of great images of the space station for our readers and it looks awesome. The detail really makes her stand out and that could just push me into buying the first of these additional issues. 

As we always say, we would prefer to see the end result before drawing any conclusions as to just how good the final model is but it's definitely a date we're marking on the SKoST calendar. As well as the model shots, we've got the final version of the cover for the magazine to show you into the bargain. It's a nice shot and better than previous interpretations we've seen. Just one question, Eaglemoss - what's the second special going to look at?!

Things seem to be going extremely well with this series but there are a couple of bits that might be worth considering - updating the website now we're six issues in to give a few hints of what's ahead. Also the local stockist search tool is not accurate at all. The top four places close to home when I drop my postcode on don;t stock the magazine. That's a big shame.

Anyway...just a couple of observations there.

The Star Trek Starships team have also been working hard on their Facebook page with the #StarTrekMoments competition. The first week's challennge - to recreate a moment from The Original Series episode The Enemy Within is open until October 28th and can be found here. There's a whole load of prizes to be won including subscriptions to the collection, the USS Enterprise technical manual and posters.

Entrants need to recreate a chosen moment in 15 seconds via Instagram and submit before the closing date. It's a novel idea and kudos to whoever thoughts of this one. I have to admit I've not submitted an entry yet but then that's just because I haven't channelled my internal Laurence Olivier yet...(!) 

As an additional pic, the Facebook team also dropped a couple of shots of the Bajoran Solar Sailor prototype out there. If you'll recall from the preview page that's hidden deep in the Eaglemoss website it's one of the few where there isn't an image of the ship in question. From memory it was a totally CGI creation for Explorers in Deep Space Nine (full circle blog piece here!) and looks very, very different to the rest of the collection.

I've included the four shots below for reference if you missed them.

The fifth edition of the Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection is available now and you can find out more by visiting the official website. Issue six, USS Voyager is out and here's our review.

Some Kind of Star Trek is now available on Facebook - why not like us there for some extra pics, questions and discussion?

Thanks also to Eaglemoss for their assistance in the production of this blog article.

For the Eagle(moss) Eyed...

Issues one to four are now available in shops with subscribers also receiving the fifth edition this week.

But what's coming next? If you have a good furtive look through the Eaglemoss website you'll stumble on two images - but to save you the time, here are the coming soon shots of those next additions.

First up is the USS Voyager. The magazine image (above) is pretty much the ultimate stock photo used since 1995's premiere. The model - quite plain from this initial view of a single photo. Hopefully that stand won't be as wobbly and sensitive as the one for the Romulan Warbird. I've got high hopes for this starship and on first inspection it could be a series highlight.

This top view provided direct (and maybe even not seen before) from Eaglemoss gives a much better impression of the ship. The colours are sparkling with some great detail across the hull - phaser banks, lifeboat hatches, sensor arrays, the main shuttlebay, maneuvering thrusters - all very clear against the grey/blue hull. Very, very nice.

Issue 7 will take us back into Klingon territory for a second time with the K'T'Inga cruiser. A classic design used and modified across the ages and I'm, again, looking forward to clamping my hands around this one. As I've not seen the finished article it's hard to tell exactly which variation the model is based on but the best bet at the moment would seem to be Star Trek VI's version that carried Chancellor Gorkon (hence the image top!). 

Thankfully there's also a nice second image of the cruiser model for us to take a look at. The angle is similar to the one viewed here from the website however it does allow us the faintest glimpse of the paintwork on the upper hull - it's not just a slab of grey all over ladies and gents as you might just see, there is a "camouflage" pattern on top.  In fact this view makes me think that it could be modelled on the cruisers from The Motion Picture (reused in the Kobayashi Maru test from The Wrath of Khan) rather than Star Trek VI.

Furthermore, recent updates on the Star Trek Starships Facebook page revealed that there will be some additions to the range previously unannounced...

• Cardassian Hideki Class (issue 32)
• USS Orinoco Runabout (issue 33)
• Centaur Class
• Norway Class (impressive!)
• Steamrunner Class
• Sabre Class
• USS Enterprise NCC-1701-A, B, C and J
• The Phoenix
• T'Planna'Hath (from First Contact)
• Delta Flyer

Rumour has it that the Enterprise-A will have the same aztec paint job as the Reliant (below) which was missing from issue two's refit. Moving parts? Well you won't see them either as it's all about keeping the cost down for readers.

Add into the mix some new images of the starships the team are working on currently and it's been quite an exciting month over on their page! I've included all the featured images below. Hopefully at least one of your favourites is here!

USS Reliant (issue 11)

USS Thunderchild (issue 12)

Jem'Hadar cruiser (issue 13)

USS Equinox (issue 15)

USS Dauntless (issue 17)

Deep Space Nine

By chance I also wandered across the Memory Alpha page dedicated to the series and uncovered the covers for issues eight, nine and ten...and a certain special edition. Of course I've added them below to save the searching! These all look pretty preliminary at the moment as they don;t include any of the spec details on the bottom right corner. Also, what's with the D on the Defiant registry? Are we all noting the NCC registry on the Excelsior? Issue eight seems to be suffering from an invasion of Voyager's nose too (top left).

Issue Four is out now with Issue Five due on 1st November, Issue Six on 15th November and Issue 7 on the 29th November. 

Model images provided by Eaglemoss with our thanks and from their Facebook page

Issue eight, nine, ten and special cover shots from Memory Alpha.

Issue cover images from the Star Trek Starships website (issues six and seven) where you can also subscribe and guarantee not missing one single edition!