The Official Starships Collection: USS Equinox NCC-72381 XL Edition

First released back in early 2014, the USS Equinox has now made it into a larger scale in the Official Starships Collection.

As with several of its XL predecessors, the Equinox benefits massively from the scale upgrade and that wonderful benefit of eight years model-selling hindsight. 

First up, the hull base colour is completely different and far lighter giving you the immediate notice that this has seen some MAJOR reworking in the last eight years. The lighter shade allows much more of the natural panel work detail to stand out as well as the darker grey printed panel etching to contrast the base coat. In a bit of a twist though, the panels here are not as glaring at their edges as they were and blend more into the model than being overly distinct.

Even down to the pointed primary hull front there are improvements with a more crisp finish to the decals and a brighter blue surrounding the secondary deflector. The open sensor work benefits from the upscale with more of the components "lit" and visible rather than being superficial pieces and over painted.

Window alignment is nigh on perfect thanks to the larger openings on the hull although the partition lines on the square groups of four on either side of the saucer are flat painted out blue. This should be a minor issue to resolve with a dab of grey paint. 

I've been made aware that the font for the ship registry is still incorrect and does seem to be squashed into a small space with only just bearable definition between the black and red. Add in that Eaglemoss have numbered each individual escape pod hatch and the model keeps on giving. On the smaller edition these were, shockingly, GREY!

The sunken bridge also carries a better colour range with the roof panel nicely split and the semi-circular defence grid again precisely split out. Reflect back on the original and there was no colouring on that bridge dome, the registry was simply thin black lettering and the windows were mainly blanked out. Yes, there's that much difference and we're only halfway along.

Moving down the spine, the upgraded details are fantastic with many of the features highlighted through black edging decals. Again, reflect back on the smaller original and there's a dark grey stripe along the spine and none of that finer detail. IN fact there's zero black edging on the collection issue 15 ship.

The impulse engine and the vertical section just behind it are now coloured although the former could have done with being in a different colour. However, this is still a massive improvement. Checking the joint lines by the engines it's clear that some construction has been scaled up but the engine build this time is a light year better.

Instead of the horrible joint lines across the top, the nacelles are joined along the horizontal centre line avoiding trashing the registry and pennant as they were on the original. It has retained the painted on bussard collectors with the wrap grilles in translucent blue. But what's a step up here is the patterning on the engines which was absent previously. There's an added depth to the Equinox XL which trumps both the original and, personal opinion, the "upgraded" USS Rhode Island completely. 

As with the top, the ventral side of the Equinox adds more black edge detail including the landing leg doors and better colour for the docked Waverider. Eaglemoss have changed out to a stronger, more electric blue for the backing of the main deflector. The size of the name and registry has also been corrected so the numbers are now smaller (and correct) versus the equally sized fonts from issue 15.

The selective panelling across that version is most evident when you're looking at the underside while the XL has full and corrected gridding as well as better positioned decals (check the alignment around the warp core ejection hatch). It's better in every single way (maybe with the exception of that main registry font) and a fantastic XL version. Changing up the colours has made a heck of a difference and brought out a lot of elements previously hidden or painted up in the limited selection that was used back in the day. Truthfully it just feels better, more solid and with a few minor adjustments to the build, has resulted in a more accurate depiction of the onscreen Nova Class from Voyager. Small is absolutely best whe it comes to the XLs as we've seen with the Runabout, Defiant and the Delta Flyer so you'll know how excited I am for the USS Pegasus which will be up on here shorty.

The enclosed magazine covers the basics of the Voyager two parter and the background of the ship before plunging into a fairly in depth view on the use of the Defiant pathfinder to become the Equinox. Interviews with John Savage (Ransom) and Titus Welliver (Burke) fill out the edition, making this a very Equinox centric volume as it rightly should be.

A great all round package that adds detail tp the background of the ship on screen and off. I would say purchase of this XL is a no-brainer if you love the ship. It's a massive step up from the standard collection (may have mentioned this a couple of times) with two tons of updated detail and structural strength. Good to see changes made with the model to only take things forward. Magnificent work with only a couple of minor quibbles.

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Can't Keep Her Down: Attack Wing's USS Equinox

Once the toast of many a Federation fleet, the USS Equinox expansion for Attack Wing isn’t getting as much love these days.

Launched as part of Wave Three (there are now 31 plus a ton of card expansions, unpainted miniatures, faction packs...), you can see how subsequent ships and sets will have built on the learnings from these early phases to advance Attack Wing over the years.

As someone who came to the game midway through the launch of the expansion waves (15) I missed out on some of the earlier ones and I am now finally tracking down a few that were on my hit list.

It's definitely been a gruelling challenge to do so with the early ships now scarce and prices for them proving to be near what it would cost to build the real thing. Lucky there was an Equinox going for original retail price at the end of a long search!

As it goes, the model for this starship - originally seen in Voyager's fifth and sixth season cliffhanger - is one of the best especially when you consider the quality that the game was launched with. The light blue hull colouring sets off the contrast against the well-detailed sensor emplacements, phaser strips and lifeboat hatches to a point where you wonder how the hell the game fell off such a cliff face when it came to the quality of its products at some times in the game's lifespan.

Even the warp engines have some sensational colouring when it comes to the bussard collections and warp grilles, even down to the Starfleet pennants streaking across the top of the nacelles. It's a lovely little piece of work from all angles and Wizkids have done a stunning job of translating the original into such a small piece of plastic. My god, they even included the RCS thrusters and painted in the impulse engine...take note Eaglemoss...take note.

That said, her stats are a tad on the underwhelming side, meaning you can add this ship into your fleet for a measly 20 point cost. This named Nova Class vessel attacks with two dice, defends with two and has three shield and hull points. The Action bar carries the standard Federation setup of Evade, Target Lock, Battle Stations and Scan plus slots to include up to two Crew, one Tech and one Weapon upgrade. 

What is great about the Equinox is its Unique Action and you can see here why she was so popular "back in the day". By disabling an Active Shield in the End Phase you can repair all of your damaged shields thus keeping her in the game for a fair while. 

The generic version drops one of the Shield points as well as a Crew upgrade to cost 18 points and loses that key Unique Action which turns it straight into cannon fodder for a decently powered mid-20 pointer or above. Nor is the Equinox the speediest of starships. As a science vessel her pace wouldn't have been required so she'll push a forward four tops with full sets of bank and hard turns at speeds two and three. The three speed hard turns as well as the one speed reverse will incur the pains of an auxiliary power token but that can be eliminated by subsequently playing a forward two or a one forward or bank as all four are green. Certainly the range of movements is good to help stay out of trouble but if she's in the thick of it then there's probably no quick way out. 

Rudolph Ransom heads up the Captain selection for the Equinox with a skill set of four and a cost of two. We know that Ransom wasn't a military commander and Janeway explains he was a scientist and it's fairly reflected in his ability. It also comes across in his own Action. Ransom will add two defence dice to your roll if there's an Evade in play which would mean this ship could defend with four dice. Effectively with Ransom and the Unique Action in play you could be going longer than the Duracell Bunny.

Maxwell Burke, Ransom's exec is the second named Captain and costs one point. His skill is equally low at just two and Burke is a polar opposite to his captain allowing you to discard him to add in two attack dice for the round. Question is, if you discard him...who's in command?

USS Equinox comes with three Crew choices as per the named officers in the TV story - Noah Lessing, Marla Gilmore and the Emergency Medical Hologram. 

All three cost two points so this is a very inexpensive set of upgrades right out of the box. Lessing can be disabled alongside a Tech upgrade to target a ship in range one or two and then deactivate a Shield. Reactivating will take up an Action in a subsequent turn while guaranteeing a "hit". Does seem a lot of resources to use to complete so not one for me I'm afraid. 

Gilmore is a little more complex. Her Action allows you to disable all your shields and target a ship within ranges one or two with no active shields. Again it requires both this card and a Tech upgrade to be disabled but this time the latter is on the opponent's craft. The brilliant twist is not only do you stop that card being used by the enemy ship but it can then be used as a Free Action by your ship that round. For two points this is a solid winner of a card that can keep on giving since it's only disabled. It's quite conditional and I would expect this to used fairly late in the game to close out a big hitting ship.

The EMH card however might well come in handy with your Navigational Deflector as that has an option to be disabled and not just discarded. 

Navigational Deflector (five point cost) is another of the big wins for the Equinox and adds to its legacy as one hell of a hard ship to eliminate since you can discard this card to cancel out a Damage result. If the damage is caused by a minefield or an obstacle then it can be disabled (this is where the EMH could be used) so you can roll in defence against this attack. Combining with the EMH or with Lessing will open up your options with the Equinox and extend it's lifetime even more . I wouldn't be shocked if it might be the last survivor in many cases!

Last upgrade is the ever present Photon Torpedoes (five point cost) and being from the earlier waves you still need to spend a Target Lock and also disable the card to perform the attack.  You get to convert a Battlestation over to a Critical Damage and point it, as usual, either fore or aft. It will up an Equinox offensive up to five dice from the standard two plus it works at ranges two and three. 

The included mission, Under Attack takes its lead from the Equinox two-parter with the inclusion of the neucleogenic lifeforms Ransom and his crew were experimenting on. It does evolve into a 40 point versus 40 point battle however each round both ships will lose either a Crew upgrade or suffer a damage point. This will certainly even the odds and determine the ultimate length of this fight. It's a basic ship to ship combat mission although there's the risk that it might not be your opponent that takes you out first but the lifeforms you have been testing...

USS Equinox is an "oldie" but a goodie. One of the more defensive packs on the market, the starship is nimble, small and regenerative. No big weapon options aside from the Photon Torpedoes card but that's not necessarily the way to win the game. The Nova Class here shows the chance to spin your tactics to play a long game and wear your opponent down, possibly from behind the lines and your larger ships. I've been using her in conjunction with the Enterprise-E and the Defiant mainly supporting the larger Sovereign Class and her apparent lack of threat seems to work a dream against the Klingons - at least so far!

USS Equinox might be available somewhere but I'd take a good look around first - prices certainly vary!!!

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Where's Ten Years Gone?

With a flypast from two starships named Enterprise as Archer, Kirk and Picard recited the now famous "Space, the final frontier..." opening, the titles rolled and that was it.

Ten years ago today, 13th May 2005, These are the Voyages..., the last and by no means best episode of prequel series Star Trek: Enterprise aired. Yep, it's a decade since the crew of the NX-01 skipped a few years of adventures to tell one last story and become guest stars in their own finale. Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis tried their best to play Riker and Troi as if they were actually discussing events that happened during The Pegasus. Note to fans, that was an episode made 12 years earlier so any form of consistency was lost to begin with however much effort was put in.

From recent reports it continues to be nailed into our skulls that there's going to be no new series on TV. While the cash is rolling in thanks to the rebooted JJ Abrams universe which has already seen two multi-million dollar movies take the big screen by storm and a third, suggested to be titled Star Trek Beyond, lined up for 2016 it's movies or nothing. Think about this though - it was ten years from the end of The Original Series to the release of The Motion Picture and we've been lucky enough since the end of Enterprise to get two new movies and a whole ruck of fan series and flicks that have satiated some of our thirst for original Star Trek content. In some respects the future never looked so good especially in comparison to that barren decade of the 70's.

Now Some Kind of Star Trek has given a fair amount of column inches to the rumours, the stories, the suggestions and even THAT Captain Worf series. We could easily spend this 10th anniversary of the end of first run Star Trek by crying into our blood wine and lamenting its passing or moaning about the way in which JJ chose to take the franchise or that the likelihood that a new Star Trek TV series is an eternity away (please let's not get into that Jonathan Frakes angle).

So instead of picking over old bones once more, let's be uplifted. While These are the Voyages... might have been a poor way to say goodbye, what were the five best ways that Star Trek closed a season? What were the best finales the show produced over 49 years? I'm going to take a pot shot and select my favourites. Be free to disagree.

The Best of Both Worlds

Let's start with the obvious one and work away from it. Undoubtedly one of the biggest episodes of all time and arguably the defining cliffhanger in Star Trek history. The Riker sub-story, Picard captured, the return of the Borg, a seemingly lost cause, a magnificent, haunting soundtrack; all add to make this hit every single marker you could want. The conclusion is nowhere near as good simply because there was no way it could live up to the hype of part one. Those final few moments where we realise it really is that bad are seminal.

Notable Quotable: "Mr Worf - fire". - Riker

Key Moment: The cube ship appears for the first time accompanied by that haunting choral theme which plays out across the rest of the episode - we have engaged the Borg.

Cliffhanger: Jeez. Millions went into meltdown as resistance seemed to be 100% futile. Boxsets make it do much easier. Note that in part two however it's not Worf that does the firing but Geordi....!

All Good Things...

It formulated the way to make a show finale for both Deep Space Nine and Voyager with both series attempting to provide a "full circle" experience. Returning Q, linking three distinct time periods and bringing back a couple of our favourite characters made this a must see in every respect. Let's not forget it also marked the first time a Star Trek show had chosen to finish rather than being cancelled. Science fiction was growing in popularity thanks to the show and the future for Star Trek was increasingly bright with Deep Space Nine closing a second season and Voyager due for premiere in the following January of 1995. We all loved that final scene at the poker game and the whole episode was an exhilarating experience that did the show 200% justice and I can watch it again and again and again in a heartbeat. It's not about the suspense here, it's about the experience.

Notable Quotable: "Bye bye Jean-Luc it's been such fun but alas all good things must come to an end." (either than or the last line...) - Q

Key Moment: Admiral Riker's suped-up Enterprise-D blows the hell out of two Klingon warships.

Cliffhanger: Not applicable. This was the end. Until Generations....

In the Hands of the Prophets

Deep Space Nine planted itself firmly on the map with the closer from it's first season. In the Hands of the Prophets is all about the placing of key characters, a reflection on the pilot episode and the preparation for season two. Usually we'd expect (as we'd come to see on The Next Generation) that the finale would be simply concluded in the first episode after the summer break. Deep Space Nine broke that mould by introducing Winn and Bareil ahead of the election for Kai that would take another year to occur plus examined the pairing of Sisko and Kira and their journey since Emissary. A masterstroke that firmly said they would be back for a second year and that it would develop from the events of the first season. Still a tense episode, it's a lot more about the people and the Starfleet officers' acceptance that the station is becoming their home just as much as it's about the assassination plot. Watch it back after a thorough rewatch of the show and it's still brilliant. Bajoran politics never seemed so amazing.

Notable Quotable: "Is the Emissary of the Prophets blaming me for this act of terrorism?"

"The commander of this station is." - Winn and Sisko

Key Moment: The bombing of the school. Hands down that's one way to make fans take note of your season closer.

Cliffhanger: None. All about the set-up.

Call to Arms

It was a toss up between this and The Jem'Hadar because both of them were huge Deep Space Nine game-changers that altered the way in which the series progressed. Call to Arms finally delivered the long-awaited Dominion War in dramatic character-driven style that became the show's trademark. Dark, as far from optimistic as you could ever expect and grounded in the reality that Starfleet are on the back foot, there's a foreboding that this is going to get even worse before it gets better. Losing the station to Dukat and his Dominion allies was a masterstroke we would never have predicted when Emissary aired. This was a close knit family who had come to see the gloomy Cardassian mining station as home and didn't want to leave - a big change from where we were at the start of the show. I won't bore everyone about the whole baseball scene but needless to say it's simply one of the best episodes ever made and far better than Janeway losing Voyager in Basics.

Notable Quotable: "...But no victory could make this moment any easier for me. And I promise, I will not rest until I stand with you again. Here; in this place where I belong." - Sisko

Key Moment: Sod it. The baseball bit. I love it.

Cliffhanger: Not officially but that fleet sure isn't just for show. Deep Space Nine didn't like to do proper cliffhangers because almost every week was one by this point.

Equinox

The what-Voyager-could-have-been story which was one of the best things the show ever did. A similar small science vessel forgets its principles for the sake of a quick trip back to the Alpha Quadrant. John Savage is perfectly cast as "Rudy" Ransom and the chilling modifications to the ship's EMH are a horrifying twist, showing just how far the captain is willing to go. Ultimately it's a comparison of how far the show and the cast have come since Caretaker. Experimenting on aliens is always a winner for the moral dilemma and while we kind of knew that Voyager would be OK, it was more about what the heck was going to happen to the Equinox crew. Personally I also think it's Voyager's best ever two-parter with the quality just as strong in part two and I'm a sucker for the Nova Class.

Notable Quotable: "May I ask you something, captain to captain? The Prime Directive: how often have you broken it for the sake of protecting your crew?" - Ransom

Key Moment: Hard choice but switching the two EMH's was a clever twist.

Cliffhanger: We never thought Janeway would be killed but it's all about the set up of where the characters are and how Voyager has been abandoned for dead by Equinox.

And now you're wondering about The Original Series  and also Enterprise? Fair enough. For me none of their season closers came close to the quality of these five. For The Original Series there was no real season close feeling - it was just another episode to turn out and for Archer's shift, it never reached the levels of excellence that I decided to go with. I, of course, look forward to your suggestions and reasons!!!

So what was your favourite closer or are you still lamenting the passing of Enterprise? Let us know in the comments below!

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The Lost Characters of Star Trek

Where the hell did he go?

A question that has perplexed many a fan - nearly as much as the classic "Where was Chekov?" we all still ask when watching The Wrath of Khan. There have been a few occasions where characters have mysteriously vanished/been reassigned/dropped off the face of the Earth. There's six in particular that immediately form an orderly queue. Let's see if any of you can remember at what point their presence was no longer required after their arrivals were made so prominent!

Ensign Sonia Gomez

Famous for being played by an actress who was also in Total Recall and for spilling hot chocolate on Picard in Main Engineering (seriously? Hot liquids in that environment?!). We should have seen her more but after just two appearances in Q Who and Samaritan Snare it was bye bye to the ensign. Gomez acted as a nice counter for Geordi but after a while it might have become excruciating to stand - and there was always Wesley to do her plot explanations or emotional turmoil where required.

Opinion? She was OK but a little too whiny and overactive for my liking. I'd be lying if I said we missed her presence after her two appearances but she did make an impression. I always find myself watching the Borg episode and going "Oh yeah - she's in this one!"

Lieutenant George Primmin

There to keep Odo in check - but again only for two episodes (The Passenger and Move Along Home) of the uneven first season of Deep Space Nine. One thing that always gets me with this character is that when it comes to the third season the creators introduced Eddington to fill exactly the same role that Primmin does here as though Starfleet had never been concerned to send someone out to oversee security matters until that point. 

While Eddington and Odo did clash a great deal and made for a lot better TV, Primmin and the Constable seemed much more able to work together - which may have been the downfall of the character; there needed to be an edge to the relationship and Eddington certainly achieved that in spades.

Sub-commander T'Rul

In charge of the loaned Romulan cloaking device installed on the mighty Defiant she, like Gomez, managed just two episodes before being conspicuously ditched. Somehow it wasn't that important that the crew knew all the workings of this top secret device after the two part story The Search. It's only when you watch this back (as I did recently) that you realise there is never another mention of her role anywhere else in the show. Clearly the secrecy of the cloaking device wasn't that important after all. Her position does seem like a glorified version of Uhura's "Open hailing frequencies" from The Original Series. Luckily Martha Hackett was more fortunate than her Romulan character, reappearing as Seska in Voyager. And then got killed off.

The Equinox Crew

One of Voyager's greatest injustices has to be the remaining fragments of the Equinox crew from the eponymous two-parter (and one of my favourites). One second they're all getting chewed out and demoted by Janeway to spend the rest of their time on Voyager cleaning the waste pipes and tidying up after Neelix attempts to cook something and the next minute...where did they go? I for one was hoping they would turn up again in season six and then seven but not a chance.

Clearly one of the biggest missed opportunities in the entire show - nay franchise - was to follow them a little more, maybe just the once - and see what happened to them. After all, Voyager did an excellent job of digging deep into the troubles between the Maquis and Starfleet as they integrated from Caretaker. Hang on...I think I got that wrong....

Naomi Wildman's mum

OK. This one is another from the Voyager stable and another cracker. Let's watch this woman go through expecting a baby, have the baby which dies in childbirth, introduce her parallel self in Deadlock where the child survived, have that child dropped over to another parallel Voyager ...and then totally ignore the mother for like, the next five years. Bless her, there's nothing like being appreciated is there? Samantha Wildman appeared, like Gomez before her, to have a long life of repeated appearances ahead but the arrival of her daughter wiped it out overnight. Samantha would appear four more times after the birth of her daughter but these would be sporadic between seasons three and six more than likely leading viewers to the old "oh that's where she went" scenario. Probably the most underused recurring character in Voyager.

This of course meant that Naomi could annoy the hell out of Janeway, Seven, the viewer and, heck, even Neelix for the remainder of the show. No wonder they were trying to get home so quickly.

Yeoman Rand

The original disappearing crew-member. The stories as to why she vanished so abruptly are well known throughout the Star Trek fanbase and any reference book detailing the history of The Original Series will fill it out if you haven't already uncovered the facts. Rand is actually the only one of these characters I've discussed who 1) returned later to some acclaim in the movies and Voyager's Flashback and 2) was resurrected by fan production Phase II with an increase in rank (and odd hair). While that latter show isn't canon it's good to note that Rand is still seen as a major part of the show even though she was unceremoniously scribbled out before Star Trek even made it to the end of season one.

Other Suspects

I'm certain that your mind has already wandered across to both Sito Lavell and Tom Riker by the time you've hit the bottom of this article. Why haven't we mentioned either? 

For the reason that their stories sort of ended - they were designed for a single episode (or two in each case separated by a few years) so no, we didn't forget them and I can say they will be featured in the future in something around guest characters but for now, it's not their time!

Is there anyone else we've not mentioned or have forgotten who should have made our list? Why not drop a comment below?

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Behind Enemy Lines: Eaglemoss Tackles Adversaries

It was always clear from the start that once you discount the multitude of Enterprise's, the Starships Collection would have to delve into non-Federation territory and particularly vessels belonging to opposing forces.

In fact, the last "title" ship was back in issue nine (USS Defiant) if you don't count the recent special on the JJ-Enterprise. Already we've had Klingons, Borg and Romulans which means that Deep Space Nine's Big Bad's are conspicuous by their absence. Not now however as Issues 13 and 14 cover two of their most prevalent enemies with the Dominion and the Cardassians. 

The Jem'Hadar battlecruiser is a heavy, heavy beast with probably the most solid feel of any ship yet to feature in the range (and I'm including issues 16 and 17 which we've already reviewed). The build quality is absolutely superb although it is slightly shiny due to the majority of the ship being made from metal. The extremities here are the plastic sections - fuel pods, cargo bay and upper ion and impulse engine (tail) sections but for once they're very, very solid. There's no wiggle or bend which is a significant improvement over the nacelles on models such as the refit Enterprise or on the USS Reliant. 

(CB)

Just be a bit careful however as it's got some nice sharp points reinforcing that these aren't toys and most definitely better placed on a shelf - preferably a high shelf away from prying fingers. While admittedly my son (he's two) has had his hands on Voyager this is one he's going nowhere near.

The colouring is excellent and having both a physical and CGI model to refer to have been a big benefit here. The thing that gets me is that on the page it's a a shade more purple than silver but  It's origins and design as something that would provide more of a threat than the smaller,  nimble Jem'Hadar fighters provides a great insight to some fairly odd designs that didn't make the grade.

The focus section talking about the development of the Dominion as the anti-Federation also reveals some fascinating information that originally a larger group of races was intended to be on a par with their Alpha Quadrant peers however time, budget and scope meant a tighter window on the Founders,  Vorta and Jem'Hadar. The images accompanying the text aren't anything new but this does seem to be building up into quite an extensive background resource to fill out the pages. 

Straight and true in all respects -
not my model then! (HA)

Given that there have been a chunk of books over the year I'm beginning to believe that there won't be much head scratching over even the more oddball issues down the line when it comes to finding relevant content. One thing through, don't dedicate a section to Neelix or Porthos.

Issue 14 adds to that Deep Space Nine universe with the Egyptian-influenced Cardassian Galor class.  Chalking up a ton of appearances through The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine it has to be classed among the more unusual designs to feature. Unfortunately mine is even more unusual with a wonky tail-fin (managed to bend this straight) and a slightly off-centre head piece which makes it look like she's looking to the right for traffic. For note the image to the left is not mine!

Coming after the metallic solidity of the Jem'Hadar battlecruiser it's a face palm moment if ever there was one. I like the ship but these two things are a real blow with not even 20 issues under their belt. It's also has only one single coloured plastic section - the main deflector on the front which is in red - and also isn't set flat in the hull. 

(CB)

That's nothing against the Eaglemoss team who have tried to recreate this as faithfully as possible. The shame is that it's not that accurate either. The hull detailing noted in the magazine around the temple-like structure is absent and the underside seems awfully plain in comparison to both the top and also the images in the magazine. Colour-wise she's also a different shade to the one in the magazine. Inconsistencies certainly reign with this one. I've included an image of my model here to show the underbelly's lack of detail - also not the off-centre head section.

If we look back, the strengths of the series have been where Eaglemoss has been able to work in metal and in big chunks. Doing fiddly nacelles and blue plastic venting is an unavoidable factor but it does detract from the good points. She's nicely balanced and, hallelujah, sits well on the stand. Maybe I should just be happy with these improvements over all the other stuff we've mentioned? I may just superglue that Warbird in place y'know and call it quits.

How about the magazine? Usual fare really but there are some great pics in here especially the opening shot on the Ship Profile section which not only reinforces the colour but also the detail missing from the underside. Interestingly we get a profile of Gul Dukat rather than the creation of the Cardassian people that you might have expected (I did) and goes some way to providing a satisfactory overview of just who he was from start to finish. At times I did warm to the character and reading this certainly refreshed my knowledge albeit in very brief form. It even brought home the fact that Deep Space Nine really is all about opposites in every respect - and not just the Mirror Universe.

Designing the Galor Class is probably one of the best behind the camera sections yet, really getting Rick Sternbach's vision and the path that led to the final model. This is not just a simple designed and built journey as its physical creation was a very detailed process, perhaps more so than actually imagining it in the first place. Watch out for the unexpected image from Voyager and when you do, try and remember what actually appeared on the screen....

CB

Rounding of this trio of our missed issue reviews is my favourite of the three which just bangs home just how many great ship designs featured in Voyager; USS Equinox.

For those in the know the Nova Class name at the least has been banded around since the early 1990s as a suggested replacement for the Galaxy Class however the ship from the Voyager two parter can trace it's origins back to the early design suggestions for a little known ship over on Deep Space Nine called the Defiant. 

The top of the primary hull is cast from metal and detailed well with windows, phaser strips, registry, the sensor array as well as the unusual recessed bridge which is one of the remnants from that pathfinder project. Turn her over and even the orbital shuttle, the Waverider has been clearly marked out. It's a great finishing detail that helps the Equinox stand out a bit more. Even the nacelles are nicely decalled and the whole thing is a pleasure to see slotted onto her stand. 

CB

So you're waiting for the grumble aren't you? Well OK, the sprue flash is still attached to the nacelles and they haven't been cleaned up very well at the joints when you look underneath but I'm almost prepared to forgive them as she's still a good display piece. Could we also have had her battle damaged perhaps as portrayed in the magazine to add that element of "realism" to the ship? Maybe that would have been time consuming so let's step away from the super nitpicking!

There's a lot of little extra facts and figures about the Equinox dotted through the magazine this time and it's a welcome surprise as this, like Dauntless in issue 17 was a one story ship that never saw another outing thus limiting the data available to fill pages. For the discerning collector I can confirm that the numbers on the lifeboat hatches DO match the ones that are featured on the plans - oh and definitely worth mentioning that the colour of the ship pictured matches the model. Full marks. 

While key appearances is a foregone conclusion before you even get to the back page I'm not sure if Voyager's journey back to the Alpha Quadrant really warranted an entry here. Admittedly the Equinox story was to give us the "what would have happened if..." notion and a comparison article would have well-rounded the story of Ransom and his crew. 

Notably now we've dropped away from talking about filming a lot of the models as a separate section, combining it instead with the building and design aspects of the story which leaves room for other "human interest" pieces if you will such as more backstory and character related material which is fleshing out the series and allowing it to explore more facets of the franchise with some relation to the vessel in question.

What really bugs me at the moment with this collection is that I truly want to be ecstatic over every single model and magazine because there's nothing like it and nothing has ever come close to getting it this right. The trouble is I always feel just a step away from perfection. I should be satisfied with the ships, the attempt to nail each one and the fact they are hand-painted, well presented, boxed and delivered. It's like being given an unopened box of Quality Street only to find that (in my case) it's 75% full of coffee creams - really happy...but not just there....
Moving away from chocolate related analogies, due to our erratic writing the next two under the spotlight will be the Bajoran Solar Sailor and the USS Stargazer due for April and here they are...

With Australia now being added to the list of countries stocking the Collection it's worth a drop by the site if you're looking to order back issues. Currently issues one through to six and nine are out of stock as well as the JJ-Enterprise. The Deep Space Nine special is now (after a long time) showing as back in stock as is the USS Excelsior which should please +Mark Thwaite who has been waiting for these for an absolute AGE.

Taking a ganders over at the Entertainment Earth site is always a good call and now they're showing images of everything up to issue 24(!) and we've included these below just to keep you all in the loop. Clearly we have to advise that these are likely to be suggested and not the final artwork. As yet there's no model image for issue 24, the Xindi ship but you can still see the cover at least.

You can subscribe to the Eaglemoss Official Starships Collection by clicking the link to the left and dropping over to their site right now - we're only 17 issues through and you don't want to get too far behind!

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Magazine covers and model images for issues 20 - 24 from Entertainment Earth

Issue 18 and 19 images from startrekstarships.com

Model shots attributed to CB (Clive) and HA (Hayley) from SKoST archive

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