This month went in a surprising direction for me. I had tried to cajole my friend back into the hobby by taunting him with his own miniatures, painted by me; but that didn’t work. (He told me so.) I started work on creating my own rules for a skirmish game I have kicking around, but didn’t get far. I started a new project for Gaslands but abandoned it for now; I rekindled my interest in roleplaying by purchasing a bunch of small-press indie games and listening to a lot of gaming podcasts. Somewhere in the middle of all that I managed to purchase and paint another Modiphius Star Trek set: The Original Series-era Landing Party.
The usual Modiphius annoyances aside (shitty plastic, unnecessary assembly, ridiculous pricing), this is a pretty good set. You get a male and female of five different TOS-era species: Humans, Denobulans, Tellarites, Andorians and Vulcans. What color you paint their attire is entirely up to you: Red, Gold or Blue; but with 10 miniatures in the set, you can’t have an even division. I decided to go heavy on the science/medical personnel.
My only real criticism is that 3 out of 5 of the female miniatures have similar poses. It’s a minor quibble in an otherwise solid set. My favorite miniature is this human male. (I painted him as a redshirt, so I won’t get too attached to him.)
My least favorite is the female Tellarite all the way in back, on the right. You can’t really see it, but I hard a hard time painting her face as it’s sculpted weird. Maybe it’s just me.
Insanity Pile Progress
Miniatures Purchased: 80
Miniatures Painted: 146
Total: +66
Finally got some time to catch up on my favourite blogs and post some comments. And I did see your email, but have been so insanely busy that it’s been work-eat-sleep for the past two weeks, so please accept my apologies. Can’t really gowrong with a bit of Trek. I’ve been tempted to paddle in those waters, but would avoid the Modiphius models due to the pricing. I’d probably go with CP Models’ ones, supplemented by those from Matakishi’s workshop, as they’re inexpensive and charmingly old-fashioned. Unless I come up with another cunning option.
Glad to see you again, Jeremy, although we both know you were really on Barsoom again, with blade in hand and willowy princess clinging to your mighty thews.
Lest you confuse me with rich Uncle Pennybags, let me assure you I have never paid anywhere near the ridiculous prices Modiphius hopes to get for their miniatures. In fact, I think the most I paid for any set was somewhere around 30 dollars (American, of course), and most were less than $25. I paid less than $20 for the Romulans and only $8 for Kirk and crew! Put simply, Amazon is your friend (as long as you don’t work for them), especially at this time of year. Also, if you don’t mind a bit of repainting, secondary market Star Trek clix is another option. Cheap enough, especially for the commons; and the fast forces sets can give you all the big names for a decent price.