QT spaceships

symphonicpoet

symphonicpoet

Moderator
I don't recall precisely what pushed me down the space ship rabbit hole. I don't think it was Warlord Paul's Space Fleet, though that has certainly helped to keep me well and truly at the bottom of it. But while digging around down here in the dark of space I found I really quite liked the QT models that became about 1/3 of the Space Fleet range rather a lot. So I've been obsessively searching them out and collecting them lately. A recent score (a white whale, even!) was the NSF3 Madrid Class FTL Explorer that was later a part of the C44 Dreadnoughts range and the NSF2 New York Class Dreadnought that I don't think Citadel even re-released. But anyway . . . in progress it is.

This thing is a chonker. I thought I had two stapled together somehow, but no, it's the upper and lower hulls.
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Since of course the first thing I did was to open this precious and undisturbed forty odd year old package. :D

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Getting the two halves of the hull together required some finesse. A little gentle straightening and some gap filling. I used green stuff on the larger ones and spackle on the smaller ones, just gently brushed in with my finger. There's a number of "windows" into the center of the model that surprised me. I painted the inside light grey to seal it up and left the windows open. They're probably supposed to be hanger bays or some such, a-la Star Wars. The thing clearly has some Star Destroyer inspiration.

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I've painted it with black primer, but beyond that I'm still deciding what I want to do next. I'm tempted to try a dazzle camouflage scheme. (You can't really hide in space, but maybe zebra stripes will fool the AI controlled flies, right?)

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Also dutifully open and getting started. Not far on this one yet. It's a slight miscast. The lead didn't fill the radar dish at the front, and maybe the barrel on the aft turret was supposed to be full length. But both of those are fixable problems, and the casting is otherwise pleasantly crisp. Really a nice piece. (It's a shame Citadel never remastered these.)

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Anyway, they tickle my sparkling laser swords and whirring ornithopter itch.
 
Brother Meredith said:
What’s the connection between these models and Space Fleet?
Click to expand...
well... Starforce 300 was a rule set from about 1980 by R. Connor from Tabletop Games. Q.T. Models were very closely linked with Tabletop Games in that quite often they produced the only miniatures for Tabletops rule sets. Many (but not all) of their spaceships were later sold to Citadel who then put them into the Space Fleet figures..

Basically, What he said at the top of his post ^_^

Personally, there are two figures in the range that take my interest like the 'SF3 Manta' which is clearly a Cylon Raider.
 
Brother Meredith said:
Which ones in the range? http://www.miniatures-workshop.com/lostminiswiki/index.php?title=Space_Fleet
Nothing mentioned on the page about prior releases?
Am well aware of Tabletop Games, but not mentioned on the Starforce 300 page either. http://www.miniatures-workshop.com/lostminiswiki/index.php?title=Starforce_300
Click to expand...

Not sure why the Space Fleet Page on Lost Minis doesn't make reference to it. They have all the relevant ships in the QT models page.

NSF4 Paris Class Cruiser became the Thunderbolt. NSF8 Dryad Class Explorer became the Constellation Targeting Ship. NSF9 became the Stalwart Escort. NSF10 became the Goliath Factory Ship, albeit with some considerable modification. (Citadel added different engines, more pipes, and a few other gribblies, but it's still pretty recognizable.) NSF13 became the Castellan Shield Ship after similar treatment. And NSF16 became the Galaxy Troop ship, also with extra bits.

I suspect they'd have done more, but as I understand it the molds were getting pretty worn. You can see a noticeable difference between ships in QT packaging, the same ships in C44 blisters, and then more difference with the Space Fleet versions. (I've snagged all three versions of the NSF13 Destroyer/C44 Heavy Dreadnought/ Space Fleet Castellan Shield Ship in their original packaging at one point or another.) The molds just got tired, and the bigger more complex ships like NSF2 might have already been too worn out when Space Fleet started.
 
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^They're all cataloged, I think. And in some cases the same photograph is used on both pages. It's just the cross-references that need fixing.

^^^Also Eric: They're on the QT models Starships page. Even though the packaging said "Starforce 300" the catalog gave them distinct numbers, and there were different rules for a different game.

I think the problem is that we break ourselves into different silos a little too much to notice the overlap sometimes.
 
^I think I could edit it. I've been posting pictures there. But maybe someone with more experience editing wikis would do a better job of it. I'll have to see if I can dig up the references. In any case, I've always thought it was an interesting connection. (And some nice looking miniatures.) There's still a couple of white whales I'm chasing out of that pod, but I've got enough that I can call it a successful voyage, at least.
 
Lovely stuff. Those ships look great, can't wait to see them with some paint. I've actually been prepping my remaining ships for War Rocket along with some random Freighters I bought from Brigade Models ages back - they have some nice generic ships I thought would work well for scenarios. Thought maybe I should try to get them actually painted, so shall be looking to you for some inspiration!
 
^Brigade has some tempting stuff. I've looked at those freighters several times. I expect I'll break down eventually. I'm a sucker for a good merchant ship.

As to the rest, thank you. I've got them primed now, so it should be coming along shortly.
 
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