Sunday 14 June 2015

First look at Starships Collection Borg Tactical Cube, plus issue list up to #70, and more!

Lots of news from The Official Starships Collection today, starting with the first look at the Borg Tactical Cube model, which will be arriving towards the end of the year as issue fifty-eight in the series. These first images of the model were accidentally posted on Eaglemoss's online shop, in a listing for what should be the now individually orderable subscriber bonus light-up Borg Cube.



Continue after the jump for lots more news form the series, including the latest confirmed issues, with the first seventy now known.

But first, The Collection's manager, Ben Robinson, tweeted this picture of the four shuttlecraft models, showing for the first time the Type 10 model:


The distribution method for the shuttlecraft model has still not been announced for most of the world, although German and French subscribers who opted into a premium subscription model should be getting them as part of that offer.

Meanwhile Ben also revealed the next five confirmed issues in the series, in a post on Eaglemoss' Hero Collector website. That means the first seventy issues in the series (which would have been the entire series, prior to it being extended) have now been announced.

Issue sixty-six will be the SS Raven, the ship used by Seven of Nine's parents to study the Borg.

This will be the first retail model available of this ship. It has been previously released as part of the Attack Wing miniatures game, but so far only as a promotional prize in organised play events.

Ben also posted another rendering of the ship, undertaking that Borg expedition, on his Twitter:


Issue sixty-seven will be the Klingon D7. The model will be based on the original studio model, rather than any of the latter remakes, that added in extra panelling details and such. Of the five ships announced this is the only one that required a new computer model, this time provided by Rob Bonchune.
The Federation fighter seen in the Dominion War will be coming as issue sixty-eight. This will only be second time this ship has been available as a model, with a previous Attack Wing squadron set already in the wild.
Also only previously released as a much smaller Attack Wing model, is issue sixty-nine's Breen warship.

Apparently the CG model for this one was lost for a while, but with it's discovery is the promise of other ships in the future, as Ben explained:
...a personal favourite and a ship that I've wanted to do since the very beginning: the Breen warship, which is a beautiful John Eaves design. It proved difficult because no-one seemed to have the original Lightwave model. But then we found David Lombardi and unearthed a whole cache of ships I thought had been lost forever. (You'll be seeing more of that in the coming months.)
Finally at issue seventy there's the Voth cityship, one of the biggest ships ever seen in Star Trek.

Due out next April (in the UK, with the rest of the world following as usual), with comes just a few months after the smaller Voth research ship that is coming at the end of the year as issue sixty-two. Both ships have never been available before as models.

Meanwhile there are a few more ships not quite fully confirmed that Ben has also been tweeting about.

Definitely coming, but not yet with an announced issue number, is Neelix's ship, the Baxial. You might notice if you look carefully at the filenames on the preview images Ben posted, it says issue seventy-five, but this has apparently been moved slightly, and for now Ben would only confirm mid-seventies.


Another Voyager support-craft is the ever-present but never-used (onscreen) Aeroshuttle. Posting this image, Ben teased that is "Might just be on the list..."


And another one up for consideration is the TOS remastered Gorn ship, only seen onscreen as a tiny blur, but we might be getting a much closer look.


With only twenty more issues until the current planned end of the series, however will all these ships Ben teases with find space in The Collection? Well there might be exciting news on the horizon: When asked about a possible further expansion, Ben had this to say:
We should have news on that in September.
Finally, for your viewing pleasure, the Eaglemoss online shop has updated their USS Enterprise-C listing with a couple of new images. UK collectors already have this one, and it should be arriving next in the US, at the start of July.


For a listing of all the ships in the Starships Collection, including links to all my previous previews and reviews, see my index page.

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3 comments:

Fox said...

I thought they confirmed that they'd be expanding the series a while back?

Oh well.

And here's a question: what's more ridiculous/stupid, wrapping the Voyager in plate-mail, or a Borg Cube in half-plate?

Ben said...

WHERE IS THE ENTERPRISE-A!?
No woman will love without ALL the Enterprisess, enterprises, enterprisis....

8of5 said...

They confirmed expanding from 70-90, now we wait to see if they will go further again :)

Which I imagine could have a baring on when the Enterprise-A comes, it's a good major ship for them to hold in reserve as a carrot to dangle in front of dithering collectors not sure of ever more obscure ships.

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