"He's dead, Jim, but not as we know it!" Not quite, but let's use that to segue into the main topic, that of starships and whatnot. As I have mentioned ere now, I am quite keen on this Mongoose game: A Call To Arms: Star Fleet, derived from Amarillo Design Bureau's Star Fleet Universe games, which are themselves (stop me if you're getting bored or if I've erred, which I may well have by now) derived from the Star Fleet Technical Manual of the 1970s. Said manual included a few ships: the original Enterprise and her sisters, a three-nacelled dreadnought, a tug variant (the same size as Enterprise, give or take, and a destroyer and scout variant with the same saucer. Technically speaking, none of these are yet available from Mongoose, though I am quite happy to use their Constitution-class heavy cruiser as the original Enterprise, and their dreadnought as the old dreadnought.
So my lust for the past has driven me to think on creating the Scout/destroyer and the tug. I recently acquired another fleet box from Mongoose, and the raw materials for my design manifested themselves (courtesy of my kindly postman) one morning recently. Stricken with illness as I have been, carving up bits of metal with a knife have been the furthest I have been prepared to drive myself, and so I did. Brave fellow, eh? So let's get down to my latest endeavour. I looked into Memory Beta's entry on the Saladin-class Destroyer (which is very close in appearance to the Hermes-class Scout. I grabbed a few bits and bobs from Mongoose kits.
1) In picture A you can see the saucer and secondary hull from a Mongoose Constitution-class heavy cruiser, and the upper warp nacelle from a Federation-class dreadnought.
2) I carefully cut the neck of the cruiser's secondary hull from the hull itself. See picture B.
3) Then I glued it in its usual place. See picture C.
4) In pictures D & E I realised I needed a sensor/deflector dish, so nabbed one from a Mongoose FFB. I also drilled a hole in the warp nacelle so I would be able to mount the starship on one of the plastic bases.
5) In pictures F & G you can see the Saladin/Hermes sat next to a Constitution-class cruiser. Opinion is strongly divided on these ships (the single-nacelled Saladin/Hermes. Some think they are excellent, and others feel they look awful. My own opinion is that they are decidedly adorable!
6) Pictures H, I, J, K & L show the destroyer/scout together with the larger cruiser.
A final note here is that the destroyer/scout should really have a nacelle with smooth sides, and with some detail on the lower side. The main reason I didn't make such a model was lack of preparation and research. So next time look forward to some excruciatingly painful research! Next time probably will not be until October unless I win the Lottery, folks. I have a strong feeling that the next few months are going to be strongly based in recycling old bits and bobs of this and that - or in painting models I haven't seen in years - or in begging at GW for free paint! Anyway, until next time, folks, happy 'gaming!