Sunday Starships: Archive Miniatures

A reader who blogs under the handle Legacy Magazines recently asked for some help identifying some old Superior Models minis that he was selling on ebay.  Looking at his sales, I noticed he also happened to have a bunch of spaceships from Archive Miniatures, an outfit that originated in the 1970s.  I'd never heard of this line of starship minis before seeing them in his auctions, and I thought I would share them with you, with Legacy Magazines's kind permission.

Capital carrier

Capital ship

Cruiser

Dropships

Light fighters

Missile carriers

Unknown ships 1

Unknown ships 2

Thanks, LM!  I appreciate the chance to share these interesting old-school designs on my blog.  If you like these, go to the Stuff of Legends website for more photos of the Archive spaceships.

More Dreamblade minis

Browsing on ebay, I saw another Flame Harrower from the Dreamblade minis line.  The auction included three more minis as well and started at 99 cents, so I had to bid on it.  I was the only bidder, so this is the second mini of this type I got for cheap--around $4 for the whole lot when you include shipping. 

This Flame Harrower will help expand my Sons of Muspel fire army for Hordes of the Things.  Not sure if I'll use both of these models as Hero elements or something else.

The Iron Thug looks like a chain golem from later editions of D&D, and would make a good monster for any fantasy RPG or skirmish game.

This Murderous Berserker is the size and look of a (smallish) frost giant, although the flash made the skin look a lot brighter in the photo than in person.  If I ever get around to fielding a frost giant army to compliment the Sons of Muspel, I'm recruiting this guy.

And then there's this ... the Slaughterwheel, an amalgamation of legs and blades.  No telling what this could represent in one of my games.  Any suggestions?

I really shouldn't be buying more minis, but when they average just a buck each, it's hard to say no.  Still, I can quit any time I want ...

Traveller at Half Price

Once more, a stop at Half-Price Books pays off--this time with a hardcover of the Marc Miller edition of the Traveller science fiction RPG from 1996.

Of course, it's a used copy, and someone wrote all over the title page.

And on the table of contents.

And on an inside page.

Of course, there's lots of Chris Foss art inside to sweeten the deal.

I'm sure I'll enjoy reading this, and someday maybe playing some Traveller as well.

Completed freighter

This is another Earth ship from the Stardate: 3000 miniatures line by Valiant Enterprises.  I painted it to match the rest of the SD:3K minis, which I use for a civilian transport fleet in most of my battles.

 

This particular starship is supposedly an Aires-class escort cruiser, but in my games, it will be a merchant vessel.  Those weapon-looking projections toward the front are actually cargo manipulators, not guns.

This is the last of my human ships for Stardate: 3000.  Next, I have a whole bunch of alien vessels from that setting to paint.  Now, just to settle on a paint scheme.  I'm open to suggestions...

Painting experiment

Since I haven't painted a miniature starship in quite some time, I thought I'd experiment with a paint scheme idea on some ships I've had primed for awhile. I took some models that were flat black and added random flecks of bright.

The concept was to dip an old toothbrush in some white and yellow paint, then run my finger along the bristles to flick the paint onto the mini in random speckles to simulate a starry sky.

I wanted to give these minis the look of a cloaked (or at least deep-space camouflaged) ship.  At first I couldn't make up my mind if I was happy with how this looks or not.  But after looking at them on the tabletop instead of a closeup photo, I think they'll work for wargaming. 

I may go back and add some drybrushing, but other than that, these ships are done!  Now, to decide what faction they will be.  I'm thinking space pirates ...

Paused projects

Here are a couple of spaceship projects that I currently have on hold (meaning I started on them, then got distracted with something else and forgot all about them).  I thought I'd dust them off and show them to my loyal readers.

The white models are the Aquan Prime starter fleet for Firestorm Armada that I picked up a year-and-a-half ago at Half Price Books.  They've been sitting in the box, primed white, for a year now.  The biggest ship will make a great scenario objective as a passenger liner; I don't know what I want to do with the smaller ships.

The black object at upper left is the skeleton for a scratchbuild design I cobbled together from used ballpoint pen parts.  The idea was to make it into some sort of agri-ship like in the movie Silent Running.  I even made some biodomes that don't look nearly as amateurish in this picture as they do in person, using plastic covers from those googly eyes they sell in craft stores, flock, and an old key ring.

Maybe one of these days I'll finish one or both of these projects.  Not tonight, though.  I need some distraction.  What's that about the unfinished project you have sitting around your work table?

Sunday Starships: missiles and more fighters

Just like I did last week, I rediscovered some more minis I had dunked in Pine Sol to remove their paint jobs.  In addition to some Warhammer minis I got on ebay, I dumped in a whole bunch of starfighters and CAPTACs from the Starfleet Wars/Galactic Knights range.  Now I've started rebasing them so I can repaint them to match my fleets.  The fighters are Terran Comet and Meteor craft, while the missiles are Terran and Entomalian.  I have more missiles on stands than I do fighters right now.

You can see that the missiles are mounted on Furball flight stands I got a few months ago. The little box holds a die, so you can use the pips to keep track of the number of missiles in each salvo.  They'll look better once they're painted black.  However, I want to get the rest of the fighters on bases before I start priming.

I'm happy to get rid of the original paint job for this Citadel cockatrice, as well as the necromancer that had been glued to it as a mount.  They were painted way too gaudy, and the thick enamel the previous owner had used hid a lot of detail.

I hope to have the fighters and missiles painted soon.  It may take longer for that winged monster, however--I need to figure out a color scheme that will do justice to the sculpt!