A Klingon Rogues' Gallery

 Klingon General K'vorkuh with his personal guard celebrating a great victory over the puny Federation and their weak ships.

 The Generals' loyal lieutenant, Thug'h, son of Pug'h. Would gladly lay down his life for the mighty General.

 General K'Vorkuh. Always first in battle, the ancient Bat'leth of his fathers carves a trail of bloody ruin through his foes.

Captain Rak'h, a great fighter in her own right; greatly honoured for her victory over the Romulans at Phestus Three.

The Klingons are from "Space Vixens from Mars" scroll down the page and look for "Ridged Rim Aliens". Nice castings if a little flat. Very easy to paint. The shuttle is a Johnny Lightning offering that I picked up from eBay for about $13 including shipping just a couple of weeks ago. It's a little small for the purist, but who'll care on the gaming table?

Zocchi Plastics

 I started randomly collecting these as I stumbled across them in the past few weeks. I found this Battle Tug on the ADB website. It's a great little model. You can seperate the Tug from the cargo pods. The cargo pods can be configured as bulk carriers as above or as a star liner - basically with a passenger pod that (so the Franz Josef book says) can carry 500 in extreme luxury. I'm sure it could carry 2000 marines in mere comfort..

Fly-past. I've painted all of these extremely simply. Flat coats of spray-painted white with coloured details. I've done a little lining in in pale gray.

Tug, Destroyer and Dreadnought lead by a metal ADB heavy cruiser. These are great miniatures with beautiful, fine detail. I will be buying more where I can.

Joining the Fleet

 Flypast of three Enterprise Class Heavy Cruisers

 The 54th Heavy Cruiser Squadron reports for duty at Starbase 254 on the border of the Upper Leaf Swirl Spiral.

 19th Light Cruiser Squadron make the rendezvous at the Starbase

 Miranda Class Light cruiser about to dock for crew R&R.

 Science ship about to come in to dock. Ready for refit and re-paint.

The Ships are simply re-paints of Micro Machines plastics. I needen't have re-painted them, but I found the original schemes to be a bit garish and a bit too various for a really cohesive-looking force. The paint jobs are done from a black undercoat, progressively lighter through shades of gray up to pure white with coloured details. I have some decals on order that I am looking forward to using to fine-detail the look of the miniatures and to further unify the look of the fleet. The ships have been given a good coat of spray varnish to protect them as I continue applying paint to various details.

They are currently based on the original Micro Machines plastic bases, but I am going to mount them on AMD hex bases. I am thinking of having the light cruisers on higher mounts than the heavies, just for the look of it.

The science ship will be the next paint job, followed by a pair of Exelsiors. When the destroyers arrive, I'll proceed with them.

Maps

I'm taking a wild plunge into the unknown here and attempting to do a kind of crude three dimensional map for that area of the Alpha Quadrant known as the Upper Leaf Swirl Spiral.

The plan is that I will take three sheets of hex paper (see the link), print them onto A3 paper and layer them.

I'll then be able to use a 3D co-ordinate system to describe any location on the map as follows: sheet: axis x: axis y.

Thus A:1:a might be the location of Starbase 123 on the first sheet, in the upper left hex.

Then you have to imagine me taking all three sheets, layering them together, grasping the two opposite corners and giving the whole thing a bit of a twist to more accurately represent the actual shape of the area.

But that is another story.

The Rules

For tactical combat, I'm using Bob Barnetson's "Full Thrust Lite" version that were published in Battlegames #18.

I've pretty well taken them just as they are - a rare thing for a wargamer! - but for the movement rules.

I decided that different classes of ship ought to have different acceleration/deceleration rates based on their size. After all, a great big Federation Dreadnought or a monstrous Klingon B10 ought to lumber rather more than a destroyer or an F-5.

Thus:

"Battleships": may accelerate or decelerate at 2 hexes per move. Includes laden Tugs*.
"Cruisers": may accelerate or decelerate at 3 hexes per move. These include Constitution/Enterprise Classes, Miranda and Stargazer Classes, Klingon D4s and D7s, large Bird of Prey types.
"Destroyers": may accelerate or decelerate at 4 hexes per move. I'm thinking here of Federation destroyer classes and Klingon F-5; Probably Romulan Warbirds as well.

*Tugs may drop their cargo pods and go to 3 hex/move

Ships of the Fleet

Klingon D-7s close on a Constitution Class. A DY-100 flees in the background.

Constitution Class about to go to Warp

Most of my Star trek ships are the old MicroMachines range that came out in the 1990s. I bought up a few way back then and have steadily been supplementing this core through eBay. I've also since bought some extra bits - like Klingon warships, Federation Dreadnoughts and Destroyers among others - from Amarillo Design Bureau to round things out. The Micromachines stuff isn't as nicely cast with the fine detail of the AMD, but they have the virtues of being cheap, pre-painted and robust.

A Five-Year Mission

Hello and welcome.

The purpose of this blog is to explore that debateable and dubious part of the Alpha Quadrant called the Upper Leaf-Swirl Spiral as the Admiral commanding a mixed Star Fleet task force.

The time is not too long after the completion of a certain five-year mission. Perhaps a little after the V’ger Incident.

Tension between the Federation and the Klingon Empire waxes and wanes and it is not uncommon for klingon Flotillas to try to test Federation resolve by means of making attacks on small groups of ships and isolated outposts.

The Klingons have been trying Federation patience in this region, and the Federation have decided to assert themselves with some firmness in this disputed and little understood region.

Heretofore, Star Fleet has had only a very limited presence on the borderlands of the region. Star Fleet Command has determined that this will cease to be the case and that as well as asserting their authority, they will promote Star Fleets dual charter of scientific discovery as well as defense.

Live long and prosper.