I’ve been remiss in getting some of the reviews for the new Fanhome ships. Meanwhile, the one I’ve been waiting for has arrived: the Gral-class USS Archer (NCC-627) that was featured in the first episode of Strange New Worlds. They’ve popped up in the background a few times, always at a distance — I suspected because they were a bit under-designed.
As with the rest of these models, the quality of the model is very good, although — as with the Eaglemoss models — the clear portion of the base really does need to be better designed; this one really doesn’t want to sit right in the bottom portion of the base.
The booklet on this is instructive. Archer was actually fairly heavily designed and went through a number of iterations before they reached the current look. I like the single nacelle with the antenna on the end; very The Cage-looking. The underside has more going on that the top — a break from other minor background ships designed for Discovery and Picard where the ventral portion often feels unfinished.
Archer is a Gral-Class scout that is described as “more of a runabout”, butat 110.47m long with a dish “58m” on the beam and about 77m long, this isn’t that small. That two decent-sized super-yachts side-by-side, and the dish looks to be about 10ish meters in draught — that’s enough for two decks, rather than the one the ship supposedly has. She is supposed to have a crew of three, although it could bit more. By my estimation, a standard complement of 25-30 would still have plenty of room, with all the necessary equipment (transporters, cargo, impulse and warp engines…)
Here’s a decent look at the size and the orthos of the ship:
So is it worth it? It’s an interesting design, although visually a bit bland. If you are looking to complete a collection of Disco/SNW vessels, I’d say get it.
Riker’s ship has warped in from FanHome. I wasn’t real jazzed up for this one, (Ba-dum-bump…) but now that it’s here, I’m really liking FanHome’s model of Titan. I was worried it was going to be more cartoony — in keeping with the aesthetic of Lower Decks, but no, it’s a pretty good model. As with the other FanHome products, presentation is a cut above the old Eaglemoss. Box, booklet, all have better graphic design and look good.
There have been definite improvements for the subscription service. The change of shipper has smoothed out some of the kinks from the beginning of these releases, and my models have been coming in, like clockwork, on the last estimated day for delivery, or one after. So far, I’ve had no damaged boxes of models.
Titan has that TNG movie period aesthetic — the nacelles are similar to the look of the Akira-class, and the saucer section has similar queues from the period. The quality of the model’s paint job and detailing are very good — I think they did a better job on this than the preceding models, though it does seem to have more plastic and less die-cast in this particular release.
The lifeboats, the emitters are all nicely visceral. The windows seem to mostly line up, and the aztec paint job is good. This model did not skimp where most do — the underside is equally well done.
Hathces, docking ports, warp core hatches — all painted with warning lines. Other than the seam on the underside of the tail, it all looks good.
They really did a nice job with this one. So if you like the TNG movie period vessels, this is definitely worth getting.
The latest from FanHome’s Starships Collection got delivered yesterday. I’ll admit, I didn’t have much interest in this one. Not being a player of Star Trek Online, I didn’t know anything about this particular ship. Its appearance in the third season of Picardwas my first exposure to the Odyssey-class Enterprise-F.
The packaging continues to be much better than the old Eaglemoss stuff: colorful and eye-catching, and this model is their first XL edition. To indicate this, the box has raised embossing for the Star Trek name. The packing is the typical styrofoam set up of the Eaglemoss models. The booklet on the design of the craft and its appearances is tucked in the box, following the lead of what Eaglemoss was doing with the later releases, rather than the large format from the older ships. (I prefer the smaller booklet.)
This shipment included two free extras for the subscribers: a raktejino mug and a master systems display of USS Titan-A. The display is tucked between two thick slabs of plexiglass, and it’s tiny — about the same size as the booklet (it’s in the cardboard box under the booklet in the picture). The mug is small — an 8 oz., I think, and yes — Colombia is misspelled. But since it’s free stuff, I don’t really care.
Enterprise herself is gorgeous. I’ll admit — I’m not a fan of this design. It’s squarely in the “negative space” period of design, with ships having open space in places that, frankly, don’t make much sense. In this case, the Enterprise has two thin “necks” holding the saucer section to the secondary hull. The nacelles look better than the Akira-era and the Picard-era nacelles, though; I like ‘em. The ship is supposed to be huge — 1600m stem to stern, with an embarked Aquarius-class runabout tucked where the aft shuttlebay usually is.
Despite all these niggles, the model is gorgeous, with only a few points that collector have been noting. The impulse drives are not painted red on the nacelles nor the saucer. The Aquarius is painted dark, with minimal detailing. Outside of that, they’ve done a good job with the window placement and decals. I particularly like the UFP seal above the name of the ship. This seems appropriate as in-canon, these are massive diplomatic-focused vessels.
Like Stargazer, seeing the vessel in person is a different experience than on the screen. I wasn’t particularly impressed with Stargazer when it showed in season two of Picard, but the model won me over. I still hate the negative space fascination John Eaves has, but “the F” is much more attractive when you can rotate it and appreciate it from various angles.
FanHome’s off to a great start, in my opinion, with this collection. So is this Enterpriseworth it? It you’re a completist, it you like your starships “looking all Sovereign-y”, as Mariner Beckett put it, if you like the STO ships — yes. If you’re not a fan of the newer Trek, it might not appeal at $90ish. I’ll admit, this is one that will probably get shelved and sold later, unlike Titan and Stargazer. I’m hoping for a focus on Strange New Worlds ships — I’d like to see the new Gorn craft, or maybe a TOS-styled Miranda.
With four months of deliveries under the belt, I figure it’s time to address a few things outside the quality of the models. There’s quite a few folks that are grousing about the shipping of the models. (But that’s what the internet is for, yes?) The third shipment, in particular, looked to have been kludged up for a lot of the subscribers — however, I would point out that coincided with the holiday mailing rush and a fairly impressive set of storms through the center of the country.
Here in the States, shipping is being handled by OSM (One Stop Mailing) — a pretty big concern in shipping, it seems. They’re doing the pass off to the post service for the final delivery, but it looks like they handle pickup from FanHome in the US. Normally, a bulk service like this aggregates as many shipments as it can, which is probably why we see a lag time from pickup to when the packages seem to start moving through the system. That said, my shipments have been coming in a consistent four days after the estimated delivery dates (between the 12th and 17th of the month) on the FanHome website. There’s usually a hold up on the package tracking between Kansas City and the next stop, Glendale Heights in Illinois. Partly, this might be OSM aggregating packages, but I suspect that there’s some kind of update issue — USPS is notoriously bad at allowing you to track packages in its system, and KC is one of the more problematic postal hubs in the country — so I think the lag between KC and the next step is more a sorting and tracking issue than the shipments just sitting somewhere. But I could also be full of $h!t.
So far, Fanhome has been doing right by me on their starship collection. I didn’t suffer through the Christmas time lag on the second model like some folks did. According to the US Fanhome guys, there was a missorting and the models are (as of this writing) on their way. The third drop was the one I was waiting for: the new USS Farragut from Strange New Worlds. I’ve been digging the Discovery/Strange New Worlds aesthetic for the outside of the ships, and I was hoping this one would be up to snuff.
It arrived a few days later than the supposed January 16th, but the weather’s been crap and there was Martin Luther King day. Starfleet don’t ship on MLK day, apparently.
As with the others, the presentation is solid. The boxes for this set are so much more eye-catching that the bland Eaglemoss ones. It comes in the usual foam packaging with a booklet presenting notes on the show’s design work for the craft. The model is solid, the stand is the best of the three, so far, and the detailing is good and matches that of the Eaglemoss SNW Enterprise well. Though this is not their XL version, the size of the model is almost to scale with Pike’s Enterprise. Side by side, the saucers look the same but are a hair different.
It also came with a sleeve box for the booklets. It will not fit the large magazines from the Eaglemoss collection, but does the smaller booklets from the Disco collection.
So is it worth it? If you are a completist, if you like the ship — yes.
The latest drop from FanHome did not disappoint. Even though I’m not much on the look of a lot of the 25th Century ships but Stargazer (Sagan-class) is well executed. It arrived about a week late thanks to the holiday season (and to much online bitching), but again — the packaging is much better than the bland blue of Eaglemoss, similar packing, the usual booklet on the design, history, and appearance of the ship with good quality gloss paper.
The model itself is well detailed, but in the mold and the paint job. The portholes really pop on this thing, for some reason (I think because they’re a light blue rather than white.)
There’s a bit more detail on the undersides of this and Titan from last month than Eaglemoss often would do on the Discovery period ships, so that’s a plus.
Overall, I’ve been pretty impressed with the model quality and presentation so fan. Can’t wait to see a Strange New Worlds ship to compare with the previous Pike Enterprise: next month: Farragut.
Is it worth it? If you’ve been collecting Trek ships from the previous manufacturer and are a completist, absolutely. If this was a ship that really sang to you, yes. Price should be $65 w/ shipping. The subscription knocks off $10 and shipping. Allegedly, you can cancel the ones you don’t want, but I’ve yet to test that with FanHome (although Eaglemoss did it for my Galactica subscription, no questions.)
I kept hearing about this project and saw some of the initial cryptic videos coming out of OTOY, a group connected to the Roddenberry estate, it seems, that have been doing archival work on Star Trek. Here we get to the heart of why the original show worked so well — characters. Friendship.
9. STAR TREK and related marks and logos are trademarks of CBS Studios inc. All Rights Reserved and no infringement is intended.
I was late to the game on the Eaglemoss collections. I knew about their plethora of small models, which always seemed pricey to me. When they started up their Battlestar Galactica line, I jumped and started subscribing to their ship of the month. Oi then branched out to the Alien line. These were all their “XL line” — larger than the wee hand-sized Star Trek stuff. With the Discovery XL line (and the superb break with the old school look of ships) I jumped on collecting many of those ships, as well.
Then Eaglemoss went bust a few years ago. There were rumors that the collection had been picked up by another vendor. Master Replicas was selling out the remainders of the old Eaglemoss stuff, and Fanhome was alleged to be picking it up this summer.
They delivered. My first Fanhome starship, the XL(ish) Constitution III-class U.S.S. Titan-A. So how do they compare to the old Eaglemoss stuff? Packaging is nice — good quality cardboard with styrofoam insert to protect the model. Art design is more colorful and attractive than the fairly bland blue with model picture of the Eaglemoss days.
Inside, you get a small booklet with information on the ship, the process and reasonings behind its design, and place in the show. As this is issue #1, there’s also an advert pamphlet on the ships to come, and a welcome to the club sheet. The usual black stand with clear acrylic stand post to hold the model — just as you would expect from Eaglemoss — is there.
Now to the model. It’s a lovely thing. Diecast saucer with ABS plastic for much of the rest of the model. The detailing is easily on par with the later XL offerings from Eaglemoss, although I think the paint and detailing is a bit better. The scoring on the plating is a bit deeper and the paint is consistent and pleasant. the colored “clear” inserts for the warp nacelles and bussard collectors are well done and similar to what came before.
Often, Eaglemoss would skimp on the underside detailing, but not here. The transporter emitters and fueling ports are nicely detailed. Overall, it feels solid in the hand, sits well on the stand, and is a pretty piece — as the ship was in the show. I would love to see them take a crack at a similarly sized movie-era Enterprise.
About the size: Titan is just a hair shorter of 9” long. Compared to similar XL ships from Eaglemoss, 8-9” was the small ships; some were a foot in length. There will be non-XL sized vessels, and the advertised Enterprise-F is just shy of 11” stem to stern. There are going to be “normal” sized models and XL, a la Eaglemoss, it looks like.
Looking at their drop schedule, the first three ships are not XL and run between 7-9” in length. Titan is not listed as XL, but Enterprise-G is…I’m was guessing they’d be the same size with different livery, but maybe not. It looks like the shipping order, so far, is Titan in November, with Stargazer from Picard season 2 next, then Strange New Worlds’ USS Farragut for the start of the year. After that it look like probably Enterprise-F, Eleos and then Shrike, the villain ship, all from Picard season 3. There’s supposedly going to be Lower Decks content, as well.
Pricing is based on per unit or subscription. It’s $55 and no shipping handling with subscription and $65 plus $5 per unit for shipping without. XL ships are $85 and $95, respectively. Without a subscription, single purchase opens a month after they drop to members.
Is is worth it? That depends. If you’re a model collector of the old Eaglemoss stuff, a definite yes. The quality is there, and actually looks to be a bit higher. If the 7-8” range is their usual size, then it’s definitely a better deal than the old Eaglemoss stuff was. If you just want one or two specific vessels — and you can just buy direct the models you want as they drop; subscription not needed — probably. Collectable toys are a wee bit pricey these days, but that means that these aren’t as outrageous as the smaller Eaglemoss ships were decades ago. I would point out that some of the stuff I have is now selling online for three to four times what I paid.
Fanhome also looks to have picked up a lot of the old Eaglemoss build a model lines from DC, Fast & Furious, Marvel and Star Wars, as well as the build Enterprise-D, so if you didn’t get all the parts from Eaglemoss, you might still have a chance through Fanhome.
My love of the Eaglemoss Battlestar Galactica line continues with the arrival in March of the Viper MK VII. As with the other fighters in the set, it’s about 8-9 inches long (so not to scale with the MK II, but roughly the same size as the old Art Asylum/Diamond Select version) and the detailing is fantastic, and much closer to screen correct than the older AA version. This one is carrying the call sign for Apollo with the tail number 2276NC. Like the MK II, the cockpit is dark plastic, so you don’t have an interior cockpit modeled, unlike the Art Asylum models of the early 2000s.
As with all the Eaglemoss models, it comes with a short booklet that has an interview with the designers of the spacecraft, as well as Ronald Moore.
It’s a handsome thing, but is it worth it? If you’re a BSG fan, abso-frakin’-lutely.
January brought my latest shipment from Eaglemoss’ new Battlestar Galactica model run: the original show’s Cylon Baseship. Like the rest of the models from this series, the detail is extraordinary for the size.
The model is about 8″ in diameter and they didn’t skimp on the detailing on the inside of the twin hull sections. The semas are well hidden on the inside portions of the saucers. Here it is in comparison with the new Galactica.
I continue to be quite pleased with the work on this series — enough so I picked up a few of the small Star Trek pieces (not as good, but not bad). As with the rest, it comes with a 14-page booklet on the design, filming, etc. of the ship.
The unit price on these is $54 or so, depending on where you look. If you’re a BSG fan looking to show your love (and annoy your roommates or significant others) on your shelves or mantlepieces, it’s definitely worth the price.
Side note: The Star Trek: Discovery line of ships is larger than the 3″ ships that Eaglemoss did for their main Trek line and they look great!
I received the new Galactica in the mail last week and this is the biggest departure from the old Diamond Select models. Previously, the Viper and Cylon Raider were about the same scale as the DS versions, but here the Eaglemoss ship is much smaller and lighter. The Diamond Select Galactica is resin, and came with a set of launch pontoons that could be configured to be out for operations, or retracted for FTL jump. The new Galactica is molded in plastic — a departure from the usual metal diecast with plastic of the rest of the series. The other major difference is the superb base for the DS version, which sports the BSG-75 emblem on a stand shaped like the dress gray uniform device.
Despite the size, the detailing and coloration on the new Eaglemoss is light years better than the old model. Here’s an example of the nose section, Eaglemoss on the left.
And as usual, Eaglemoss bothered to do the underside, as well…
As with the Viper, the only flaw that is obvious if you are looing for it is the seam between the upper and lower hull. they smartly have it tucked in the space behind the launch pylons, but it’s pretty obvious. That said, I’m really happy with this model of the Bucket, and I’m hoping they do a Pegasus — preferably to scale with this Galactica.
It comes with a 14-page booklet, as with the rest of the series.
The Black Campbell 