Star Fleet Battles - Mines and Drones

 In February, I made some mine and drone markers for used with Star Fleet Battles miniatures.  

The Mines are just beads with a straight pin through the center, mounted on my typical fighter stands.  A single bead represents a small mine, with two stacked beads representing a large mine.  I'll probably make some more in different colors to represent captor mines equipped with weapons.

I searched for packs of small missiles, torpedoes, etc, but given that I will ultimately need hundreds of drone markers, I opted to keep the cost down and just make them out of bits of small diameter plastic rod with points sanded on one end.  Kzinti are red, Klingon are their distinctive blue-grey, others will carry the color of their ship hulls.

A tray with 24 small space mines.  

Kzinti drones can be seen in the background.

This tray has 12 large space mines and 12 kzinti mines.

A Romulan Sparrowhawk light cruiser, chased by 

drones and running into a mine field.

Not any great accomplishment as scratch-building goes, but fast and inexpensive.  War is near.

Romulan Fleet for Star Fleet Battles

The Romulans were my favorite race in Star Trek and in Star Fleet Battle for many years.  I've separated the fleet into three groups. The early Romulan "bird of prey" or War Eagle era in SFB, including the various early sub-light designs converted over to warp, once the technology became available.  The Klingon era of ships sold or transferred to Romulan service.  And the new generation of Romulan vessels lead by the Sparrowhawk light cruiser and Skyhawk destroyer.  

My earliest models are the first version of the War Eagle, the Romulan ship depicted in the original Star Trek series. These models mostly date to 1981-82.  And the Condor dreadnaught, which dates to 1983, I think.  More recently I've added various "Hawk" light cruisers, which are actually slightly larger than the War Eagle which became the "standard" cruiser of the Romulan fleet.

Here are some pic of the older Romulan vessels for SFB

War Eagles, the slightly larger Battlehawks (CL) behind 

them, a Condor (DN) rear left and Mauler right rear.

These are all Task Force Games/Star Fleet Battles Miniatures

Though nobody ever sees them, they all have their 

birds of prey on the undersides.

The Klingon ships in Romulan service:

Kf-5R frigates in the lead and and KD-6R cruisers.  

These are old 1982 vintage Task Force Games D-6/7s 

and current (larger) F-5s 

They also got stylized birds of prey on the undersides.

And the newer Romulan Hawks:

Seahawks (FF) and Skyhawks (DD), followed by 

Sparrowhawks (NCL)and a Firehawk.

The current Amarillo Design Bureau miniature for the War Eagle is much larger than the original, which conformed to the animated and original series size.  The Romulan Snipe miniature (frigate class) is roughly the size of the old War Eagle, so I'm going to sculpt a smaller Snipe and cast it to add to my fleet before the Romulans become active in my SFB general war.