Star Trek Adventures - Season 1 Ep1 Romulan Strike Team
Star Trek Adventures - Season 1 Episode 1
Romulan Strike Team
Going Boldly Where I’ve Never Gone Before
Romulan Strike Team, Chapter 1 of the Star Trek Adventures Tabletop Roleplaying Game.
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| A Romulan Strike Team performing a boarding action upon an unwitting Klingon Warship. |
As seen in the “pilot” episode of this blog series we opened up the Borg Cube Collectors edition from the games launch. We have started with "season 1" the initial wave of releases. the first of these will be the Romulan Strike Team shown below.
You may have seen in the previous blog post in this series "S1 Pilot Ep0 Borg Cube Collectors Edition" on our review of the Star Trek Adventures tabletop roleplaying game Borg Cube starter pack pre-ordered from Modiphius.
So being a sucker for tabletop Roleplaying (see our Return to Middle Earth Article https://tabletop-hobby.blogspot.com/2019/09/the-return-to-to-middle-earth-role-play.html) we ordered the Borg Cube limited edition set, and within this set was included the first wave of miniatures. You may also be aware of our parallel series to this on painting up minis for the Star Wars Roleplaying Games by Fantasy Flight, while this primarily consists of the Fantasy Flight Games Imperial Assault miniatures and third party suppliers like Hasslefree and Heresey Miniatures ( https://www.hfminis.co.uk/ http://www.heresyminiatures.com/shop/ ). Our Star Trek Adventures series will remain pure to this game and indeed Modiphius products, although future play sessions may indeed require these or indeed other Sci-Fi Miniatures on the table. You can jump over to the Star Wars series if you like and I may well reference between the two as this continues.
Within the Borg Collectors Edition box I had a few choices with which I could start “Season 1”. I was deliberating on doing TOS The Original Series crew first of all. However having a quick discussion with my prospective Captain and his crew I decided to focus on the Next Generation setting, and the Romulan Strike Team. Primarily as the outline narrative we discussed was set in a Dominion War story Arc, perhaps that of a ship returning from a deep space mission on the far side of Romulan Space as the Dominion War Saga begins. With an episodic arrangement to Star Trek Adventures sessions the overall narrative that will prevail is that of the crew sneaking back through both Romulan and indeed then through war ravaged Klingon space in order to rejoin the battered Federation fleet in the battle for the Alpha Quadrant.
I thought that it highly likely that the crew will encounter the “Romulan Star Empire” at some point soon into their mission. I can’t say too much about it in case any of the crew are reading this... I am looking at a campaign arc that stretches over the length of the Dominion War to the Borg encounters before the Destiny novels Trilogy (link) as reviewed on here.
After receiving the Borg Cube set, and targeting the Romulan strike team as my first objective. I opened the box and assembled the miniatures; this was very straight forward as the minis are resin and they are all set up on sprues. The box comes with ten Romulans of various types, I understand that some of these are random, as you can see, I have received three of some of the minis. The box states the contents are 1 Romulan Commander, 4 Romulan Centurions and 5 Romulan Uhlans. However, I think the exact minis for these vary randomly in number. I received three of the same pose, which is a bit of a shame really.
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| we usually buy our Star Trek Adventures kits from Element Games, remember codes RIC134 or ROB8508 at check out |
Preparation
So once I built the minis, they were undercoated with Citadel's Chaos Black. Which is an old tin I had lying around, any black will do. Then the bases where sprayed in citadel Leadbelcher with a dust of army painter Gunmetal (and half the other way round). This allows a bit of variety in the finish as I’m just going to dry brush and ink these.
The Romulans themselves where given a zenithal undercoat of Mechanicus Standard Grey directly from above over a Chaos Black Base.
Painting
Stage 1 Base-coats
With regards the first coat of paint. I tidied up the black trousers, belts and hair with a coat of Abbadon Black, also catching the metallic chains and belts the characters wear to denote rank/skill. The grey combat tunics are given a good coat of Mechanicus Standard Grey.
The skin was given a base coat of the new-ish Citadel paint Idonith Deepkin skin. (Ionrach Skin) this gives the greenish hue I'm looking for in the Romulan complexion.
I also tidied up the base, the chains and weapons with Leadbelcher as required.
Stage 2 Initial Washes
So you have Basecoated your miniatures, the next stage is to add depth to the colour, the metal base was given a healthy couple of washes of Citadel Nuln Oil. Note initially I used Army painter washes, as shown in the pics, but I found, as, unfortunately I tend to! that they became very chalky in the recesses. I tried to fix this with Olive oil, however I would not recommend this procedure after trying it.
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| Unfortunate Chalky residue from the Army Painter Wash |
The face and hands where given a coat of Army Painter Green Wash (thinned 50:50 with Water) and this was applied in areas to the bases as well to suggest the context of a Romulan facility or ship with that eerie green glow from their technology.
I varied this hue on the bases with Citadel Beil Tan Green, Thrakka Green wash and a little splash of Coelia Greenshade. I would note that Star Trek has become much more “inclusive” since the TNG series, Romulans now come in a variety of different skin-tones, however this wasn’t thee case back in the TNG era.
Stage 3 Pick Ups
I thought it would be fun to experiment with some of the Green Stuff World Colorshift Paints on the Romulan weaponry. I was so disappointed with the lack of "shift" in the colour that I wrote to them to ask if there was a problem with how I was using it, to say their response was unhelpful would be a fair description. So - no more Green Stuff World products for the Fat Dwarf i'm afraid.
Stage 4 Layers
So with the basecoats and pick-ups complete and washes applied, I added the high light layers to the skin and tunics, as shown I wanted to add that digital cammo pattern that Romulans have during the TNG era. Once I was happy with the highlight on the weapons I gave them a targeted wash of GLOSS Nuln Oil.
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| Hobby Tip: I used a Sharpie Fine Point as below for the traditional expressive Romulan Eyebrows. |
As a final phase I added matt Nuln Oil over targeted areas of the Tunic, and a final highlight of Administratum Grey over the ribbing. I also added a drybush and highlight of Ultuan Grey and Administratum Grey to give some slight variation in their hair, then as a final flurish this was washed with GLOSS Nuln Oil to give these guys that Roluman chique.
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Jolan Tru...
Find Peace
The Fat Dwarf
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