Auran Dominate Gallery from Studio Bergstrom

I've been rummaging through some old storage media again and turned up more starship images from way back around 2010-2011.  This particular lot are the Studio Bergstrom Auran Dominate minis, which were done up for him to use as catalog photos.  They're not my best work (go figure, they're at least 15 years old) but I figure a gallery of them would still be helpful for the curious by providing multi-angle views for everything and some extra group shots.

There are a total of ten ship classes ranging from the 1.5" long frigate to the massive 5.75" superdreadnought, some of which could be converted by swapping around wing sections and all of which can be extensively customized by changing around what small weapon mounts you add on (or leave off). 

As you can see, they take up quite a big footprint on the tabletop, enough to make photographing them all at once a bit of a challenge.

As you can see, the side wings add considerably to that footprint, but the sculpts also have a good degree of verticality.

If memory serves, the smaller bases were the common Games Workshop 32mm rounds, while the bigger ones are all 60mm aside from the big metal hex base for the superdreadnought.  All the flight posts are

finishing nails for added strength, although the little guys don't really need it.

The frigate here is my favorite sculpt out of the lot, owing to the way it combines all the signature design elements of the range while being a very practical size to game with.  I believe it's a single-piece model other than a couple of optional weapons under the wings, and like all Drew's work was extremely well-cast and needed zero prep beyond basing.

The destroyer is a no-frills design, about 2" long and a single piece casting aside from the four weapon mounts added near the tip of each forward prong.  Only design that doesn't have side wings or any place to mount them.

The heavy destroyer is essentially the same figure, but with slots for mounting a pair of small side wings that include further optional weapon mounting points.

The light cruiser is the smallest ship to use the 3" long medium-sized hull, and while it has slots for mounting side wings it doesn't come with any.  You could fill them in with putty easily enough if the gap bothers you.

The just-plain-cruiser uses the same medium hull and adds a pair of small wings.

The heavy cruiser is much the same, but add a pair of larger wings with room for four weapon mounts each (two top, two bottom).

The battlecruiser shares its larger 4.125" main body and bigger "six gun" wings with the battleship design, but I've only used four weapon mounts one each wing here to differentiate between them further.

The only difference between the battleship here and the battlecruiser is how you choose to add weapon mounts to its plethora on optional hardpoints.

The superdreadnought here is composed of a mere four main pieces, all with the same sturdy slot-and-tab connections the rest of the range uses.  Even at 5.75" long, 4.25" wide, and about 2.80" high, she's sturdy as can be, with the most likely danger point being careless handling putting too much pressure on a the little add-on guns who just aren't socketed as deep.  Much like its tiny frigate cousin this is one of may favorite designs, even if it's a bit of a pig to store and transport.  

Finally we have the carrier, another personal favorite.  Three main pieces, and at 3" long, 2.5" wide, and 3.25" high, she's the only class that's actually taller than she is long, so she stands out from the rest fleet for more than just her size.

Sadly, I don't have (and have never even handled) any of the Auran fighters, so I'll have to resort to cribbing the render from Drew's store page.

If I had these to do all over again I'd probably try a different color scheme (I was deep in an "orange period" when they were originally done, as you might notice from looking at the ORCDef figs I also did for Drew), or at least a style that makes the shape of the minis pop better.  I might also use different weapon mounts for them, as there are a slew of other ones for sale at Studio Bergstrom that weren't available back then, all of which are compatible with the little sockets on the Aurans.  I'd also putty in all the unused sockets and maybe the empty slots on the light cruiser, but for catalog shots you want to avoid undue alterations to a figure that might lead to unhappy customers.

Full Thrust Phalon Gallery

 After finishing up last week's index of starship posts I came to the much-belated realization that I didn't actually have a gallery of Ground Zero Games' Full Thrust Phalon ships anywhere.  Probably did one many years ago and deleted it when I purged many old posts from before 2016, then just never got around to replacing it.  This sad state of affairs can't be allowed to continue, of course.

See, I used to own a lot of Phalon minis.  A whole lot.  Possibly more than the entire continent of Australia at one point, although that might have been a joke by the guys at Eureka.  Let's take a look at the collection when it was at peak strength.

Capital ships, from the humble battleship up to a customized dreadnought and superdreadnought. 

A hefty carrier arm with the attendant swarm of fighter craft.

Dizens of cruisers from light recon ships up to battlecruiser fleet defense ships.

Whole flotillas of destroyers and frigates of various types.

Clouds of light escorts and strike boats and tiny scouts.

They're all long since sold off to new owners, but I did manage to find some old images from back in 2014 when I made a concerted effort to record the fleet en masse for posterity.

How did I wind up with so many?

Well, Phalons are an older fleet, dating back to the 90s and the days when Geo-Hex had a license to manufacture and sell many GZG figs here in the US.

And I was working in a game store back in those days, with a healthy employee discount.

Between that and keeping and eye out for other stores choosing to remainder Full Thrust stock now and then, I was buying ships pretty cheap for  a few years there.

For whatever reason, the Phalons seemed to show up in disproportionate numbers in those kinds of closeout sales, and I've always had a hard time saying no to a bargain.

To be fair, apparently all three of the Fleet Book 2 alien races had a similar, ah, dearth of popularity, and showed up at discount more often than the human fleets.

I think I'd attribute that to biotech ships (whether Sa'Vasku or Phalon) just being less in demand than more conventional designs, and the first-generation Kra'Vak at least looking like the larger ships would be rather fragile on the table. 

At any rate, the local FT players that I gamed with most often agreed to split the xeno fleets between us, and I wound up becoming the area's Phalon Guy.

Not that I'm complaining, or I wouldn't have accumulated so many of them over time.

I was even happy to buy some of the new sculpts that came out in 2008 and 2009 even though I already had far more minis than I really needed. 

Never did get any of their transport pod ships though, and there's just the one lone Gruuss attack cruiser to be seen in a few of these images. 

Sadly, the Gruuss I got had a rare miscast around the weapon barrels, so it's not quite a stock model. 

I did pick a half-dozen of each of the new destroyer types, which I'm still quite fond of.

All of the new sculpts have suggested stats over on Dean "Star Ranger" Gundberg's Full Thrust Resource page here.

He's also got better close-ups of some of my own paint jobs on them than I do, including the "Gruuss-B" with the miscast and a good image of how it's supposed to look from the original news release for Salute 2008.

I had so many ships that I "expended" a few on conversions, like the "head swap" on the battledreadnought here where a heavy cruiser aft hull replaces the original prow.

The dorsal weapon pod got some mods as well.

I did something similar with a superdreadnought and a battlecruiser aft hull later on, but my close-up photos of the ship are still eluding me.  You can catch a glimpse of it way up in the first photo.  It's the lone ship in the purple paint scheme, and was meant to be the personal flagship/transport of the Oobah of Poom, the head of a major social/religious/economic faction within the Phalon Conglomerate.  I ran a few scenarios over the years where various navies were bent on killing or protecting the Oobah on his way to negotiations with humanity at Sol.