ACTA:SF Starship Review

"Red Alert! All crew to Battle stations and load the torpedoes!"

I am a Starship nut. I love Spaceships and I love Spaceship gaming. Starting pretty young I was introduced to the Pocket Edition of Star Fleet Battles.

Star Fleet Battles was an off-shoot universe of Classic Trek. Klingon Ships were grey, Romulans cloaked and there were wars... lots and lots of wars.

Star Fleet Battles was a great game but also the one of the most complicated games ever made. It grew from a rulebook of a few dozen pages and a little over a dozen Starships to telephone book sized ruebooks and hundreds if not thousands of ships! 

Once the college years were over and I started a family and despite my fondness for the game I just didn't have time for Star fleet Battles anymore.

Apparently this is not an uncommon tale and over the years the folks at at SFB have released different versions of the game that are "less" complicated.

The latest, and possibly most exciting off-shoot so far is "A Call To Arms: Star Fleet" heretofore referred to as ACTA:SF. This game represents a joint venture between the SFB folks and Mongoose Publishing. ACTA:SF is meant to be a fast playing miniatures game that captures the essence of Star Fleet Battles.

The Rules themselves are interesting and we will take a closer look at those later. In this post we will be looking at some of the initial miniature offerings for the game.

Star Fleet Battles has a long history with Miniatures and still produces a range of Starship models in their Starline 2400 line. These ships are small, typically anywhere from 2-3 inches in length. ACTA:SF ushers in a new, larger scale, line. the 2500 series.

Long time fans and collectors of the original 2400 series may be a little put off initially that there is a whole new scale but rest assured you can play ACTA:SF just fine with your older, smaller 2400 series minis.  In fact I was one of those put off by the whole concept, initially. It was until I saw some painted examples at a local game store that I thought I would give the new line a try.

I picked up Squadron boxes 1 and 2, Federation and Klingon. You've got to start with the classics, right?

Klingon Squadron box

Each box contains a range of 5 ships from small frigates to massive dreadnoughts.  In this initial review I will look at and assemble the two most Iconic of the ships the Federation's Constitution Class Heavy Cruiser and the Klingon D7 Heavy Cruiser.

Both ships come in Metal and both require a various degree of clean-up. Though nothing more than you would usually expect working in metal.

The biggest issues were the D7 hull was pretty badly bent. the boom and both wings we pretty badly bent. I carefully bent it them back into shape without issue though in doing so I could here the metal crackling or creaking. Not a good sound!

some of the mold plugs are in unfortunate places. A prominent mold plug on the front of the D7 boom destroys the windows there. Though overall cleanup it wasn't too bad.

Klingon D-7

The D7 comes in three parts, the hull, with boom attached and two engines. The Engines glue onto the wings of the hull. Care must be taken here to make sure the alignment is correct. I'm a stickler for the engines aligning correctly and wonky engines drive me nuts! The joint between the wing and engine is the weakest part of the model as the area is so thin that I couldn't find a good way to pin it together... just glue and a prayer that I don't knock it over.

Once together you have a great looking D7. The detail is good but sparse,  correctly capturing a lot of the features of the Klingon filming model while adding a few more details here and there like weapons mounts, more windows, etc.

Overall assembly of the D7 had some challenges but nothing unexpected in working with metal miniatures. The assembled model looks fantastic. A lick of paint and it will be terrorizing the Neutral Zone in no time!

I give it 4 out of 5 Photon Torpedoes! 

Federation Constitution Class

Let me preface by saying I have some very high standards when it comes to the Enterprise and her sisters. I've build many models of the ship, from gaming miniatures to large AMT and Round 2 plastic model kits. I've also extensively studied the original Enterprise filming model and it's construction and paint scheme.

This model comes in 5 parts, the Saucer, Secondary hull, 2 Engines and the sensor dish. The model was not significantly bent like the D7 and required a little less cleanup. There were still some mold pour areas that obliterate detail, most obviously on the Shuttle Bay doors but we will try to fix that up with some filing and/or Green stuff before painting.

Alignment again is key to getting this ship together. The Saucer glues to the neck of the secondary hull well. The holes for the Engine struts however are too small. I had to shave down the engine struts to fit.

My biggest issue with the model is not the assembly but the design style. The Saucer section is covered in horribly over scale grid lines! i hesitate to call them grid lines as you could probably fly a scale X-Wing though those trenches, they are so huge.

The original Filming model did have some faint grid lines on the saucer. Recent research indicates that this was probably done with Pencil and were barely visible. Franz Joseph, in his seminal work, Star Fleet Technical Manual, does have grid lines but no where near the ridiculously over scale trenches we see here. 

I'm not even sure HOW the eventual NCC decals will lay over these. I thought briefly about filling up the whole Saucer with green stuff but that seemed like a lot of work. Perhaps if I build another I will tackle that project. The other oddity with the saucer is that the rim is concave, giving the top of the saucer a weird lip to it. fortunately it's not too obvious visually but running your finger over the saucer makes it very evident. 

Okay, so if you haven't been able to tell I'm not in love with the Saucer, but what about the rest of the ship? The secondary hull and engines are well done. plenty of detail, some of it a little exaggerated in size but nothing crazy (like the Saucer) 

Once Assembled the ship looks good. The Constitution class always looks good. The only detractor is that saucer!

3 Photon Torpedoes out of 5.

Give me a smooth saucer, please? The current one just detracts from the clean lines of the Constitution class. Other than the Saucer the ships looks good!


The other ships...

The other Federation Ships were all similar to the Constitution class. Minimal mold clean-up but some unfortunate mold pour placement resulted in destroyed detail when sanded off. Nothing too tough though.

The remaining Klingon ships were a different story. The Resin hull of the C8 Dreadnought was particularly bad. Rough pitting over most of the hull and some horrendous mold pours! This ship also suffered from resin skin tags, paper thin flaps of resin that covered some detail and in some case covered poorly molded detail. I haven't seen that before and I believe it must be some form of mold slippage.  It took a long time to clean it up!

The other metal Klingons had some issues but nothing too bad cleanup wise.


Overall I'm really torn on the Starline 2500 range.

Pros: The models are larger and more detailed then the older ADB minis. Once assembled and painted they look good on the wargaming table. And more Starship miniatures on the market is always a good thing!

Cons:  The molds and cleanup on these is pretty rough. I've dealt with a lot of miniatures from a lot of manufacturers over the years and I can't remember any that had needed as much clean-up or contained so many casting defects.


If you are an old time Star Fleet Battles gamer and already significantly invested in the Starline 2400 line then this new offering might not offer enough difference to warrant a purchase.

If you're a fan of the genre and especially TOS Star Trek then they are pretty sweet ships, I'd recommend checking them out.