Red Alert - Commands and Colors "in space" - is a fun game scaled at the "fleet action" level. It is not dog-fighting in space. The game works at the fleet level; I envision it more like a computer display showing the relative positioning of the individual spacecraft while compressing the vast distances in which the actual ships operate. But with cool spaceship models instead of the computer.
The two factions in the game are very generic - the Commonwealth and the Confederation. I am buying/building spaceship models in 1/2500 scale from the early Star Trek universe, Star Trek: Enterprise to be more precise, to replace the faction resin models from the game. Pre-Federation, to start, centering on the Earth-Xindi War. The Vulcans, Andorians and Tellarites join Earth (Federation, here we come!) when the Romulans are discovered behind the Xindi attacks. Later on we'll get the Klingons involved. Yeah, I'm playing fast and loose with canon.
One ship will represent one unit, instead of multiple ships per unit in the game as designed. Losses will be tracked with a D6 - "Moonstone" designs from Chessex that complement the stellar background - (think "shield strength") instead of removing multiple models. The clear model stands from Litko show off the stellar mat (fabric mat from the defunct Cor-Sec Engineering) while also enabling "template movement" a la Star Trek: Attack Wing if a hex-less version of the game is ever warranted. Or any other rules - like Star Trek: Attack Wing - that use individual ship models for that matter.
The Earth "Allies" start with the NX-01Enterprise, an AMT model kit I built. It is a Destroyer in the Red Alert world. The "Aztec" decals on the model really add to its appearance. You can see how well the unit markers from the Red Alert game display on the model stand.
The Vulcans provide the largest Allied fleet.
If you didn't want to use the game markers on the ship stands, it's pretty easy to see the difference in size of the various classes: Destroyer on the far left, Cruiser in the middle, Battleship/Dreadnought on the far right and Fighters at the bottom. You can see the NX-01 model at top for size comparison.
The Fighters are from Studio Bergstrom. They are inexpensive metal castings with good detail and come in a great variety of design styles.
The Surak class Cruiser is an Eaglemoss model I just adapted to fit onto the magnetized flight stands. I actually have 3 of these.
The Destroyers started life as Star Trek: Attack Wing models of the D'Kyr class starship; I removed the auxiliary craft docking and repainted. I have three of these, as well. Not canon at all, but the design works. . .
The actual D'kyr Battleship is a 1/2500-scale Bad-azz resin model I built. It's very large so will need a bigger mat - 5-inch hexes - to live comfortably among other models.
It is a beautiful model that assembles easily, if one knows how to build resin kits, and was fun to paint. I layered three different colors of spray paint to get the base color I wanted; Deep Red, Cinnamon and Copper. I then hand painted details, the warp ring lights and the raised paneling.
Next up is the fleet from Andor, the Planet of Ice. The Cruisers are Eaglemoss models of the Andorian Kumari. The Destroyers are a bit of an experiment using metal castings from Studio Bergstrom. The castings come from a line obviously designed with the Kumari in mind, but without any "Aztec" decals or stencils to exactly match the Eaglemoss "paint" I used decals salvaged from other 1/2500-scale aftermarket decal sheets. The Fighters are again from Studio Bergstrom.
Last up are the Tellarites, from Tellar. The Cruisers are from Eaglemoss and the Fighters from Studio Bergstrom again.
There will be more updates as I build more spaceships.
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