Battle Station Construction Part 1

After receiving the Battle Stations with my v2.0 rulebook (one of them, anyway!), I thought I'd strike while the iron was hot and get them washed (to remove mould release agents), rinsed, dried and primed to put together.

Before priming, however, I needed to prepare the acrylic parts, punching out the in-fills from the struts etc. Having already broken one of the Relthoza acrylic parts, I was disappointed to find that one of the Directorate pieces had broken just being in the box, and I then broke one of the Sorylian parts whilst trying to remove one of the small inserts.

Now I was being very careful, and using a small metal modelling tool to push this out, yet it still broke. Given this was the first one I'd tried to remove, I wasn't hopeful about my chances of having any intact acrylic pieces left by the time I was finished - so I needed another way.

I remembered those moments from childhood when required to make a hole in a piece of card, we had to use a pencil with a backing of plasticine behind the card. What I needed was a support for the fragile acrylic whilst I pushed the bits through. I didn't have any plasticine, but what I came up with was Play-Doh (snaffled from my kids play box!).

Using this, I was able to push the cut-outs from the main pieces without any further casualties. It wasn't without its difficulties, some of the pieces were a real sod to get out, but at least it did the job.

What I will say is that I really don't like these acrylic pieces. They're horribly fragile, and I don't like the way the inserts aren't cut through 100% - it's not like I want to keep any of the little fiddly bits, is it? I'm not a great fan of the way they look either - they're functional, but I find their blank appearance too bland, especially when compared to the level of detail in the newer FSA models.

That aside, using the Play-Doh method meant I didn't have any more accidents, so I'd definitely recommend it to anyone else when using these pieces. I then primed the various stations according to their race (white for Dindrenzi, grey for Terran, Aquan and the top of the Directorate, red for the Relthoza and black for the Sorylians and the vertical acrylic bits of the Relthoza station). Here are the stations posed in various states of test-fitting;

Looking at many of the stations, I think at least partial painting of them prior to assembly is a wise idea, so I'll report back when I'm further down that road.