MINIATURES

Painting your Errata Sheet

    The complexity and errata that surround Star Fleet Battles reach even to the painting guides that come with the Starline 2200 miniatures. This article will correct the most critical of these errors. This is also an opportunity to provide some additional details on the ships.

FEDERATION

Saucers: All Federation saucer-type hulls have clearance lights, but these are not noted on the guides. There are five on top (one forward, one on each side, one on either side of the impulse engines) and two on the bottom (one on each side). The forward light should be blue, the side lights yellow, and the rear lights red. The DN aft hull has a light just above the shuttle doors; this should be yellow. On all Federation saucers there are sensor reception grids on the front edge. On the DD, SC, Tug and DN these are very lightly scribed circles; they are missing on the CA, but it should have three. These should be painted copper.

Scanners: On the CL, CVA, and NCL the main scanner is mounted to the bottom of the hull.saucer, rather than on the front of the secondary hull as in the CA. The scanner dish should be copper, but the support pylon is the same color as the hull (flat off white). Some guides show this as a different color. [The pylons are no longer present on the 2400-series NCL, and the scanner is omitted entirely from the reissue of the CV mini. The same rules apply to the DD, SC, FF, DW, Tug and NCA. -- J.L.O.]

Warp Engines: The ring of grooves just behind the nose should be light grey, as should the cylindrical portion of the tail cone. The square radiator panel near the rear should be blue.

KLINGONS

All of the Klingon booms have gallery windows on the sides of the flat superstructure. These open into the officer's recreation area. They should be painted a bright green.

ROMULANS

Condor: The abstract bird is dark blue and medium green.

Warbird: The warp engines should be painted in the same scheme as those on the Condor escept for the plasma launchers on the forward tip.

King Eagle: The plasma-F launchers are painted the same (red and gold) as the plasma-G launchers on the Condor. The nose of both engines is painted blue (see Nexus 6). 

SparrowHawk: The guide is confusing. See the illustration (below-left) for details on how to paint the rear areas of this ship.

Klingon-Romulan: All use the stylized bird symbol (below-left, red with orange trim) in the same positions as the Klingon symbol would normally be. The trim color denotes the squadron to which the ship is assigned.

KZINTIS

The Usurper Fleet (and the WYN fleet) have a flat white base hull color.

ORIONS

A few interesting details: The small bump forward of the shuttle hatch (on top of the hull) is the tractor beam. The rectangular panels on the belly are the landing gear/skids. The large belly hatches roll up (like a roll-top desk) to open the cargo bay.

Raider: The forward surface of the half-moon shaped sensor/scanner behind the bridge should be copper.

Heavy Cruiser: The warp and impulse exhausts should be grey to match those on the CR.

Both: The bridge structures (the flat balcony-type structures on the upper slopping nose panel) should have yellow windows.

HYDRANS

The numbers of the 2nd and 3rd fleets are reversed between (U3.2) and the painting guides. Neither number is correct since the Hydrans used fleet names, not fleet numbers. The colors are assigned corrected (by fleet name, anyway).

Klingon Border Fleet = Blue
Lyran Border Fleet = Green
Old Colonies Squadron = Red
Expeditionary Fleet = White
Home Fleet = Purple

LYRANS

The Lyran DN has two minor omissions. The two panels on the rear of the center hull are ESGs and should be painted black to match the ESGs on the outer hulls. Identity numbers are placed on the black areas as on the Tiger class.