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The Micro Machine sets

^^^ It probably didn't help that they screwed over the loyal customers like myself who were regularly buying the 3-ship sets by releasing three large collector sets that included a new ship that was only available in those sets. And the new ships were highly desirable ships, including the first movie Enterprise and the Enterprise-E. "Hey, let's piss off our regular customers by forcing them to buy all the ships twice!". Bleh....
 
Dukhat said:
I always hated the fact that the Trek Micromachine line ended so soon. There were so many more cool ships they could have done (while at the same time, some of their choices were kind of bizarre...why make something so random as the "Numiri ship" when they could have made things like Regula One, the FC ships, or the Talarian vessels).
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The third set came out in 1996 so I highly doubt any FC ships would've been designed in time for it, except for the "E", which was undoubtedly designed well beforehand.

By the third set, they were clearly running out of "hero" ships, or ones seen on a regular basis. Assuming a fourth set came out around 1997 or 1998. I'm not sure they would've done any for the various CG ships from the movie, probably just the Phoenix and maybe the Borg Sphere. I suppose they could've done the Jem'Hadar battle cruiser, but the Prometheus, the Dauntless, and the Delta Flyer wouldn't come along until 1998, while the Breen ship and the Equinox wouldn't come along until 1999.

That means if you wanna fill a box set of 16 ships and such around 1997-1998, you need to start using a lot of alien ships-of-the-week that were maybe not so memorable. You can question why this ship and not that one, but it was always going to be rather arbitrary.

Besides that, the fourth set may very well have lacked ANY hero ships, and, for that matter, and ships named "Enterprise". It's hard to imagine a set filled almost entirely of guest alien ships selling as well as the other ones. Perhaps the series was simply a victim of its own success. :shrug:

Racer_X said:
^^^ It probably didn't help that they screwed over the loyal customers like myself who were regularly buying the 3-ship sets by releasing three large collector sets that included a new ship that was only available in those sets. And the new ships were highly desirable ships, including the first movie Enterprise and the Enterprise-E. "Hey, let's piss off our regular customers by forcing them to buy all the ships twice!". Bleh....
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Well, you could argue they suckered you on that front with the first set, but by the second and third, you should've known better. :rolleyes:

I myself was resistant to the idea of having any duplicates for a long time, but I've mellowed on that idea, especially since quite a few of mine ended up broken or the quality of some of them wasn't very good in the first place.
 
In order to provide a sense of scale to the micromachine ships, the Eaglemoss DS9 has been positioned as the centerpiece. We can assume the MM DS9 is Empok Nor in the distance and the Borg Cubes are mini scouts.

20140704_124848_zps837408d4.jpg
 
That looks a little big to have the Defiant docked there, but it's pretty close, scale-wise, to fit the Enterprise-D.
 
publiusr said:
I miss those.
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Well, they had a good run. Up until Eaglemoss, I don't think any miniature company came close to the sheer number of ships stations they covered. In fact, as I noted above, I think you could argue that they effectively ran out of ships.

And if there's any you don't have, I advise you to keep searching ebay. A lot of them aren't cheap, but every once in a while, you can find a good price on them (relative to what they typically go for online, of course).
 
I have tons of the 3 ship sets still unopened. They were like a buck a packet at one point and I went a little nuts. They are always on my xmas tree. I never saw the big sets.
 
One ship we never saw that should have been included was the Vidiian Warship. After all, they were the secondary bad guys on Voyager, making multiple appearances. No mere "alien of the week" there.
 
E-DUB said:
One ship we never saw that should have been included was the Vidiian Warship. After all, they were the secondary bad guys on Voyager, making multiple appearances. No mere "alien of the week" there.
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Isn't that a Vidiian ship in KirkPicard's above photo on the far right? Between the Borg cube and Klingon BoP, across from Voyager and with a Romulan scout ship and what I'm guessing is the mercenary ship from TNG's Gambit above it.
 
The Wormhole said:
E-DUB said:
One ship we never saw that should have been included was the Vidiian Warship. After all, they were the secondary bad guys on Voyager, making multiple appearances. No mere "alien of the week" there.
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Isn't that a Vidiian ship in KirkPicard's above photo on the far right? Between the Borg cube and Klingon BoP, across from Voyager and with a Romulan scout ship and what I'm guessing is the mercenary ship from TNG's Gambit above it.
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Officially, that's actually the Klaestron ship from "Dax". That particular model (much like the black Numiri ship in the same shot) was recycled as a bunch of different "alien of the week" ships, including the Tamarians and the T'Lani.

Technically, the other one is the Miradorn ship from "Vortex", though that model was recycled to serve as the merc ship in in "Gambit".

As for the Vidiian ship, that was an interesting design, but I believe that was actually introduced in 1996, which probably would've been too late for this set. (That is, of course, assuming you're talking about the ship we saw in "Deadlock" and not the much smaller ship we saw in "Phage", which was actually yet another recycle of the Merchantman, which SHOULD have made a model of!)
 
Okay! It finally arrived! :hugegrin:


I took some shots with my crappy camera before opening the box.

By this point, they'd stopped putting any sort of description of the ships on the back, like they did with the first two. (Perhaps they knew the serious was winding down at this point and decided to save themselves a little time and ink). :rolleyes:

The Enterprise-E, as I expected, is not totally level, and one piece of it sticks out from the other. I've heard this one was based on an earlier design (as was the case with the Kazon fighter), but I'm not sure.


The Jem'Hadar ship's not quite as sleek as the Furuta one, but still pretty good. Whoever was in charge of packaging clearly didn't know which way was front, as every picture of a set I've ever seen has it backwards, along with the image of it on the back.

The nacelles on the Saratoga (much like the "E") aren't as level as I'd like, but it's been so long since I had a Miranda without broken nacelles, I'm not that upset (though the name on the hull isn't as clear as I'd like either).

I used to be certain that the Saratoga saucer was too thick for it to be a reuse of the Reliant mold, but now, I'm not so sure. (That would explain the lack of sensor pods).

The Karemma ship's pretty nice. One of the outer prongs on the Miradorn ship sticks out though. I used to think the Miradorn looked like a little man with no head, but now, the more I look at it, the more it looks like a rotisserie chicken! :lol:

The Klaestron ship (or T'Lani or Tamarian ship, if you will) looks kind of like a WWII plane from the front on (specifically the "flying pancake"). :rolleyes:

Not sure if this is my imagination but the Maquis ship has always looked a bit shorter and fatter. I'm not sure if the Eaglemoss one's been released yet, but if anyone has both, I'd be interested to know how they compare.

The Voyager miniature is a bit of a trade off. In order to have nacelles that actually pivot, the struts are rather disproportionately large. The nacelles on this particular one, at least, are rather stiff and difficult to move. On the plus side, though, they don't droop down, like the ones on the Johnny Lighting version. Considering I broke off one of the nacelles on my Johnny Lighting one, I'll have to be particularly careful with this one.

So that's it. After ~15 years of longing for this set, it's finally mine. Nice to have some closure. I put out all the Star Trek and Star Wars ones I have on my dresser and it makes a nice display.

(On a sidenote, I've mentioned that some of the ones I've had for a long time are kind of grimy from being handled. Is there anything anyone would suggest for cleaning them, without damaging the paint?)
 
Okay, after having had them in my possessions for a couple of days, the excitement's died down and I have them set up with the others. (The set even came with one extra stand, which is handy because I have a LOT with no stands).

I guess keeping an eye on eBay pays off. I'm not really that desperate to track down the three remaining ships. The Array is neat looking, and while the Kazon torpedo doesn't look too bad, I think I have more than enough Kazon ship. As for the solar sailing ship, I kind of wish they'd picked something else, like the Cardassian Hideki class shuttle, the Wadi ship, the Bajoran interceptor, or the Federation/Maquis fighter.

Well, it's still been fun reminiscing about these little guys and what a great series they were. Well done. Galoob.

(And, again, if anyone knows about a safe way to clean dirt off of them, I'd appreciate it).
 
Star Trek Micro Machines (they even had a Babylon 5 line! anyone remember those? ) was one of my favorite toylines to collect as a kid. The only frustrating thing was trying to collect towards the end of the run where the newer sets were impossible to find. I was lucky to snag the 3 pack with Voyager in it (the set also had a kazon and maquis ship). I hated that the movie enterprise and the e-e where exclusive to the larger sets with III being almost impossible to find. I remember I had a chance to get the third set but I opted for II as I wanted the Defiant (I only had the money for one) but when I got a chance to go back to that toy store they were out of stock with the third set :(.

Galoob wen down hill when they dumped all of their other licensed properties including B5, I think they had aliens/predator, mib, and starship troopers, in favor of focusing on Star Wars. This was also the time when the plague of glut Episode 1 merchandise was upon us.

I also see that there is a pre-painted Star Trek miniatures game out now called Attack Wing I know there is a heroclix based game that uses the sames sculps. That remind me of micro machines. Does anyone have those and can comment on their quality as well as the game? I noticed they have some more obscure ships that almost never get attention on the miniature market including species 8472 and Jem'hadar ships

t_smitts said:
(And, again, if anyone knows about a safe way to clean dirt off of them, I'd appreciate it).
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Not sure if this has been suggested yet but you could use canned air duster for cleaning electronics. It would be good for getting most things off like dust. Just remember to hold the miniatures so they don't blow around.
 
Forbin said:
I've got all 3 mega-sets, I just can't remember where I put them!
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Those kitbash websites you showed are awesome! I wonder why Starfleet never utilized those ships more, especially during the Dominion War and against the Borg.
 
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