TREK-TASTIC
This month we talk to Ivan Congreve who’s a bit Star Trek mad! Ivan confessed that... “As a child I used to love watching Anderson programmes as well as Star Trek (what would nowadays be called Star Trek The Original Series or TOS). Over the years I have enjoyed making and playing both Anderson games and Start Trek games and – although I prefer to play one-on-one combat games and I have not been able to find a system that does this well for Trek.”
“Some of my friends and myself decided to put on a Star Trek game for Salute a few years ago in 1/10th scale with a full bridge and corridor section to scale (madness...). That game went down well but as the years went on and we all get a little older it was not so easy to transport to shows or just to play. When Modiphius brought out their Star Trek Adventures range of figures (not enough TOS and too many Next Gen for my tastes) I decided to build another Bridge and corridor section in scale with those 32mm figures.”
“My first question was ‘what scale are they?’ I won’t go into the scale/base or foot/eye line stuff, but I am sure The Editor would love you to write in on this subject! However, once I had settled on my scale I started with building the Bridge. I found a fairly good STL file on Thingiverse and with some editing and adjustments in ZBrush and Blender I began printing them build on my 3D Printer. I started with the bridge walls and consoles, in easy sections. This was twelve sections that I glued together, painted, and then stuck to a 610x610 Shuttering Plywood base. I also decided to make one of the walls/ consoles of the bridge so it could be opened for easy access and movement for the figures on the bridge.”
“For me I love playing on hexes or squares and I’d not left a lot of space to hold a tape measure in the gaming area. To save me the time and ensure hex accuracy I purchased MDF hex’s and fitted them to the floor like tiles. To save any issues with portability for game I decided to build a plywood box/ carry case for it. This then adds to the environment for the game as I could use the lid as another area for away missions so it’s also tiled with hexes. For decoration (and as I had a few dice left over from purchases over the years and Salute giveaways) I added them as a boundary to the away mission area.”
“The walls of the corridor sections are built from Foam-core board to faced with 1.5mm styrene where needed. Together they made the whole area light and strong. Lighting in this scale was an issue as the model is fairly enclosed and so it can be a little dark. Consequently I fitted LED lights throughout the rooms, corridors and bridge. All this is connected to a 30000mAh portable Power Bank. This has enough power for a Raspberry Pie (3b) computer and 3.5 inch representation of the bridge main screen (as you do). The screen can be difficult to see for all players so I have added a another 7 inch screen that can be seen by all the gamers showing the bridge video. This is just a whistle stop tour of the bridge etc but I hope you get an idea of what you can do with your favourite TV show and the games you have always wanted to play. We use a Card Based rule system of our own construction”