EMvTW 48: USS Voyager NCC-74656 (Intrepid class, with ablative hull armor)

NOTE:  You can click on most pictures to get a larger view of them.

Rewrites: June 2016 & January 2019

Issue 48 of my Eaglemoss vs. The World series will be a pretty short one considering this is a one of a kind model that no one else has done in a small scale version.  The ablative armored USS Voyager that appears in Star Trek: Voyager's final episode called "Endgame", does make for a rather unique addition to your Eaglemoss fleet, especially if you already have their Issue # 6 version of the USS Voyager.

If you would like to see the armor in action, check out THIS YOUTUBE LINK.

Per Memory Alpha and Beta, "The Intrepid-class starship was a Federation design that entered service in the later half of the 24th century. The Intrepid-class was designed for long-term exploration missions. At less than half the size of a Galaxy-class starship, it was considered "quick and smart."""  these sites go on to say this about the USS Voyager, "The USS Voyager (NCC-74656) was a 24th century Federation Intrepid-class starship operated by Starfleet. The vessel was famous for completing an unscheduled seven-year journey across the Delta Quadrant between 2371 and 2378, which was the first successful exploration of that quadrant by the Federation."

If you would like to read more official stuff on this type of ship, feel free to check out the following links:

Intrepid Class Information: Memory Alpha LINK and Memory Beta LINK

[Ship Name] Information: Memory Alpha LINK and Memory Beta LINK

Since I only have the one version of this ship to show, we'll jump right into looking at the Eaglemoss model.

Eaglemoss

 

 

 

 

This is one of those models that leaves me on the fence whether I like it or not.  Although it is unique, I think that Eaglemoss could have waited a while longer before releasing it as part of the collection.  

This is the second time that Eaglemoss has re-released a ship in a slightly different format.  I am of course referring to the Enterprise D (read a review at THIS LINK) and the Enterprise D Dreadnought (read a review at THIS LINK).  The difference was that the fans really wanted to see the Enterprise D of the future.  As a fan, I'm not sure that I really cared to have this one in my fleet.

And that will be enough about me complaining about it, let's get into looking at what they produced.

I'll start off by sharing some side by side comparisons of the armored version with Eaglemoss' non-armored version.

As you can see, the armored version is virtually the same size as the original Eaglemoss ship which means they tried to keep it in scale.  I thought this was a nice touch on Eaglemoss' part.  Obviously, the armored version is a much simpler design as all the key elements, like bridge dome, and sensor arrays are all covered over by thick armor plating.  

Although they did a great job of making a crisp sculpting and molding of the panels and different little elements into the metal and plastic, the fact that the entire ship is a dull silver just makes her a bit boring to look at.

Top: Issue #6 - Bottom: Issue #48

Under certain lighting conditions, you can tell that the painted plastic and the painted silver are slightly off color with each other, which then makes it easier to spot the joins and seams, especially on the underside of the saucer section and engineering hull.

Top: Issue #6 - Bottom: Issue #48

Eaglemoss did a great job of still squeezing in some clear plastic parts to represent the nacelle grills.

Top: Issue #6 - Bottom: Issue #48

There are also some clear plastics tucked inside the deflector dish covering.  HOWEVER, the deflector dish does bring up some issues for me as well as other die hard fans.

Top: Issue #6 - Bottom: Issue #48

I do confess that I read a couple other people's reviews and their takes on the Eaglemoss' models.  This allows me to get a feel for whether I missed something or to see if my model has something out of the ordinary.

Apparently, there's been a lot of researching on this deflector dish topic and no one can seem to find a reference picture where the deflector dish is red.  If Eaglemoss was truly going for screen accurate, they should have made this piece blue.  The other issue with the deflector dish is that the consensus seems to be that it should be fully enclosed with none of it being exposed like on this model.  I'm thinking that Eaglemoss took some creative licensing here to add a little more color to their overly drab looking model.

The ship itself does add something to my fleet, when displayed next to my non armored Voyagers.

At the time of the re-writing (January 2019) of this article, you can get this model on eBay for around $25 and that includes shipping.  And as of January 5th, 2019, this model is out of stock on the Eaglemoss webstore, so we are going to be at the mercy of the eBay sellers when it comes to pricing.  Honestly, if I wasn't trying to collect all of the Eaglemoss ships, I would probably have skipped out on getting this one as it didn't really impress me when I first read about it.  Now that I have it, I'm even less impressed.  Compared to other Eaglemoss models, this one is just plain, drab, and not very eye catchy.  But I'm sure there are lots of other fans and collectors who liked it, so this is just my little opinion.

As always, I hope you found this article useful and informative.  If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please feel free to comment below.

So for now, "Live long and prosper!!!"


Additional Links To Photos Of My Collection:

Eaglemoss

Other Reviewers Take On The Eaglemoss Model:
Some Kind Of Star Trek
Star Trek Starship Collection