EMvTW 67: Klingon D7 Class

WARNING!: THIS ARTICLE IS IN THE PROCESS OF BEING UPDATED.  WITH THAT BEING SAID, YOU MAY FIND ALL SORTS OF ANOMALIES LIKE; MISSING PICTURES, NONSENSE TEXT, AND OTHER ERRORS.  MY SUGGESTION IS THAT YOU CHECK BACK ON THIS ARTICLE IN A DAY OR TWO AT WHICH TIME, THE "REFIT" WORK WILL BE COMPLETE.

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

Rewrites: May 2019

The second Eaglemoss release for this month brings us an old classic ship from The Original Series.  I now present to you, the Klingon D-7 Battlecruiser.  We first get to see this dangerous, yet iconic starship in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode called "Elaan of Troyius".  Since then, it has appeared nurerous time over the history of the Star Trek franchise.

I technically have two different manufacturers of this ship, however, one is a MicroMachines therefore I won't be doing any major reviewing of that one.


Per Memory Alpha and Beta, "The D7 class battle cruiser was a 23rd century warship originally designed and used by the Klingon Imperial Fleet, before being also used by the Romulan military during the late-2260s."

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

D7 Class Information: Memory Alpha LINK and Memory Beta LINK

I don't really like to focus too much on the MicroMachine models as they are smaller than my normal collecting habits. I will show you two quick pictures of the MicroMachine toy however, because it will play an important part in my review.

 

So keep those two picture in mind as we now take a nice look at the Eaglemoss model.

While you have those pictures in mind, here is some other information to chew on, a size comaprrison picture.

 Eaglemoss vs. MicroMachine

I'll start off my discussion of the Eaglemoss model by saying that my model came to me in a damaged state.  One of the nacelles seemed to be missing glue and was lying in the bottom of it's box.  A little super glue helped rectify that issue though, and I was left with this...

 

 

 

 

When I heard that Eaglemoss was going to produce the original Enterprise, I waited and wondered about how they would pull it off, and as you can read in my review of it at THIS LINK.  Eaglemoss eventually got around to doing the Botany Bay as well, and once again, I waited with baited breath and then wrote the review at THIS LINK.  The reason for my trepisdation on both models was that the TOS era on screen models were not super detailed.  In fact, they were sort of downright plain looking.  However, if you have ever read either of my reviews of those models, then you will know that I really liked them.  Eaglemoss gave the models some subtle detailing that made them much better than the on screen models.  So I was actually excited to see what Eaglemoss would do with the Klingon D-7 Battlecruiser.  After all, they did a great job with thier newer style K'Tinga Class Battlecruiser (check out that review at THIS LINK), so what could go wrong?

The model is from an overall standpoint... PLAIN.

Although the sculpting and molding of the metal and plastic parts is accurate to the original screen model, those details are as I said... plain.  Nothing really stands out and the ship just looks overly smooth.

The paint job is rather... how shall I say it?  Plain?  Yup.  Although Eaglemoss did plop on the Klingon insignia and some Klingon writing, the rest of the ship is rather bland from the color perspective.

The model isn't very screen or magazine accurate either from a colorization standpoint.  The engine intake is missing the obligatory red that we have always seen on these types of ships.

I also am not keen on the fact they Eaglemoss didn't paint on any window details on the leading edge of the bridge module.

Honestly, the ship could have used some sort of weathering or dirt wash to give it a little more detail.

Unfortunately, because the overall model is so plain, negative details stand out like a sore thumb.  Case in point... if you flip the ship over, the join seam is super noticeable.

Last but not least, there are no clear plastics on this model.  Eaglemoss might have done well to maybe highlight the impulse engines with a little bit of red plastic, instead of leaving the model engine-less.

The photon torpedo launcher on the front just looks like a small divit thanks to the lack of painted details.  And this of course allows you eyes to be drawn to the shoddy seam that appears duye to the molding process.

The warp nacellees were at least detailed nicely as far ads molding goes, but that is about the only nice thing that comes to mind as the lack of colors just makes everything fade into a sea of gray.

NOTE: Prices were researched last on May 21st, 2019.  Unfortunately, at the time that I am re-writing this, Eaglemoss does not have this ship in stock on their US WebStore, so we are at the mercy of the eBay sellers.  And at this time, the lowest price I could find was around $32 (shipping included).  The MicroMachine version is going for around $7 or $8 (shipping also included) on eBay as well.  Before I continue with my thoughts, I want to remind my readers that I am usually comfortable baying anywhere from $25 to $30 for the Standard Line of Eaglemoss models.

Reviewing this model really upset me.  I am a huge fan of Eaglemoss' work and am usually very sympathetic to issues that I find with the models they produce.  I usually take into consideration the fact that they are trying to keep the model to around $20 in value.

This time though, it feels like Eaglemoss got to doing the D-7, they suddenly got tired of giving the TOS models a tiny little bit of oomph and just sort of phoned this one in, counting on the die hard fans to throw Eaglemoss thier money.  If Eaglemoss had just used a little more paint to highlight things, it could have come out as an outstanding addition to the collection.  Instead, we are left with, as I've been saying all along, a very plain and lackluster model.  In the end though, no one else makes a pre-built and pre-painted model of this size so we are stuck with what we get.

I sat with this review for a few days.  I kept coming back to it to see if there was anything else I could do to liven it up. Really, I tried.  But, like the model, I'm stuck with giving you a plain review.  I will cut my losses and end it here.

BONUS ROUND!!!

Every once in a while, I'll have a little extra stuff to share with you that sort of fits in with my comparison articles.

Back when I re-wrote the review article on the K'Tinga Class Battlecruiser, I shared the following.  Since a lot of the following ships were made from D-7 parts, I felt obligated to share this article again.

I've had a lot of fun kitbashing over the years and as a result, have built up quite the stockpile of parts and spare models.  I eventually went on a binge of building D-7 and K'Tinga variants.  Since I had so many to share, and since they technically were not actual K-Tinga ships, I wrote a whole separate article showcasing those kitsbashes.  You can find that article at THIS LINK.

While we are on the subject of previously shared articles, here are another two that I shared 17 issues ago.  Since they both have a D7 in it, I figured I would share them again.

Project Time Trap

[1:2500 AMT Round 2 Kitbash]

I was watching TAS one evening and after seeing the episode titled "The Time Trap", I got inspired to build a quick little kitbash of sorts.  In the episode, the Enterprise joins forces with the Klingons to escape from a very bad situation.  They combine their two ships to help better utilize the power sources from both of them.  

Photo Credit: Memory Alpha

The idea to do this quick silly little project suddenly popped into my head.  I had extra TOS era ships in my inventory so I figured, "what the heck". 

v1

 

This was version 1 of the project. It went together rather quick with little, to no difficulty.

I am not going to share a lot of pictures of this project as I actually wrote an entire article about it.  You can see lots more pictures and read about the build process at THIS LINK.

After building the model, something just didn't seem realistic to me.  Just having the two ships connected like felt really off to me so I decided to do some ad-hoc bracing. 

v2

 

Unfortunately, with all this new bracing, it now really does look like the Enterprise is humping the Klingon vessel.  I'd hate to see that offspring.  Oh wait, you can, it's Martin Shepherd's CD7 Class!

CD7 Class Battleship

His design sparked my want to build my own and then I took it a little further by building a TMP era version of this model too.

ISS Yorkington (NCC-1771)
CD7 Class Battleship
1:2500 Scale AMT Kitbash

 

ISS Seizon (NCC-1772)
CD7 Class Refit Battleship
1:2500 Scale AMT Kitbash

 

I won't say anymore about these guys though as they all earned themselves a whole separate article.  You can read more about the CD7 Class at THIS LINK.

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     MicroMachine ( v1     v2 )
Comparative Shots

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