Next up in my Eaglemoss Vs. The World Series, is the Suliban Cell Ship (Spherical Variant). We were first introduced to these types of ships in the Star Trek: Enterprise pilot episode "Broken Bow"
There are actually two types of Suliban Cell Ships. One type is called the Cylindrical Variant (pictured below), while the one we will be reviewing is the Spherical Variant.
Per this Memory Alpha LINK, "Suliban cell ships were the primary ship types used by the Suliban Cabal during the mid-22nd century. They were armed with particle weapons and equipped with cloaking devices. About the same size as an NX-class starship's shuttlepod, this ship type was used as a one-man fighter and could combine to create a larger structure, such as a helix." This Memory Beta LINK pretty much says the same thing so you can safely skip that article.
We see these ships in quite a few Star Trek: Enterprise episodes (8 is the official count), so it wasn't surprising to me that Eaglemoss would attempt to make one. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the ship and what is meant to do, we are also treated to what amounts to a very large 10 sided die. I'm not talking about the cool ones we were introduced to in Dungeons & Dragons either.
Cool Not-Cool
But that is fine, and not Eaglemoss' fault, so let us see what they did manage to produce for us.
I could not bring myself to taking the full series of 12 photos that make up my standard photoshoot. There isn't any differences between the sides so I didn't waste the hard drive space. I felt like I was dealing with the Borg Sphere model all over again. Incidentally, if you want to know what I had to say about the Borg Sphere, you can read that review at THIS LINK.
The Suliban Cell ship is smaller than a standard shuttle. USUALLY, when Eaglemoss brings us a small ship in thier standard size, we are treated to extra details and better rendered models because of the natural scaling up of the model.
The sculpted and eventually molded details are there. I would even say they are crisp and there are technically a lot of them. There are plenty of edges and panel lines across the model. The issue is, because of what the ship is, all of those details are duplicated, over and over and over and... ten times. Quite frankly, the ship is rather boring as a model. This isn't Eaglemoss' fault though, they did thier job on the molded details part.
As far as the paint job goes, well, to steal another reviewers description of the color, the entire model is base coated in a baked-bean orange red, with splashes of rust red here and there to try to give the model a weathered look. Unfortunately, the weathering is not enough to make the model stand out as anything special. Had Eaglemoss given the observation windows some attention, with some black paint, the model would have stood out more and been more of an attention grabber.
As an aside note, maybe I'll paint them in myself at a later date and see what it looks like then.
And really, that is all I can say about the model. There is not much to it. Some of the model's lacking in detail is not Eaglemoss' fault, while some of it is. At the time that I'm writing this article, you can get one of these from eBay for around $25 (shipping included) and it appears that Eaglemoss is out of stock on them. Honestly, if you haven't caught on yet, I was not really impressed with this model. And for the price, and know what I know now, I really couldn't justify buying one again if I had it to do all over again. Looking ahead at the collection, this seems like the only Suliban ship we will receive and if that really is the case, then I hate to say it, you might want to skip buying this one too. If I knew that Eaglemoss was going to bring us the Cylindrical Variant of the Cell ship as well as the Stealth Ship, then I might feel a bit different as the completionist part of me would be screaming to have one of these in preparation for the rest of the collection. But... they are not... so I am not.
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
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