This morning at the Birmingham, England Destination Star Trek convention, our friends over at Hero Collector spilled the beans on a whole range of upcoming Trek model products set to debut over the next few months — and here’s an entire breakdown of everything you can look forward to from the Eaglemoss Official Starships Collection as we move into 2020!
After sharing their plans for a number of additional ships back at the August Star Trek Las Vegas convention, the Hero Collector team today unveiled a first look at over two dozen new models on the way, from the standard subscriber-sized ships to the larger XL Starships collection, and more in between.
Some of the newly-announced models were on display as early prototypes at the convention, where our correspondent Ronan O’Flaherty managed to get some in-person photography for today’s report.
Starting off, we got our first look at the next text releases from the smaller subscription-sized line of models, covering many eras of Star Trek television. First is the Tamarian Cruiser (#166) from The Next Generation’s “Suddenly Human,” followed by the Axanar Cargo Vessel (#167) from Enterprise’s “Fight or Flight,” a Suliban Freighter (#168) from “Future Tense,” and Kes’s shuttle (#169) from her return to Voyager in “Fury.”
Staying in the Delta Quadrant, we’re also getting the Tsunkatse Arena Ship (#170) from the Voyager episode of the same name, followed by a Denobulan Medical Ship (#171) seen in “Cold Station 12,” the Xindi Insectoid Fighter (#172) from Enterprise Season 3, and the Arcos freighter (#173) from TNG’s “Legacy.”
Rounding out the subscription announcements is the very first ship seen in Star Trek: Enterprise, young Jonathan Archer’s toy ship (#174) from “Broken Bow,” and finally, the Pakled freighter Mondor (#175) from TNG’s “Samaritan Snare.”
The line was extended to 180 ships in total back in August — leaving five models yet to be announced — and today, it was confirmed by the Hero Collector team that #180 will be the final entry in the subscription line, with no further extensions expected.
Six more entries to the “bonus” model release line have also been revealed this weekend, starting with the SS Conestoga (Bonus #20) from Enterprise’s “Terra Nova,” designer John Eaves’ Enterprise-era Klingon D4 cruiser concept ship (Bonus #21), a Cardassian weapons platform (Bonus #22) from the final season of Deep Space Nine, and the 21st Century space probe Friendship 1 (Bonus #23) from Voyager’s similarly-titled “Friendship One.”
The Original Series era hasn’t been forgotten, as the “upside down” USS Reliant concept (Bonus #24) arrives next, followed by the first version of the USS Enterprise seen on screen, Captain Pike’s Enterprise (Bonus #25) from “The Cage.”
We also got a look at three previously-announced “special” releases — and one new one — from today’s panel, starting with the Son’a Flagship (Special #19) from Star Trek: Insurrection, followed by a gold-plated USS Enterprise-D model (Special #20), and the Vulcan Long-Range Shuttle (Special #21) first revealed back in August.
The new special announced today is one that many collectors have been waiting for, the Vulcan lander T’Plana-Hath (Special #22), which brought the contingent of Vulcans to post-World War III Earth in Star Trek: First Contact.
The large-scale XL Starships line got another set of reveals today, with a few that had been mentioned at New York Comic Con in early October. The Klingon K’t’inga Battle Cruiser (XL #18) from Star Trek: The Motion Picture is the second alien starship in the line, followed by the Universe-class USS Enterprise-J (XL #19) from Enterprise’s “Azati Prime.”
The next two reveals were new announcements, with the first a surprising choice: the three-nacelled “dreadnaught” Enterprise-D (XL #20), seen in the future timeline in TNG’s series finale “All Good Things…,” a ship previously modeled as new-subscriber gifts.
The final XL Starship announced today is the Crossfield-class USS Discovery (XL #21), last seen hurtling 930 years into the future at the end of Star Trek: Discovery Season 2.
As of August, the XL Starships line was only expected to run for 22 issues, so there’s just one last ship left to reveal… and the team announced near the end of their panel that we’ll also be seeing an XL-sized edition of the Walker-class USS Shenzhou in 2020.
Will there be any more XL models in the future? We’ll have to wait and see.
Speaking of Star Trek: Discovery, we got our first in-person look at some of the upcoming releases inspired by that show, starting with the Section 31 Stealth Ship (DSC #22) and Federation Lander Pod (DSC #23) from this past season, the Klingon DasPu’ class (DSC #24) from Season 1, and the Section 31 drone fighter (DSC #25) from the climactic battle at the end of Season 2.
We’ve known about the second Discovery special for some time — the ISS Charon Terran flagship (DSC Special #2) — but were able to get our first hands-on look at the model thanks to its presence at the Hero Collector show booth.
The next Discovery special, announced for the first time today, is the Section 31 Headquarters space station (DSC Special #3), seen in this season’s “Project Daedalus” episode.
Finally, following August’s announcement of a Star Trek Online model subscription program, the first two ships in that line have been revealed: the Gagarin-class starship (STO #1), followed by the Chimera-class starship (STO #2).
Phew! That is a LOT of new product coming from Hero Collector over the next several months — as always, they’ll be available to fans in the UK first, followed shortly after in the United States — and we’ll continue to bring you reviews of some of these new releases as we get our hands on them!
In the meantime, here are a few in-person videos of some of the new models on display at Destination Star Trek in Birmingham, courtesy of YouTuber IrishTrekkie:
What announcement has you most excited from today’s reveals? Let us know in the comments below!