Scale: 1/1000 - about 9"/ 229mm long when built

Parts: Bunches* in grey and clear injection molded styrene

Instructions: Your standard exploded diagrams, plus not-very-helpfull paint/decal guide

Decals: Waterslide; markings for two ships

Molding Quality: 10 - new mold, well done

Detail: 8 - very nice in general, but the engraved detail is on the heavy side

Accuracy: 9 or better - except for the depth of the engraving, looks pretty much spot on

MSRP: $12.00 USD (~$14.39 CAN/ € 9.83 EUR) available from Starship Modeler, as well as many other hobby retailers

Overall Rating: 9+ .... fun kit, good price, lots of potential

That said, I like the design of the ship better than any of the rest of canon Enterprises. Polar Lights' first NX-01 was a great kit, and I really wanted to build it, but there is no place in my house or office I could display such a behemoth. Finally, PL heard the lamentations of the rest of us, the folks who don't have rambling mansions with oodles of spare rooms in which to put 3 foot long models - and they released this kit.

What You Get

And what a kit it is! PL just got better and better - we can only hope RC2 lets them continue that trend.

Inside the box are 50 or so nicely pressed styrene parts in four bags, plus decals and instructions. There are no flash and no mold seams to mar the bits; you can slice them free from the sprues and pretty much not worry about cleaning them up before slapping them in place. Pretty much. Ejector pin marks are all where they won't be seen once the model is built. Detail is msotly sharp, except for the trenches engraved in the two hull halves. In scale, those are almost deep and wide enough to hold a couple of WW1 armies banging away at each other. If I were more ambitious, I'd fill them all in and re-engrave the pattern .... but with a two year old to chase after and this site to run, that will not happen any time soon. One nice feature - that I wish was an industry standard - is that almost all the parts have their number stamped somewhere unobtrusive, in addition to the sprue tree. Several pieces in my kit had come adrift of the sprues, but I was able to easily figure out which was which by the numbers on 'em. Also, the main hull pieces have numbers stamped on their inner faces that correspond to where the detail pieces are supposed to fit - so even if you lose the instructions, you can still build. That's attention to detail. Good on yeh, Polar.

Assembly instructions cover one side of the big fold-out sheet of paper inside the box. The flip side contains decal placement instructions and a rudimentary paint guide. What text there is gets duplicated in English and French, as usual with PL. Unlike the 1/350 scale kit, there isn't even an attempt at describing the 'aztec' pattern shown on the box top. There's a line on it directing one to the Polar Lights website, but as I write this, this model isn't even listed there. Someone slap the Marketing Director .... Wait, starshipmodeler.com is listed as a reference. Belay my last.

Building the Beast

The kit consists of top hull, bottom hull, warp nacelles and detail bits. Basically, you add the detail bits to the hull halves, mash them together and add the nacelles. Fit is really good throughout; I only had a couple pieces that needed adjusting. Everything else locked in place straight from the sprue - and I should add that the only tool I used to build this particular kit was a sprue nipper. A hobby knife would have worked better, actually, because I could have trimmed the pieces from the sprue closer.

I noted a couple things while building this kit:

Thankfully, PL has included an extra of the smallest bits (101, 103, 104 - all very clear and very tiny) so if the carpet gremlins capture one, all is not lost.