By Sven Ferron - images & text © 2004

Scale: 1/1400 - over 4"/ 10 cm long (Grissom) and about 3"/ 6 cm long (Asmodeus)

Parts: 7 resin

Instructions: 1 page for both painting & decal placement

Decals: ALPS-printed waterslide markings for two ships, USS Grissom and USS Asmodeus

Molding Quality: 8 - some mold runners but I found no bubbles

Detail: 9 - crisp and sharp

Accuracy: 9 - fair well detailed

MSRP: $40.00 USD (~$52.92 CAN/ € 32.37 EUR) available from Federation Models

Overall Rating: 9 - highly recommended

As I took a look around Federation Models 2 weeks ago, I saw the new Starcrafts kit of the Oberth-class U.S.S. Grissom together with a light corvette named U.S.S. Asmodeus. There were two nice little ships in one box in my favorite scale! So I knew that I had to have them and I ordered one of those kits immediately.

What You Get

In total there are 7 white resin parts, 5 of them make the two models. The others are the bases well known of Starcrafts. The Grissom consists of 3 parts: the saucer/nacelle combination, the pylonpart and the underslung sensorarea. The Asmodeus consists of only two parts: the same already mentioned saucer/nacelle piece and a pylon/torpedodeck combination. All comes well packaged in a box filled with styrofoam peanuts. Also you find a guide, how to place decals and what colors to use on these models. At the end there is one small decalsheet, holding all the decals needed for the two ships. No brass rod or anything is found to connect the models to the bases.

I like the design, even if it is a relative harmless ship. In this box you get a second variant of it with some "teeth" too - the so called Corvette-class with its torpedo pod between the pylons. The primary hulls are the same for both ships. The difference is the torpedo pod on the Asmodeus and the sensor area which consists of 2 parts on the Grissom. On a closer look all the pieces have nice and sharp details, no flash and no bubbles I could find. The only thing I have to mention are some thin mold runners which are surely easy to remove. The gridlines are worked out very well, the rest of the detail is a little bit softer, but for sure quite well worked out.

Due to the small size there are no windows engraved in the primary hull - those details are all included on the decal sheet. The decal sheet includes markings for two ships, for the Oberth-class U.S.S. Grissom and for the Corvette-class U.S.S. Asmodeus. Decals for the impulse deflector crystals and the impulse engines are included for both models. The decals look good to me and I think this is a pretty good decal sheet to make some little jewels out of these kits.

Assembly and Finish

Due to the above-mentioned mold runners, some cleaning and sanding has to be done, but that won't be a real problem. The assembly of the parts is quite simple, of course construction is straight forward and there are only 2 pieces for the Asmodeus and 3 for the Grissom. The decal/paintguide gives you an idea which colors you should use to paint the models. The fit of the parts is okay as I can say and with some good superglue you will have no problems to throw the pieces together.

Conclusion

Starcrafts has produced something very nice with this model set. I think these kits are very accurate, fairly detailed for their size and surly a fun to build and a cool weekend project. Even for modelers, who don't have any practice in modelling with resin kits and are looking for a good one to start with I would suggest this "Oberth-collection". Highly recommended!