Lego Blacktron Frigate

This past weekend I spent some time on a project that I've been wanting to try my hand at for a long time. Sadly, I don't have enough pieces to pull it off properly, but I made my best effort. So, here it is. Presenting, the Blacktron Frigate:

This isn't the best overview shot ever, but my camera was having issues (low batteries, I think), so I had to struggle to get it to take any pictures at all.

As you can see, it is designed around a hexagonal hull, with turrets on the angled hull segments. It also has a pair of point defense turrets at the base of the bridge section. The bridge and the engineering sections both are modular and can be removed. I also designed the hull of the ship to open:

It doesn't open as far as I'd like, or as cleanly, but at least it allows relatively easy access to the interior. You can't see it, but the airlock follows Moonbase standards and has a cap on it to seal it for flight.

This is a shot of the detached engineering section:

This is a shot of the engineering section from the side, with the hull opened to reveal the Hazardous Environment Robot manning the controls.

I didn't have the pieces to do this quite the way I wanted, but I think it still worked out pretty well. I'd have preferred more interior details for the engineering section, though.

This is the bridge:

The sides can swing out and the whole thing can detach from the main hull. It is crewed by a pair of minifigures, with room for a third to serve as captain/commander of the ship.

So let me know what you think. Is this any good? I'm rather proud of it, but I know it could use a lot of work.

In the mean time, I'll be focused on making some ground vehicles for my Blacktron Marines to have as armored backup.

Lego Dromon

Lego recently came out with a new Troll Warship, part of their updated, Fantasy-oriented Castle theme. It includes four oars and several hull sections, as well as assorted other pieces that work nicely for constructing a classical or medieval galley. I immediately saw the potential for creating a dromon, a medieval Roman war galley distinguished in large part by a tower built around the central mast. I managed to acquire several of the Troll Warships via ebay, and this is what I put together:

This last picture is a close-up of the Greek Fire Siphon that I managed to build for the bow of the ship. The actual siphons would often have their spouts designed to look like the maws of dragons or lions or various other beasts, so I took one of Lego's old dragon-winged horse helmets, attached it to the end of the spout, and hooked a hose up to the other end and ran it to a barrel. It makes for a decent enough fire thrower.

The whole thing only has 12 oars, which isn't much (a basic pentaconter, or small, fast dromon, would have had 25 per side if I remember rightly), but considering that it's Lego and most things are either smaller-scale than normal or somewhat exaggerated, it isn't too unreasonable. I also don't have a sail yet, in part because I'm not sure if I should stick with the current lateen rig or switch to a square rig.

As for personnel, I have a fully-armored knight minifigure as the captain, using the barred helmet instead of the full helm with moving visor (I have to use them on somebody, and it distinguishes him from the heavy cavalry lancers). I also have two marines (I'd prefer more), using the soldier minifigures with surcoats printed on them instead of either of the scale armor prints (which I use for my infantry). For the rowers, I lacked the number of blue wizard minifigures to man the oars with blue-uniformed unarmored men, so instead I opted to use older armor-printed minifigures (to represent rowers being issued old, archaic armor while the frontline troops get the newest gear). I tried to include pikes for when the rowers need to arm themselves in the event of a boarding action (I also have a rack of swords for the marines, who will use crossbows until they need to prepare for hand-to-hand).

The bow of course has the Greek Fire Siphon, the central mast has both the distinctive tower of the dromon war galley as well as a crow's nest for a spotter or a sniper, and the stern has a sterncastle complete with catapult. I don't have a ram, since it'd be underwater and thus impossible to model on something intended to have the waterline flush with the tabletop.

So, what do you think? Is this a workable interpretation of a dromon? If I had the pieces I think I could expand it into a proper pentaconter, and with even more I have some ideas about how to make a bireme out of it (two ranks of oars on each side, one above the other), but for now this is the best that I can do without burning through entirely too much money.