Battlestar Galactica

Moebius does a decent job of capturing the Battlestar Galactica from the re-imagined 2004 TV series. Parts have crisp, fine detailing and a comprehensive color instruction sheet with many photos and diagrams is a nice bonus. However, the kit has a few issues. The biggest is a tooling error on part# 16 (upper bow rear bulkhead) that causes the nose section of the ship to sit noticeably high, top and bottom. An experienced modeler should have no trouble trimming this part until the bow section sits in line. Some shimming and adjustment of the lower bow and intermediate bow is needed to get those parts to fit where they should. The photos in the instructions show what it should look like, but building it without the aforementioned modifications will not yield this result. The guns are also a bit weak. They lack detail and sprue attachment points are thick, making it hard to remove the parts without damage. Moebius acknowledges this with a separately available upgrade kit (#MOE1011) that includes better guns and photoetched museum windows for one hangar bay. They should have gotten the guns right in the first place. The plastic has a slightly pebbly texture, which will be amplified under a metallic finish. A potential construction bugaboo to be aware of is that it is possible to put the flight bay arms in the wrong position. Be sure to refer to the photos when attaching these. They will fit, but won’t look right in relation to the curves of the main hull if attached incorrectly. These parts should have been keyed to prevent this, but Moebius is learning, as the later Pegasus and classic Galactica kits are much improved. With a little work, this kit will produce a nice model if the builder is prepared, or at least willing to live with a few apparent flaws.