Send the fleet to the far side of Endor. There it will stay until call

[Legostein]

Hello everybody!

It's a great pleasure to me to present several ships of the Imperial Fleet to you today. I have saved this batch of mini models up until I finally was able to take photos of the newest, yet unpublished model. It will be revealed today - the Victory Star Destroyer. This also gave me the chance to completely redesign several older models to newer standards (like the Dreadnaught and Interdictor Cruiser) as well as improve older models with some modifications (for example the Star Destroyer).

Let's start with the summary image, beginning with the ships from the movies, then continuing with the ships appearing in the Thrawn Trilogy and concluding with two ships from the Dark Empire comic series.

This will be a very long post, so pelase be patient with me. As usual the images provided below will take you to the rleated image gallery and building instructions. I will only provide one image per ship this time. All other are in the galleries of course.

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The most famous ship of the Empire and the backbone of the Imperial navy is without any doubt the Imperial Star Destroyer. For the design I went for a compact wedge plate layout instead of the today more popular attachment of plates around a hollow core which gets uaually a bit fat for small scales. It comes complete with equatorial trench, triple engines, detailed command tower and both hangar bays on the underside as well as the power generator.

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More massive and bristling with weapons is the gargantuan Super Star Destroyer. It has a similar wedge shape, a very popular shape in the Imperial Navy. It is not to scale with the Star Destroyer above for size reasons. The model features the huge hangar bay on the underside as well as the accurate engine block with 13 thrusters.

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Now let's go on with one of my most favourite Expanded Universe starships. The Victory Star Destryoer (reference link). It's a ship of the Old Republic. Unfortunately my hopes to see one of those in the prequel movies was not fulfilled. It's a slightly smaller Star Destroyer predecessor, capable of atmospheric flight. This model now is roughly to scale with the bigger Star Destroyer and the smaller Interdictor Cruiser (follows below).

Imperial Star Destroyer, Victory Star Destroyer and Interdictor Cruiser roughly to scale with each other.

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Another ship from the Old Republic is the Dreadnaught Battlecruiser (reference link). It was once one of the most powerful ships in the Imperial Navy. Many of these ships got lost in a hyperspace accident - the mysterious Katana Fleet which was later discovered (Thrawn Trilogy). Some of these ships were also converted to the well-known Rebel Assault Frigate (to scale with the Dreadnaught).

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Used to drag out starships from hyperspace, Interdictor Cruisers (reference link) have four gravity-well projectors integrated in their wedge-shaped hull. Typical design features are the four spherical projectors and the triangular bridge tower. Both characteristics were intergrated into the model. It uses TECHNIC® beams in the middle so that we have stud notched on upper AND underside allowing us to add boat studs from both sides to imply spherical gravity-well projectors.

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A slightly smaller ship is the Strike Medium Cruiser (reference link), one of the few Imperial ships that has besides the usual TIE fighte complement also a small ground force of walkers. It has a very light shell with greebly decks below it. It was very hard to design, especially the way to attache the bridge tower. The shape increases by half-stud-steps from two (front) to four (rear) studs.

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Imperial star systems which are not important enough to justify the presence of an Imperial Star Destroyer usually have at least a Carrack Light Cruiser (reference link). It's a very fast ship but has no internal TIE fighter capacity. It has one of the biggest bridge windows I ever saw for an Imperial warship. I did an experiment with this one and used a Throwbot/Slicer cockpit for this vessel. Opinions usually vary a lot on this design. Many may like it, but many do not.

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Designed after the Battle of Yavin, the Lancer Frigate (reference link) is a starship made only for anti-starfighter-combat. The Empire realized its need after desaster of small Rebel starfighters destroying the Death Star. It costs as much as an Imperial Star Destroyer, as the advanced targeting systems are highly complex, and thus these ships were always rare. It has no capital ship weapons and relies on other capital ships to protect it from Rebel cruisers.

The design is one of the trickiest in my collection. It has a lot of SNOT-techniques, for example the wedge bricks to get the optimal shape for the unique nose of the ship.

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Designed as an armed transport or Escort frigate, the Star Galleon (reference link) can hold its own against attackers. It was armed with turbolasers and missile launchers, had troops and variable anti-intruder walls in the inside. Furthermore the cargo pos was detachable and hyperspace capable, so the goods would escape even if the ship was lost. The bricked model does also feature this removable cargo pod and is quite snotty in the rear.

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To bring additional starfighter forces into a combat scene, the Empire used Escort Carriers (reference link), capable of holding an entire TIE fighter wing. This mini model is one of the few which comes with an interior layout. It has flight control and TIE fighter racks in the inside. The oustide features the greebly forward section with decks and hangar door.

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For various mission profiles (observation, survey, hospital, ...) the Empire developped the Modular Taskforce Cruiser (reference link). It was able to hold different modules for the corresponding mission profile. The front section is pretty straight forward, but the rear section is completely studs down, to get the sloped details of the command pod.

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The last, and probably most dangerous ship for today is the Eclipse Super Star Destroyer (reference link), a 17.5 kilometer long beast even featuring a superlaser. It's midnight black and menacing looking. The mini model uses many wedges to realize the sleek, shiny and dark look. It also uses SNOT to get the wedge bricks on the underside attached.

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So, with more than one hour preparing this post, I am done for today. I hope you liked the Imperial Fleet so far. It's not complete yet, but it gives a general impression of its variety.

Thank you for your time, interest, and patience.

Have a great day and see you around!

Yours Christopher.

[Masked Builder]

These are all great! I really like the Black ship. (I surprised myself I've seen about every one of these before )

[lightningtiger]

'Legostein' you have done it again......totaly AWESOME mini's - my favorite the first picture - good old Star Destroyer - but the rest are fantastic in design and detail !

Keep them comming 'Legostein' and I'm a conformist! !

[Ritz Brick]

never even heard of most of the these, but they're all great

[Brickdoctor]

My favorite is the Carrack by far; I really like the use of the Bionicle foot piece.

[Brickus]

Wonderful minis, my favourites are the first 2.

[XimenaPaulina]

Very impressive collection of Imperial Fleet mini-ships Legostein! Great work as always. I also like the Carrack most among the batch, that cockpit is very cleverly done using that Bionicle piece.

[R5-N2]

Really nice...

[Future74]

Our mini master does it again, well done

Most of these mini's I instantly recognize from games Rebellion, X-wing vs TIE Fighter and Empire at War.

They look sweet in lego. Too bad the SSD isnt to scale

[Legostein]

Hello!

Thank you for the nice comments!

I am glad you like this batch of models, and especially that you are open for unusual design approaches like the Carrack Cruiser.

Cheers,

~ Christopher

[The Legonater]

I love these! I recognise most of them from thigns like the X-Wing series and the Thrawn trilogy, and I must say I'm impressed. You've captured all of these ships so brilliantly. I honestly can't pick a favorite.

[Flare]

I think you've figured out how to build with pure awesomeness!

[Big Cam]

Brilliant. I love the different variations of the star destroyers. It amazes me how you can have them so small yet the variations can be so different.

[Legostein]

Hello!

Thanks again for the nice comments. It's great to see that many of you are familiar with the Expanded Universe starships as well.

More models to come soon!

Cheers,

~ Christopher