WIP: Dropfleet Commander Battlefleet and Battlecruisers

I'll cut to the chase:  The past week has been pretty busy in the Zoxe Shipyards.  I've worked through all the basic assembly for my intended fleet list, plus a few alternates should I decide to change the list around between now and Gencon.  I've primed the ships that I assembled earlier this year, and partially painted a test cruiser to confirm colors and process.

Test piece: airbrushed cruiser, accent panels, and accent stripe.  More detailing will follow, but this cruiser established the processed for the other large ships.  I'll do a separate how-to post later, but wanted to share the WIP.

Battlecruiser parts, dumped straight out of the bag and assembled.  Only one of the hull sections in the left (lower and center) are used, depending which primary weapon type you choose.

Ugh. The Battlecruiser aft hull section had some monstrous flash and goop that apparently blew out one side of the mold.  Look at the tip of my knife and note how goopy  the model is.

Reverse view showing thee correct geometry.

The Battlecruiser gave me some issues.  Strictly speaking, I don't need it for my list (I'll likely run a Battleship instead).  I went ahead with assembly thinking "oh, there are only a few parts, it won't take long."

WRONG!  Two hours of fussing with a series of issues - some of them self induced, but many of them production issues. 

The biggest problem was that after trimming, the forward/top hull section didn't want to align straightly.  I glued and then broke the joint apart twice because I wasn't happy with the alignment.  By the third attempt, the amount of residual glue was crudding up the joint.  I ended up scraping it clean and then actually removed the molded-in locator tabs.  Then I used a paperclip to pin the joint.  More hassle than I expected, but it's probably stronger this way anyway.

I hadn't intended to pin the joint between the upper-fwd hull and the aft hull, but it just wouldn't align cleanly with the factory-molded alignment tabs and slots.

Finished battlecruiser.  Wider gap than I'd hoped, but it'll fill with a little bit of Vallejo Plastic Putty after I apply primer.

Here are all the ships I've assembled in the past 7 days.

The entire fleet, including the ones I already have in primer.  Test piece is in the lower left.  Test frigate is on the middle left, but will be repainted entirely.

Test cruiser, side view.

Test cruiser, side view.

Test cruiser, top view (repeat image).

From here, I need to mount all of the ships to corks, and get them in primer.  I've got just under a month to get everything through the paint booth and apply finishing touches, but I think I can get there.