The Ghost was a modified VCX-100 light freighter owned by the Twi’lek Hera Syndulla that was used by the Spectres rebel cell during the Age of the Empire. As part of the rebellion, the Ghost saw actions on numerous missions and skirmishes against the forces of the Galactic Empire. The Ghost also had an auxiliary vessel called the Phantom that could double as both a shuttle and a starfighter. Following the Phantom’s destruction at Reklam Station, the Spectres obtained a replacement shuttle in the form of the Sheathipede-class transport shuttle Phantom II.
Originally made by the Corellian Engineering Corporation. It was named by Hera for her ability to evade Imperial sensors. Although an old vessel with a few dogfight battle scars from the Empire, it still performed reliably. The ship had a nose turret gunner station underneath the cockpit section, with a dedicated gunner seat, and a 360-degree dorsal laser cannon turret midships. There were four main cargo holds. The vessel had a crew section at the front half, with the two forward-facing cargo holds making up the forward corners of the ship.
The Ghost had engines which were baffled, energy dampeners, and static jammers to make it hard to detect.
These features and over eighty-seven illegal upgrades to the Ghost’s stealth systems allowed the freighter to mimic solar fluctuations or cosmic radiation on many sensors.
The Ghost had enough forward firepower to destroy an Arquitens-class command cruiser. During the ship’s use as part of the early rebellion against the Empire, its captain Hera Syndulla escaped Imperial forces numerous times by activating its hyperdrive without charting a path with the ship’s onboard navigation computer, relying on luck to avoid running into asteroids or supernovae.
The Model
Now that you probably read some facts about The Ghost, this is the ship introduced with the Star Wars ‘Rebels’ show some 4 years ago. Its design said Corellia all over and to me was love at first sight. Needless to say, I have my eyes set on that wonderful looking kit of the ship made in resin by Randy Cooper. 10 years ago I used to play the Star Wars Miniatures Game published by Wizards of The Coast. I still keep my 40 ships collection. Fantasy Flight Games released The X-Wing Game several years ago and the quality of the game and the ships themselves are far superior in quality.
Opening these ships is not that hard. They do come attached in large points in the same style of Bandai or Revell Snap-Tite model kits. They use some kind of cement in the factory that isn’t as aggressive as the fully cured cement we use in model building. If you ever try to do this with any of the awesome X-Wing Game ships, start by trying to pry open without putting much force around the ship. Just look for a weak point in which you can insert preferably a butter knife. Twist in both directions and as it starts to release, try to locate the joint lugs. It will be better if all the force in concentrated around the lugs rather than the edges of the model.
Cold helps! I left this Ghost outside in the snow for some 15 minutes and the cold plastic seems to crack open easier and with less brute force. Try your fridge if you don’t have snow. Although I used 5mm LEDs on this one (only yellow I had at hand), you can get away with 3mm LEDs. 5mm would require a pulse of steel and very slow drilling speeds. So, to be on the safe side, I highly recommend the 3mm LEDs. It wasn’t planned but I decided to add some fiber optic as well. .75 fiber optic was added on the lower hull and then .25 on the sides and docking ring. There’s around 20 strands of FO on the model including 1 on top by the small maintenance pit.
Powering those LEDs:
I not only wanted to display the ship. I also want to be able to use it on the game. So the best way if you plan ahead was using a 9v battery with a clip connector The lower and upper hull after the fiber optics were added were cemented with better cement this time. Frankly, I’d be scared of trying to open it now that when it was factory new. But the top part which runs the entire ship is molded as one piece. That one is not permanently cemented and the battery can be connected or disconnected from there. Oh yes, there is room to remove and replace.
Happy toy modding!
