I was thinking just a plain X-acto knife or small cutter.

For those that have this game, what did you guys use to make the ships looking more "clean" looking.

Any tips or thoughts?

I used an X-Acto knife at the time I bought TI3. I have since acquired a pair of snips (like little scissors designed specifically for cutting minis off sprues) for this sort of thing and, looking back, if I had had these things when I was snipping out ships for TI3 it would have saved me a lot of time and effort.

If you find yourself buying games that need this sort prep work a lot, I would highly recommend looking into buying a pair of snips.

If TI3 is the only thing you have that needs this kind of work done, a knife you already own may be better than the expense of buying something you'll likely never use again, though.

Thanks for the tip, Steve.

I didn't know I would need to cut the ships off the frames from TI3. Dunno what other games out there would needs these snips.

Will keep that in mind.

How big is your X-acto knife? I have a big box cutter. Dunno if that might be too unwieldy to use for this task. What do you think?

I don''t remember how many tight corners there were on the sprues. A box cutter might be able to handle most of it. If in doubt you could always slice up the sprue itself until you have a clean shot at the edge of the mini, but that would take even longer.

X-Acto knives are made for the modelling hobby and they taper to a fine point precisely so they can fit into these wicked little corners.

Most board games in my experience do not have this sort of disassembly requirement. Indeed, the Shattered Empire expansion, which introduces two more sets of ships, was kind enough to provide them pre-clipped. If board games are all you collect then you''d probably never need the snips again.

Gotta agree with Steve-O here; most board games don''t have sprues. The only other one I can think of is Space Hulk 3rd Edition. You should be fine. I used a small pocket knife on mine, which resulted in me snapping a blue carrier in half and shooting a PDS across the room and behind my entertainment center, which is still there somewhere. Probably only a matter of time before one of my cats finds it and bats it into the center of the room, thus turning it into a caltrop for an unsuspecting, barefoot me.

Maybe the X-acto would be a good investment, after all.

You can get a plastic sprue snip from games workshop, or from your local hardware store.

They wil let you trimyou ships from the sprue much cleaner, then as said before, a simple exacto to clean up the flash.

I would recommend going to either a place like Ikea, or possible some kind of fishing store to buy container(s) for the game, a friend of mine did this, and it was a terrific idea. Bait boxes are perfect to store those tiny pieces

I have to agree with the others here: a small set of modeling/miniatures clippers works really well for tight spaces and detail work. While I haven't had to use them to cut out any plastic units aside from Twilight Imperium , they came in handy trimming the punch-outs for Descent Second Edition that didn't punch out as cleanly as others.

For storage, I use snack- and sandwich-sized Ziploc bags for almost the entire game (quart- and gallon-sized ones hold the Strategy Cards and planet tiles) and keep the cards in the cardboard tray they were in originally (I've been told this won't work once I get protective sleeves on them, though).