Just from the initial photos, it LOOKS like the ships will be along the line of the delightful F-Toys, but somewhat smaller; because of this, they will inevitably have a little less resolution (thicker cannon barrels and so on) than the larger model, but they still look to be pretty good.

I'm also thinking - just my guess, now - that the medium will be a resin. Seems like a great many small collectibles are produced in resin rather than metal or plastic these days.

 The difference between resin and metal is obvious, but the difference between resin and plastic isn't so much, to a layman such as myself. Can you describe, or point us to some info?

I. J. Thompson said:

Resin is... well, resin, and plastic comes in three forms, so far as hobbies go: polyethylene, which is the squishy soft plastic that is incredibly durable but does NOT take paint well and goes all bendy; polystyrene, which is the hard plastic that model kits have been tradionally made from; and ABS, a newer hard plastic that has improved properties.

Polyethylene & resin need to be glued with superglue or epoxy. These glues do not affect the material, but just bond them together as best as can be. Both these mediums need to be washed with a mild detergent, or rubbing alcohol, prior to any attempts at gluing or painting as they carry mold residue that will repel both glue & paint.

Polystyrene & ABS are much easier to work with, and are assembled with model glue. This glue actually sorta melts or disintegrates the plastic itself, allowing the two parts to actually merge a bit, and when dry forms a solid bond. This also means, "less is more" with model glue. The biggest mistake novice modellers make is going buck-wild with the cement. For assembly, washing is not necessary but if you have big, smooth surfaces I'd still wash 'em first to allow the (later applied) paint to adhere better.

A final note: Resin can actually be used by amateurs in the home. Plastic... eeeh, not so much. SO, you can get this awesome variety of what are called "garage kits" made at home by very talented folks who produce kits of unusual subjects the Big Dogs won't touch. These are obviously labor-intensive and the molds don't last too long and, combined with the cost of materials & small production runs, are far more expensive than equivalent styrene kits from Revell, Pegasus or whatever. Nonetheless, some of 'em are reeeeally worth it. I recently surrendered seventy bucks for an 11" long kit of the Star Wars Dreadnought (THAT'S a big hunka resin!), and just (after three years of trying) finally won a 12" model of the Discovery from 2001 for the base price of $40 (free shipping). Boo-yah!!

I hope they don´t miss support the european market like WOTC. -.- WOTC missed a lot of money this way ... only the hardcore fans knows the SW Miniatures game. They missed a big pool of consumers because they didn´t support us in any way. No promotion, no support, nothing.


I really need an new miniature game ... I hope of a version like D.W. just with a SW Theme with an intelligent game play....

TK4334 said:

Yeah, WotC are IDIOTS for completely ignoring the European market. THey allowed their fiercest competition to completely take over the market in Germany.

But it will pretty much depend on the local publisher. I'm quite sure here in Germany it will be the Heidelberger Spieleverlag, so support should be excellent. Which country are you from?

jhaelen said:

WotC NO idiots – if you don’t know, they bury all Star Wars games for a reason – to destroy any “resistance” to Magic the Gathering. “Decipher”, previous SW card game creators sell more cards, than WotC’s MtG. To kill this concurrent, WotC (part of “Hasbro”) ask Lucas (George has percent in “Hasbro”) to gain license to them and he did it. Firstly they shut down SW TCG without any words of explanation, then SW Miniatures and RPG. They NEWER properly support any Star Wars game – if you compare prizes for SW TCG World Championship and Magic the Gathering World Championship (for SW – TV panel and Playstation 2, for SW Miniatures – full set of miniatures [cost-250-350 $] and for MtG - 250.000$ only for the first place, 1.000.000$ total) you understand it – why support any other game, created UNDER license, if they have their OWN game – MtG. And as we see, WotC support MtG on ALL levels – prizes, money e.t.c...

But that doesn't make any sense. The markets are completely different. I have ZERO interest in MtG, but gave them plenty of money for lil' men (and for gaming books). Now, I don't give Wizards of the Coast money for anything. Where's the logic in that?

 Truly. WotC would have loved to make barrels of money off of Star Wars. But the licensing/manufacturing costs shrunk their margins to such a degree that the whole line went down the tank. The same thing happened to D&D Miniatures (in the manufacturing department, anyway).

I love a good conspiracy theory, but this... is not.

jhaelen said:

yagyu said:

I feel the same way. Parakitor and I have talked about this at length, and it seems best if he collects X-wing and I collect the LCG, then we can play when we get together. Only problem, is that's kinda hard when we live on opposite sides of the country. Even still, I'm considering getting the starter set of each at least. Then if I get some extra money, maybe I can get one or two extra ships. But like was mentioned above, I may as well focus on filling out my WotC Minis collection instead of diverting to X-wing. I'll just have to wait and see how things go next year.

Exactly dude, what end do u live on im oregon lol. But yeah dont get me wrong, i really hope the FFG mini's do well and expand into land based stuff and more. Its just that yeah for the price they have stated for 3 miniatures, its just seems to be too much. If they added a couple more mini's i think it might feel a bit more like im being compensated if i spent the $40 or so bucks on it. But yeah from the way things look now its just financially smarter for myself and most likely others to side with either the mini's or the cards.

Off topic i do wish they had board game license. That would definitely make me eat romain noodles everynight just to buy FFG's awesome star wars board games lol

TK4334 said:

I totally disagree with this - WotC’s game cannot be dead, especially if you mainly player, than collector. The Game is now in a new age – “Virtual Era”, where many useless figs gain the “new life”. I play this game from its beginning, have thousands of miniatures and still have a big portion of skepticism about this new game from FFG, mainly because we still don’t have enough information about the game. In the first post I mentioned about another interesting Star Wars game – SW Pocketmodel TCG, which demo also contain one X-Wing and two TIE Fighters, but when the game starts, we receive 80+ other ships. And as we see now in “X-Wing” starter we have only TWO type of ships and only THREE figs totally. If the next set for this game is contain two Y-Wings and one TIE Interceptor… Imagine – if WotC’s starter for SW Miniatures contain two stormies and one rebel trooper, and we don’t have ANY boosters or packs in “horizon”, only something like “next month we you can add Darth Vader and Luke in your collection for this greatest game ever…” :D Regardless how genius is FFG in game design, playing with starter, which contain only three figs, without any other potential “additions” (I need Stardestroyers, Venators, Acclamators, or even Death Star :D ) can’t give us many hours of fan. I REALLY hope to see with “X-Wing” starter something like in SW The Card Game’s “Force Packs” with A-Wng, B-Wing, Vader’s TIE Advanced etc… But now, what we have is only our hope… Hope that FFG do it RIGHTLY!!! ;)

Me too.

Unfortunately, no one's saying anything.

I don't know if you guys have ever played Wings of War, but the vibe I'm getting is that "X-Wing" will be much more similar to WoW than WotC's SSB.  I completely understand that you don't want to give up SSB; it is a fun game, and you have invested a lot in it.  Keep playing it, by all means!  (I still play the old Star Fleet Battles, with counters, even!).

If you are feeling a void from the absence of SSB, I'm not sure X-Wing will fill it...

Oh no, we get that vibe too. There's a buncha threads and posts about it. Might even be a GOOD thing; the WotC SSB rules sucked, and a lot of us felt like they tried to cover too much ground with one game. The big questions for X-wing are:

1. What's the minis size (and are they roughly in scale with one another)?

2. What's the plan for more ships? How and whan will they be released?

3. Are the ships customizable, with like templates or something?

4. Is there a game map, or is this supposed to look good on the woodgrain of my dining-room table?

5. How much is this gonna flippin' cost?

So yeah, we get it. It isn't SSB. But we still don't have too many answers - and of late, NO project support or even an online presence. We got these boards, and it's like, "go outside and play." Until 2012.