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First off, sorry if this is not the right place for the subject, but it seemed most appropriate.

The thought came to me when I was painting in my local shop (Not a GW one, just a general war games shop). A small boy and his father came in and asked "Do you do Star Wars mini's?". And then I though-Why not?? Games Workshop have already done Lord Of The Rings, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who would love building and painting some rebels, or an AT-AT.

What does everyone think about this??

Didnt WoTC have the Star Wars License?

What's WoTC? Sorry, I'm not familiar with war game "slang"

WoTC - Wizards of the Coast

If I remember right they don't have the star wars license anymore, I don't know if anyone else picked it up yet.

As most others mentioned, it's an issue of licensing the Star Wars franchise.

Considering that GW already is quite busy keeping up with what games they have for the time being, I highly doubt they would add yet another system to their plate.

Not to mention that George Lucas tends to be pretty limiting and controlling over the Star Wars franchise which would probably cause issues.

I could live with a GW SW Game

WotC = Wizards of The Coast. They bought TSR (the D&D company) and were subsequently bought by Hasbro and act as Hasbro's "Complex game" division. They do Magic: The Gathering, a few other card games, D&D, and some other stuff.

They used to have the Star Wars license, and did an RPG (3-ish editions) and a pre-painted minis game (and possibly other products). They recently dropped the 'game' side of the license, but Hasbro is still popping out tons of Star Wars toys, of course.

They were not the first license: a small RPG company called "West End Games" had the license for a long time and did a well-received RPG as well as some related stuff. They went under in the 90s: it was a sordid story involving a sister company that imported shoes (I am not making this up) as well as problems with Lucasfilm: Star Wars products, especially then, were subject to very heavy approval by Lucasfilm as there was a lot of work being done to keep the canon as intact as possible. West End would have books written, layed out, and ready to go and have to wait months for approval, which really hurt cash flow.

West End went under shortly before the new trilogy came out, and the license ended up under Hasbro/WotC because Lucasfilm liked having everything under one roof as it were. They have supported it in various forms through the prequel trilogy and follow-up cartoons and such.

So, basically, it really hasn't been available to GW. Now, GW may or may not even be interested. Licensing even a small property can be a major investment in money and time. Star Wars would likely cost a fortune to even get a foot int he door and would have a similar set of problems as LotR: A lot of the 40k fluff was certainly inspired by Star Wars in the same way LotR inspired WHFB, so they'd need to make it distinctive. They'd also need to sculpt a bunch of new stuff, devote White Dwarf space to it. etc.

One big issue with WotC's Star Wars games was that they tended to be skirmish games. A lot of people would love to see one that us based more on the big battles from the movies, both space and land based. There have eben attempts to do this, but none have really caught on.

Jin wrote:Considering that GW already is quite busy keeping up with what games they have for the time being, I highly doubt they would add yet another system to their plate.

This. Plus it's rumoured that Battlefront Miniatures may be getting the license soon.

That said, there have been a couple SW games over the years. There was a metal 25mm skirmish game in the late 80's early 90's(I don't know who did it, though) and there was Wizard's SW Minis(probably the game being asked about) pre-painted Skirmish game.

A Star Wars game to the scale of 40k would be awesome. Only problem is Jedi. I know I would love to have Vader lead me on my quest to crush to the Rebels, but you couldn't include Jedi in a force for their OP status.

Just look at Mistoffelees. He is fairly powerful for a single human sized mini.

The problem with GW doing Star Wars isn't just down to other people owning the license, or cost.

The problem is that GW stated back when they took on LotR that they simply weren't interested in producing other people's licenses. LotR is a special case, because it's LotR... it's what got most of the GW originals into fantasy gaming in the first place. So they couldn't pass up the chance to do a game based on it.

But licensing other ranges is simply not something that they're interested in doing.

it would be wicked awesome if someone does a star wars game soon.

The WotC game is still winding down (last expansion only just came out at the start of April) so even if someone else does pick up the license immediately, it's likely to be a year or two at the absolute minimum before anything is actually released.

Unless that someone also buys the current game from WotC and just continues with it, as there were supposedly another couple of expansions already in development when they decided to kill the game.

The SW miniature game licence is currently up for grabs - but Hasbro still get first option on it.

Unfortunately for the competition, the licence is a bidding system and Hasbro can afford to bid to keep the opposition out of the running - or just make it harder for them to make a profit by boosting their 'entry' fee.

GW have stated in the past they were not interested in other game licences. LOTR was a special case. Peter Jackson wanted them to do it (well, specifically, only as long as the Perrys were allowed to do the sculpts).

I'm not sure I'd ever want to see a GRIMDARK Star Wars.

Actually, after sitting through the prequels, I'm not really sure I want to see Star Wars at all. My interest in the franchise has been pretty well killed off.

Well even if they didn't do rules or anything I'd still like to see some minis.

This has been discuss so many times before on wargaming forums . The staff in my store said something about a starwars type of thing. He didnt give much to gawk about , I dunn ofi its true. It would cost a lot of money for GW. With already 3 big games out there , dont think there would be room for 4.

I once built an AT-AT and tweaked it for Space Marines.
Unfortunately she-who-must-be-obeyed gained entry to my reclusiam and knocked it over while "cleaning".

So far, the "head" bit has been a skimmer, a crashed wreck, and is currently stuck onto 2 legs as a Titan stand-in.

The main body is now legless and awaiting a suitable set of tracks; either that or it'll be stripped and used to modify a Rhino or two.

You want an AT-AT? Go buy one, or a Milennium Falcon, or whatever, and convert to your heart's content.

JOHIRA wrote:I'm not sure I'd ever want to see a GRIMDARK Star Wars.

It's called the Star Wars EU.

I would absolutely hate to see GW get hold of any of the "classic" Sci Fi settings, whether it be Star Wars, Dune, or even Starship Troopers.....come on, their ham fisted way of dealing with their own Material and background fluff, would certainly put George Lucas in his grave, and then make him spin 360 in said pit!

When GW learns the true meaning of consistancy, coherancy and balance, then maybe they could take on the big boys of Sci Fi, until then I don't think so.

Now, as far as the miniatures go, GW have yet to prove they can produce a proportioned, well posed humanoid figure, and of both sexes to boot....so I wouldn't be waiting with baited breath for their scuplting efforts either!

Delephont wrote:I would absolutely hate to see GW get hold of any of the "classic" Sci Fi settings, whether it be Star Wars, Dune, or even Starship Troopers.....come on, their ham fisted way of dealing with their own Material and background fluff, would certainly put George Lucas in his grave, and then make him spin 360 in said pit!

I don't thin kthat would be an issue, if it were a license that they were actually interested in working on. As evidenced by the LotR game. At least the earlier versions... haven't heard a great deal about WotR.

Now, as far as the miniatures go, GW have yet to prove they can produce a proportioned, well posed humanoid figure, and of both sexes to boot....so I wouldn't be waiting with baited breath for their scuplting efforts either!

Again, already proven (at least for male figs... they are admittedly still lacking on the females) with the LotR range.


The proportion issues with 40K and WHFb figures are a deliberate design choice, not an inability to sculpt realistic proportions.

Thanatos_elNyx wrote:Well even if they didn't do rules or anything I'd still like to see some minis.

Which they would still have to work out licensing payment in order to do.

insaniak wrote:The proportion issues with 40K and WHFb figures are a deliberate design choice, not an inability to sculpt realistic proportions.

Yes and while they do stylize their figs, the anatomy still makes sense on a technical scale.

How to handle Jedi?

I think War of the Rings has it right: stick them in a formation and give
them abilities that assist that formation. Done.

Otherwise, you risk centering the game around Jedi (kind of like Warmachine), which
I think would take away from the appeal of a Star Wars tabletop game.

Delephont wrote:
Now, as far as the miniatures go, GW have yet to prove they can produce a proportioned, well posed humanoid figure, and of both sexes to boot....so I wouldn't be waiting with baited breath for their sculpting efforts either!

I point you towards Forge World's Imperial Guard lines. They're as well proportioned as most models of this particular scale are.

loranafaeriequeen wrote:it would be wicked awesome if someone does a star wars game soon.

As others said there's been a 28mm game around for 5 years, where have you been? Plus the starship game, plus the paper model game...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Crazy_Carnifex wrote:

JOHIRA wrote:I'm not sure I'd ever want to see a GRIMDARK Star Wars.

It's called the Star Wars EU.

I thought it was called Star Wars Legacy.



Drug addict Skywalker for the win!

That would be IP hammers going back and forth! I mean, really!

If they did do something, I would assume they would start with a necromanda-type game.

If I had a gaming company and a bijillion dollars I wasn't using I'd see 2 ways to do it.

1 is buy the current game and keep going. There's a player base and tested mechanics.

2 is go in a different scale for a different sort of game. I'm thinking 10mm to 5mm mass combat so all the fans have to buy something new.

I would NOT try to make a new 28mm game for fear fans would use their existing models plus all the ones about to be dumped on ebay.

I also would not try to make a 54mm or bigger game, I've never seen one of these work (both GW and Wizkids tried and failed) and people could pay with their action figures.

I might try a starship game but after WoC failed I can't see much hope for it. Though I still think WoC's game could have worked with better packaging (some non-blind fleet builder packs) and mechanics.

I can just see it now:
Han Solo- bald, screaming, and pointing.
Chewbacca with skull trophy rack.
Darthvader with a helmet add-on that doubles his height and a stupid staff with frowny faces at the top.
A Jedi vs. Sith boxed set featuring a bunch of figures with exquisitely-modelled flowing robes and lightsabers proportioned like telephone poles.

There wouldnt be much to do though would there ?. Only sith and jedi , well there is the ones that are out side that black and white lable like in star wars Kotor the jedi/sith guy that you become who is nither good or bad .Anyway I digress. They maybe could do a sort of game like space hulk .I dont think to the scale of w40k or fantasy . There isnt much in terms of different armies tbh.