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Agreed with Ratchet565.

I would play a Star Trek Fleet game ALOT!

akira5665 wrote:Agreed with Ratchet565.

I would play a Star Trek Fleet game ALOT!

http://www.starfleetgames.com/

There's only been one for 30 years.

I don't think there's much of a market for a Star Trek WARGAME.

Fleet-actions starship v starship, is in the works and has been frequently possible (even down to accountancy level SFB).

Mano-a-mano ground-pounder combat? Not unless it is part of a certain timeline or timestream.
(There are still a crapload of fans who got into trek because of its utopian (naivete) dream fantasy aspect. They outnumber the ones who only liked the battle scenes by a crap-ton to one).

Simplest answer? $

Complex answer? The Star Wars brand doesn't need to delve into wargaming. There's no need. It would be a waste of time for the Lucas Arts company to even consider it.

mwnciboo wrote:I realised the other day that a Flames of War style STAR WARS Wargame would be brilliant. Yet, no one has really grabbed this mantle, Wizards of the Coast and the previous license holders have tried but they have never really had wide ranging success despite the obvious appeal of the Franchaise. Why is that? Is it because the miniatures came in random packs so you never knew what you were getting? Was it the quality of the models? Was it the lack of thought or a poor ruleset?

I wish Battlefront would get hold of it and give it a Flames of War style make over! Firestorm Campaigns with Miniature starships on large Stellar Maps landing troops and then fighting out battles on tactical boards! AT-ST's with Companies of Storm Troopers assaulting positions, with ATATs in support. Rebel Commando's, Infilitate abilities, assault shuttles, Imperial Tanks etc. Early period (Old Republic) Mid Period (New Hope) Late (New Republic).

I think STAR WARS needs a good Wargaming Franchise with some staying power and some gorgeous miniatures for us to paint? WINGS OF WAR Style Starfighter combat? Your thoughts?

If WOTC would have been smarter and sold those sets as straight leg stormtoopers/ rebels, heros/ villians, bit players in boxed scenario sets, along WITH the random crap, they would have sold more. Thier rules are tight for large scale combat, if you use the ones from the RPG book, and play in squads/ platoons. That card stuff is fine- for heros, or special characters.

Thier intended "Buy a box, play whats in the box..." was great when they first started out, but after they grew from thier first three sets, and didn't evolve the sales models from the "Mage Knight" routine, THAT is when they lost thier way.

Yes, the figures were better in quality, but the game didn't evolve from the old way of "Play with five guys, they're all you need!" to a serious tabletop battle game.

Your idea has merit, but George Lucas is a tool of the first degree, who makes his money in the marketing of anything with "Star Wars" stamped on it.

The money rolled in with the kids. You want a good wargame? Use the miniatures and use an established one, such as Starship Troopers, or some other system that lends itself to large scales of figures. You won't see a serious one on wargame system with "Star Wars" stamped on it. Lucasfilms will snatch it up, or they will go to hasbo, who will in turn give it right back to WOTC.

For the space game, use the starship figures, and use battlefleet gothics rules, or those StarFleet battles ones, converted over.

Grot 6 wrote:Thier intended "Buy a box, play whats in the box..." was great when they first started out, but after they grew from thier first three sets, and didn't evolve the sales models from the "Mage Knight" routine, THAT is when they lost thier way.

The intent of the Star Wars Miniatures game was never for you to just play with the contents of a single booster. That would have been completely unworkable, due to the extremely variable points values of the figures.

Yes, the figures were better in quality, but the game didn't evolve from the old way of "Play with five guys, they're all you need!" to a serious tabletop battle game.

That really just depends on your definition of 'serious tabletop wargame'... Star Wars Miniatures had a beautifully tight, well-written and most importantly well-supported ruleset. 'Play with 5 guys' isn't a downside... it's a style of game. You might as well argue that Necromunda was a failure because it never included rules for playing more than a single gang.

SWM was designed as a skirmish game, and it remained a skirmish game. While it might have been nice to see an official 'mass battles' supplement (plenty of people created their own) if the core game had evolved into such a game, it would have lost a lot of its following, who enjoyed the existing format.

Growing the scope of your game isn't always a good thing. Different games appeal to different markets, and recognising that market is half of the battle. WotC, for the time that they were actually focused on the game, did a pretty good job of that. It was only when their attention started to waver, and they started drawing in to concentrate on their own baby (D&D) at the expense of their licenced properties that SWM started to suffer.

FWIW, they did attempt a mass battle version of the D&D minis game (which was similar to SWM prior to DDM 2.0)... and it sucked. That particular ruleset (plus the random nature of the minis packaging) didn't lend themselves well to a larger scale game.

PraetorDave wrote:Exactly my point. Remember all those massive scale battles between rebel forces and Imperial forces? Oh and all those Rebel tanks that they field, which could possibly go toe to toe with an AT-AT. I just love that one scene where you see that rebel trooper hit a stormtrooper with the but of his gun, then dual wields the ST's gun, going all terminator style.

The fact of the matter is that the Clone Wars are a much better setting for this kind of game. The catch-22 is of course that it wouldn't sell well, simply because its the prequels and not the "zomgtheoriginaltrilogyistheoneandonly...gahh!"

Meh, can't really agree on both points.

As for mass battles, it depends entirely on the year at which the game is supposed to play. Infancy of the rebellion? Yeah, better keep it limited to a couple commandos or a corvette versus a bunch of TIE Fighters. The later years, though? The Alliance may have started out as a ragtag band of bandits, but over the course of their struggle entire interplanetary companies have switched sides to supply them with state of the art technology (Incom), and at around the time of ROTJ whole planets had sided with the rebels, the Calamari volunteering their star cruisers. The Battle of Endor certainly was the largest engagement of that time, but it wasn't the only one, and big battles had been fought all over the galaxy as the Empire began to loose its grip on the systems.

Especially in the first few years after ROTJ ... you'd still have the rebels not yet fully consolidated into the New Republic, and a fractured Empire no longer capable of unified action, but even the individual warlords still sporting a massive military might that may still pose a threat (the so-called Pentastar Alignment only being a single example). The perfect era for wargaming, wouldn't you agree? Add a couple pirate or mercenary groups to the mix (some of those did even have capital ships) or the forces of neutral bordering governments such as the Hapes Consortium or the Corporate Sector Authority and you've got a neat selection.

Alternatively, the game could also delve into the far future of the Legacy era, offering the prospect of more factions, with a resurgent Sith Order fighting against both the Alliance Remnant and a reborn Empire. From a tabletop point of view, this constellation would offer more potential for impressive battles - on the other hand, the Legacy era is still rather new, and commercially it would probably be safer to stick to something that people know from the movies.

As far as the Clone Wars are concerned, the CGI series is doing pretty well (largest premiere demographic of all "cartoon" series so far) and stuff from this era is selling, so I don't think it should be disregarded so easily. Clone Troopers and droid armies have their own attraction ... else Bioware wouldn't rape its own canon in order to smuggle them into their new MMO.

I have the WEG game and all of the Star Wars Minis produced by WOTC. WOTC's biggest problem is WOTC. They're struggling to sell D&D to role-players! It all comes from being part of Hasbro who just look at the bottom dollar and not the gaming community. Which is a shame because I think WOTC could have made a decent Wargame from Star Wars.

I'm hoping that FFG come out with something along the lines of either Decent or Dust Tactics. I'd love to see a Star Wars wargame but despite the big following Star Wars has I don't think it has what it takes to become a serious market leader in wargaming. Most gamers will look upon it as just more LFL marketing and no more than just a gimmick game no matter how good a game it is.

And LFL would want too much control like they always do.

Eilif wrote:A few factors

1)West End's game didn't do that well. It lasted a while, but despite the Star Wars name and the rerelease of the starwars trilogy to theaters, it was never the big presence that 40k, WHFB, etc were.

WEG went under (or at least lost the SW license, which contributed to them going under) before the prequels. I've heard it stated that while they 'carried the torch' for quite a while with the Star Wars license (I.E. they were responsible for a lot of little bits of what is called the 'expanded universe' before the novels became a big deal) they had a lot of delays as everything was heavily vetted by Lucas's people.

WEG had a great run with the well-loved SW RPG. If they minis rules never took of, that may have been as much because of the market and capabilities of that era as anything else. According to BGG, the WEG SW Minis game was released in 1991, so that's still in the Rogue Trader era of 40k... A far different era from today where customers expect multipose plastics or equivalent.

I think what I'm saying is don't judge WEG's stuff by today's standards.


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A small-scale (15mm? 6mm?) game that somehow incorporates everything from fighters doing strafing runs to individual Jedi would be pretty cool, I admit. I could even see some justification for lone Jedi based on large bases representing that they're able to 'control' a large chunk of the battlefield due tot heir abilities as a baseline before we get to any special abilities some might have.

Balance wrote:
A small-scale (15mm? 6mm?) game that somehow incorporates everything from fighters doing strafing runs to individual Jedi would be pretty cool, I admit. I could even see some justification for lone Jedi based on large bases representing that they're able to 'control' a large chunk of the battlefield due tot heir abilities as a baseline before we get to any special abilities some might have.

Yup, this is the hook for a Star Wars Wargame in an Epic scale. Where there is significant interest there is money to be made, I wonder who will be the 1st Company to do it and prove to everyone how much of a money spinner this will be.

DarknessEternal wrote:The Star Wars brand is more suited to products with limited lifetime.

Not really, they can endure because the Star Wars brand is ongoing. It's not like toy releases with the latest movie that are in the discount bing and forgotten about after a few months.

The Star Wars CCG from Decipher went on for years. They did all the original films, some expanded universe and covered the Phantom Menace and they were still going strong. Then Lucasfilm took the licence away and gave it to Wizards of the Coast (owned by Hasbro of which Lucas has shares) who made a card game that died on its ass, the Revenge of the Sith has no card game that I recall.

That's a shame, because had Decipher kept the licence they would have been making Star Wars cards for all the films and if they had stopped with the 6th one and run out of ideas, it would have had a 10 year lifespan instead of 6 years. It was only that length because Lucas pointlessly cut it down. And yes, I am still annoyed about it because Lucas screwed over the gamers ending an extremely popular CCG and leaving us with incomplete set of cards for the films just to make more money, and the best part was that the replacement was a flop.

I wouldn't touch a tabletop Star Wars game with a ten foot pole. I don't like the setting.

I don't think it will happen. Though, there is some nice Roleplaying games.

I would like to see a Star Wars wargame. Although, like was said earlier, it might not be popular.

What I think might work well for it is maybe a skirmish level game in the same way as with (GW)Necromunda or Infinity but maybe a little bigger. Nothing huge, like (GW)40k/Apocalypse, but nothing so small that the factions are pointless. Then, if people want to, give rules to increase the size of the game in a later supplement.

But, honestly, I don't have hopes for another Star Wars minis game.

Ugavine wrote:I have the WEG game and all of the Star Wars Minis produced by WOTC. WOTC's biggest problem is WOTC. They're struggling to sell D&D to role-players! It all comes from being part of Hasbro who just look at the bottom dollar and not the gaming community. Which is a shame because I think WOTC could have made a decent Wargame from Star Wars.

Quoted for truth. I played D&D for almost thirty years, and quit after giving the horrible 4th edition a go for a year or so. WOTC should stick to what they do best, CCGs.

Clone Wars era Star Wars wargame would be epic.

Amaya wrote:Clone Wars era Star Wars wargame would be epic.

Agreed!

The cost of the liscence would be huge for star wars.

mikhaila wrote:The cost of the liscence would be huge for star wars.

Pretty much this. And think of the aneurysm that Lucas would have if he found out that someone painted Storm Troopers to look like Ultramarines.

Worglock wrote:And think of the aneurysm that Lucas would have if he found out that someone painted Storm Troopers to look like Ultramarines.

I doubt he would care any more than he does about anything they've done with the Expanded Universe.

As others have pointed out, the licensing costs are going to be a huge reason why we won't see a SW miniatures game anytime soon. I imagine that the only way to sell enough product to make back those fees is to market your product as widely as possible, including in big box retailers like Toys'r'us and Walmart. When was the last time you saw a minatures wargame being sold in these venues? Simply put, I think a "hardcore" minatures wargame in the mold of FoW or 40k simply won't have enough of a market to provide a reasonable ROI when you factor in those licesnsing fees with all the other start-up costs associated with such a game.

As a side issue, I think it is worth mentioning that a minatures game set in the "classic" SW setting of the original 3 movies would pretty much be limited to two factions, Rebel and Imperial. Even assuming that the game design could overcome the Rebel's lack of heavy ground forces (as seen in the films), that still leaves you with only two factions. Bottom line, I question if a game in this setting would have enough variety to maintain interest in the long-term.

Setting the game in the Clone Wars would help with the variety problem, but my impression is that this period isn't as beloved by fans. I think the Expanded Universe/Legacy setting would be even worse in this regard. Speaking for myself, I enjoy the films, but I've never read a single Star Wars novel...

Ruckdog wrote:As others have pointed out, the licensing costs are going to be a huge reason why we won't see a SW miniatures game anytime soon.

It didn't stop WotC from producing one that was hugely successful for some years.

And it didn't stop FFG (the current licence holders) from picking it up.


We just need to wait and see what they decide to do with it.

Because the world doesn't need another game where 90% of the sales are derived from .0001% of the universes actual military forces (exchange space marines for Jedi).

What the world needs is a dystopian wars that didn't jump on the steampunk bandwagon and tried to do something inventive. Too much licence and trend hopping in this industry.

Ruckdog wrote:As a side issue, I think it is worth mentioning that a minatures game set in the "classic" SW setting of the original 3 movies would pretty much be limited to two factions, Rebel and Imperial. Even assuming that the game design could overcome the Rebel's lack of heavy ground forces (as seen in the films), that still leaves you with only two factions.

Black Sun and Hutt Cartels (or Mercenaries in general), the Hapes Cluster, the Corporate Sector Authority, ... there's a number of other factions around, actually.
The Zann Consortium is one such example that got its own expansion for the "Galaxy at War" computer game. Would work nicely in a wargame, too. If a couple thousand Marines or SoB are enough to form armies in 40k, certainly an intergalactic crime syndicate active on hundreds of worlds and ready to risk confronting the major players would be just as viable for a tabletop game.

Ruckdog wrote:Setting the game in the Clone Wars would help with the variety problem, but my impression is that this period isn't as beloved by fans.

Hmmm, not sure on that. I think its popularity has been on the rise ever since - after an admittedly slow start. That said, I can only judge this based on what I notice within my SW RPG group. But there's gotta be a reason as to why they keep churning out toys, books and entire TV series, right?

Ruckdog wrote:I think the Expanded Universe/Legacy setting would be even worse in this regard. Speaking for myself, I enjoy the films, but I've never read a single Star Wars novel...

You could consider changing that! Of course there's some bad books out there, but there's also lots of good stuff to be found. At least take a look around.
I haven't read much myself, but the P&P sourcebooks are quite cool, and I actually enjoy the Legacy comics in that they give an interesting twist on the setting.

ShumaGorath wrote:Because the world doesn't need another game where 90% of the sales are derived from .0001% of the universes actual military forces (exchange space marines for Jedi).

I don't think there would be a "Jedi army". But what's wrong with 90% Stormtroopers?

Id say for the same reason you dont see a Star Trek game...the licensing rights are extremely expensive, and most true wargames companies (not places like FFG) just dont have the money to buy the rights.

There are plenty of Star Trek games... Even a upcoming game:

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/miniatures/ctastarfleet.html

Lynata wrote:

Ruckdog wrote:As a side issue, I think it is worth mentioning that a minatures game set in the "classic" SW setting of the original 3 movies would pretty much be limited to two factions, Rebel and Imperial. Even assuming that the game design could overcome the Rebel's lack of heavy ground forces (as seen in the films), that still leaves you with only two factions.

Black Sun and Hutt Cartels (or Mercenaries in general), the Hapes Cluster, the Corporate Sector Authority, ... there's a number of other factions around, actually.
The Zann Consortium is one such example that got its own expansion for the "Galaxy at War" computer game. Would work nicely in a wargame, too. If a couple thousand Marines or SoB are enough to form armies in 40k, certainly an intergalactic crime syndicate active on hundreds of worlds and ready to risk confronting the major players would be just as viable for a tabletop game.

Fair enough...I suppose I shouldn't allow my own ignorance of the expanded SW universe limit the options available to a notional wargame. And, I suppose that even if these factions you are linking to couldn't be used due to liscensing issues, other factions could be created in their place. It's just that I wonder how popular these other factions might be in the face of the 2 that are well known from the films.

As for the book suggestions...thanks, but I have too much to read already! Maybe someday...

Ruckdog wrote:And, I suppose that even if these factions you are linking to couldn't be used due to liscensing issues, other factions could be created in their place.

I'm not too sure about how this aspect of licensing is handled in SW (I know this is a huge problem for Star Trek), but I think that the entire franchise runs on some sort of "licensed common share-alike policy" - that'd be the only explanation for why we (fortunately!) don't have every single author come up with new stuff all the time. New characters, vehicles and technology get re-used all the time. An example of this would be the TIE-Defender, which was first created for the computer game "TIE Fighter", but has since popped up all over the EU. Same thing goes for newly invented characters like Pellaeon, who by sheer necessity (important role within the setting, such as faction leaders) need to show up everywhere to present a consistent background (something the Black Library could learn from).

That said, of course you are also right in that they could just as well create a new mercenary force. It's not like those guys would be rare. Always better to see old faces show up anew, though!

Ruckdog wrote:It's just that I wonder how popular these other factions might be in the face of the 2 that are well known from the films.

True, but I suppose that'd be a bit like what we have in 40k. I'd suspect the majority of fans to go for an Imperial force due to style (TT battles between them could easily be explained as rival warlords fighting each other post-Endor), followed semi-closely by the rebels/NR. A mercenary faction or any other minor group would likely gather a following similar to the percentage of people playing SoB/Inquisition or Dark Eldar in 40k - but I could see them thrive simply by offering lots of unique and interesting options, perhaps even a novelty value (the CSA is pretty much your classic sci-fi oppressive megacorporation like OCP from the Robocop franchise, surely that's a bit of style bonus right there).

Ruckdog wrote:As for the book suggestions...thanks, but I have too much to read already! Maybe someday...

Oh, I know that feeling.

Ruckdog wrote: It's just that I wonder how popular these other factions might be in the face of the 2 that are well known from the films.

It varies. Going by the complaints on the WotC boards every time a new expansion was released, some people wanted the expanded universe explored to every minute detail... and others would have been much, much happier if WotC had just focused purely on the movies.

It's hard to say which camp has the bigger following, but the continued sales of Star Wars books would seem to suggest that the EU does have a strong following.