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The two games are on different paths; Legions won't overtake 40K, any more than WotC's Star Wars minis overtook 40K or IA overtook 40K.

The bickering about prepaints, factions and even the breadth of units themselves, are as Tarkin once said, "pointless". 40K Horus Heresy is all about marines vs. marines and you can play either GW's or FFG's game as frugally or stupidly expensively as you want. Most people will seek some middle ground - they'll pick up what they want and leave the rest at the curb.

I believe overall, the two scratch a very different itch. 40K is sort of the generic version of sci-fi, it has a little bit of every sort of sci-fi trope thrown in - bits of Alien, Dune, Starship Troopers, etc. Legions is specific to Star Wars and has a very, very narrow scope - its recreating the Galactic Civil War; and that's it.

Further, I believe Legions will likely be more Necromunda/Shadow Wars in size than the army sizes of current 40K. I dare say games of Legion probably won't be bigger than what you would expect to see for 2E 40K.

Nitpicking, but since it's come up twice - Wizards of the Coast did the previous Star Wars minis games, not Wizkids. Wizkids did do a "pocket model" version of Star Wars (with punch-out plastic card models), but I don't think that is what is being referenced. Wizkids is more well-known for their Clix and recent Attack Wing games, and there may be some confusion because they now put out the official D&D minis, which had previously been done by Wizards.

There is, by the way, an even older version of a Star Wars tabletop skirmish game that was done by West End games - with metal minis; it had add-on rules for vehicles as well.

 Grey Templar wrote:


This is likely due to a huge portion of Xwing players not being table top gamers in general. They got exposed to the game by picking it up not at a game store. They see it as a board game. They just can't fathom a game where you assemble and paint the figures.

This seems a very elitist statement, considering the complaints of "grey plastic" armies in 40K. *I* spent the last two weeks of my vacation assembling and painting 40K minis, and I'd take up a prepainted game in a heartbeat rather than fiddle with more minis to desprue, assemble and paint - playing is a much better use of my time than painting and assembling, I beleive.

On topic, it would be nice if FFG could offer prepainted figures for Legion as a "premium" service - at the very least, Dust did this and Warlord offers (offered?) it for their Bolt Action tank line.

 StygianBeach wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Arguably they're worse off from them. And that's due to them getting stuff made in China.

If something GW sells out, I know I can typically get my hands on it in a week or three.

FFG? You're talking months in some cases.

Yeah, it did not take GW too long to do the soft cover print run of the first 3 End Times books for Old Warhammer Fantasy.

Or the Shadow War: Armageddon book "reprint" that had the PDF contents added to it.

Unlike the SW:A boxed set, which sold out so quickly a lot of people couldn't even preorder.

 Sqorgar wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
In summary? Something being a Star Wars license is not in itself a recipe for success, and some could argue that Star Wars over exposure could be its biggest hurdle.

The biggest hurdle is that everything Star Wars has already been done, and done better.

A Star Wars RPG? Eh, it's not as good as the West End Games one.

A Star Wars CCG? Eh, it's not as good as the Decipher one.

A Star Wars MMO? Eh, it's not as good as the SOE one.

A Star Wars miniatures game about space ships? Eh, it's not as good as X-Wing.

A Star Wars action figure? Eh, the 80s did it better.

A Star Wars movie? Eh, it's not as good as the original trilogy.

It's not enough to release a new Star Wars item, you are competing with every other Star Wars product released in that genre. So far, FFG has succeeded by bettering past works (Rebellion is better than SW Risk) or by doing a product without a recognizable SW parent (Imperial Assault, Destiny, X-Wing). Their pnp RPG seems passable at best, and Legion doesn't look like it will compare favorably to other Star War miniature games (even Imperial Assault) or miniature games in general. The Star Wars license is filled with best in class examples, and it's a tough legacy to live up to.

Before there was X-Wing, there was WEG's Star Warriors

Before there was Armada, there was WotC's Starship Battles

Before there was Legion, there was WEG's Star Wars Miniatures Battles and WotC's Star Wars Miniatures game

For every "Best in Class", there's been half a dozen Star Wars stinkers that have been forgotten. I think Legion will be on the better end of the table. I'll buy into it; it doesn't have to depose GW's 40K - it just has to be good enough to stand on its own.

Don't know how we got talking about Star Wars figures, but...

I certainly like the more articulate figures, and greatly dislike the return to the Kenner-like figure lack of articulation.

But, the regular figures are toys, better able to withstand the pre-teen antics of those actually playing with them. Seriously - the detailed figures we were getting for a while were fragile. I've had several come apart just attemping to pose them.

The Black Series have thankfully been retained for those of us who like to have the "quality" posable figures. I can live with that.

Besides, I'm about out of shelf space where I can display stormtroopers - there's only so many variations you can make of "white, skull-faced armor with color accents" anyways.

 Gimgamgoo wrote:
I do find it strange that the 40k lovers can claim their game can be 'reset' for rules but x-wing can't.

When GW do their regular reset, if you owned 3 armies, it would cost you a rulebook and 3 codices minimum. Probably about 125 ukp. All your old books are now outdated and no use. All you are really keeping over is the plastic figures.

Why couldn't FFG do the same to x-wing? You keep the plastic figures, all they need to do is reproduce a card set and the cardboard bases. I bet it would be way less than 125 for every model they've ever made. I mean, what's a MtG deck of 60 cards go for, 10 quid?

Second editions can be a hard pill to swallow. Of the ones I've seen over the years, the ones that survive keep a high level of compatibility with the old material (40K, D&D, etc.)

Most likely, an edition change tends to cause only the most enthusiastic - or newcomers to survive the change.

The best example I can think of for what FFG would face is the fate of the Mechwarrior Clix game. It was pretty popular, up until 2.0 came out. The old mechs weren't invalidated (initially), but the new mechs were so much better - had so many more options - that the entire preceding catalog of mechs weren't worth using. Some of the older sets eventually were phased out from tournaments. Apparently, a lot of the players were like me - with fairly extensive collections that had cost several hundred dollars, now unusable. Within two releases, the Mechwarrior community was dead - maybe some six months had passed.

That is the sort of fate that FFG fears. I don't blame them; how do you revise the game in a way that manages to not make your customers depart en masse?

 ChazSexington wrote:
There is one overwhelming reason they won't supplant GW's games: GW has boots on the ground. There are no FFG-only shops.

That rubbish is like claiming Apple dominates the computer market because there’s no Microsoft stores.

 Marmatag wrote:
If anyone could knock 40k or AoS out completely it would be Blizzard. They could publish a miniatures game, and it would be immediately popular. They'd probably also sell pre-painted and assembled miniatures, which would immediately get people playing.

Didn’t Blizzard already try that? I know there was at least some sort of Warcraft CCG floating around at one time - before Hearthstone.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ah, yes - found it. Apparently, it’s been out for 9 years, so no, it’s not killed 40K.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/34496/world-warcraft-miniatures-game